Mollie and the Unwiseman

"No, I'm not," said the queer old fellow, with a knowing smile. "There isn't much money in selling stockings. I've got a better idea than that. You come around to my house Christmas morning and I'll show you a thing or two – that is, I will if I can get the hundred pairs of stockings – you couldn't lend me a few pairs, could you?"

"I guess maybe so," said Mollie.

"All right – thank you very much," said the Unwiseman. "I'll be off now and get them. Good-by."

And before Mollie could say another word he was gone.

"Isn't he the worst you ever saw?" said Mollie.

"Puffickly-digulous," said Whistlebinkie.

"I wonder what his business is to be," observed Mollie, as she seated herself on the sled and made ready for the descent.

"I haven't the slightest ideeeee-eeeeeeee-eeeee-eeee-ah!" whistled Whistlebinkie; a strange and long-drawn-out word that; but whistling dolls are very like boys and girls when they are sliding down hill. Mollie had set the sled in motion just as Whistlebinkie started to speak, and her little rubber companion could not get away from the letter e in idea until he and his mistress ran plump into the snow-drift at the foot of the hill.

"My!" said Whistlebinkie, blowing the snow out of his whistle. "Wasn't that fine! I could do that all day."

"You could if the hill was long enough," said Mollie, sagely. "But come, we must go home now." And home they went.

In the forty-eight or more hours that passed before Christmas morning came, Mollie often wondered at the business venture of the Unwiseman. What it could be she could not guess. The hundred pairs of stockings mystified her exceedingly, and so, when Christmas morning finally dawned, the first thing she and Whistlebinkie did was to post off at full speed to the house of the Unwiseman.

"I wonder where his home is now?" said Whistlebinkie, as they walked along.

"I haven't the slightest idea," said Mollie; "but it's had a way of turning up where we least expected it in the past, so maybe we'll find it in the same way now."

Mollie was right, for hardly were the words out of her mouth when directly in front of her she saw what was unmistakably the house of the Unwiseman, only fastened to the chimney was a huge sign, which had not been there the last time she and Whistlebinkie had visited the Unwiseman.

"What is that he's got on his chimmilly?" said Whistlebinkie, who did not know how to spell, and who always pronounced words as he thought they were spelled.

"It's a sign – sure as you live," said Mollie.

"What does it say?" Whistlebinkie asked.

"The Unwiseman's Orphan Asylum," said Mollie, reading the sign. "Notice to Santa Claus: Dear Sir: – Too Hundred Orphans is Incarcerated Here. Please leave Toys Accordingly."

"Ho!" said Whistlebinkie. "How queer."

"You don't suppose he has really gone into the Orphan Asylum business?" said Mollie.

"I dono," said Whistlebinkie. "Let's wait till we see him before we decide."

So they ran on until they got to the Unwiseman's front door, upon which they knocked as hard as they knew how.

"Who's there?" came a reply in a mournful voice, from within.

"It's us," said Mollie.

"Who is Uss?" said the voice. "I know several Usses. Are you George W. Uss, the trolley-car conductor, or William Peters Uss, the poet? If you are the poet, I don't want to see you. I don't care for any poetry to-day. If you are the conductor, I've paid my fare."

"It's Mollie and Whistlebinkie," said Mollie.

"Oh – well, that's different. Come in and see your poor ruined old friend, who's got to go back to apples, whether he likes them or not," said the voice.

Mollie opened the door and walked in, Whistlebinkie following close behind her – and what a sight it was that met their gaze! There in the middle of the floor sat the Unwiseman, the perfect picture of despair. Scattered about the room were hundreds of broken toys, and swinging from the mantel-piece were two hundred stockings.

"Hello!" said the Unwiseman. "Merry Christmas. I'm ruined; but what of that? You aren't."

"But how are you ruined?" asked Mollie.

"My business has failed – it didn't work," groaned the Unwiseman. "It was the toy business I was going into, and as I had no money to buy the toys with I borrowed a hundred pairs of stockings and hung 'em up. Then I put out that notice for Santa Claus, telling him that this was an Orphan Asylum."

"Yes," said Mollie, "I know. But it wasn't the truth, was it?"

"Of course it was," said the Unwiseman. "I'm an orphan. Very few men of my age are not, and this is my asylum."

"Yes; but you said there were two hundred in here," said Mollie. "I saw your sign."

"Well there are," said the Unwiseman. "The piano hasn't any father or mother, neither have the chairs, or the hundred and ninety-eight other orphans in this house. It was all true."

"Well, anyhow," said Whistlebinkie, "you've got heaps of things. Every stocking seems to have been filled."

"True," said the Unwiseman. "But almost entirely with old, cast-off toys. I think it's pretty mean that boys and girls who are not orphans should get all the new toys and that those who are orphans get the broken ones."

Which strikes me as a very wise remark for an unwise man to make.

"Anyhow," continued the Unwiseman, "I'm ruined. I can't sell these toys, and so I've got to go back to apples."

And here he fell to weeping so violently that Mollie and Whistlebinkie stole softly out and went home; but on the way Mollie whispered to Whistlebinkie:

"I'm rather sorry for him; but, after all, it was his own fault. He really did try to deceive Santa Claus."

"Yes," said Whistlebinkie. "That's so. But he was right about the meanness of giving only old toys to orphans."

"Yes, he was," said Mollie.

"Yesindeedy!" whistled Whistlebinkie through his hat, gleefully, for he was very happy, as indeed I should be, if I were an old toy, to hear my little master or mistress say it was mean to give me away.

"By the way," said Mollie. "He seems to have got over his anger with us. I was afraid he wouldn't ever speak to us again after his call."

"So was I," said Whistlebinkie. "And I asked him if he wasn't mad at us any more, and he said, yes he was, but he'd forgiven us for our Christmas present."

VII

The Unwiseman's New Year's Resolutions

In which the Unwiseman gives up some very Distinguished Words

During the days immediately following Christmas Mollie was so absorbed in the beautiful things the season of peace on earth and good will to men had brought to her that she not only forgot the Unwiseman and his woe over the failure of his business plans, but even her poor little friend Whistlebinkie was allowed to lie undisturbed and unthought of. Several times when she had come near his side Whistlebinkie had tried to whistle something in her ear, but unsuccessfully. Either the something he wanted to whistle wouldn't come, or else if it did Mollie failed to hear it, and Whistlebinkie was very unhappy in consequence.