THE ITINERANT TINKER
By Charles Raymond Macauley
Away off in front, and coming toward them along the same path, appeared a singularly misshapen figure. As they came nearer, Dickey saw that it was an old man carrying on his back, at each side and in front of him, some part or piece of almost every imaginable thing. Umbrellas, chair bottoms, panes of glass, knives, forks, pans, dusters, tubs, spoons and stove-lids, graters and grind-stones, saws and samovars,—"Almost everything one could possibly think of," said Dickey to himself.
The moment that the Fantasm caught sight of the strange figure he stopped, and Dickey noticed that his face, which was tucked securely under his left arm, turned quite pale.
"Gracious me!" he exclaimed in a thoroughly frightened way. "There's the Itinerant Tinker again! Now," he added hastily and dolefully, "I shall have to leave you and run for it."
"Why, you're surely not afraid of him!" Dickey exclaimed incredulously. Dickey was really surprised, for the old man, so far as he could judge from that distance, wore an extremely mild and kindly look. "Why do you have to run?" he asked.
"Why? Why?" the Fantasm fairly shouted. "I told you a moment ago that he was the Itinerant Tinker! He tries to mend every broken and unbroken thing in Fantasma Land! Every time he catches me," went on the Fantasm, as he edged cautiously away, "he tries to glue on my head. It's very annoying—and, besides, it hurts! Good-by, Dickey!" he called, and disappeared forthwith into the bushes.
"Isn't he a droll person?" thought Dickey. "He never stops with me more than ten minutes at a time but what he either loses his head or runs away."
By that time the Itinerant Tinker had come up to where Dickey stood. He sat wearily down on a boulder by the wayside, removed some of the heavier merchandise from off his back, and proceeded to mop his face vigorously with a great red handkerchief. Dickey waited several minutes for the old man to speak; but the Itinerant Tinker only regarded him solemnly. He did not even smile.