I
PETERKIN PUMPERKIN
I KNOW you have all heard of the little man who lived inside a pumpkin. Just why he lived there I don’t exactly remember, but I can’t imagine that he used to sleep so comfortably inside his tiny bowl of a bed-room.
For, when the growly wind took to blowing over the pumpkin patch and set the fat yellow balls of pumpkins swaying from this side to that on their slender vines, poor Peterkin would be jounced clear out of bed and sent spinning round and round the circled pumpkin wall.
“Ugh, ouch!” he would groan. “My poor head’s all bumps and bruises. Ugh, ugh! Why in the name of everything foolish did I ever come to live in a pumpkin? Why didn’t I stay in a sensible house, and live like other folks live? Oh, ouch!” And then, as the wind gave one last roar and his jouncing little home gave one last, extra large somersault on its vine, Peterkin would usually find himself thwacked back into bed again, with his feet on the pillow and his head buried deep in the mattress.
The wind, of course, thought it the greatest fun in the world. The wind was only a jolly playmate, after all—even if he was a bit too rough about it. And the wind could never understand what made Peterkin so angry in the matter.
“Whee! I love to play free and frolic! I love to send the little leaves whirling and the dust mounds swirling, and the heavy laden pine-boughs tossing with sighs. I love to chase the thin gray wisps of mist and the spattering rain-drops as they fall, and to rattle the frosted window panes. Whee! I’m sure I’m more than gentle with Peterkin Pumperkin. I always take care not to snap his anchor stem! I always leave him fast upon his vine. Whee, whiz!”
But then there came a night when myriad snowflakes were falling over the patch. It was more than the mischievous wind could stand. He must get in among those flakes! He must make them jig and dart and dive in crooked merriment!
He rushed down upon them, charging with a trumpet’s roar. And in his wild path he rolled the clumsy pumpkins to this side and that, until their rumble fairly shook the earth.