1992

♾™

To Three Illinois Pigeons

CONTENTS

1.
Two Stories Told by the Potato Face Blind Man
The Skyscraper to the Moon and How the Green Rat with the Rheumatism Ran a Thousand Miles Twice[3]
Slipfoot and How He Nearly Always Never Gets What He Goes After[9]
2.
Two Stories About Bugs and Eggs
Many, Many Weddings in One Corner House[19]
Shush Shush, the Big Buff Banty Hen Who Laid an Egg in the Postmaster’s Hat[27]
3.
Five Stories About Hatrack the Horse, Six Pigeons, Three Wild Babylonian Baboons, Six Umbrellas, Bozo the Button Buster
How Ragbag Mammy Kept Her Secret While the Wind Blew Away the Village of Hat Pins[33]
How Six Pigeons Came Back to Hatrack the Horse After Many Accidents and Six Telegrams[41]
How the Three Wild Babylonian Baboons Went Away in the Rain Eating Bread and Butter[49]
How Six Umbrellas Took Off Their Straw Hats to Show Respect to the One Big Umbrella[55]
How Bozo the Button Buster Busted All His Buttons When a Mouse Came[63]
4.
Two Stories About Four Boys Who Had Different Dreams
How Googler and Gaggler, the Two Christmas Babies, Came Home with Monkey Wrenches[75]
How Johnny the Wham Sleeps in Money All the Time and Joe the Wimp Shines and Sees Things[87]
5.
Two Stories Told by the Potato Face Blind Man About Two Girls with Red Hearts
How Deep Red Roses Goes Back and Forth Between the Clock and the Looking Glass[97]
How Pink Peony Sent Spuds, the Ballplayer, Up to Pick Four Moons[105]
6.
Three Stories About Moonlight, Pigeons, Bees, Egypt, Jesse James, Spanish Onions, the Queen of the Cracked Heads, the King of the Paper Sacks
How Dippy the Wisp and Slip Me Liz Came in the Moonshine Where the Potato Face Blind Man Sat with His Accordion[115]
How Hot Balloons and His Pigeon Daughters Crossed Over into the Rootabaga Country[127]
How Two Sweetheart Dippies Sat in the Moonlight on a Lumber Yard Fence and Heard About the Sooners and the Boomers[139]
7.
Two Stories Out of the Tall Grass
The Haystack Cricket and How Things Are Different Up in the Moon Towns[153]
Why the Big Ball Game Between Hot Grounders and the Grand Standers Was a Hot Game[161]
8.
Two Stories Out of Oklahoma and Nebraska
The Huckabuck Family and How They Raised Pop Corn in Nebraska and Quit and Came Back[169]
Yang Yang and Hoo Hoo, or the Song of the Left Foot of the Shadow of the Goose[181]
9.
One Story About Big People Now and Little People Long Ago
How a Skyscraper and a Railroad Train Got Picked Up and Carried Away from Pig’s Eye Valley Far in the Pickax Mountains[191]
10.
Three Stories About the Letter X and How It Got into the Alphabet
Pig Wisps[201]
Kiss Me[207]
Blue Silver[215]

FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS

Rag Bag Mammy brings out candy with red and white stripes wrapped around it
[Frontispiece] (in color)
PAGE
On the last step of the stairway my foot slips[11]
The Hot Cookie Pan came with a pan of hot cookies and the Coal Bucket with coal[21]
The mouse bit the knot and cut it loose[67]
They went to sleep on top of the wagon[81]
She was sitting on a ladder feeding baby clocks to the baby alligators[119]
One of the pigeons rang the bell[129]
She carried the squash into the kitchen[171]
Out into the snowstorm Flax Eyes rode that day[209]

1. Two Stories Told by the Potato Face Blind Man.

People: Blixie Bimber Blixie Bimber’s Mother The Potato Face Blind Man A Green Rat with the Rheumatism Bricklayers Mortar Men Riveters A Skyscraper Slipfoot A Stairway to the Moon A Trapeze