Page:Rootabaga Pigeons by Carl Sandburg.pdf/226

 "He is learning to remember worse and worse and to forget better and better," said the father of Shovel Ears.

Now in that same place far in the south was a little girl with two braids of hair twisted down her back and a face saying, "Here we come—where from?"

And her mother called her Pig Wisps.

Twice a week Pig Wisps ran to the butcher shop for a soup bone. Before starting she crossed her fingers and then the whole way to the butcher shop kept her fingers crossed.

If she met any playmates and they asked her to stop and play crosstag or jackstones or all-around-the-mulberry-bush or the-green-grass-grew-all-around or drop-the-handkerchief, she told them, "My fingers are crossed and I am running to the butcher shop for a soup bone."

One morning running to the butcher shop she bumped into a big queer boy and bumped him flat on the sidewalk.