L L Frank Baum (2 page)

Still embracing the plaid costume with two arms, the Woggle-Bug tipped
Mr. Casey over with the other two. But Bridget made a bound and landed
with her broad heel, which supported 180 pounds, firmly upon the
Insect's toes. He gave a yelp of pain and promptly released the lady,
and a moment later he found himself flat upon the floor with a dozen of
the dancers piled upon him—all of whom were pummeling each other with
much pleasure and a firm conviction that the diversion had been planned
for their special amusement.

But the Woggle-Bug had the strength of many men, and when he flopped
the big wings that were concealed by the tails of his coat, the
gentlemen resting upon him were scattered like autumn leaves in a gust
of wind.

The Insect stood up, rearranged his dress, and looked about him.
Bridget had run away and gone home, and the others were still fighting
amongst themselves with exceeding cheerfulness. So the Woggle-Bug
selected a hat which fit him (his own having been crushed out of shape)
and walked sorrowfully back to his lodgings.

"Evidently that was not a lucky hat I wore to the ball," he reflected;
"but perhaps this one I now have will bring about a change in my
fortunes."

Bridget needed money; and as she had worn her brilliant costume once
and allowed her friends to see how becoming it was, she carried it the
next morning to a second-hand dealer and sold it for three dollars in
cash.

Scarcely had she left the shop when a lady of Swedish extraction—a
widow with four small children in her train—entered and asked to look
at a gown. The dealer showed her the one he had just bought from
Bridget, and its gay coloring so pleased the widow that she immediately
purchased it for $3.65.

"Ay tank ets a good deal money, by sure," she said to herself; "but das
leedle children mus' have new fadder to mak mind un tak care dere
mudder like, by yimminy! An' Ay tank no man look may way in das ole
dress I been wearing."

She took the gown and the four children to her home, where she lost no
time in trying on the costume, which fitted her as perfectly as a
flour-sack does a peck of potatoes.

"Das
beau
—tiful!" she exclaimed, in rapture, as she tried to see
herself in a cracked mirror. "Ay go das very afternoon to valk in da
park, for das man-folks go crazy-like ven he sees may fine frocks!"

Then she took her green parasol and a hand-bag stuffed with papers (to
make it look prosperous and aristocratic) and sallied forth to the
park, followed by all her interesting flock.

The men didn't fail to look at her, as you may guess; but none looked
with yearning until the Woggle-Bug, sauntering gloomily along a path,
happened to raise his eyes and see before him his heart's delight the
very identical Wagnerian plaids which had filled him with such
unbounded affection.

"Aha, my excruciatingly lovely creation!" he cried, running up and
kneeling before the widow; "I have found you once again. Do not, I beg
of you, treat me with coldness!"

For he had learned from experience not to unduly startle his charmer at
their first moment of meeting; so he made a firm attempt to control
himself, that the wearer of the checked gown might not scorn him.

The widow had no great affection for bugs, having wrestled with the
species for many years; but this one was such a big-bug and so
handsomely dressed that she saw no harm in encouraging him—especially
as the men she had sought to captivate were proving exceedingly shy.

"So you tank Ay I ban loavely?" she asked, with a coy glance at the
Insect.

"I do! With all my heart I do!" protested the Woggle-Bug, placing all
four hands, one after another, over that beating organ.

"Das mak plenty trouble by you. I don'd could be yours!" sighed the
widow, indeed regretting her admirer was not an ordinary man.

"Why not?" asked the Woggle-Bug. "I have still the seven ninety-three;
and as that was the original price, and you are now slightly worn and
second-handed, I do not see why I need despair of calling you my own."

It is very queer, when we think of it, that the Woggle-Bug could not
separate the wearer of his lovely gown from the gown itself. Indeed, he
always made love directly to the costume that had so enchanted him,
without any regard whatsoever to the person inside it; and the only way
we can explain this remarkable fact is to recollect that the Woggle-Bug
was only a woggle-bug, and nothing more could be expected of him. The
widow did not, of course, understand his speech in the least; but she
gathered the fact that the Woggle-Bug had id money, so she sighed and
hinted that she was very hungry, and that there was a good short-order
restaurant just outside the park.

The Woggle-Bug became thoughtful at this. He hated to squander his
money, which he had come to regard a sort of purchase price with which
to secure his divinity. But neither could he allow those darling checks
to go hungry; so he said:

"If you will come with me to the restaurant, I will gladly supply you
with food."

The widow accepted the invitation at once, and the Woggle-Bug walked
proudly beside her, leading all of the four children at once with his
four hands.

Two such gay costumes as those worn by the widow and the Woggle-Bug are
seldom found together, and the restaurant man was so impressed by the
sight that he demanded his money in advance.

The four children, jabbering delightedly in their broken English,
clambered upon four stools, and the widow sat upon another. And the
Woggle-Bug, who was not hungry (being engaged in feasting his eyes upon
the checks), laid down a silver dollar as a guarantee of good faith.

It was wonderful to see so much pie and cake and bread-and-butter and
pickles and dough-nuts and sandwiches disappear into the mouths of the
four innocents and their comparatively innocent mother. The Woggle-Bug
had to add another quarter to the vanished dollar before the score
was finally settled; and no sooner had the tribe trooped out
restaurant than they turned into the open portals of an Ice-Cream
Parlor, where they all attacked huge stacks of pale ice-cream and
consumed several plates of lady-fingers and cream-puffs.

Again the Woggle-Bug reluctantly abandoned a dollar; but the end was
not yet. The dear children wanted candy and nuts; and then they warned
pink lemonade; and then pop-corn and chewing-gum; and always the
Woggle-Bug, after a glance at the entrancing costume, found himself
unable to resist paying for the treat.

It was nearly evening when the widow pleaded fatigue and asked to be
taken home. For none of them was able to eat another morsel, and the
Woggle-Bug wearied her with his protestations of boundless admiration.

"Will you permit me to call upon you this evening?" asked the Insect,
pleadingly, as he bade the wearer of the gown good-bye on her
door-step.

"Sure like!" she replied, not caring to dismiss him harshly; and the
happy Woggle-Bug went home with a light heart, murmuring to himself:

"At last the lovely plaids are to be my own! The new hat I found at the
ball has certainly brought me luck."

I am glad our friend the Woggle-Bug had those few happy moments, for he
was destined to endure severe disappointments in the near future.

That evening he carefully brushed his coat, put on a green satin
necktie and a purple embroidered waist-coat, and walked briskly towards
the house of the widow. But, alas! as he drew near to the dwelling a
most horrible stench greeted his nostrils, a sense of great depression
came over him, and upon pausing before the house his body began to
tremble and his eyes rolled wildly in their sockets.

For the wily widow, wishing to escape her admirer, had sprinkled the
door-step and the front walk with insect Exterminator, and not even the
Woggle-Bug's love for the enchanting checked gown could induce him to
linger longer in that vicinity.

Sick and discouraged, he returned home, where his first act was to
smash the luckless hat and replace it with another. But it was some
time before he recovered from the horrors of that near approach to
extermination, and he passed a very wakeful and unhappy night, indeed.

Meantime the widow had traded with a friend of hers (who had once been
a wash-lady for General Funston) the Wagnerian costume for a crazy
quilt and a corset that was nearly as good as new and a pair of silk
stockings that were not mates. It was a good bargain for both of them,
and the wash-lady being colored—that is, she had a deep mahogany
complexion—was delighted with her gorgeous gown and put it on the very
next morning when she went to deliver the wash to the brick-layer's
wife.

Surely it must have been Fate that directed the Woggle-Bug's steps;
for, as he walked disconsolately along, an intuition caused him to
raise his eyes, and he saw just ahead of him his affinity—carrying a
large clothes-basket.

"Stop!" he called our, anxiously; "stop, my fair Grenadine, I implore
you!"

The colored lady cast one glance behind her and imagined that Satan had
at last arrived to claim her. For she had never before seen the
Woggle-Bug, and was horrified by his sudden and unusual appearance.

"Go 'way, Mars' Debbil! Go 'way an' lemme 'lone!" she screeched, and
the next minute she dropped her empty basket and sped up the street
with a swiftness that only fear could have lent her flat-bottomed feet.

Nevertheless, the Woggle-Bug might have overtaken her had he not
stepped into the clothes-basket and fallen headlong, becoming so
tangled up in the thing that he rolled over and over several times
before he could free himself. Then, when he had picked up his hat,
which was utterly ruined, and found his cane, which had flown across
the street, his mahogany charmer in the Wagnerian Plaids had
disappeared from view.

With a sigh at his latest misfortune he returned home for another hat,
and the agitated wash-lady, imagining that the devil had doubtless been
lured by her beautiful gown, made haste to sell it to a Chinaman who
lived next door.

Its bright colors pleased the Chink, who ripped it up and made it over
into a Chinese robe, with flowing draperies falling to his heels. He
dressed himself in his new costume and, being proud of possessing such
finery, sat down on a bench outside his door so that everyone passing
by could see how magnificent he looked.

It was here the wandering Woggle-Bug espied him; and, recognizing at
once the pattern and colors of his infatuating idol, he ran up and sat
beside the Chinaman, saying in agitated but educated tones:

"Oh my prismatic personification of gigantic gorgeousness!—again I
have found you!"

"Sure tling," said the Chink with composure.

"Be mine! Only be mine!" continued the enraptured Woggle-Bug.

The Chinaman did not quite understand.

"Two dlolla a day," he answered, cautiously.

"Oh, joy," exclaimed the insect in delight; "I can then own you for a
day and a half—for I have three dollars left. May I feel your
exquisite texture, my dearest Fabric?"

"No flabic. No feelee. You too flesh. I
man
Chinaman!" returned the
Oriental calmly.

"Never mind that! 'Tis your beautiful garment I love. Every check in
that entrancing dress is a joy and a delight to my heart!"

While the Woggle-Bug thus raved, the Chinaman's wife (who was Mattie De
Forest before she married him) heard the conversation, and decided this
love affair had gone far enough. So she suddenly appeared with a
broomstick, and with it began pounding the Woggle-Bug as fiercely as
possible—and Mattie was no weakling, I assure you.

The first blow knocked the Insect's hat so far over his eyes that he
was blinded; but, resolving not to be again cheated out of his darling,
he grasped firmly hold of the Wagnerian plaids with all four hands, and
tore a goodly portion of it from the frightened Celestial's body.

Next moment he was dashing down the street, with the precious cloth
tucked securely underneath an arm, and Mattie, being in slight
dishabile, did not think best to follow him.

The triumphant joy of the Woggle-Bug can well be imagined. No more need
he chase the fleeting vision of his love—no more submit to countless
disappointments in his efforts to approach the object of his affection.
The gorgeous plaids were now his own (or a large part of them, anyway),
and upon reaching the quiet room wherein he lodged he gloated long and
happily over its vivid coloring and violent contrasts of its glowing
hues. To the eyes of the Woggle-Bug nothing could be more beautiful,
and he positively regretted the necessity of ever turning his gaze from
this bewitching treasure.

That he might never in the future be separated from the checks, he
folded them, with many loving caresses, into compact form, and wrapped
them in a sheet of stout paper tied with cotton cord that had a
love-knot at the end. Wherever he went, thereafter, he carried the
parcel underneath his left upper arm, pressed as closely to his heart
as possible. And this sense of possession was so delightful that our
Woggle-Bug was happy as the day is long.

In the evening his fortunes changed with cruel abruptness.

He walked out to take the air, and noticing a crowd people standing in
an open space and surrounding a huge brown object, our Woggle-Bug
stopped to learn what the excitement was about.

Pushing his way through the crowd, and hugging his precious parcel, he
soon reached the inner circle of spectators and found they had
assembled to watch a balloon ascension. The Professor who was to go up
with the balloon had not yet arrived; but the balloon itself was fully
inflated and tugging hard at the rope that held it, as if anxious to
escape the blended breaths of the people that crowded around. Just
below the balloon was a small basket, attached to the netting of the
gas-bag, and the Woggle-Bug was bending over the edge of this, to see
what it contained, when a warning cry from the crowd caused him to
pause and glance over his shoulder.