Mollie and the Unwiseman Part 2

"What's that?" cried Mollie.

"Queerest--experience--I--ever--had," said Whistlebinkie.

"Ah!" said Mollie. "I didn't care much for the little old woman under the hill, but that funny old Unwiseman--I'd like to meet him again."

And the others agreed that it would indeed be pleasant to do so.

[Ill.u.s.tration: II. A Visit to the Unwiseman.

In which Mollie renews an acquaintance.

"Whistlebinkie,"]

said Mollie, one afternoon, as she and he were swaying gently to and fro in the hammock, "do you remember the little red house under the oak tree?"

"Yessum," whistled Whistlebinkie, "I mean yes--ma'am," he added hurriedly.

"And the Unwiseman who lived there?"

"Yes, I remember him puffickly," said Whistlebinkie. "I think he knows less than any person I ever sawed."

"Not sawed but saw, Whistlebinkie," said Mollie, who was very anxious that her rubber doll should speak correctly.

"Oh, yes!" cried Whistlebinkie. "I think he sawed less than any man I ever knew--or rather--well--I guess you know what I mean, don't you?"

"Yes, I do," said Mollie, with a smile. "But tell me, Whistlebinkie dear, wouldn't you like to go with me, and pay the Unwiseman a visit?"

"Has he sent you a bill?" asked Whistlebinkie.

"What for, pray?" queried Mollie, with a glance of surprise at Whistlebinkie.

"To tell you that you owed him a visit, of course," said Whistlebinkie.

"There isn't any use of our paying him anything unless we owe him something, is there?"

"Oh, I see!" said Mollie. "No, we don't owe him one, but I think we'd enjoy ourselves very much if we made him one."

"All right, let's," said Whistlebinkie.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A pasteboard visit.]

"What'll we make it of, worsted or pasteboard?"

"Whistlebinkie," observed Mollie, severely, "you are almost as absurd as the old man himself. The idea of making a visit out of worsted or pasteboard! Come along. Stop your joking and let us start."

The rubber doll was quite willing to agree to this, and off they started. In a very little while they were down under the spreading branches of the great oak tree, but, singular to relate, the little red house that had stood there the last time they had called was not to be seen.

"Dear me!" cried Mollie, "what can have become of it, do you suppose, Whistlebinkie?"

"I give it up," said the rubber doll, scratching his hat so that he could think more easily. "Haven't an idea--unless the old man discovered that its roof was made of strawberry icing, and ate it up."

"Ho! Ho! Ho!" laughed some one from behind them.

Mollie and Whistlebinkie turned quickly, and lo and behold, directly behind them stood the little Unwiseman himself, trying to dig the oak tree up by the roots with a small teaspoon he held in his hand.

"The idea of my eating up my house! Hoh! What nonsense. Hoh!" he said, as the visitors turned.

"Well, what has become of it, then?" asked Mollie.

"I've moved it, that's what," said the Unwiseman. "I couldn't get any apples on this oak tree, so I moved my house over under the willow tree down by the brook."

"But you can't get apples on a willow tree, either, can you?" asked Mollie.

"I don't know yet," said the Unwiseman. "I haven't lived there long enough to find out, but I can try, and that's all anybody can do."

"And what are you doing with that teaspoon?" asked Whistlebinkie.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "You see, I don't want to swallow an acorn and have a great big tree like that grow up in me."]

"I'm digging up this oak tree," said the Unwiseman. "I want to get the acorn it grew out of. I'm very fond of acorns, but I'm afraid to eat them, unless the tree that's in 'em has grown out. You see, I don't want to swallow an acorn, and have a great big tree like that grow up in me.

It wouldn't be comfortable."

Whistlebinkie said he thought that was a very good idea, because there could not be any doubt that it would be extremely awkward for any man, wise or unwise, to have an oak tree sprouting up inside of him.

"What are you so anxious to know about my house for?" asked the Unwiseman, suddenly stopping short in his work with the teaspoon. "You don't want to rent it for the summer, do you?"

"Whistlebinkie and I have come down to call upon you, that's all,"

explained Mollie.

"Well now, really?" said the Unwiseman, rising, and dropping the teaspoon. "That's too bad, isn't it? Here you've come all this way to see me and I am out. I shall be so disappointed when I get home and find that you have been there and I not there to see you. Dear! Dear! How full of disappointments this world is. You couldn't come again last night, could you? I was home then."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Turning the clock back.]

"Not very well," said Whistlebinkie. "Mollie's father doesn't like it if we turn the clock back."

"Dear me! That's too bad, too! My!" said the old fellow, with a look of real sadness on his face. "What a disappointment, to be sure. You call and find me out! I _do_ wish there was some way to arrange it, so that I might be at home when you call. You can't think of any, can you, Miss Whistlebinkie?"

"Perhaps now that you know we are coming," said Mollie, who, while her last name was _not_ Whistlebinkie, did not think it necessary to pay any attention to the old man's mistake, which amused her very much, "perhaps now that you know we are coming you might run ahead and be there when we arrive."

"That's the scheme!" said Whistlebinkie.

"Yes, that's a first-rate plan," said the old man, nodding his head.

"There's only one thing against it, perhaps."

"What's that?" asked Whistlebinkie.

"That I don't know," replied the Unwiseman, "which is very unfortunate, because it may be serious. For instance, suppose the objection should turn out to be in the shape of a policeman, who had a warrant to arrest me for throwing stones at somebody's pet tiger. What could I do?"