Mollie and the Unwiseman

"That's always the way," he sobbed to Flaxilocks who shared his exile with him and who sat on the toy shelf gazing jealously out of her great, deep blue eyes at the magnificent new wax doll that Mollie had received from her grandmother; "don't make any difference how fine a toy may be, he may be made of the best of rubber, and have a whistle that isn't equalled by any locomotive whistle in the world for sweetness, the time comes when his master or mistress grows tired of him and lavishes all her affection on another toy because the other toy happens to be new. What on earth she can see in that real dog to admire I cannot discern. He can't bark half so well as I can whistle, and I am in mortal terror of him all the time, he eyes me so hungrily – but now he is her favorite. Everywhere Mollie goes Gyp goes, and I'm real mad."

"Oh, never mind," said Flaxilocks; "she'll get tired of him in a week or two and then she'll take us up again, just as if we were new. I've been around other Christmases and I know how things work. It'll be all right in a little while – that is, it will be for you. I don't know how it is going to turn out with me. That new doll, while I can see many defects in her, which you can't, I can't deny is a beauty, and her earrings are much handsomer than mine. It may be that I must become second to her; but you, you needn't play second fiddle to any one, for there isn't another rubber doll with a whistle in his hat in the house to rival you."

"Well, I wish I could be sure of that," said Whistlebinkie, mournfully, "I can see very well how Mollie can love you as well as she loves me – but that real dog, bah! He can't even whistle, and he's awfully destructive. Only last night he chewed up the calico cat, and actually, Mollie laughed. Do you suppose she would laugh if he chewed me up?"

"He couldn't chew you up," said Flaxilocks. "You are rubber." Whistlebinkie was about to reply to this when his fears were set at rest and Flaxilocks was comforted, for Mollie with her new dog and wax doll came up to where they were sitting and introduced her new pets to the old ones.

"I want you four to know each other," she said. "We'll have lots of fun together this year," and then before they knew it Flaxilocks and the new doll were fast friends, and as for Whistlebinkie and Gyp, they became almost inseparable. Gyp barked and Whistlebinkie whistled, while the dolls sat holding each other's hands, looking if anything quite as happy as Mollie herself.

"What do you all say to making a call on the Unwiseman?" Mollie said, after a few minutes. "We ought to go wish him a Happy New Year."

"Simply elegant," whistled Whistlebinkie, and Gyp and the dolls said he was right, and so they all started off together.

"Where does he live?" asked the new doll.

"All around," said Flaxilocks. "He has a house that moves about. One day it is in one place and another in another."

"But how do you find it?" queried the new doll.

"You don't have to," whistled Whistlebinkie. "You just walk on until you run against it," – and just as he spoke, as if to prove his words, bang! he ran right into the gate. "Here it is now," he added.

"He evidently doesn't want to see anybody," said Mollie, noticing a basket hanging from the front door-knob. "He's put out a basket for cards. Dear me! I wish he'd see us."

"Maybe he will," said Whistlebinkie. "I'll ring the bell. Hello!" he added sharply, as he looked into the basket; "that's queer. It's chock-up full of cards now – somebody must have called."

"It has a placard over it," said Flaxilocks.

"So it has," said Mollie, a broad smile brightening her face; "and it says, 'Take one' on it. What does he mean?"

"That looks like your card on top," said Flaxilocks.

"Why it is my card," cried Mollie, "and here is Whistlebinkie's card too. We haven't been here."

"Of course you haven't," said a voice from behind the door. "But you are here now. I knew you were coming and I was afraid you'd forget to bring your cards with you, so I took some of your old ones that you had left here before and put 'em out there where you could get them. Ring the bell, and I'll let you in."

Whistlebinkie rang the bell as instructed, and the door was immediately opened, and there stood the Unwiseman waiting to welcome them.

"Why, dear me! What a delicious surprise," he said. "Walk right in. I had no idea you were coming."

"We came to wish you a Happy New Year," said Mollie.

"That's very kind of you," said the Unwiseman, "very kind, indeed. I was thinking of you this morning when I was making my good resolutions for the New Year. I was wondering whether I ought to give you up with other good things, and I finally decided not to. One must have some comfort."

"Then you have made some good resolutions, have you?" said Mollie.

"Millions of 'em," said the Unwiseman; "and I'm going to make millions more. One of 'em is that I won't catch cold during the coming year. That's one of the best resolutions a man of my age can make. Colds are very bad things, and it costs so much to be rid of them. Why, I had one last winter and I had to burn three cords of wood to get rid of it."

"Do you cure a cold with wood?" asked Flaxilocks.

"Why not?" returned the Unwiseman. "A roaring hot fire is the best cure for cold I know. What do you do when you have a cold, sit on the ice-box?"

"No, I take medicine," said Mollie. "Pills and things."

"I don't like pills," said the Unwiseman. "They don't burn well. I bought some quinine pills to cure my cold three winters ago, and they just sizzled a minute when I lit them and went out." This pleased Gyp so much that he sprang upon the piano and wagged his tail on C sharp until Mollie made him stop.

"Another resolution I made," continued the Unwiseman, "was to open that piano. That's why it's open now. I've always kept it locked before, but now it is going to be open all the time. That'll give the music a chance to get out; and it's a good thing for pianos to get a little fresh air once in a while. It's the stale airs in that piano – airs like Way Down Upon the Suwanee River, and Annie McGinty, and tunes like that that have made me dislike it."

"Queerest man I ever saw!" whispered the new doll to Flaxilocks.

"But I didn't stop there," said the Unwiseman. "I made up my mind that I wouldn't grow any older this year. I'm going to stay seven hundred, just as I am now, always. Seven hundred is old enough for anybody, and I'm not going to be greedy about my years when I have enough. Let somebody else have the years, say I."

"Very wise and very generous," said Mollie; "but I don't see just how you are going to manage it."

"Me neither," whistled Whistlebinkie. "I do'see how you're going to do that."

"Simple enough," said the Unwiseman. "I've stopped the clock."

Gyp turned his head to one side as the Unwiseman spoke and looked at him earnestly for a few seconds, and then, as if overcome with mirth at the idea, he rushed out of the door and chased his tail around the house three times.

"What an extraordinary animal that is," said the Unwiseman. "He must be very young."

"He is," said Mollie. "He is nothing but a puppy."

"Well, it seems to me he wastes a good deal of strength," said the Unwiseman. "Why, if I should run around the house that way three times I'd be so tired I'd have to hire a man to help me rest."

"Are you really seven hundred years old?" queried the new doll, who, I think, would have followed Gyp's example and run around the house herself if she had thought it was dignified and was not afraid of spoiling her new three-button shoes.

"I don't know for sure," said the Unwiseman, "but I fancy I must be. I know I'm over sixty because I was born seventy-three years ago. Seven hundred is over sixty, and so for the sake of round figures I have selected that age. It's rather a wonderful age, don't you think so?"

"It certainly is," said the new doll.

"But then you are a wonderful man," said Mollie.

"True," said the Unwiseman, reflectively. "I am wonderful. Sometimes I spend the whole night full of wonder that I should be so wonderful. I know so much. Why, I can read French. I can't understand it, but I can read it quite as well as I can English. I can't read English very well, of course; but then I only went to school one day and that happened to be a holiday; so I didn't learn how to do anything but take a day off. But we are getting away from my resolutions. I want to tell you some more of them. I have thought it all over, and I am determined that all through the year I shall eat only three meals a day with five nibbles between times. I'm going to give up water-melons, which I never eat, and when I converse with anybody I have solemnly promised myself never to make use of such words as assafœdita, peristyle, or cosmopolis. That last resolution is a great sacrifice for me because I am very fond of long words. They sound so learned; but I shall be firm. Assafœdita, peristyle, and cosmopolis until next year dawns shall be dead to me. I may take them on again next year; but if I do, I shall drop Mulligatawney, Portuguese, and pollywog from my vocabulary. I may even go so far as to drop vocabulary, although it is a word for which I have a strong affection. I am so attached to vocabulary as a word that I find myself murmuring it to myself in the dead of night."

"What does it mean?" asked the new doll.

"Vocabulary?" cried the Unwiseman. "Vocabulary? Don't you know what a vocabulary is?"

"I know," said Whistlebinkie. "It's an animal with an hump on its back."

"Nonsense," said the Unwiseman. "A vocabulary is nothing of the sort. It's a – a sort of little bureau talkers have to keep their words in. It's a sort of word-cabinet. I haven't really got one, but that's because I don't need one. I have so few words I can carry them in my head, and if I can't, I jot them down on a piece of paper. It's a splendid idea, that. It's helped me lots of times in conversation. I'm as fond of the word microcosm as I am of vocabulary, too, but I never can remember it, so I keep it on a piece of paper in my vest-pocket. Whenever I want to use it, I know just where to find it."

"And what does microcosm mean?" asked Mollie.

"I don't know," said the Unwiseman; "but few people do; and if I use it, not one person in a thousand would dare take me up, so I just sprinkle it around to suit myself."

As the Unwiseman spoke, the postman came to the door with a letter.