THE LITTLE PARSNIP-MAN.
BY E. F.
ONE year Mrs. Dumpling was ill all the summer, and there was nobody much to tend the kitchen garden, except Dimple.
Dimple was extremely sturdy, but being shorter than the spade, he could not use the spade at all; and he was so very much shorter than a hoe, that the hoe kicked, and generally hit Dimple on the nose; and before summer was out he was so much shorter than the weeds, that when he went to pull them, the weeds felt quite at liberty to turn about and pull him; they’d hang back and pull, and pull, until they got Dimple all excited and puffing, and then they’d suddenly let go his little hands, and down would go Dimple on the ground, over on his back, pulled right off his little roots,—his little feet, I mean,—while the weeds would just swing, and nod, and shake with laughter, and then they would grow—oh,howthey would grow! A little rough pulling at one, if you don’t get pulled clear off your feet and out of your place, is so very good for anybody.
Dimple finally gave up the weeds, and tended the vegetables only. He cultivated them with a stick, scratching along the roots, and making the soil black and loose. One day he sat under a shady row of tall mustard-weeds, and scratched along a line of some feathery green stuff his mamma had sowed. He sat poking the dirt, and thinking what a pretty green plants turned as the dirt was stirred, when suddenly, poking away a big stone, he saw something white, and round, and wrinkled, just like a head,—an old man’s bald head!
“Why,” said Dimple, “who’s here?”
He dug a little, and he came to some sleepy old eyes, all shut, and wrinkled, and peevish.
“Why-ee!” said Dimple. “Itissomebody!”
He dug and dug, and he came to a nose,—an awful big nose.
“Why-ee!” said Dimple. “It’s a Roman nose. I fink it is a grandpa.”
He dug a little mite more, and there were some moustaches growing right out of the big nose. He pulled and pulled with his two forefingers, and loosened them up, and all at once they flopped out of the dirt; and they were two long waxed moustaches.
Dimple was so surprised he said nothing this time, but dug away, almost scared. Pretty soon he found a mouth, a large funny mouth, close up under the nose, and the mouth was dreadful live and quirky.
“Why-ee-ee!” said Dimple. “I fink itissomebody, and he’s waking up!”
For now the eyes did seem to twinkle, and the little bare skull to wink and move its wrinkles up and down.
Dimple dug away again, and found a chin and some straggling beard.
“I fink what it is now,” said Dimple. “Mamma readed about him yes’day. He lives down in the mines. He’s a Kobold, and he wants to get out.”
It was so bad to be stuck fast in the dirt, Dimple dug now just as hard as he could. The little old man himself didn’t help at all to loosen up his two long, slim legs. Finally Dimple, with a mighty effort, and by shutting both eyes hard, pulled them out, and he tumbled over on his back, and the little old man tumbled over onhisback, and lay like one dead.
Then Dimple saw he had no arms. “Dee-me!” said he. “I be’eve he started to bring up some gold, and the other Kobolds ran after him and cut off his arms. Dee-me! I fink what if he has got up so far and beed-ed to deff!”
Dimple scampered in, and his face was so white, and his story so wild, that Mrs. Dumpling managed to walk up into the garden.
Dimple took her to the place; the little old man was there, sure enough. Mrs. Dumpling saw him herself, in a glimmering dazed kind of way, for just one moment,—his twinkling eyes, his bald skull, his Roman nose, his long moustaches, and his straggling beard.
Then she sat down on the grass and laughed.
She picked him up; and the moment she touched him there was an awful transformation. Even Dimple saw it was only a parsnip,—a pronged, ill-shaped, tough old parsnip.
But that night something happened which Dimple never forgot. The old Parsnip-Man came to his bed and spoke to him. But I regret to say that he used many large words which Dimple could not understand.
“Kind sir,” said he, “naturally we are a fine and shapely race,—we, and our cousins the Beets and the Carrots and the Salsify. If we are brought up, as every new generation ought to be, with tender surroundings, and kept out of the company of stones and clods and weeds, we have a dear promise that many of us shall be placed on the dinner-table when children eat, and be changed into rosy cheeks, and white arms, and handsome young bodies, and live a long, merry life above ground in the sunshine. But if we are neglected by those upon whom we are dependent, we are changed underground, and become horrid old fellows, with ugly faces; and when we are pulled up, we are carted away and fed to cattle.
“Do you know what it must be to be fed to cattle?” he roared.
And then, after a moment, he smiled mournfully. “A word to the wise,” he said. The low, pleading tone floated all about Dimple like a cool, green leaf. When he looked up to ask what the “Word” was, the Parsnip-Man had disappeared.
Dimple told his mamma in the morning. Mamma knew the “Word” very well. She said it was too bad, and she would have the parsnip-bed hoed that very day.