Читать книгу The Adventures of Peterkin - Gilbert W. Gabriel - Страница 4

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IKNOW you have all heard of the little man who lived inside a pumpkin. Just why he lived there I don’t exactly remember, but I can’t imagine that he used to sleep so comfortably inside his tiny bowl of a bed-room.

For, when the growly wind took to blowing over the pumpkin patch and set the fat yellow balls of pumpkins swaying from this side to that on their slender vines, poor Peterkin would be jounced clear out of bed and sent spinning round and round the circled pumpkin wall.

“Ugh, ouch!” he would groan. “My poor head’s all bumps and bruises. Ugh, ugh! Why in the name of everything foolish did I ever come to live in a pumpkin? Why didn’t I stay in a sensible house, and live like other folks live? Oh, ouch!” And then, as the wind gave one last roar and his jouncing little home gave one last, extra large somersault on its vine, Peterkin would usually find himself thwacked back into bed again, with his feet on the pillow and his head buried deep in the mattress.

The wind, of course, thought it the greatest fun in the world. The wind was only a jolly playmate, after all—even if he was a bit too rough about it. And the wind could never understand what made Peterkin so angry in the matter.

“Whee! I love to play free and frolic! I love to send the little leaves whirling and the dust mounds swirling, and the heavy laden pine-boughs tossing with sighs. I love to chase the thin gray wisps of mist and the spattering rain-drops as they fall, and to rattle the frosted window panes. Whee! I’m sure I’m more than gentle with Peterkin Pumperkin. I always take care not to snap his anchor stem! I always leave him fast upon his vine. Whee, whiz!”

But then there came a night when myriad snowflakes were falling over the patch. It was more than the mischievous wind could stand. He must get in among those flakes! He must make them jig and dart and dive in crooked merriment!

He rushed down upon them, charging with a trumpet’s roar. And in his wild path he rolled the clumsy pumpkins to this side and that, until their rumble fairly shook the earth.

Poor Peterkin was dozing at his tiny stove, just then—for it was very chilly and shivery inside his Pumperkin house. Whee! whistled the wind. Whee! it shrieked, right over his head.

Then, suddenly, the terrible thing happened! The thing that Peterkin had feared so many years! SNAP! went the stem of Peterkin’s Pumperkin—off the vine, out of the patch—free, anchorless, guideless! And away and away rolled the pumpkin house—down the bumpy field, across the ditch, through the brook, to the top of a steep hill. Then away and away, down, down, down, went Peterkin and his Pumperkin—over and over in swift, dizzy tumbles. Head up, feet down, head down, feet up—down, down, down! Then up another hill. Up, up, to its top, with poor Peterkin turning an unwilling somersault at every yard!

But, oh, at the top of this hill is a precipice—and beyond it, miles below, is the sea. Ah, what will happen now to Peterkin? His pumpkin house reaches the edge of the precipice, seems to linger for a short moment, then shoots far out and down, down into the sea! It sinks beneath the waves, then slowly bobs up again, sinks again, comes up again and floats peacefully away with the tide.

And now, with this strange happening, begin the marvellous adventures of Peterkin in his Pumperkin! Let’s hope that in the next of them the wind, that merry playfellow, will try to be more gentle.