FANTASTICAL ADVENTURES – L. Frank Baum Edition (Childhood Essentials Library). Лаймен Фрэнк Баум

      It was wonderful to see so much pie and cake and bread-and-butter and pickles and doughnuts and sandwiches disappear into the mouths of the four innocents and their comparatively innocent mother. The WoggleBug had to add another quarter to the vanished dollar before the score was finally settled; and no sooner had the tribe trooped out of the restaurant than they turned into the open portals of an Ice-Cream Parlor, where they all attacked huge stacks of pale ice-cream and consumed several plates of lady-fingers and cream-puffs.

      Again the WoggleBug reluctantly abandoned a dollar; but the end was not yet. The dear children wanted candy and nuts; and then they warned pink lemonade; and then popcorn and chewing-gum; and always the WoggleBug, after a glance at the entrancing costume, found himself unable to resist paying for the treat.

      It was nearly evening when the widow pleaded fatigue and asked to be taken home. For none of them was able to eat another morsel, and the WoggleBug wearied her with his protestations of boundless admiration.

      “Will you permit me to call upon you this evening?” asked the Insect, pleadingly, as he bade the wearer of the gown goodbye on her doorstep.

      “Sure like!” she replied, not caring to dismiss him harshly; and the happy WoggleBug went home with a light heart, murmuring to himself:

      “At last the lovely plaids are to be my own! The new hat I found at the ball has certainly brought me luck.”

      I am glad our friend the WoggleBug had those few happy moments, for he was destined to endure severe disappointments in the near future.

      That evening he carefully brushed his coat, put on a green satin necktie and a purple embroidered waistcoat, and walked briskly towards the house of the widow. But, alas! as he drew near to the dwelling a most horrible stench greeted his nostrils, a sense of great depression came over him, and upon pausing before the house his body began to tremble and his eyes rolled wildly in their sockets.

      For the wily widow, wishing to escape her admirer, had sprinkled the doorstep and the front walk with insect Exterminator, and not even the WoggleBug’s love for the enchanting checked gown could induce him to linger longer in that vicinity.

      Sick and discouraged, he returned home, where his first act was to smash the luckless hat and replace it with another. But it was some time before he recovered from the horrors of that near approach to extermination, and he passed a very wakeful and unhappy night, indeed.

      Meantime the widow had traded with a friend of hers (who had once been a wash-lady for General Funston) the Wagnerian costume for a crazy quilt and a corset that was nearly as good as new and a pair of silk stockings that were not mates. It was a good bargain for both of them, and the wash-lady being colored—that is, she had a deep mahogany complexion—was delighted with her gorgeous gown and put it on the very next morning when she went to deliver the wash to the brick-layer’s wife.

      Surely it must have been Fate that directed the WoggleBug’s steps; for, as he walked disconsolately along, an intuition caused him to raise his eyes, and he saw just ahead of him his affinity—carrying a large clothes-basket.

      “Stop!” he called our, anxiously; “stop, my fair Grenadine, I implore you!”

      The colored lady cast one glance behind her and imagined that Satan had at last arrived to claim her. For she had never before seen the WoggleBug, and was horrified by his sudden and unusual appearance.

      “Go ‘way, Mars’ Debbil! Go ‘way an’ lemme ‘lone!” she screeched, and the next minute she dropped her empty basket and sped up the street with a swiftness that only fear could have lent her flat-bottomed feet.

      Nevertheless, the WoggleBug might have overtaken her had he not stepped into the clothes-basket and fallen headlong, becoming so tangled up in the thing that he rolled over and over several times before he could free himself. Then, when he had picked up his hat, which was utterly ruined, and found his cane, which had flown across the street, his mahogany charmer in the Wagnerian Plaids had disappeared from view.

      With a sigh at his latest misfortune he returned home for another hat, and the agitated wash-lady, imagining that the devil had doubtless been lured by her beautiful gown, made haste to sell it to a Chinaman who lived next door.

      Its bright colors pleased the Chink, who ripped it up and made it over into a Chinese robe, with flowing draperies falling to his heels. He dressed himself in his new costume and, being proud of possessing such finery, sat down on a bench outside his door so that everyone passing by could see how magnificent he looked.

      It was here the wandering WoggleBug espied him; and, recognizing at once the pattern and colors of his infatuating idol, he ran up and sat beside the Chinaman, saying in agitated but educated tones:

      “Oh my prismatic personification of gigantic gorgeousness!—again I have found you!”

      “Sure tling,” said the Chink with composure.

      “Be mine! Only be mine!” continued the enraptured WoggleBug.

      The Chinaman did not quite understand.

      “Two dlolla a day,” he answered, cautiously.

      “Oh, joy,” exclaimed the insect in delight; “I can then own you for a day and a half—for I have three dollars left. May I feel your exquisite texture, my dearest Fabric?”

      “No flabic. No feelee. You too flesh. I man Chinaman!” returned the Oriental calmly.

      “Never mind that! ‘Tis your beautiful garment I love. Every check in that entrancing dress is a joy and a delight to my heart!”

      While the WoggleBug thus raved, the Chinaman’s wife (who was Mattie De Forest before she married him) heard the conversation, and decided this love affair had gone far enough. So she suddenly appeared with a broomstick, and with it began pounding the WoggleBug as fiercely as possible—and Mattie was no weakling, I assure you.

      The first blow knocked the Insect’s hat so far over his eyes that he was blinded; but, resolving not to be again cheated out of his darling, he grasped firmly hold of the Wagnerian plaids with all four hands, and tore a goodly portion of it from the frightened Celestial’s body.

      Next moment he was dashing down the street, with the precious cloth tucked securely underneath an arm, and Mattie, being in slight dishabile, did not think best to follow him.

      The triumphant joy of the WoggleBug can well be imagined. No more need he chase the fleeting vision of his love—no more submit to countless disappointments in his efforts to approach the object of his affection. The gorgeous plaids were now his own (or a large part of them, anyway), and upon reaching the quiet room wherein he lodged he gloated long and happily over its vivid coloring and violent contrasts of its glowing hues. To the eyes of the WoggleBug nothing could be more beautiful, and he positively regretted the necessity of ever turning his gaze from this bewitching treasure.

      That he might never in the future be separated from the checks, he folded them, with many loving caresses, into compact form, and wrapped them in a sheet of stout paper tied with cotton cord that had a love-knot at the end. Wherever he went, thereafter, he carried the parcel underneath his left upper arm, pressed as closely to his heart as possible. And this sense of possession was so delightful that our WoggleBug was happy as the day is long.

      In the evening his fortunes changed with cruel abruptness.

      He walked out to take the air, and noticing a crowd people standing in an open space and surrounding a huge brown object, our WoggleBug stopped to learn what the excitement was about.

      Pushing his way through the crowd, and hugging his precious parcel, he soon reached the inner circle of spectators and found they had assembled to watch a balloon ascension. The Professor who was to go up with the balloon had not yet arrived; but the balloon itself was fully inflated and tugging hard at the rope that held it, as if anxious to escape the blended breaths of the people that crowded around. Just below the balloon was a small basket, attached to the netting of the gas-bag, and the WoggleBug was bending over the edge of this, to see what it contained, when a warning cry from the