Part 3 (2/2)
”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,” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the Unwiseman, ”but all of a sudden it came to me like a flash. I was getting my fis.h.i.+ng 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.
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