“Not even the Kings of Egypt with all their climbing camels, and all their speedy, spotted, lucky lizards, ever had a ride like this,” he said to his children.
Then something happened. They met another train running on the same track. One train was going one way. The other was going the other way. They met. They passed each other.
“What was it—what happened?” the children asked their father.
“One train went over, the other train went under,” he answered. “This is the Over and Under country. Nobody gets out of the way of anybody else. They either go over or under.”
Next they came to the country of the balloon pickers. Hanging down from the sky strung on strings so fine the eye could not see them at first, was the balloon crop of that summer. The sky was thick with balloons. Red, blue, yellow balloons, white, purple and orange balloons—peach, watermelon and potato balloons—rye loaf and wheat loaf balloons—link sausage and pork chop balloons—they floated and filled the sky.
The balloon pickers were walking on high stilts picking balloons. Each picker had his own stilts, long or short. For picking balloons near the ground he had short stilts. If he wanted to pick far and high he walked on a far and high pair of stilts.
Baby pickers on baby stilts were picking baby balloons. When they fell off the stilts the handful of balloons they were holding kept them in the air till they got their feet into the stilts again.
“Who is that away up there in the sky climbing like a bird in the morning?” Ax Me No Questions asked her father.
“He was singing too happy,” replied the father. “The songs came out of his neck and made him so light the balloons pulled him off his stilts.”
“Will he ever come down again back to his own people?”