It's Your Fairy Tale, You KnowJackson, Elizabeth Rhodes
Science
It's Your Fairy Tale, You Know
Jackson, Elizabeth Rhodes
Boston (Mass.) -- Juvenile fiction; Boys -- Juvenile fiction; Fairy tales
He scudded down the street as fast as his legs could twinkle, and turned
the corner. Which way to go, was the question. A nice-looking lady was
approaching. Wendell politely took off his cap and confronted her as she
reached him. To his surprise, the lady sailed by without twitching a
feature.
“Oh, of course. She can’t see me,” said Wendell. So he slipped off the
cloak and hung it over his arm, and in a moment a grocer’s delivery boy
with a basket came around the curve.
“Say, can you tell me where to get the car for Park Street?” asked
Wendell.
“Sure, kid,” said the boy obligingly. “Keep on to a big house with a
stone wall around it. Then take the first street to the right and you’ll
come out on the car line.”
Wendell thanked him and went on, found the house and the wall and the
street, and there ahead of him were the electric wires. He got to the
corner almost simultaneously with the car, hailed it and jumped on with
a sigh of relief. It was a pay-as-you-enter car. He stood by the box and
slid his hand into his pocket for the necessary dime, to realize with a
shock that he hadn’t a cent with him. These were his cast-off clothes.
He knew it was useless to search the pockets. He remembered he had gone
through them a week ago, when the ice cream-sandwich man was going by.
He grinned at the conductor, feeling very foolish, and dropped off the
car.
Well, of course, he could walk it all right, since he had to. It would
be simple to follow the car tracks. He stuck his hands in his pockets
and started off whistling.
“Hey, kid, you’re dragging your mother’s cape,” said a young fellow who
passed him. Wendell folded the Cloak of Darkness into a better shape for
carrying, then decided to wear it. After he had it on, the inspiration
came to him to board an electric at the next white post, and ride home
free.
Perfectly simple! He got on behind an unsuspecting gentleman and took a
seat near the door. Across the aisle sat a cross-eyed man. Wendell had
always longed for a chance to see how a cross-eyed man worked his eyes,
but he had never been allowed to stare at any one. Now he sat and stared
to his heart’s content, unforbidden and unseen. He stared with such
concentration that he was unaware that another passenger had entered the
car, a very stout old colored woman, until, ouch! she sat right down on
him!
“Laws-ee!” she said, and rose up quickly, and Wendell jumped for another
seat as fast as his crushed condition would permit. The old woman turned
to apologize--to an empty seat! Her jaw dropped in surprise, she glared
all around the car, and then lowered herself cautiously into the seat,
still muttering.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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