LITMIR.BIZ

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it strain my joints?” inquired the other.

      “Of course not. It’ll rest them,” declared the boy.

      So Jack tried to sit down; but as soon as he bent his joints farther than usual they gave way altogether, and he came clattering to the ground with such a crash that Tip feared he was entirely ruined.

      He rushed to the man, lifted him to his feet, straightened his arms and legs, and felt of his head to see if by chance it had become cracked. But Jack seemed to be in pretty good shape, after all, and Tip said to him:

      “I guess you’d better remain standing, hereafter. It seems the safest way.”

      “Very well, dear father.” just as you say, replied the smiling Jack, who had been in no wise confused by his tumble.

      Tip sat down again. Presently the Pumpkinhead asked:

      “What is that thing you are sitting on?”

      “Oh, this is a horse,” replied the boy, carelessly.

      “What is a horse?” demanded Jack.

      “A horse? Why, there are two kinds of horses,” returned Tip, slightly puzzled how to explain. “One kind of horse is alive, and has four legs and a head and a tail. And people ride upon its back.”

      “I understand,” said Jack, cheerfully “That’s the kind of horse you are now sitting on.”

      “No, it isn’t,” answered Tip, promptly.

      “Why not? That one has four legs, and a head, and a tail.” Tip looked at the sawhorse more carefully, and found that the Pumpkinhead was right. The body had been formed from a treetrunk, and a branch had been left sticking up at one end that looked very much like a tail. In the other end were two big knots that resembled eyes, and a place had been chopped away that might easily be mistaken for the horse’s mouth. As for the legs, they were four straight limbs cut from trees and stuck fast into the body, being spread wide apart so that the sawhorse would stand firmly when a log was laid across it to be sawed.

      “This thing resembles a real horse more than I imagined,” said Tip, trying to explain. “But a real horse is alive, and trots and prances and eats oats, while this is nothing more than a dead horse, made of wood, and used to saw logs upon.”

      “If it were alive, wouldn’t it trot, and prance, and eat oats?” inquired the Pumpkinhead.

      “It would trot and prance, perhaps; but it wouldn’t eat oats,” replied the boy, laughing at the idea. “And of course it can’t ever be alive, because it is made of wood.”

      “So am I,” answered the man.

      Tip looked at him in surprise.

      “Why, so you are!” he exclaimed. “And the magic powder that brought you to life is here in my pocket.”

      He brought out the pepper box, and eyed it curiously.

      “I wonder,” said he, musingly, “if it would bring the sawhorse to life.”

      “If it would,” returned Jack, calmly for nothing seemed to surprise him “I could ride on its back, and that would save my joints from wearing out.”

      “I’ll try it!” cried the boy, jumping up. “But I wonder if I can remember the words old Mombi said, and the way she held her hands up.”

      He thought it over for a minute, and as he had watched carefully from the hedge every motion of the old witch, and listened to her words, he believed he could repeat exactly what she had said and done.

      So he began by sprinkling some of the magic Powder of Life from the pepperbox upon the body of the sawhorse. Then he lifted his left hand, with the little finger pointing upward, and said: “Weaugh!”

      “What does that mean, dear father?” asked Jack, curiously.

      “I don’t know,” answered Tip. Then he lifted his right hand, with the thumb pointing upward and said: “Teaugh!”

      “What’s that, dear father?” inquired Jack.

      “It means you must keep quiet!” replied the boy, provoked at being interrupted at so important a moment.

      “How fast I am learning!” remarked the Pumpkinhead, with his eternal smile.

      Tip now lifted both hands above his head, with all the fingers and thumbs spread out, and cried in a loud voice: “Peaugh!”

      Immediately the sawhorse moved, stretched its legs, yawned with its chopped-out mouth, and shook a few grains of the powder off its back. The rest of the powder seemed to have vanished into the body of the horse.

      “Good!” called Jack, while the boy looked on in astonishment. “You are a very clever sorcerer, dear father!”

      5. The Awakening of the Sawhorse

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      The SawHorse, finding himself alive, seemed even more astonished than Tip. He rolled his knotty eyes from side to side, taking a first wondering view of the world in which he had now so important an existence. Then he tried to look at himself; but he had, indeed, no neck to turn; so that in the endeavor to see his body he kept circling around and around, without catching even a glimpse of it. His legs were stiff and awkward, for there were no knee-joints in them; so that presently he bumped against Jack Pumpkinhead and sent that personage tumbling upon the moss that lined the roadside.

      Tip became alarmed at this accident, as well as at the persistence of the SawHorse in prancing around in a circle; so he called out:

      “Whoa! Whoa, there!”

      The SawHorse paid no attention whatever to this command, and the next instant brought one of his wooden legs down upon Tip’s foot so forcibly that the boy danced away in pain to a safer distance, from where he again yelled:

      “Whoa! Whoa, I say!”

      Jack had now managed to raise himself to a sitting position, and he looked at the SawHorse with much interest.

      “I don’t believe the animal can hear you,” he remarked.

      “I shout loud enough, don’t I?” answered Tip, angrily.

      “Yes; but the horse has no ears,” said the smiling Pumpkinhead.

      “Sure enough!” exclaimed Tip, noting the fact for the first time. “How, then, am I going to stop him?”

      But at that instant the SawHorse stopped himself, having concluded it was impossible to see his own body. He saw Tip, however, and came close to the boy to observe him more fully.

      It was really comical to see the creature walk; for it moved the legs on its right side together, and those on its left side together, as a pacing horse does; and that made its body rock sidewise, like a cradle.

      Tip patted it upon the head, and said “Good boy! Good Boy!” in a coaxing tone; and the SawHorse pranced away to examine with its bulging eyes the form of Jack Pumpkinhead.

      “I must find a halter for him,” said Tip; and having made a search in his pocket he produced a roll of strong cord. Unwinding this, he approached the SawHorse and tied the cord around its neck, afterward fastening the other end to a large tree. The SawHorse, not understanding the action, stepped backward and snapped the string easily; but it made no attempt to run away.

      “He’s stronger than I thought,” said the boy, “and rather obstinate, too.”

      “Why don’t you make him some ears?” asked Jack. “Then you can tell him what to do.”

      “That’s a splendid idea!” said Tip. “How did you happen to think of it?”

      “Why, I didn’t think of it,” answered

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