night the stars look like numbers,
look like the arithmetic writing of a girl going to school and just
beginning arithmetic.

It was this kind of a night Henry Hagglyhoagly was walking down a
country road on his way to the home of Susan Slackentwist, the
daughter of the rutabaga king near the Village of Liver-and-Onions.
When Henry Hagglyhoagly turned his face up to look at the sky it
seemed to him as though the sky came down close to his nose, and there
was a writing in stars as though some girl had been doing arithmetic
examples, writing number 4 and number 7 and 4 and 7 over and over
again across the sky.

"Why is it so bitter cold weather?" Henry Hagglyhoagly asked himself,
"if I say many bitter bitters it is not so bitter as the cold wind and
the cold weather."

"You are good, mittens, keeping my fingers warm," he said every once
in a while to the wool yarn mittens on his hands.

The wind came tearing along and put its chilly, icy, clammy clamps on
the nose of Henry Hagglyhoagly, fastening the clamps like a nipping,
gripping clothes pin on his nose. He put his wool yarn mittens up on
his nose and rubbed till the wind took off the chilly, icy, clammy
clamps. His nose was warm again; he said, "Thank you, mittens, for
keeping my nose warm."

[Illustration: It seemed to him as though the sky came down close
to his nose]

He spoke to his wool yarn mittens as though they were two kittens or
pups, or two little cub bears, or two little Idaho ponies. "You're my
chums keeping me company," he said to the mittens.

"Do you know what we got here under our left elbow?" he said to the
mittens, "I shall mention to you what is here under my left elbow.

"It ain't a mandolin, it ain't a mouth organ nor an accordion nor a
concertina nor a fiddle. It is a guitar, a Spanish Spinnish Splishy
guitar made special.

"Yes, mittens, they said a strong young man like me ought to have a
piano because a piano is handy to play for everybody in the house and
a piano is handy to put a hat and overcoat on or books or flowers.

"I snizzled at 'em, mittens. I told 'em I seen a Spanish Spinnish
Splishy guitar made special in a hardware store window for eight
dollars and a half.

"And so, mittens--are you listening, mittens?--after cornhusking was
all husked and the oats thrashing all thrashed and the rutabaga
digging all dug, I took eight dollars and a half in my inside vest
pocket and I went to the hardware store.

"I put my thumbs