"Wass-that?" whistled Whistlebinkie.
"Stay home," said the Unwiseman. "Home's good enough for me and when I get there I'm going to stay there. Good night."
And with that the Unwiseman jumped into his carpet-bag and for a week nothing more was heard of him.
"I hope he isn't sick," said Whistlebinkie, at the end of that period. "I think we ought to go and find out, don't you, Mollie."
"I certainly do," said Mollie. "I know I should be just stufficated to death if I'd spent a week in a carpet-bag."
So they tip-toed up to the side of the carpet-bag and listened. At first there was no sound to be heard, and then all of a sudden their fears were set completely at rest by the cracked voice of their strange old friend singing the following patriotic ballad of his own composition:
"Next time I start out for to travel abroad
I'll go where pure English is spoken.
I'll put on my shoes and go sailing toward
The beautiful land of Hoboken.
"No more on that movey old channel I'll sail,
The sickening waves to be tossed on,
But do all my travelling later by rail
And visit that frigid old Boston.
"Nay never again will I step on a ship
And go as a part of the cargo,
But when I would travel I'll make my next trip
Out west to the town of Chicago.
"My sweet carpet-bag, you will never again
Be called on to cross the Atlantic.
We'll just buy a ticket and take the first train
To marvellous old Williamantic.
"No French in the future will I ever speak
With strange and impossible, answers.
I'd rather go in for that curious Greek
The natives all speak in Arkansas.
"To London and Paris let other folks go
I'm utterly cured of the mania.
Hereafter it's me for the glad Ohi-o,
Or down in dear sweet Pennsylvania.
"If any one asks me to cross o'er the sea
I'll answer them promptly, "No thanky—
There's beauty enough all around here for me
In this glorious land of the Yankee."
Mollie laughed as the Unwiseman's voice died away.
"I guess he's all right, Whistlebinkie," she said. "Anybody who can sing like that can't be very sick."