Six Bits Deep Red Roses A Clock A Looking Glass Baggage Pink Peony Spuds the Ballplayer Four Moon Peacocks Frogs Oranges Yellow Silk Handkerchiefs [Illustration] How Deep Red Roses Goes Back and Forth Between the Clock and the Looking Glass One morning when big white clouds were shouldering each other’s shoulders, rolling on the rollers of a big blue sky, Blixie Bimber came along where the Potato Face Blind Man sat shining the brass bickerjiggers on his accordion. “Do you like to shine up the brass bickerjiggers?” asked Blixie. “Yes,” he answered. “One time a long time ago the brass bickerjiggers were gold, but they stole the gold away when I wasn’t looking.” He blinked the eyelids over his eyeballs and said, “I thank them because they took gold they wanted. Brass feels good to my fingers the same as gold.” And he went on shining up the brass bickerjiggers on the accordion, humming a little line of an old song, “To-morrow will never catch up with yesterday because yesterday started sooner.” “Seems like a nice morning with the sun spilling bushels of sunshine,” he said to Blixie, who answered, “Big white clouds are shouldering each other’s shoulders rolling on the rollers of a big blue sky.” “Seems like it’s April all over again,” he murmured, almost like he wasn’t talking at all. “Seems just that way—April all over again,” murmured Blixie, almost like she wasn’t talking at all. So they began drifting, the old man drifting his way, the girl drifting her way, till he drifted into a story. And the story he told was like this and in these words: “Deep Red Roses was a lovely girl with blue skylights like the blue skylights of early April in her eyes. And her lips reminded people of deep red roses waiting in the cool of the summer evening. “She met Shoulder Straps one day when she was young yet. He promised her. And she promised him. But he went away. One of the long wars between two short wars took him. In a far away country, then, he married another girl. And he didn’t come back to Deep Red Roses. “Next came High High Over, one day when she was young yet. A dancer he was, going from one city to another city to dance, spending his afternoons and evenings and late nights dancing, and sleeping in the morning till noon. And when he promised she promised. But he went away to another city and after that another city. And he married one woman and then another woman. Every year there came a new story about one of the new wives of High High Over, the dancer. And while she was young yet, Deep Red Roses forgot all about her promise and the promise of High High Over, the dancer who ran away from her.