FullReads

Now, I was seized with a great desire to see the illustrious Panjandrum for myself, and to know what he had to say of that wonderful bag of gold that was to be found at the place where the rainbow touched the ground. And so I fell to work with the happy boys and girls, looking for a one-eyed beetle and a four-leaved clover. The clover was soon found, but it was a long time before we got the beetle. At last we came to a log on which two of that sort of beetles that children call “pinch-bugs” were fighting. Whether they were prize-fighters, engaged in a combat for one thousand dollars a side, or whether they were fighting a duel about some affair of honor, I do not know; but I did notice that they fought most brutally, scratching away savagely on each other’s hard shells, without doing a great deal of damage, however. But one of them had lost one eye in the fight, and so we seized him and made off, leaving the other to snap his tongs together in anger because he had nobody to pinch. It must be a dreadful thing to want to hurt somebody and have nobody to hurt.

When we had gone some distance, we came to a gate that had a very curious sign over it. It read, “The Great Panjandrum Himself.” There was a Garuly with a club standing by the gate, and a Pickaninny, in a blue coat with a long tail, hopping around on top of it. We showed the one-eyed beetle and the four-leaved clover, and the Garuly immediately hit the gate a ringing blow with his club, and shouted, “Beetle! beetle! beetle!” in a wonderfully sharp and squeaking voice, while the Pickaninny on top jerked a little bell rope, and sung out “Clover.” Then we could see through the gate a Joblily lifting his head up out of a pond, inside the enclosure.

“How many eyes?” he asked.

“One,” said the Garuly.

“How many leaves?” he said, again.

“Four,” returned the Pickaninny.

“Then let them in that they may see the Great Panjandrum himself, and learn whether there be a bag of gold at the end of the rainbow.” Saying this the Joblily went under the water and the gate opened.

We passed three gates, that were opened in the same manner, and found ourselves in front of a queer old house, with seventy-seven gables and ever so many doors, and over every door was written, “The Great Panjandrum Himself.” There was a great bustle about the place, dried-up Garulies running around, dandy-looking Pickaninnies hopping about, and Joblilies swimming in the lake. We asked what it all meant, and were told that “she was going to marry the barber;” and then they all tittered, and we could not for the life of us tell what this pother meant. When we told a Garuly that we wanted to see the Great Panjandrum himself, and to find out whether there was a bag of gold at the end of the rainbow, he took our one-eyed beetle, and gave the four-leaved clover to a Pickaninny. Together they took them into the house, and a Joblily came out in a moment to tell us that the Great Panjandrum was having his little round button-at-the-top brushed up, and that if we chose we could wait for him in the museum.

The museum was a queer place. It was just inside the seventy-seventh gable of the house. There was an old Garuly who acted as showman. We first stopped before a cage that contained a crazy mouse. “This,” said the showman, “is the mouse that ran up the clock. Just as he got up there, the clock struck one, and though the poor fellow ran back again, he has never been right since. This long slender cow, that you see, has a great taste for music. She is the one that jumped over the moon when the cat played the fiddle. The cat has never been allowed to play since. This is the little dog that laughed on that occasion. He was so much amused that he has never been able to get his face straight since. In this pot you see some of the cold plum porridge, with the eating of which the man in the South burnt his mouth. Here is a portrait of the man in the moon, when he came down too soon to inquire the way to Norwich. In one of the other gables of this house I can show you Mother Goose’s cap frill. And here is the arrow with which Cock Robin was cruelly murdered by the sparrow. This is the original and genuine arrow; all others are humbugs. This is the bone that Mother Hubbard went to look for, but failed to find. Here are the skates on which the