Chapter Eight -Annabelle The Little Fairy And The Potatoes

Annabelle the little fairy was up near the village of cream puffs is a string of ball towns hiding in the tall grass passengers in the railroad trains look out of the windows and the tall grass stands up so they can't see the ball towns but the ball towns are there and the tall grass is full of pitchers, catchers, basemen, fielders, short stops, sluggers, southpaws and backstops they play ball till dark and after they talk ball The big fast ballplayers in the Rutabaga Country all come from these ball towns in the tall grass. The towns used to have names like names in books. But now the names are all like ball talk: Knock the Cover Off, Home Plate, Chest Protector, Grandstand, Nine Innings, Three Balls and Two Strikes, Bases Full and Two Out, Big League, Bush League, Hot Grounder, Out Drop, Bee Liner, Muffs and Pick Ups, Slide Kelly Slide, Paste It On the Nose. Now the Night Policeman in the Village of Cream Puffs stopped in at the Cigar Store one night and a gang of cub ballplayers loafing and talking ball talk asked him if there was anything in the wind. And he told them this happening: “I was sitting on the front steps of the post office last night thinking how many letters get lost and how many letters never get answered. A ballplayer came along with a package and said his name was Butter Fingers and he was the heavy hitter, the hard slugger, for the Grandstand ball team playing a championship game the day before with the Hot Grounders ball team. He came to the Village of Cream Puffs the day before the game, found a snood and a gringo and got the snood and the gringo to make him a home run shirt. Wearing a home run shirt, he told me, you knock a home run every time you come to bat. He said he knocked a home run every time he came to bat, and it was his home runs won the game for the Grand Standers. He was carrying a package and said the home run shirt was in the package and he was taking it back to the snood and the gringo because he promised he wouldn’t keep it, and it belonged to the snood and the gringo and they only rented it to him for the championship game. The last I saw of him he was hot-footing it pitty-pat pity- pat up the street with the package. "Well, I just said tra-la-loo to Butter Fingers when along comes another ballplayer. He had a package too, and he said his name was Three Strikes, and he was the left-handed southpaw pitcher for the Hot Grounders team the day before playing a game against the Grandstand team. He said he knew unless he put over some classy pitching the game was lost, and everything was goose eggs. So, he came to the Village of Cream Puffs the day before the game, found a snood and a gringo and got the snood and the gringo to make him a spit ball shirt. A spit ball looks easy, he told me, but it has smoke and whiskers, and nobody can touch it. He said he handed the Grand Standers a line of in shoots close to their chins and they never got to first base. Three Strikes was carrying a package, and he said the spit ball shirt was in the package, and he was taking it back to the snood and the gringo because he promised he wouldn’t keep it and it belonged to the snood and the gringo and they only rented it to him. The last I saw of him he was hot-footing it pitty-pat up the street with a package.” The gang of cub ballplayers in the Cigar, Store asked the Night Policeman, “Who won the game? Was it the Grand Standers or the Hot Grounders took the gravy?” You can search me for the answer,” he told the boys. “If the snood and the gringo come past the post office to-night when I sit on the front steps wondering how so many letters get lost and how so many never get answered, I will ask the snood and the gringo and if they tell me to-night I’ll tell you to-morrow night. "And ever since then when they talk ball talk in the ball towns hiding in the tall grass, they say the only sure way to win a ball game is to have a pitcher with a spit ball shirt and over that a home run shirt, both made by a snood and a gringo. Outside in the forest there was deep snow. The white snow had crusted the branches of the pine trees and piled itself up them till they bent under its weight. Now and then a snow-laden branch would bend too far, and huge lumps of snow fell crashing to the ground under the trees. Then the branch would swing up, and the snow covered it again with a cold white burden. Sitting in the hut you could hear the crashing again and again out in the forest, as the tired branches flung down their loads of snow. Yes, and now and then there was the howling of wolves far away. Little Marussia heard them and thought of them out there in the dark as they galloped over the snow. She sat closer to Vanya, her brother, and they were both as near as they could get to the door of the stove, where they could see the red fire burning busily, keeping the whole hut warm. The stove filled a quarter of the hut, but that was because it was a bed as well. There were blankets on it, and in those blankets Vanya and Marussia rolled up and went to sleep at night, as warm as little baking cakes. The hut was made of pine logs cut from the forest. You could see the marks of the axe. Old Peter was the grandfather of Marussia and Vanya. He lived alone with them in the hut in the forest, because their father and mother were both dead. Marussia and Vanya could hardly remember them, and they were very happy with old Peter, who was very kind to them and did all he could to keep them warm and well fed. He let them help him in everything, even in stuffing the windows with moss to keep the cold out when winter began. The moss kept the light out too, but that did not matter. It would be all the jollier in the spring when the sun came pouring in. Besides old Peter and Marussia and Vanya there were Vladimir and Bayan. Vladimir was a cat, a big black cat, as stately as an emperor, and just now he was lying in Vanya’s arms fast asleep. Bayan was a dog, a tall Gray wolf-dog. He could jump over the table with a single bound. When he was in the hut he usually lay underneath the table, because that was the only place where he could lie without being in the way. And, of course at mealtimes he was in the way even there. Just now he was out with old Peter. “I wonder what story it will be tonight?” said Marussia. “So do I,” said Vanya. “I wish they’d be quick and come back. ” Vladimir stirred suddenly in Vanya’s lap, and a minute later they heard the scrunch of boots in the snow, and the stamping of old Peter’s feet trying to get the snow off his boots. Then the door opened, and Bayan pushed his way in and shook himself, and licked Marussia and Vanya and startled Vladimir, and lay down under the table and came out again, because he was so pleased to be home. And old Peter came in after him, with his gun on his back and a hare in his hand. He shook himself just like Bayan, and the snow flew off like spray. He hung up his gun, flung the hare into a corner of the hut, and laughed. “You are snug in here, little pigeons,” he said. Vanya and Marussia had jumped up to welcome him, and when he opened his big sheepskin coat, they tumbled into it together and clung to his belt. Then he closed the big woolly coat over the top of them and they squealed; and he opened it a little way and looked down at them over his beard, and then closed it again for a moment before letting them out. He did this every night, and Bayan always barked when they were shut up inside. Then old Peter took his big coat off and lifted down the samovar from the shelf. The samovar is like a big tea-urn, with a red-hot fire in the middle of it keeping the water boiling. It hums like a bee on the tea-table, and the steam rises in a little jet from a tiny hole in the top. The boiling water comes out of a tap at the bottom. Old Peter threw in the lighted sticks and charcoal, and made a draught to draw the heat, and then set the samovar on the table with the little fire crackling in its inside. Then he cut some big lumps of black bread. Then he took a great saucepan full of soup, that was simmering on the stove, and emptied it into a big wooden bowl. Then he went to the wall where, on three nails, hung three wooden spoons, deep like ladles. There was one big spoon, for old Peter; and two little spoons, one for Vanya and one for Marussia. And all the time that old Peter was getting supper ready he was answering questions and making jokes—old ones, of course, that he made every day—about how plump the children were, and how fat was better to eat than butter, and what the Man in the Moon said when he fell out, and what the wolf said who caught his own tail and ate himself up before he found out his mistake. And Vanya and Marussia danced about the hut and chuckled. Then they had supper, all three dipping their wooden spoons in the big bowl together and eating a tremendous lot of black bread. And, of course, there were scraps for Vladimir and a bone for Bayan. After that they had tea with sugar but no milk, because they were Russians and liked it that way. Then came the stories. Old Peter made another glass of tea for himself, not for the children. His throat was old, he said, and took a lot of keeping wet; and they were young and would not sleep if they drank tea too near bedtime. Then he threw a log of wood into the stove. Then he lit a short little pipe, full of very strong tobacco, called Makhorka, which has a smell like hot tin. And he puffed, and the smoke got in his eyes, and he wiped them with the back of his big hand. All the time he was doing this Vanya and Marussia were snuggling together close by the stove, thinking what story they would ask for, and listening to the crashing of the snow as it fell from the trees outside. Now that old Peter was at home, the noise made them feel comfortable and warm. Before, perhaps, it made them feel a little frightened.“Well, little pigeons, little hawks, little bear cubs, what is it to be?” said old Peter. "We don’t know,” said Marussia. "Long hair, short sense, little she-pigeon,” said old Peter. “All this time and not thought of a story. Would you like the tale of the little Snow Girl who was not loved so much as a hen? ” Not tonight, grandfather,” said Vanya. "We’d like that tale when the snow melts,” said Tonight, we’d like a story we’ve never heard before,” said Vanya. “, well,” said old Peter, combing his great gray beard with his fingers, and looking out at them with twinkling eyes from under his big bushy eyebrows. “Have I ever told you the story of ‘The Silver Saucer and the Transparent Apple’?” “No, no, never,” cried Vanya and Marussia at once. Old Peter took a last pull at his pipe, and Vanya and Marussia wriggled with excitement. Then he drank a sip of tea. Then he began.