Part 3

But at last, when the old bear had roared loud and alarmingly at the children (who stopped laughing then), when he had stood on his head and shown his teeth and rolled a hoop and done a great many other astounding things, Tubby Tim said abruptly, “That’s all”, and led him out. But the party wasn’t over yet by a good deal, for there was still the puppet show, which Tubby Tim now started to make ready.

Jack and Jill and Humpty Dumpty down in the Dumpty house meanwhile were having a quiet little game of “Button, button” when they heard a noise at the door.

“What’s that?” asked Jack.

“The Lady Wind,” answered Jill. “March is her month, you know.”

“It sounds more like a dog than a lady,” said Jack.

“Ho, ho,” scoffed Jill, “you don’t even know wind when you hear it.” With which Miss Jill flounced to the door and flung it wide open. But goodness, what was that in the doorway? No Lady Wind was that. No dog either. But a _bear_ that stood before her, yellow-eyed and open-mouthed!

“Oh!” gasped Jill faintly.

“Oh, oh!” breathed Jack and Humpty together.

The bear ambled into the room.

“Run,” cried Jack to Jill. “Run upstairs and shut the door tight, or he’ll eat you!”

“But he’ll eat you too! Come along,” whispered Jill.

Then they both looked at Humpty Dumpty, who sat quaking and white in his chair. For Humpty could not run, of course, and he saw himself a fine meal for that open mouth.

“No, we must stay with Humpty,” said Jill, shivering with fear.

“Of course,” answered Jack, trembling.

“Perhaps if we all fight him, we can get him out,” suggested Jill.

“Yes, come on, let’s fight him,” replied Jack.

“I can’t fight,” said Humpty from his chair, “but I can glare mighty hard. I’ll glare at him, Jill.”

“Yes, you glare, Humpty Dumpty,” said Jill encouragingly.

Jack by this time had rolled up his sleeves, ready for battle, and Jill, flinging back the hair from her eyes, rushed at the bear headlong. But what was that bear doing, anyway, if he were not rubbing against Jill’s knees with the affection of an old family cat? What was he pawing at her so softly, so gently for, if it were not because he wanted her to play with him? Why did he look up at her with those funny little yellow eyes, if it were not to reassure her as to his good intentions?

“Why,” cried Jill, “I believe he’s a pet bear!”

“I think he is!” answered Jack.

“I wonder if he’d like to be patted,” ventured Humpty, putting a timid hand on Bumbo’s back. The bear dropped on his back and pawed playfully in the air.

“He does want to play,” cried Humpty Dumpty.

What a fine playfellow he was, too, that Bumbo bear, as the three children romped with him there in Mrs. Dumpty’s back parlor. How he rolled and pawed and growled--just a pretend-growl, though; you could tell he didn’t mean a thing by it. How he tumbled and jumped and trotted around the room. He even seemed to understand that Humpty could not play as the other children could, but went to Humpty’s chair and nosed and pawed around so amusingly that the poor invalid quite forgot himself in his delight.

The Punch-and-Judy show was meanwhile progressing at the palace, and Judy had just given Punch a mighty cuff on the cheek, to the infinite pleasure of the audience, when Mr. Claus, who had laughed until the tears came, began to fish for his pocket handkerchief. But, as he fished, his eye was arrested by a startling vision at the door.

“Great snakes!” he roared suddenly.

Tubby Tim dropped his puppets and everybody looked up quickly.

“Saints preserve us!” shrieked Mrs. Grundy.

And immediately there arose such a bellowing and crying, such a tumbling of chairs and confusion of figures, as to make Old King Cole’s birthday party look like a riot instead. Mr. Horner was seen to throw off his coat in great haste, Simple Simon began to call loudly and insistently for help, Mrs. Dumpty started to faint, then thought better of it, and came to again. As for the Queen of Hearts, that royal lady straightway went into a fine fit of hysterics, deportment which she considered highly becoming to queens in time of stress.

And what do you suppose was the cause of all this uproar? What was this vision in the doorway that had suddenly set all of Pudding Lane to screaming and bawling?

It was nothing more than our friend Bumbo, who stood in the doorway blinking soberly, with Humpty Dumpty on his back and Jack and Jill on each side of him. Which, you’ll have to admit, was pretty much of a surprise for people who had supposed that the bear was snoozing in the pantry; and which looked indeed like a dangerous business to folks that didn’t know what a very friendly bear Bumbo was.

But so smiling and serene were those three children, so extremely placid was Bumbo himself, that it finally became apparent that there was really nothing to howl about. And so at last the noise did subside somewhat, save for the exceedingly loud sniffling of Jill’s mother, who was having a little weep all to herself, and quite naturally too.

Then Jill explained the business.

“He was such a friendly bear,” she ended, nodding brightly at Tubby Tim, “so well-trained, that Jack and I thought there would be nothing easier than to bring Humpty up here on his back. And it was; it was as easy as pie. And here he is.”

But Mr. Claus had started up suddenly at the mention of “pie” and bolted through the assemblage and out of the door. Old King Cole looked over at Mrs. Claus in a rather annoyed manner.

“What’s happened now, Mrs. Claus?” he asked crustily. “Is your husband ill, perhaps?”

“Well, I wouldn’t know, your Majesty,” replied Mrs. Claus, who, if the truth must be told, was deeply ashamed of her husband’s odd company manners. “He was all right when we left home,” and to herself she muttered that it wasn’t her fault if the man acted like a zany. Do you know what a zany is? Well, Mrs. Claus didn’t either, but she supposed it was some kind of animal, and she liked to apply the word to Mr. Claus in what she called his “off” moments.

But bless you, it was Mrs. Claus who was having the off moment this time, for what the baker had gone for was the secret, a thing that everybody had completely forgotten in the hubbub and excitement. So that not only Old King Cole, but everybody else was surprised when Mr. Claus came strutting back with it, the secret, in his hands. When they did see it, they remembered again, and all started to sing a verse that Mrs. Grundy had composed for the occasion, which began, “Sing a song of sixpence, pocket full of rye.” And now you know, don’t you, what the surprise was that Mr. Claus had baked for Old King Cole’s birthday? And sure enough, when that merry old soul cut open his birthday pie, out flew the four and twenty blackbirds and began to sing; and, as Mrs. Grundy said, was that not a dainty dish to set before a king?

Old King Cole thought it was. He was the most surprised and delighted man you ever saw, and as the birds flew around the room and sang, he became more charmed and bewildered than ever, so that he really was in no condition to make a speech when the people called for one. But he arose just the same and, taking off his crown, fumbled nervously with it, as he tried to think of something to say. His people the meanwhile beamed loyally at him, so happy that they had really pleased Old King Cole, who was always doing something to please them.

“Friends,” began the King, “I am deeply obliged--” Then he stopped and burst into a hearty laugh, which rang and reverberated down the great halls and rooms of the palace until the building almost shook.

And that was as far as Old King Cole ever got, for every time he’d try to sober down and go on with the speech, laughter overcame him, until at last all the people there began to laugh just to see him. They roared, they shook, they rocked with laughter, did those good people of Pudding Lane, until it began to look as if they would never get their faces straight again, never get their breath again, never stop holding their sides. Even the butcher left off frowning, the baker stopped looking dismal, the candlestick-maker ceased bowing, as they all laughed there together. And of course Jack and Jill laughed, and Humpty Dumpty, too, for they were the ones to whom it was the most fun of all, because they were the ones who had nearly missed the party.

And let me tell you something. The bear laughed too. He didn’t make a noise about it, and he didn’t shake, but there was a look in his eye that was plainly a look of laughter, and there was a twist to his mouth, as he stood there by Tubby Tim’s legs, that was unmistakably a grin. Yes, Bumbo laughed too. And if anybody wants to know, he laughed many times after that as he thought of King Cole’s birthday party and of his part in the whole performance. For, of course, if Bumbo had not trotted off adventuring as he did, Humpty Dumpty would never have got to the party, and if--oh, well, he did go trotting off, so what’s the use of if-ing about it?

IV

SIMPLE SIMON HAS HIS DAY

It had seemed to the children of Pudding Lane that April Fool’s Day would never, never come, they had been waiting for it so long; and now that it had come, blest if it wasn’t raining pitchforks, as Mrs. Claus said. And blest if it wasn’t. It really did look like pitchforks, that rain, as it came slanting down in sharp, shining spears, splash, splash, splash, as fast as it could come. It really looked as if the sun would never shine in Pudding Lane again, for surely no sun would be foolish enough even to try to break through all that darkness and wetness and gloom.

And so, if you had been a frog in a puddle on Pudding Lane that morning, you would have seen noses pressed tight against every window there and disappointed eyes fastened sadly on the rainy world outside. You might even have seen rain in those eyes themselves, though I wouldn’t be positive of that. That roundish nose there against the first window was Humpty Dumpty’s; the turned-up one was Jill’s; the straight little pretty one was Miss Muffett’s; all those pert affairs sticking out of the buttonholes of the Shoe were no others than the noses of the children of the Old Woman Who Lived there.

The only nose that was not plastered against a window was Simple Simon’s and the reason that Simple Simon’s nose was not there was because Simple Simon himself was out in the rain, and his nose was with him. Yes, that foolish fellow was standing in front of the butcher shop, and as composedly as if it were the sun, and not the rain, that was beating down on his head. But why was he holding that long thick rope so carefully in his right hand? And what was that tiny object on the walk to which his eyes were directed so intently?

That object seemed to be a purse, a very, very small purse--oh, now we know what poor Simple Simon thought he was doing, don’t we? He thought he was going to fool somebody with that old, old trick. He thought somebody would come along pretty soon, stoop to pick up the pocketbook, and that he, the clever Simon, would jerk it out of reach. He could see now, in his mind’s eye, how silly the somebody would look, and he snickered there to himself at the mere thought of that delicious moment. Oh, Simon, Simon! As if anybody with half an eye would not have seen the rope long before he saw the wee pocketbook. As if anybody would have been apt to come strolling along in the rain, anyway! Ah, me, I’m afraid Simple Simon’s wits do not improve much with the years.

Well, it kept on raining and Simple Simon kept on standing there and the rest of the Pudding Lane children kept on looking forlornly at the rain, when whirr, swish, plop,--down dropped Mother Goose on the gander’s back, directly in front of Simple Simon. Simple Simon wrenched his eyes a moment from the purse to smile swiftly and delightedly at the beloved old lady, who now hardly looked like herself, so drenched and dripping was she.

“Good morning, Simon,” said Mother Goose, as the gander shook a shower of water from his back.

Simon’s smile waxed wider.

“Morning, mum,” he answered with a bow, then straightened up and sent his eyes flying back to the purse. He didn’t want anybody to come along and pick it up when he wasn’t looking, you see! Mother Goose regarded him curiously for a moment.

“Fooling somebody, Simple Simon?” she asked.

“Yes’m,” replied Simple Simon gleefully.

Mother Goose laughed softly.

“Well, I guess it’s Simple Simon you’re fooling,” she said, and ran into the Clauses’ next door.

Simple Simon meditated a while over what Mother Goose had just said and was highly pleased. How funny that was, he thought, to be fooling yourself! For, of course, Simple Simon did not mind in the least being the butt of his own joke. And if he didn’t mind, I suppose we needn’t. Only it does seem like a queer kind of April Fool’s trick to go to all that trouble just to fool yourself, doesn’t it?

Inside the cozy little kitchen at the Clauses’ Mother Goose dried her clothes and visited comfortably with her daughter, Mrs. Claus, and the rest of the family.

“My goodness, Santa,” she exclaimed, “you _are_ a long-faced little boy! And the twins! Why, what can be the matter with these children, Nellie?” She turned to her daughter, “Are they ill?”

“It’s April Fool’s Day, Mother Goose,” spoke up little Santa.

“I know that,” replied his grandmother promptly. “And I, for one, think that the Weather Man has done a fine job of fooling all you children.”

Santa Claus looked up surprised.

“Do you suppose that’s why he sent the rain?” he asked Mother Goose.

“Not a doubt of it in the world,” answered the old lady vigorously. “The Weather Man has to have a little fun, you know. And I’ll venture he’s laughing fit to kill at the sight of your doleful chops.”

Here Mother Goose laughed merrily, and Santa Claus tried manfully to laugh too; but it’s hard to laugh when the joke’s on you, and I’m afraid he didn’t make a very good job of it.

“Maybe he’ll fool you again and send the sun pretty soon,” suggested Mrs. Claus. She felt pretty sorry for the children, did Mrs. Claus, and she was surprised that Mother Goose did not seem more sympathetic.

“Nonsense,” said Mother Goose tartly. “I say, you people are serious-minded folk for such a day as April Fool’s. You must take a joke better than this, you know, or you’ll spoil the Weather Man’s fun entirely. Why, I shall be ashamed to show my face up there at the Weather Man’s house if he thinks my grandchildren don’t know how to take a joke!”

“Are you going up to see the Weather Man?” asked Mrs. Claus.

“I’m on my way there now,” Mother Goose told her.

“And what about the Man in the Moon?” asked Mrs. Claus, smirking at the baker, who tried his best to smirk back.

“The Man in the Moon is suffering a temporary eclipse,” replied the old lady sharply, at which Mrs. Claus and Mr. Claus both laughed heartily, and Santa wondered what kind of disease an eclipse was, and if it hurt as much as the mumps did.

“As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives, Mr. Claus,” said Mother Goose casually to her son-in-law.

Mr. Claus jumped out of his chair.

“Seven wives!” he exclaimed. “Great snakes, Mother Goose, seven wives! Why, what would a man want with _seven_ of ’em--that is--oh, dear, seven!” Clearly Mr. Claus was greatly agitated over this piece of news.

“But they weren’t his wives, Mr. Claus,” added Mother Goose. “They were his brothers’ wives. Ha, ha, April Fool!” cried Mother Goose. At which she and Mrs. Claus and the children shouted with delight, as poor Mr. Claus grinned foolishly and wished he hadn’t been so quick to bite at Mother Goose’s bait.

But while all this was going on in the Clauses’ house, Simple Simon was playing another joke all by himself outside. For it had occurred to him that it would be the best possible fun to play a joke on old Mother Goose herself. And so, what did Simple Simon do but step softly around to the shed where the old lady had left her gander? What did he do but take that gander and carry him into The-House-that-Jack-Built, that big uninhabited house a few doors away? What did he do but hide the gander there and then come out on to Pudding Lane again, looking as wicked and proud of himself as you please?

“Well,” said Mother Goose, when she went out to the shed and found that the gander was not there, “this is a pretty pickle.”

Mrs. Claus agreed that it was a pretty pickle, but Mr. Claus differed a bit with the ladies and called it a “fine how-do-you-do.” Anyway what they all meant was that it wasn’t a pretty pickle, or even a fine how-do-you-do, but that it was instead a very serious thing for Mother Goose to lose her gander. So they started straightway to hunt the gander, but although they searched and searched and called and called that bird, they could not find him in all of Pudding Lane. And at last they came back to the house, drenched with rain, and sat down in a gloomy circle around the stove.

“Whatever will you do without the gander, Mother Goose?” asked Mrs. Claus.

“Do?” repeated Mother Goose with some asperity. “Well, I’ll just stay here the rest of my days, I suppose. I certainly can’t fly around the world with nothing to fly on, can I?”

“But what will the Weather Man think when you don’t appear for your visit?”

“Goodness only knows,” answered Mother Goose. “He’ll think something, you may be sure. And we’ll know soon enough what he thinks. If he’s angry, he might even send a tornado. Oh, don’t shiver now, baker. It hasn’t struck us yet. What _is_ coming over that bird? He acts like a loon sometimes. I really think I’ll have to get myself a fine turkey gobbler to ride on. They have more sense than ganders.”

Mother Goose would not have scolded and fussed like this at the poor absent gander had she known what a flutter that bird was in himself. For the gander had not run away at all, but had been taken by Simple Simon entirely against his will, and now as he stood in The-House-that-Jack-Built, tied fast to a bedpost, his were harsh and desperate thoughts. To think that he had been tricked like this by that absurd Simple Simon, he of all fowls the most trustworthy, the most sagacious. Tied to a bedpost indeed! What humiliation, what degradation! The poor gander squirmed and writhed with the bitter shame of it; but he might as well have stood still, for he was tied with that very rope Simple Simon had used for his other joke, and that rope, as we know, was a very substantial affair, such as no mere gander could break.

But while Mother Goose fussed and the gander squirmed, one person was laughing aloud at the fun of it all, and that person was, of course, Simple Simon. He could hardly contain himself as he stood there in the rain and thought about it. And to tell the truth, Mother Goose and Mr. Claus _had_ looked pretty funny as they ran down Pudding Lane, calling the gander. Mother Goose, indeed, always looked funny when she ran, for the good old lady was so accustomed to riding that she took very ill to running. But when she ran in a rainstorm, as she did on this day, she was just a little more ridiculous than ever, with her long skirts wound damply around her legs, her glasses streaming with water, her feet in Mr. Claus’s enormous rubber boots which sloshed, sloshed, sloshed.

As for Mr. Claus, he was not quite so funny until you noticed the cascade of rain that came spouting down on his nose through a hole in his umbrella, and then he became very funny indeed. And the really ludicrous thing about that was that the more Mr. Claus tried to dodge the waterfall, the faster it came through the hole; and the more he shifted the umbrella around, the more accurately did the waterfall strike him on the very tip-tip of his nose. Yes, that was very amusing, and Simple Simon laughed himself weak now as he remembered it. All the other children at the windows had laughed at the sight too, though they did not know why Mr. Claus and Mother Goose were out in the rain like that. They had paid no attention to Simon and his tricks. Nobody ever did.

Up in his home the Weather Man was becoming decidedly worried at the non-arrival of his expected guest, Mother Goose, and he confessed to the Weather Woman, his wife, that he was afraid something was terribly, terribly wrong.

“She always keeps her engagements,” he said. “She is a most punctual woman.”

“Perhaps she is ill,” suggested the Weather Woman.

“She’s never been ill in her life,” said the Weather Man.

“No sign she never will be,” retorted the Weather Woman.

Just then the Weather Girl and the Weather Boy came in, those two hardy children of the Weather Man.

“Where’s Mother Goose?” they demanded.

“Not here,” replied the Weather Man.

“Didn’t come,” said the Weather Woman.

“Not here! Didn’t come!” repeated the Weather Children. “Why, what’s the matter? Is the rain too much for her?”

The Weather Man looked thoughtful at this suggestion, then turned to his wife.

“Weather Woman,” he addressed her, “do you suppose that this rain could possibly be the reason for Mother Goose’s failure to appear?”

“I shouldn’t wonder a bit,” replied the Weather Woman. “You know how those earth-people are about rain. I declare, sometimes I think they’ll never get used to it, the way they carry umbrellas in the rain, and wear waterproofs against it, and stay at home because of it, as if a little water once in a while would hurt the dear creatures!”

“Well,” spoke the Weather Man, “if that’s the reason that Mother Goose hasn’t come, we’ll have to stop the rain, that’s all. Weather Children,” he ordered, “kindly shut off the rain and turn on the sun. Perhaps we’ve fooled the children of Pudding Lane long enough, anyway.”

So that is how it happened that three minutes later, Pudding Lane found itself bathed in clear, sparkling sunshine which left no sign of the previous rain except the puddles in the street, the gently dripping trees, and some little ruffled-up birds, who shook themselves furiously in the sun and sang loud songs of thanksgiving that the downpour was over. And that is how it happened that all the children came tumbling out of their homes pell-mell as they did and began fooling each other as fast as ever they could to make up for lost time.

Such jokes as those children played too! There was Handy-Spandy, Jack-a-Dandy, for example, who really was such easy prey it was almost too bad to fool him. For when Santa Claus offered the greedy fellow a nice plum cake, or what looked like a plum cake, Handy-Spandy just grabbed it and sank his teeth into it without a single question--without even much of a thank-you, though I guess that mumble in his throat was meant for a thank-you. And when he bit down into the cake, oh, how the children screamed, for it wasn’t a plum cake at all, but a cotton cake, which Mr. Claus had made especially for the children to fool Handy with on that first day of April.

They fooled Santa Claus too, telling him that Judy wanted him down at the Shoe; but when Santa ran as fast as he could run down to the shoe, there was nothing waiting there for him but a big sign which said, “April Fool, Santa!” Which did surprise that little boy vastly, for he had forgotten he could be fooled, so busy was he trying to fool other people.

The children had a good deal of fun with Tom, Tom, the piper’s son, for when he wasn’t looking, Johnny Bo-Peep pinned a big card on Tom’s back which read, “Please to kick me, my dears!” And then when the children proceeded to obey the injunction, poor Tom looked so bewildered and foolish that it almost seemed as if that were the very funniest joke of all.

Oh, everybody was fooled good and plenty, and great was the noise, the laughter and shouting. And at last, when all the tricks had been exhausted, and when the children were exhausted too, out came Mother Goose from the Clauses’ house.