would tell the people of
the west Rootabaga Country. That was all he knew, he said, and if
there was any more he would tell it.

And the fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers and uncles and
aunts of the White Horse Girl and the Blue Wind Boy wondered and
talked often about whether the Gray Man on Horseback made up the story
out of his head or whether it happened just like he told it.

Anyhow this is the story they tell sometimes to the young people of
the west Rootabaga Country when the dishes are washed at night and the
cool of the evening has come in summer or the lamps and fires are lit
for the night in winter.

[Illustration]

What Six Girls with Balloons Told the
Gray Man on Horseback

Once there came riding across the Rootabaga Country a Gray Man on
Horseback. He looked as if he had come a long ways. He looked like a
brother to the same Gray Man on Horseback who said he had seen the
White Horse Girl and the Blue Wind Boy.

He stopped in the Village of Cream Puffs. His gray face was sad and
his eyes were gray deep and sad. He spoke short and seemed strong.
Sometimes his eyes looked as if they were going to flash, but instead
of fire they filled with shadows.

Yet--he did laugh once. It did happen once he lifted his head and face
to the sky and let loose a long ripple of laughs.

On Main Street near the Roundhouse of the Big Spool, where they wind
up the string that pulls the light little town back when the wind
blows it away, there he was riding slow on his gray horse when he met
six girls with six fine braids of yellow hair and six balloons apiece.
That is, each and every one of the six girls had six fine long braids
of yellow hair and each braid of hair had a balloon tied on the end. A
little blue wind was blowing and the many balloons tied to the braids
of the six girls swung up and down and slow and fast whenever the blue
wind went up and down and slow and fast.

For the first time since he had been in the Village, the eyes of the
Gray Man filled with lights and his face began to look hopeful. He
stopped his horse when he came even with the six girls and the
balloons floating from the braids of yellow hair.

"Where you going?" he asked.

"Who--hoo-hoo? Who--who--who?" the six girls cheeped out.

"All six of you and your balloons, where you going?"

"Oh, hoo-hoo-hoo, back where we came from," and they all turned their