“‘Who took the salt out of the sea and put it back again? Who took the fishes out of the sea and put them back again? That was me.’
“‘Who started the catfish fighting the cats? Who made the slippery elms slippery? Who made the King of the Broken Bottles a wanderer wandering over the world mumbling, “Easy, easy”? Who opened the windows of the stars and threw fishes, cats and rabbits all over the frames of the sky? I did, I did, I did.’
“All the time Bozo kept on speaking the buttons kept on busting because he had to stop so often to fill his lungs with new wind to go on speaking. The public square was filled with piles of buttons that kept busting off from Bozo the Button Buster that day.
“And at last a mouse came, a sneaking, slippery, quick little mouse. He ran with a flash to the string tied to Bozo, the long string hanging down with a knot in the end. He bit the knot and cut it loose. He slit the string with his teeth as Bozo cried, ‘Ai! Ai! Ai!’
“The last of all the buttons busted loose off Bozo. The clothes fell off. The people came up to see what was happening to Bozo. There was nothing in the clothes. The man inside the clothes was gone. All that was left was buttons and a few clothes.
“Since then whenever it rains umbrellas first so everybody has an umbrella for the rain afterward, or if the sky looks like it is falling, or if a barn turns upside down, or if the King of the Broken Bottles comes along mumbling ‘Easy, easy,’ or if firetails, fishes, cats and rabbits come on the sky in the night, or if a button busts loose and flies into somebody’s face, people remember Bozo the Button Buster.”
When the three girls started home, each one said to Hatrack the Horse, “It looks dark and lonesome on the prairie, but you put a yellow rose in my hair for luck—and I won’t be scared after I get home.”
4. Two Stories About Four Boys Who Had Different Dreams.
People: Googler Gaggler Twins The Family Doctor The Father of the Twins The Mother of the Twins Pen Wipers and Pencil Sharpeners Smokestacks and Monkey Wrenches Monkey Faces on the Monkey Wrenches Left-Handed Monkey Wrenches Potato Face Blind Man Ax Me No Questions Johnny the Wham Joe the Wimp Grasshoppers Thousand Dollar Bills Brass Doors Lizzie Lazarus