Rootabaga Stories

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f the Weather Make

orn Fairies I

marching on from the little corn moon of summer to the big corn harvest moon of autumn, then you must have guessed who

and girls know that corn is no go

orn fairies come dancing and singing-sometimes. If it is a wild day and a hot sun is pouring down while a cool north wind blows-and this happens sometimes-then you will be sure to see thousands of corn fairies marching and countermarching in mocking grand marches over the big,

same house-both Spink and Skabootch are asking the question, "How can we tell corn fairies if we see 'em? If we meet a corn fairy how wil

d they are proud. The reason they are proud is because they work so

lk. In the first week of the harvest moon coming up red and changing to yellow and silver the corn fairies sit by tho

in the evening they point their big toes slanting toward the east. Then towards midnight when the moon is yellow and half way up the sky their big toes are only half slanted as they sit c

h seeing. All the time they sit sewing their next year clothes they are laughing. It is not a law t

hould be lucky enough to see a thousand corn fairies sitting between the corn rows and all of them laughin

if you know the corn fairies with a real knowledge you can alway

leaf cloth. In Iowa they stitch sixteen stitches, in Nebraska seventeen, and the farther west

e year all the fairies wore pumpkin-flower neckties, yellow four-in-hands and yellow ascots. And in one strange yea

se old zigzag rail fences were beautiful for the fairies because a hundred fairies could sit on one rail and thousands and thousands of them could sit on the zigzags and sing pla-sizzy pla-sizzy, softer than an eye-wink, softer than a baby's thumb, all on a moonlight summer night. And they found out that year was going

iries look in the evening, the night time and the moo

n. And they walk among the corn rows and climb the corn stalks and fix th

ight shoulder each one has a cricket broom to sweep away the crickets. The brush is a whisk brus

rs out of their yellow-belly belts and nail down nails to keep the corn from blowing down. When a rain storm is blowing up terrible and driving all kinds of terribles across the cornfield, then you can be sure of one thing. Running like the

bootch is, "Next week you will learn all about where the corn fairies get the nails to na

ning across the green and silver, listen with your littlest and newest ears. Maybe you will hear the co

als Lost The

Back Trav

hia to Me

Moose Jaw named for the jaw of a moose shot by a hunter there, up where the blizzards and the chinooks begin, w

gh tower on a high hill sits the

s because the Head Spotter of the Weath

e there was dusty dry weather. Then at last came rain. And the wate

d they froze all the tails stiff. A big wind blew up and

to help him when he runs, when he eats, when he walks or talks, when he makes pictures or writes letters in the snow

tool in a high to

Spotter of the

who at night lights up his house in a hollow tree with his fire yellow torch of a tail. It is hard for the yellow flongboo to lose his tail b

call it the Committee of Sixty Six. It was a distinguished committee and when they all sat together holding their mouths under their noses (just like a distinguished committee) and blinking their eyes up over their n

of a blue tail blows off behind a blue fox, he doesn't look near so distinguished. Or, if the long yellow torc

" When there was a fight and a snag and a wrangle between two families living next door neighbors to each other and this old flongboo was called in to umpire and to say which family was right and which family was wrong, which family started it and which family ought to stop it, he used to say, "The best umpire is the one who knows just how fa

he chairman, he stood up on the platform and took a gavel and bange

l and we are here for business,"

bonnet leaves from a hole where he lived near the Brazos ri

t away with-I get your nu

eep on riding till we get to Medicine Hat, near the Saskatchewan river, in the Winnipeg wheat country where the Head Spotter of the Weather Makers sits on a high stool in a high tower on a high hill spotting the

d the chairman, "will clean their

yellow flongboos began cleaning the

ill clean their left ears with th

yellow flongboos began cleaning t

ll stand up on the toes of their hind legs and stick their noses straight up in the air." And all the blue foxes

ll stand on the top and the apex of their heads, stick their hin

flongboos stood on the top and the apex of his head nor stuck

d and this is no picn

to Philadelphia to get

," the chairman asked a policeman. It was the first time a flo

polite," said

y direct us to the union depot? We wish

persons are different ki

that we are The Committee of Sixty Six. We are honorable and distinguished representatives from places your honest and ignorant geography never told you about. This committee is going to ride on the cars

st people who are not respectable," said the policeman, touching with his pointing f

s that a committee of sixty-six blue foxes and flongboos has ev

iceman. "The union depot is under that c

ty Six, I thank you for the sake of all the animals in the Un

t tails, into the Philadelphia union depot, they had nothing to say. And yet though they had nothing to say the passengers in the union depot waiting for trains thought they had something to s

strange language from where they belong,

ong each other, and never tel

ng the newspapers upside down to-mor

toenails, ears and hair, everything except tails, pattered scritch scratch over the stone floor

for us so we will always be ahead and we will get there b

like a big horseshoe. Instead of going around the long winding bend of the horseshoe tracks up and around the mountains, the train acted different. T

oing to jump the train off the tr

told us about it beforehand,"

platform. Mile after mile of chimneys went by. Four hundred smokest

black cats come to be washed,

ffidavit," said t

roof of the car. The conductor told them, "I must have an ex

in the newspapers showing the blue foxes and the yellow flongboos climbing

ong and careful upside down to see how he looked in the picture in the newspaper cl

foxes and flongboos lifted the roof off the car, telling the conductor they would rather wreck th

s stayed up all night watching the snow ghost

s the ghosts of?" The second baby blue fox answered, "Everybody who makes a snowball,

Minnesota snow ghosts, because they sat up all night telling old stories their fathers and mothers and grandfathers and grandmothers told them,

ut in the snow where the white moon was shining down a valley of birch trees. It was the Snowbi

body works unless they have to and they nearly all have to. There they ran in the snow till they came to the place w

big freeze to freeze our tails onto us again, and so let us get back

lks or talks, when he makes pictures or writes letters in the snow or when he puts a snack of bacon meat with stripes of fat and lean to hide till he wants it under a big rock by the river-and the yellow fl