The Whizzer by Mary Hartwell kither Wood. That was a coal old evening.
The snow was just as dry as flour and had been beat down till the
road looked slick as a ribbon far up and far down, and squeaked every
step. I pulled Mara on our sled. All the boys went home by
the crick to skate, but I was fraidm'raar would get cold. She's such
a little thing. I liked to play with the girls if the boys do
laugh, for some of the big ones might Pushmrraar down and hurt her.
She misses her mother, so I babies are more than I used to.
We's almost out side of the schoolhouse and just where the road elbows by the
Widow Briggs's place. When something passed us like whizz I'd been pulling along with
the sled rope over my arm and my hands in my pockets, and didn't
hear a team or anything, but it made me shy off the side of
the road and pretty ear up set Mrar school. Let's out at four o'clock
and dust come soon after that. But it was wooly gray yet, so
you could see plain except in the fence corners, and the thing that passed
us was a man riding on nothing but one big wheel. Oh see there,
says Mr. Scared as could be. I felt glad on her account.
We's close to Briggs's place. It would be easy to hustle her over
Briggs's fence. But the thing runs so still and fast it might take fences
as well as a straight road. The man turned round after he passed us
and came rearing back away up on that wheel, and I stood as close
before the sled as I could. He sat high up in the air and
wiggled his feet on each side of the wheel. And I never saw a
camel or elephant or any kind of wild thing at a show. That made
me feel so funny. But just when I thought he's going to cut through
us, he turned short and stopped. He had on an overcoat to his
ears, and a fur cap down to his nose, and hairy gloves on,
and a little satchel strapped over his shoulder. And I saw there was
a real small wheel behind the big one that balanced him up. He wasn't
sitting on the tire neither, but on a saddle place, and the big
wheel had lots of silver spoats, crossing back and forward. Whose children are
you, says the man? Noboddies, says I. But who owns and
switches you? Says he. The schoolmaster switches me, says I. But
we ain't own since mother died. Mar begun to cry. We live at
Uncle Mosey, says she. They don't want to give us away. The
man laughed and says, are you right, sir? But I hated to
have her scared, so I told her the wheel couldn't hurt her nor him
either. I've seen the car as many a time, I says, And
I've seen balloons and reading the paper about things that went on three wheels.
But this, it's a bicycle, says he. I'm a wheel man.
That's what I thought, says I. Then he wanted to know our names.
Mine's sealed Petticord, I says, And this is my little sister Marr.
His eyes looked sharp at us, and he says, your mother died
about six weeks ago. Yes, sir, says I. Tomorrow won't be
a very nice Christmas for you, says he. No, sir, says
I, digging my heel in the snow, for he had no business to
talk that way and make Mara feel bad when I had a little wagon all
whittled out in my pocket to give her. And she cried most every night
anyhow, until aunt Ebby threatened to switch her if she waked the family any
more. I slept with the boys, but when I heard marar sniffling in
the big bed a good many nights, I slipped out and sat by her
and whispered stories to take her attention as long as my jaws worked, but
when they chattered too much with the cold, I'd lay down on the cover
with my arm across until she went to sleep. I like MA. He
said we might go up to cousin Andy sanders Is to stay over, says
I. We don't have to be at Uncle Moses at Christmas. That's some
consolation, as it says he. I was not going to let him know
what the relations did. But I never liked relations outside of our place.
At aunt Ebbie and Uncle Moses, the children fight like cats, and they
always act poor at Christmas and make fun of hanging your stockings or setting your
plate, for you'd only get ashes or corn cobs. Aunt Ebbie keeps your
sleeves rolled up so she can slap real handy, and Uncle Mose has yellow
streaks in his eyes, and he shivers over the stove and keeps everybody else
back at Cousin Andy Sanders, as they have no children and don't want them.
He durst hardly come in out of the snow, and all the best
things on the table will make you sick. If there is a piece in
the paper that is hard to read and ugly as it can be, they
will make you sit still and read it, and if you get done too
quick, they will say you skipped, and you have to read it out
loud while they find fault. I knew Cousin Andy Sanders never had any canto
your taffy for Christmas. But Murar and me could be peaceful there, for
they don't push her around so bad. Well hand me your rope, says
the man, and I'll give you a ride. I liked that notion,
so I handed him the rope, and he waited till I got on the
sled in front of Murar. That's what o'briggs's homestead, isn't it, he
said, just before he started. I told him it was, and asked
if he ever lived down our way. He laughed, and said he knew
something about every place, and then he set the wheel agoin. Murrar held
tight to me, and I braced my heels against the front round of the
sled. The fence corners went faster and faster, and the wind whistled through
our ears while you could not see one dry blade in the fodder shocks.
Move. Ain't he a wizzard? Says I to Murar. We turned another
jog and spokes in the wheel looked all smeared together. It did beat horse
racing. I got excited and hollered for him to go it, old wizzard,
and he went it till we's passed Cousin Andy sanders Is. Before I
knew the place was nigh cass loose. Now, mister, we're much obliged,
says I. But he kept right on like he never heard me.
So I yelled up louder and told him we's there, and he turned round
his head a minute and laughed, Please let go, mister, I says,
that's cousin Andy sanders Is a way back there. We're obliged, but
we'll have to go back. The wizard never let on. He whizzed a
head as fast as ever I thought it was a mean trick for him to
play on Marr and wished I could trip up his wheel. It would be
dark long before I got her back to cousin Andy Sanders, and the Wizard
whizzed ahead like he was running off with us. I had a notion to
cut the rope, but there was no talent. When I'd get another,
and it was new. I made up my mind to do it, though,
when we come along by our old place. But there the Wizard turned
round and jumped off in the road. I picked up the end of my
rope and shook my head because I was mad. Why didn't you let go?
Says I. Haven't I brought you home? He says. I looked
at the shut up house and felt a good deal worse than when I thought
he was running off with us. Oh, steely, says Marr. Let's
go in and stay. I want to come home so bad. He was
a man grown, and I is only ten years old. But he ought
to know it better than to maide Mark cry till the tears run down her
chin. I'd been to look at the house myself, but never say a
word to her about it. Once about noon, I slipped up there by
the cornfields round about, and sat on the fence and thought about Mother till
I could hardly stand it. The house looked lonesomer than an old cabin about
to fall, because an old cabin about to fall has forgot its folks.
But all our things were locked up here, except what aunt Ibby and cousin
and Andy Sanders had carried off. Our sail was to be in January.
The snow was knee deep in the yard and drifted even on the porch,
but tracks showed where aunt Ibby walked. When she got out a load of
provisions and bedclothes. She had the front door key, and took even the
blue and white coverlet with birds woven that I heard Mother say was to be
marrs and the canned fruit, for fear it would freeze when our cellar is
warmer than they're stove. She said to Uncle Mose when I was by unbeknown
that Murr and me would have ten times as much property as her children anyhow,
and she ought to be paid more for keeping us. She might have
our money for all I cared, But I did not know how to stand
her robbing things out of mother's house, and wished the sale would come quick
and scatter them all. The wizard leant his chin on his breast and looked
pitiful out of his eyes at Murar, for seemed like the tears had a
notion to freeze on her face, only she kept them running down too fast.
And he says, let's go into the house. Oh douce steely,
says Mar, hugging my knee, for I was alongside the sled. And
I'll cook all your dinners and we'll hang up our Christmas stockings every Sunday,
says she. And aunt Ibby's boys won't durst to take away my lead pencil,
mother give me. And if you see them coming here, you'll set
bounce on them. Marr says, I. We will go in and make
a fire and act like mother's just gone out to a neighbor's. Then she
begun to laugh, and one of her tears stuck to an inSpot that comes
and goes in her face like it was dnned with your finger. But now
you mind, I says. If aunt Ibby or Uncle Mose goes to whip
us for this, you tell him I put you up to it and made
you go along with me. Mar looked scared, and you tell them,
says the wizard, lifting his wheel across the snow toward the gate, that
I put you both up to it and made you go along with me.
I pulled Mara over the drifts and we went to the side door. Aunt
Ibby's got the big key, I says, and I'll have to raise a
window while you wait here the window as we're all locked down. But we
went round and round till the one in the shed give way, and I
crawled through and bursted the latch off the kitchen door. I breathed so fast
it made my heart thump. When I unlocked the side door and let the
whizzard in Marra into the sitting room. I noticed then he'd hung his wheel
on the limb of a tree, for it glittered. Bouncing an't here to
jump on us, is he? Mrar, says I no, when he
hates to stay at cousin Andy Sanders's says she. Bounce would come to the
schoolhouse and kind of cry till I asked the master, please may I go
out, and then bouncing me to have a talk behind the schoolhouse, and
I'd tell him I could not help it. And he'd known that he might
live at Aunt Abbie's with us, if he could only keep from chawing up
their miserable yellow dogs, and we'd both feel better. But I did miss
him that minute. I opened the door when here he come, like a
house of fire, and leant down on the floor, panting and pounding his
tail and laughing. And then he jumped up and paught us in the dark
till Mrar had to hold him round the neck to keep him still while I
got a light. He must have snuffed our tracks when we whiz past cousin
Andy Sanders. I felt to the pantry and put my hand in the candlebox,
but Aunt Abby never left one. I knew there's a piece and a
candlestick in the shed cupboard, though it burnt half out the night mother died,
so I got it, and the Wizard scraped a match and lit the
wick. The Wizard and me set to then and brought in loads from the
wood house. We built a fire, cleaned up into the chimney, and
Ruar took the broom and swept all the dust into it. Bounced, laid
on the carpet and licked at us and whacked his tail till weez in a
broad laugh. The fire got me warmer than I'd been since Mother died.
The Wizard took out a thick gold watch and wound our clock and set it.
Then he says, let's go over the house, and we did.
I carried the candle and Ruar and the dog went along. The Wizard looked
in all the upstairs presses and opened the bureau drawers. I stayed outside of
the parlor and run bounced did too. I did not want to think of
the sheet stretched in the corner, for it was not like Mother under the
sheet, but her picture hung up in there, and so did my father's.
The Wizard stayed in with the candle a good while. I heard him
go in from one thing to another, and wondered what he was about.
I'd rather gone out to the graveyard, though, and set on the fence,
watching mother's and father's graves, and heard the dry sumac bushes scraped together,
than to stepped into the parlor. Father died a year before mother,
but I didn't like him the same as I did her. Then we looked
down cellar, and I thought I ought to tell the whizzer about the provisions
and bedclothes being taken out of the house or he'd suppose Mother never kept us
nice. He smiled under his cap, and I found one jar of canned
honey behind some bars, where Aunt Abby overlooked it. We carried that up
to the sitting room. Mar likes canned honey better than anything. Just as
we come into the sitting room, I heard somebody pound on the front door.
They're after us, says Mar. Let me see to it, says
the Whizzer. So he stepped around the house and came back with his wheel
on his arm, and held the door open. The snow made outdoors light,
and we saw a little fellow lead a horse and buggy through the yard
into the barn lot, and he came right in carrying a couple of baskets.
All right, Sam, says the Whizzer. Put your horse in the
stable, and then build a fire in the kitchen stove. The man he
called Sam, stopped to warm himself at our heart, And I never saw
such a looking creature before. He had a cap with a button on top
of his head, and his hair was braided and a long tail behind.
He laughed in his eyes glittered and they sloped up like a ladder set against
the house. He was just as yellow as brass and wore a cloth circular
big sleeves, but the rest of him looked like other folks. Mur went
back into the corner and I noticed the whizzer set his wheel against the wall,
and I wondered if he'd left it out for us sign so the little
yellow man would know where to stop. The yellow man went out to his
horse, and the whizzard took off his cap and gloves and coat and hung
them in the sitting room. He looked nice. His eyes snapped, and
his hair was cut off close except a brush ride along the middle of his
head. We set our chairs up to the fire, and I watched him
and watched him. If you and that fellow travel together, I says,
what makes him go in a buggy? And you want a wheel? Oh?
I like the bicycle, says he. I've run thousands of miles on
it. I sent Sam out from San Francisco by the railroad, but I
came through on the wheel. It took me three months. I thought he
was a funny man, but I liked him too. When Sam came in
from the stable, Murra and I went to the kitchen and saw him cook
supper for one of the baskets was jam full of vituls. He heated a
roasted turkey and made oyster soup, and mashed potatoes and chopped cabbage. There
were preserves the Wizard called scotch, and hot rolls and jelly, and cold
chicken, and little round cakes that melted in your mouth, pickles and nuts
and oranges. And we put the candied honey on the table. The coffee
smelt like thanksgiving. Sam waited on us, and I eat till I was
ashamed. We never expected to have such a dinner and Mother's house anymore.
When Mr and I got down and begun to toss our oranges, the Wizard
told Sam to clear the things away and have his supper in the kitchen,
and then to fix the beds as comfortable as he could. I'd made up
my mind, even if the Wizard did travel ahead, that Mran meant to
stay there all night. Aunt Ibbies would think we were at Cousin Andy Sanders',
and Cousin Andy Sanders' would think we were at Aunt Abbie's. He sat
in Mother's big chair before the fire, and I felt willing. If it
had been Uncle Mo's in the chair, I wouldn't felt willing. When a
stick broke on the dog irons, we piled on more wood, and the
clock ticked and struck nine, and I wished we's never going away from there
again. Murr and I played and jumped, and he was blind man,
and we had solid fun till we's tired out. I showed him my books,
for I never took one to Uncle Moses. The boys there make you
give up everything, and they licked their dirty thumbs to turn leaves. Mara
and I stood and looked into the glass doors of the bookcase like we used
to when the fire made them like a looking glass. And there were our
faces, hers round and wide between the eyes, and curly headed, and
mine long and narrow between the eyes and my hair, and a black roach.
I told the whizzard she'd better have a bed made down by the fire,
considering the blankets and comforts were most all out of visiting. And he
guessed so too, And Sam helped me bring lots of quilts and a feather
tick from my old room to fix up the lound. With Sam, went
into the kitchen and slept by the stove. Then I undressed Mara and heard
her prayers. After I tucked her in. She's six years old and dressed
herself before mother died, all but hooking up. I hooked her up,
and sometimes she's swell out her mischief when she ought to swell in. But
now I tended to her entirely because she missed her mother. The Wizard acted
like he saw something in the fire. But when Mara was asleep and I
sat down by him, he pushed up my roach and he says, you're
a very fatherly little fellow, Steel Petticord. It put me in mind to
ask him if he's Sam's, but he laughed out loud at the notion.
Sam's smaller than you. And he minds so well, says I. And
I never saw a man that was so handy at girls work. Sam's an
excellent fellow, says the wizard. But I don't deserve to have a chinaman
called my son, Oh, I says, Is he a chinaman? Well,
I've read about them, but I never saw one before. Then I
concluded to ask the wizard what his own name was, But just then he
got up from his chair and brought the other basket to the fire. Do
you know who Santa Claus is? He says, talking low, I found
that out two years ago, says I. Well, get her little stockings.
Then he says, I thought you'd like to do this yourself, says
the wizard, He acted just like mother. We took the things out of
the basket. There were toy sheep and dogs, and dolls, and tubs
and dishes, and underneath them all kinds of candies enough to treat a school.
I felt like the wizard was Santa Claus. We stuffed her little stockings
till they stood alone like kegs, and tied bundles to them, and fastened
them together and hung them on the mantelpiece. Bounced, Wake up and watch
us, and then he doze off, for Bounce was full of turkey bones
than he ever expected to be again, and Murar s leapt away, looking
like a doll in the fire shine. But all at once Bounce gave a
jump and a bark. Back went the door like the wind and tore it
open. And there stood Uncle Mose and Aunt Ibby, and cousin Andy Sanders,
and the widow Briggs's grown son, and two or three men behind them.
They all looked scared or mad, and Aunt Abby's face was so white
that her mules all bristled. This is a pretty how to do, says
she, speaking up loud, like she did on wash days or times she
took a stick and drove the boys to the woodpile. What's going on in
this house tonight? Fires and candles burning, and travelers putting up, and
children running away when they're let go someplace else to stay all night, You
little sneak, says she. You'll get one such a whipping as you waked
for when your mother was alive. Stop, Stop, says the wizard peaceably.
What are you doing in this house, says cousin Andy Sanders. Are
you the man I saw go past my place to night on that wheel pulling
the children? I am, says the Whizzar, and I've been making notes
of the personal property that has been carried out of the house. Well,
says Uncle Mose. I'm the constable, and this is my posse. The
whizzer laughed, and he says, this thorn bush is my thorn bush,
and this dog my dog. I did not know what he meant, and
they acted as if they did not either. I arrust you, says Uncle
mos for breaking into a house and disturbing the peace. You can't do it,
says the Whizzer. Go in and take him, says Uncle Mos to
the other men. Because this is my house, says the Whizzer. I
swallowed my breath when he said that. I wish you'd shut the door,
he says. And since tomorrow is Christmas and I don't want to harbor any
ill, will you can shut it behind instead of in front of you.
I'm Steel Petticord, this boy's father, as you might all know by looking
at me. Even cousin Andy Sanders didn't jump any more than I did.
But I jumped for gladness, and seemed like he jumped for something else.
I'm appointed girding to the children, he says. And I don't want any
impy to talk from a stranger. You pretend you don't know me, Andy
Sanders, says the Wizzer. But I always knew you. You expected to
settle on their land while Mose and his wife pillaged their goods. I didn't
grow up with you for nothing. Steel Petticord died when that boy was a
year old, says Aunt Abby. And she looked so awful and so big
I could hardly bear to watch her. He was killed by the Indians on
his way from California after he sent his money home. He was only kept
prisoner by the Indians, says my father, and sick and ill used.
But he had no notion he was dead till he got away after a few
years and heard his widow was married again and even mother to another child.
It's a likely story, says cousin Andy Sanders, that a man wouldn't come
forward and claim his own in such case. You're a notion of a man,
and mine never did agree, Andy Sanders, says my father, she
wasn't to blame, and her second husband was my best friend. The boy
and girl are mine now. It's some robbing scheme, says Aunt Abby,
But she looked as if she knew him well enough. I've more to give
them than you could have taken from them, he says, And you may
begin to investigate tonight. Is that the widow Briggs's boy, he says.
The Briggs boy came up and shook hands with them, and the other men
stepped in and shook hands too. They all begun to talk, but Uncle
Mose and Aunt Ibby and cousin Andy Sanders left the door, and I heard
them slam the gate. Mar sleapt right along, though the neighbors talked so
loud and fast, and I sat down on the lounge at her feet,
wondering what she would say Christmas morning when she found out the whizzer was my
own father, the mother thought was dead since I was a year old.
I felt so queer and glad that something in me whizzed like the wheel.
And while my father was not looking, and everybody sat up to the fire
asking questions, I slipped over and tried to hug it around the cranks that
he wiggled with his feet. You can read pieces about Santa Claus comin on
a sledge, but that's nothing to have in your own father that you think
is dead and gone, Ride up like a regular whizzer and open the house
for Christmas. End of the Whizzer by Mary Hartwell Catherwood