“It is the crossed fingers—like this,” said Shovel Ears, crossing his fingers like the letter X. “This is the way to remember better and forget worse.”
It was then the oyster king went and told the men who change the alphabets just what happened.
When the men who change the alphabets heard just what happened, they decided to put in a new letter, the letter X, near the end of the alphabet, the sign of the crossed fingers.
On the wedding day of Pig Wisps and Shovel Ears, the men who change the alphabets all came to the wedding, with their fingers crossed.
Pig Wisps and Shovel Ears stood up to be married. They crossed their fingers. They told each other other they would remember their promises.
And Pig Wisps had two ropes of pearls twisted down her back and a sweet young face saying, “Here we come—where from?”
Kiss Me
Many years ago when pigs climbed chimneys and chased cats up into the trees, away back, so they say, there was a lumber king who lived in a river city with many wildcats in the timbers near by.
And the lumber king said, “I am losing my hair and my teeth and I am tired of many things; my only joy is a daughter who is a dancing shaft of light on the ax handles of morning.”