John Bangs - Mollie and the Unwiseman Abroad

"Shiver my timbers if it ain't Mollie!" he roared as he caught sight of her. "And Whistlebinkie too – Ahoy there, Fizzledinkie. What's the good word?"

"Where on earth did you come from?" asked Mollie overjoyed.

"I weighed anchor in the home port at seven bells last night; set me course nor-E by sou-sou-west, made for the deep channel running past the red, white and blue buoy on the starboard tack, reefed my galyards in the teeth o' the blithering gale and sneaked aboard while Captain Binks of the good ship Nancy B. was trollin' for oysters off the fishin' banks after windin' up the Port watch," replied the Unwiseman. "It's a great life, ain't it," he added gazing admiringly about him at the wonderful ship and then over the rail at the still more wonderful ocean.

"But how did you come to come?" asked Mollie.

"Well – ye see after you'd said good-bye to me the other day, I was sort of upset and for the first time in my life I got my newspaper right side up and began to read it that way," the old gentleman explained. "And I fell on a story of the briny deep in which a young gentleman named Billy The Rover Bold sailed from the Spanish main to Kennebunkport in a dory, capturing seventeen brigs, fourteen galleons and a pirate band on the way. It didn't say fourteen galleons of what, but thinkin' it might be soda water, it made my mouth water to think of it, so I decided to rent my house and come along. About when do you think we'll capture any Brigs?"

"You rented your house?" asked Mollie in amazement.

"Yes – to a Burgular," said the Unwiseman. "I thought that was the best way out of it. If the burgular has your house, thinks I, he won't break into it, spoiling your locks, or smashing your windows and doors. What he's got likewise moreover he won't steal, so the best thing to do is to turn everything over to him right in the beginning and so save your property. So I advertised. Here it is, see?" And the Unwiseman produced the following copy of his advertisement.

"One of 'em called the next night and he's taken the house for six months," the Unwiseman went on. "He's promised to keep the house clean, to smoke my pipe, look after my Qs and commas, eat my meals regularly, and exercise the umbrella on wet days. It was a very good arrangement all around. He was a very nice polite burgular and as it happened had a lot of business he wanted to attend to right in our neighborhood. He said he'd keep an eye on your house too, and I told him about how to get in the back way where the cellar window won't lock. He promised for sure he'd look into it."

"Very kind of him I'm sure," said Mollie dubiously.

"You'd have liked him very much – nicest burgular I ever met. Had real taking ways," said the Unwiseman.

"Howd-ulike-being-outer-sighter-land?" asked Whistlebinkie.

"Who, me?" asked the Unwiseman. "I wouldn't like it at all. I took precious good care that I shouldn't be neither."

"Nonsense," said Mollie. "How can you help yourself?"

"This way," said the Unwiseman with a proud smile of superiority, taking a bottle from his pocket. "See that?" he added.

"Yes," said Mollie. "What is it?"

"It's land, of course," replied the Unwiseman, holding the bottle up in the light. "Real land off my place at home. Just before I left the house it occurred to me that it would be pleasant to have some along and I took a shovel and went out and got a bottle full of it. It makes me feel safer to have the land in sight all the way over and then it will keep me from being homesick when I'm chasing those Alps down in Swazoozalum."

"Swizz-izzerland!" corrected Whistlebinkie.

"Swit-zer-land!" said Mollie for the instruction of both. "It's not Swazoozalum, or Swizziz-zerland, but Switzerland."

"O I see – rhymes with Hits-yer-land – when the Alp he hits your land, then you think of Switzerland – that it?" asked the Unwiseman.

"Well that's near enough," laughed Mollie. "But how does that bottle keep you from being homesick?"

"Why – when I begin to pine for my native land, all I've got to do is to open the bottle and take out a spoonful of it. 'This is my own, my native land,' the Poet said, and when I look at this bottle so say I. Right out of my own yard, too," said the Unwiseman, hugging the bottle tightly to his breast. "It's queer isn't it how I should find out how to travel so comfortably without having to ask anybody."

"I guess you're a genius," suggested Whistlebinkie.

"Maybe I am," agreed the Unwiseman, "but anyhow you know I just knew what to do as soon as I made up my mind to come along."

Mollie looked at him admiringly.

"Take these goloshes for instance. I'm the only person on board this boat that's got goloshes on," continued the old gentleman, "and yet if the boat went down, how on earth could they keep their feet dry? It's all so simple. Same way with this life preserver – it's nothing but an old bicycle tire I found in your barn, but just think what it would mean to me if I should fall overboard some day."

"Smitey-fine!" whistled Whistlebinkie.

"It is that. All I'll have to do is to sit inside of it and float till they lower a boat after me," said the Unwiseman.

"What have you done about getting sea-sick?" asked Mollie.

"Ah – that's the thing that bothered me as much as anything," ejaculated the Unwiseman, "but all of a sudden it came to me like a flash. I was getting my fishing tackle ready for the trip and when I came to the sinkers, there was the idea as plain as the nose on your face. Six days out, says I, means thirty-seven meals."

"Thirty-seven?" asked Mollie.

"Yes – three meals a day for six days is – ," began the Unwiseman.

"Only eighteen," said Mollie, who for a child of her size was very quick at multiplication.

"So it is," said the Unwiseman, his face growing very red. "So it is. I must have forgotten to set down five and carry three."

"Looks that way," said Whistlebinkie, with a mirthful squeak through the top of his hat. "What you did was to set down three and carry seven."

"That's it," said the Unwiseman. "Three and seven make thirty-seven – don't it?"

"Looked at sideways," said Mollie, with a chuckle.

"I know I got it somehow," observed the Unwiseman, his smile returning. "So I prepared myself for thirty-seven meals. I brought a lead sinker along for each one of them. I'm going to tie one sinker to each meal to keep it down, and of course I won't be sea-sick at all. There was only one other way out of it that I could think of; that was to eat pound-cake all the time, but I was afraid maybe they wouldn't have any on board, so I brought the sinkers instead."

"It sounds like a pretty good plan," said Whistlebinkie. "Where's your State-room?"

"I haven't got one," said the Unwiseman. "I really don't need it, because I don't think I'll go to bed all the way across. I want to sit up and see the scenery. When you've only got a short time on the water and aren't likely to make a habit of crossing the ocean it's too bad to miss any of it, so I didn't take a room."

"I don't think there's much scenery to be seen on the ocean," suggested Mollie. "It's just plain water all the way over."

"O I don't think so," replied the Unwiseman. "I imagine from that story about Billy the Rover there's a lot of it. There's the Spanish main for instance. I want to keep a sharp look out for that and see how it differs from Bangor, Maine. Then once in a while you run across a latitude and a longitude. I've never seen either of those and I'm sort of interested to see what they look like. All I know about 'em is that one of 'em goes up and down and the other goes over and back – I don't exactly know how, but that's the way it is and I'm here to learn. I should feel very badly if we happened to pass either of 'em while I was asleep."