each clown was baked in the oven it was taken out into the sunshine and put up to stand like a big white doll with a red mouth leaning against the fence.

Two men came along to each baked clown standing still like a doll. One man threw a bucket of white fire over it. The second man pumped a wind pump with a living red wind through the red mouth.

The clown rubbed his eyes, opened his mouth, twisted his neck, wiggled his ears, wriggled his toes, jumped away from the fence and began turning handsprings, cartwheels, somersaults and flipflops in the sawdust ring near the fence.

“The next we come to is the Rootabaga Country where the big city is the Village of Liver-and-Onions,” said Gimme the Ax, looking again in his pocket to be sure he had the long slick yellow leather slab ticket with a blue spanch across it.

The train ran on and on till it stopped running straight and began running in zigzags like one letter Z put next to another Z and the next and the next.

The tracks and the rails and the ties and the spikes under the train all stopped being straight and changed to zigzags like one letter Z and another letter Z put next after the other.

“It seems like we go half way and then back up,” said Ax Me No Questions.

“Look out of the window and see if the pigs have bibs on,” said Gimme the Ax. “If the pigs are wearing bibs then this is the Rootabaga country.”

And they looked out of the zigzagging windows of the zigzagging cars and the first pigs they saw had bibs on. And the next pigs and the next pigs they saw all had bibs on.

The checker pigs had checker bibs on, the striped pigs had striped bibs on. And the polka dot pigs had polka dot bibs on.

“Who fixes it for the pigs to have bibs on?” Please Gimme asked his father.

“The fathers and mothers fix it,” answered Gimme the Ax. “The checker pigs have checker fathers and mothers. The striped pigs have striped fathers and mothers. And the polka dot pigs have polka dot fathers and mothers.”

And the train went zigzagging on and on running on the tracks and the rails and the spikes and the ties which were all zigzag like the letter Z and the letter Z.

And after a while the train zigzagged on into the Village of Liver-and-Onions, known as the biggest city in the big, big Rootabaga country.

And so if you are going to the Rootabaga country you will know when you get there because the railroad tracks change from straight to zigzag, the pigs have bibs on and it is the fathers and mothers who fix it.

And if you start to go to that country remember first you must sell everything you have, pigs, pastures, pepper pickers, pitchforks, put the spot cash money in a ragbag and go to the railroad station and ask the ticket agent for a long slick yellow leather slab ticket with a blue spanch across it.

And you mustn’t be surprised if the ticket agent wipes sleep from his eyes and asks, “So far? So early? So soon?”

A girl named Wing Tip the Spick came to the Village of Liver-and-Onions to visit her uncle and her uncle’s uncle on her mother’s side and her uncle and her uncle’s uncle on her father’s side.

It was the first time the four uncles had a chance to see their little relation, their niece. Each one of the four uncles was proud of the blue eyes of Wing Tip the Spick.

The two uncles on her mother’s side took a long deep look into her blue eyes and said, “Her eyes are so blue, such a clear light blue, they are the same as cornflowers with blue raindrops shining and dancing on silver leaves after a sun shower in any of the summer months.”

And the two uncles on her father’s side, after taking a long deep look into the eyes of Wing Tip the Spick, said, “Her eyes are so blue, such a clear light shining blue, they are the same as cornflowers with blue raindrops shining and dancing on the silver leaves after a sun shower in any of the summer months.”

And though Wing Tip the Spick didn’t listen and didn’t hear what the uncles said about her blue eyes, she did say to herself when they were not listening, “I know these are sweet uncles and I am going to have a sweet time visiting my relations.”

The four uncles said to her, “Will you let us ask you two questions, first the first question and second the second question?”

Then the uncles asked her the first question first

“I will let you ask me fifty questions this morning, fifty questions to-morrow morning, and fifty questions any morning. I like to listen to questions. They slip in one ear and slip out of the other.”

Then the uncles asked her the first question first, “Where do you come from?” and the second question second, “Why do you have two freckles on your chin?”

“Answering your first question first,” said Wing Tip the Spick, “I come from the Village of Cream Puffs, a little light village on the upland corn prairie. From a long ways off it looks like a little hat you could wear on the end of your thumb to keep the rain off your thumb.”

“Tell us more,” said one uncle. “Tell us much,” said another uncle. “Tell it without stopping,” added another uncle. “Interruptions nix nix,” murmured the last of the uncles.

“It is a light little village on the upland corn prairie many miles past the sunset in the west,” went on Wing Tip the Spick. “It is light the same as a cream puff is light. It sits all by itself on the big long prairie where the prairie goes up in a slope. There on the slope the winds play around the village. They sing it wind songs, summer wind songs in summer, winter wind songs in winter.”

“And sometimes like an accident, the wind gets rough. And when the wind gets rough it picks up the little Village of Cream Puffs and blows it away off in the sky—all by itself.”

“O-o-h-h,” said one uncle. “Um-m-m-m,” said the other three uncles.

“Now the people in the village all understand the winds with their wind songs in summer and winter. And they understand the rough wind who comes sometimes and picks up the village and blows it away off high in the sky all by itself.

“If you go to the public square in the middle of the village you will see a big roundhouse. If you take the top off the roundhouse you will see a big spool with a long string winding up around the spool.

“Now whenever the rough wind comes and picks up the village and blows it away off high in the sky all by itself then the string winds loose of the spool, because the village is fastened to the string. So the rough wind blows and blows and the string on the