Some things in the Rootabaga Country are confusing to me, some not.
Like when the animals (sixty-six of 'em) all went to Philadelphia on their journey west. The chief of the delegation, the old flongboo asked a policeman how to get to the train station.
"Would you be so kind as to tell us the way to the union depot,"
In jolly good form, it seems to me. So why did he deserve this response?
"It pays to be polite," said the policeman.
I don't see anything wrong with the question or the way it is being asked, yet this civil servant gives them the cool shoulder.
Here it is in this chapter (pp. 222-224).
What's the deal here? The old flongboo has to repeat the question three times, each time his words were more exquisitely polite than the time before. Finally the cop backs down and points them to the union depot.
What is the inside joke here? Is it because strangers and aliens never get the benefit of the doubt from establishment types, like the Philadelphia policeman? I'm reminded of the old tune, Hobo's Lullaby, that Pete Seeger used to sing, in which the hobo is comforted that there will be no policemen to persecute him in heaven.
Then there's another chapter that does not confuse me at all. The Dollar Watch and the Five Jack Rabbits (pp. 143,144), in which the travelers meet a local man who is imprisoned and sentenced to hang for wearing the wrong hat, the wrong haircut and laughing and sneezing at the wrong time. It's pretty obvious the author has got a bee in his bonnet somewhere in there. Any Sandburg biographers in the group? Got any ideas where that comes from?
Pretty strong stuff to be telling Spink and Skabootch, but it was 1922 (or before) and there were places, in Sandburg's country and ours, where one could be in reality imprisoned or even hanged for such things as the color of one's skin.
I'm not confused about that, neither was Carl Sandburg, obviously.
