Queer Stories for Boys and Girls | Page 4

down from a brass
one, that if he had one half-way between, he should have no trouble.
"Thith key ith too awful yaller," he said. "I'll put it back and turn it
half-way back, and then we'll thee."
So he stuck it into the key-hole and tried to turn it in the opposite
direction to the way he had turned it before. But it would not turn to the
left at all. So he let go and stood off looking at it a while, when, to his
surprise, the key began turning to the right of its own accord. And as it
turned it grew whiter, until it was a key of pure silver.
"Purty good for you, ole hoss," said Bob, as he pulled out the bright
silver key. "We'll thee if you're any better'n the black one and the yaller
one."
But neither would the silver one open the door; for the key-hole was as
much afraid of it as of the brass one and the iron one. Only now it
neither went up nor down, but first toward one side of the door and
then toward the other, according to the way in which the key
approached it. Bobby, after a while, went at it straight from the front,
whereupon the key-hole divided into two parts--the one half running
off the door to the right, the other to the left.

"Well, that'th ahead of my time," said Bob. But he was by this time so
much amused by the changes in the key and the antics of the nimble
key-hole, that he did not care much whether the door opened or not. He
waited until he had seen the truant key-hole take its place again, and
then he took the silver key back to the other key-hole. As soon as he
approached it the key leaped out of his hand, took its place in the
key-hole, and began to turn swiftly round. When it stopped the silver
had become gold.
"Yaller again, by hokey," said Bob. And he took the gold key and went
back, wondering what the key-hole would do now. But there was now
no key-hole. It had disappeared entirely.
Bob stood off and looked at the place where it had been, let his jaw
drop a little in surprise and disappointment, and came out slowly with
this: "Well, I never, in all my born'd days!"
He thought best now to take the key back and have it changed once
more. But the other key-hole was gone too. Not knowing what to do, he
returned to the door and put the key up where the nimble key-hole had
been, whereupon it reappeared, the gold key inserted itself, and the
door opened of its own accord.
Bob eagerly tried to enter, but there stood somebody in the door,
blocking the passage.
"Hello!" said Bob. "You here, Ole Ke-whack? How did you get in? By
the back door, I 'low."
"Put my yellow waistcoat back where you got it, ke-whack!" said the
stake-driver, shivering. "It's cold in here, and how shall I go to the party
without it, ke-whack!"
"Your yaller wescut?" said Bob. "I haint got no wescut, ke-whack or no
ke-whack."
"You must put that away!" said the fly-up-the-creek, pecking his long
nose at the gold key. "Ke-whack! ke-whack!"

"Oh!" said Towpate, "why didn't you say so?" Then he tossed the gold
key down on the ground, where he had found the iron one, but the key
stood straight up, waving itself to and fro, while Bobby came out with
his drawling: "Well, I never!"
"Pick it up! Pick it up! Ke-whack! You've pitched my yellow waistcoat
into the dirt, ke-whack, ke-whack!"
"Oh! You call that a wescut, do you. Well, I never!" And Bobby picked
up the key, and since he could think of no place else to put it, he put it
into the key-hole, upon which it unwound itself to the left till it was
silver. Bobby, seeing that the key had ceased to move, pulled it out and
turned toward the open door to see the stake-driver wearing a yellow
vest, which he was examining with care, saying, "Ke-whack,
ke-whack," as he did so. "I knew you'd get spots on it, ke-whack,
throwing it on the ground that way."
Poor Bobby was too much mystified by this confusion between the
gold key and the yellow vest, or "wescut," as they call it on the Indian
Kaintuck, to say anything.
"Now, my white coat, put that back, ke-whack," said the
fly-up-the-creek fairy. "I can't go to the party in my shirt sleeves,
ke-whack."
"I haint got your coat, Ole Daddy Longlegs," said Bobby, "'less you
mean this key."
On this suspicion he put the key back, upon which it again unwound
itself to the