Man, "They left a note in their own handwriting on perfumed pink
paper. It said, '_Mascots never stay long_.'"

And that is why for many years the Potato Face Blind Man had silver
dollars to spend--and that is why many people in the Rootabaga Country
keep their eyes open for a Watermelon Moon in the sky with a green rim
and red meat inside and black seeds making spots on the red meat.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

The Toboggan-to-the-Moon Dream of the
Potato Face Blind Man

One morning in October the Potato Face Blind Man sat on the corner
nearest the postoffice.

Any Ice Today came along and said, "This is the sad time of the year."

"Sad?" asked the Potato Face Blind Man, changing his accordion from
his right knee to his left knee, and singing softly to the tune he was
fumbling on the accordion keys, "Be Happy in the Morning When the
Birds Bring the Beans."

"Yes," said Any Ice Today, "is it not sad every year when the leaves
change from green to yellow, when the leaves dry on the branches and
fall into the air, and the wind blows them and they make a song
saying, 'Hush baby, hush baby,' and the wind fills the sky with them
and they are like a sky full of birds who forget they know any songs."

"It is sad and not sad," was the blind man's word.

"Listen," said the Potato Face. "For me this is the time of the year
when the dream of the white moon toboggan comes back. Five weeks
before the first snow flurry this dream always comes back to me. It
says, 'The black leaves are falling now and they fill the sky but five
weeks go by and then for every black leaf there will be a thousand
snow crystals shining white.'"

"What was your dream of the white moon toboggan?" asked Any Ice Today.

"It came to me first when I was a boy, when I had my eyes, before my
luck changed. I saw the big white spiders of the moon working, rushing
around climbing up, climbing down, snizzling and sniffering. I looked
a long while before I saw what the big white spiders on the moon were
doing. I saw after a while they were weaving a long toboggan, a white
toboggan, white and soft as snow. And after a long while of snizzling
and sniffering, climbing up and climbing down, at last the toboggan
was done, a snow white toboggan running from the moon down to the
Rootabaga Country.

"And sliding, sliding down from the moon on this toboggan were the
White Gold Boys and