Mollie and the Unwiseman

"I am afraid not," said the Unwiseman. "My disappointment has driven it quite out of my head. I can only remember the title."

"What did you call it?" asked Mollie.

"It was a simple little title," replied the Unwiseman. "It was called 'A Poem, by Me.'"

"And what was it about?" asked Mollie.

"About six hundred verses," said the Unwiseman; "and not one of 'em has escaped that dog. Those that he hasn't spoiled with his paws he has wagged his tail on, and he chose the best one of the lot to lie on his back and wiggle on. It's very discouraging."

"I'm very sorry," said Mollie; "and if you want me to I'll punish Gyp."

"What good would that do me?" queried the Unwiseman. "If chaining him up would restore even half the poem, I'd say go ahead and chain him up; but it won't. The poem's gone, and there's nothing left for me to do but go in the house and stick my head out of the window and cry."

"Perhaps you can write another poem," said Mollie.

"That's true – I hadn't thought of that," said the Unwiseman. "But I don't think I'd better to-day. I've lost more money by the destruction of that first poem than I can afford. If I should have another ruined to-day, I'd be bankrupt."

"Well, I'll tell you what I'll do," said Mollie. "I'll ask papa to let me give you a lead-pencil and a pad to write your next poem on. How will that do?"

"I should be very grateful," said the Unwiseman; "and if with these he could give me a few dozen ideas and a rhyming dictionary it would be a great help."

"I'll ask him," said Mollie. "I'll ask him right away, and I haven't any doubt that he'll say yes, because he always gives me things I want if they aren't harmful."

"Very well," said the Unwiseman. "And you may tell him for me, Miss Whistlebinkie, that I'll show him how grateful I am to him and to you for your kind assistance by letting him have the first thousand yards of poetry I write for his paper at fifty cents a yard, which is just half what I shall make other people pay for them."

And so Mollie and Whistlebinkie bade the Unwiseman good-by for the time being, and went home. As Mollie had predicted, her father was very glad to give her the pencil and the pad and a rhyming dictionary; but as he had no ideas to spare at the moment he had to deny the little maid that part of the request.

What the Unwiseman did with the pad and the pencil and the dictionary I shall tell you in the next chapter.

IX

The Poems of the Unwiseman

In which Mollie Listens to Some Remarkable Verses

A few days after he had received the pencil and pad and rhyming dictionary from Mollie, the Unwiseman wrote to his little benefactress and asked her to visit him as soon as she could.

"I've written eight pounds of poetry," he said in his letter, "and I'd like to know what you think of some of it. I've given up the idea of selling it by the yard because it uses up so much paper, and I'm going to put it out at a dollar a pound. If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to have you tell your papa about this and ask him if he hasn't any heavier paper than the lot he sent me. If he could let me have a million sheets of paper twice as heavy as the other I could write a pound of sonnits in half the time, and could accordingly afford to give them to him a little cheaper for use in his newspaper. I'd have been up to see you last night, but somehow or other my house got moved out to Illinois, which was too far away. It is back again in New York this morning, however, so that you won't find any trouble in getting him to see the poetry, and, by the way, while I think of it, I wish you'd ask your papa if Illinois rhymes with boy or boys. I want to write a poem about Illinois, but I don't know whether to begin it with

"'O, the boys,
Of Illinois,
They utterly upset my equipoise';

"'O, thou boy,
Of Illinois!
My peace of mind thou dust destroy?'

"You see, my dear, it is important to know at the start whether you are writing about one boy or several boys; and that rhyming dictionary you sent me doesn't say anything about such a contiguity. You might ask him, too, what is the meaning of contiguity. It's a word I admire, and I want to work it in somewhere where it will not only look well, but make a certain amount of sense.

    "Yoors tooly,
    "Me."

It was hardly to be expected, after an invitation of this sort, that Mollie should delay visiting the Unwiseman for an instant, so summoning Whistlebinkie and Gyp, she and her two little friends started out, and ere long they caught sight of the Unwiseman's house, standing on one corner of the village square, and in front of it was a peculiar looking booth, something like a banana-stand in its general outlines. This was covered from top to bottom with placards, which filled Mollie with uncontrollable mirth, when she saw what was printed on them. Here is what some of them said:

GO TO ME'S FOR POTERY

This was the most prominent of the placards, and was nailed to the top of the booth. On the right side of this was:

LISENSED TO SELL SONNITS

ON THE PREMISSES

Off to the left, printed in red crayon, the curious old man had tacked this:

EPIKS WROTE WHILE

YOU WEIGHT

Besides these signs, on the counter of this little stand were arranged a dozen or more piles of manuscript, and behind each of these piles were short sticks holding up small cards marked "five cents an ounce," "ten cents a pound," and back of all a larger card, which read:

SPESHUL DISSCOUNTS TO ALL

COSTUMERS ORDERING

BY THE TUN

"This looks like business," said Whistlebinkie.

"Yes," said Mollie, with a laugh. "Like the peanut business."

Gyp said nothing for a moment, but after sniffing it all over began to growl at a placard at the base of the stand on which was drawn by the Unwiseman's unmistakable hand the picture of two small dogs playing together with a line to this effect:

DOGGERELL A SPESHIALITY

As Mollie and Whistlebinkie were reading these signs the door of the Unwiseman's house was opened and the proprietor appeared. He smiled pleasantly when he saw who his visitors were, although if Mollie had been close enough to him to hear it she might have noticed that he gave a little sigh.

"I didn't recognize you at first," he said; "I thought you might be customers, and I delayed coming out so that you wouldn't think I was too anxious to sell my wares. Of course, I am very anxious to sell 'em, but it don't do to let the public know that. Let 'em understand that you are willing to sell and they'll very likely buy; but if you come tumbling out of your house pell-mell every time anybody stops to see what you've got they'll think maybe you aren't well off, and they'll either beat you down or not buy at all."

"Aren't you afraid of being robbed though?" Mollie asked.

"Oh, I wouldn't mind being robbed," replied the Unwiseman. "It would be a good thing for me if somebody would steal a pound or two of my poems. That would advertise my business. I can't afford to advertise my business, but if I should be robbed it would be news, and, of course, the newspapers would be full of it. Your father doesn't know of any kind-hearted burglar who's temporarily out of work who'd be willing to rob a poor man without charge does he?"

"No," said Mollie, "I don't think papa knows any burglars at all. We have literary men, and editors, and men like that visiting the house all the time, but so far we haven't had any burglars."

"Well, I suppose I'll have to trust to luck for 'em," sighed the Unwiseman; "though it would be a great thing if an extra should come out with great big black headlines, and newsboys yelling 'em out all over the country, 'The Unwiseman's Potery Stand Visited by Burglars! Eight Pounds of Triolets Missing! The Police on the Track of the Plunderers!'"

"It would be a splendid advertisement," said Mollie. "But I'm afraid you'll be a long time getting it. Have you any poems to show me?"

"Yes," said the Unwiseman, running his eye over his stock. "Yes, indeed, I have. Here's one I like very much. Shall I read it to you?"