“Do I sniff something or do I not?” he asked, lifting his wool yarn mittens to his nose and rubbing his nose till it was warm. Again he sniffed.
“Ah hah, yeah, yeah, this is the big rutabaga field near the home of the rutabaga king and the home of his daughter, Susan Slackentwist.”
At last he came to the house, stood under the window and slung the guitar around in front of him to play the music to go with the song.
“And now,” he asked his mittens, “shall I take you off or keep you on? If I take you off the cold wind of the bitter cold weather will freeze my hands so stiff and bitter cold my fingers will be too stiff to play the guitar. I will play with mittens on.”
Which he did. He stood under the window of Susan Slackentwist and played the guitar with his mittens on, the warm wool yarn mittens he called his chums. It was the first time any strong young man going to see his sweetheart ever played the guitar with his mittens on when it was a bitter night with a cold wind and cold weather.
Susan Slackentwist opened her window and threw him a snow-bird feather to keep for a keepsake to remember her by. And for years afterward many a sweetheart in the Rootabaga Country told her lover, “If you wish to marry me let me hear you under my window on a winter night playing the guitar with wool yarn mittens on.”
And when Henry Hagglyhoagly walked home on his long legs stepping long steps, he said to his mittens, “This Spanish Spinnish Splishy guitar made special will bring us luck.” And when he turned his face up, the sky came down close and he could see stars fixed like numbers and the arithmetic writing of a girl going to school learning to write number 4 and number 7 and 4 and 7 over and over.
