Page:Rootabaga Pigeons by Carl Sandburg.pdf/189

 shirt was in the package, and he was taking it back to the snoox and the gringo because he promised he wouldn't keep it and it belonged to the snoox and the gringo and they only rented it to him. The last I saw of him he was hot-footing it pitty-pat pitty-pat up the street with a package."

The gang of cub ballplayers in the Cigar Store asked the Night Policeman, "Who won the game? Was it the Grand Standers or the Hot Grounders took the gravvy?"

"You can search me for the answer," he told the boys. "If the snoox and the gringo come past the postoffice to-night when I sit on the front steps wondering how so many letters get lost and how so many never get answered, I will ask the snoox and the gringo and if they tell me to-night I'll tell you to-morrow night."

And ever since then when they talk ball talk in the ball towns hiding in the tall grass they