10. Three Stories About the Letter X and How It Got into the Alphabet.

People:

An Oyster King
Shovel Ears
Pig Wisps
The Men Who Change the Alphabets

A River Lumber King
Kiss Me
Flax Eyes
Wildcats

A Rich Man
Blue Silver
Her Playmates, Singing

There are six hundred different stories told in the Rootabaga Country about the first time the letter X got into the alphabet and howand why it was. The author has chosen three (3) of the shortest and strangest of those stories and they are told in the next and following pages.

How a Skyscraper and a Railroad Train<<>>Pig Wisps

1: Two Stories told by the Potato Face Blind Man.

The Skyscraper to the Moon
and How the Green Rat with the Rheumatism Ran a Thousand Miles Twice.
Slipfoot and How He Nearly Always
Never Gets What He Goes After.

2: Two Stories about Bugs and Eggs.

Many, Many Weddings
In One Corner House.
Shush Shush, the Big Buff Banty Hen
Who Laid an Egg in the Postmaster’s Hat.

3: Five Stories about Hatrack the Horse, Six Pigeons, Three Wild Babylonian Baboons, Six Umbrellas, Bozo the Button Buster.

How Rag Bag Mammy
Kept Her Secret
How Six Pigeons
Came Back to Hatrack the Horse after Many Accidents and Six Telegrams
How the Three
Wild Babylonian Baboons Went Away in the Rain Eating Bread and Butter
How Six Umbrellas
Took Off Their Straw Hats to Show Respect to the One Big Umbrella
How Bozo the Button Buster
Busted All His Buttons When a Mouse Came

4: Two Stories about Four Boys Who Had Different Dreams

How Googler and Gaggler, the Two Christmas Babies, Came Home with Monkey Wrenches
How Johnny the Wham Sleeps in Money All the Time and Joe the Wimp Shines and Sees Things

5: Two Stories Told By the Potato Face Blind Man about Two Girls with Red Hearts

How Deep Red Roses
Goes Back and Forth between the Clock and the Looking Glass
How Pink Peony
Sent Spuds, the Ballplayer, Up to Pick Four Moons

6: Three Stories About Moonlight, Pigeons, Bees, Egypt, Jesse James, Spanish Onions, the Queen of the Cracked Heads, the King of the Paper Sacks.

How Dippy the Wisp
and Slip Me Liz Came in the Moonshine Where the Potato Face Blind Man Sat with His Accordion
How Hot Balloons
and His Pigeon Daughters Crossed Over into the Rootabaga Country
How Two Sweetheart
Dippies Sat in the Moonlight on a Lumberyard Fence and Heard about the Sooners and the Boomers

7: TWO STORIES Out of the Tall Grass

The Haystack Cricket
and How Things Are Different Up in the Moon Towns
Why the Big Ball Game
between the Hot Grounders and the Grand Standers Was a Hot Game

8: TWO STORIES Out of Oklahoma and Nebraska

The Huckabuck Family
and How They Raised Pop Corn in Nebraska and Quit and Came Back
Yang Yang and Hoo Hoo
, or the Song of the Left Foot of the Shadow of the Goose in Oklahoma

9. ONE STORY about Big People Now and Little People Long Ago

How a Skyscraper
and a Railroad Train Got Picked Up and Carried Away from Pig’s Eye Valley Far in the Pickax Mountains

10. Three Stories About the Letter X and How It Got into the Alphabet