Chapter IV: Simple Simon Has His Day

It had seemed to the children of Pudding Lane that April Fool’s Day would never, never come, they had been waiting for it so long; and now that it had come, blest if it wasn’t raining pitchforks, as Mrs. Claus said. And blest if it wasn’t. It really did look like pitchforks, that rain, as it came slanting down in sharp, shining spears, splash, splash, splash, as fast as it could come. It really looked as if the sun would never shine in Pudding Lane again, for surely no sun would be foolish enough even to try to break through all that darkness and wetness and gloom.

And so, if you had been a frog in a puddle on Pudding Lane that morning, you would have seen noses pressed tight against every window there and disappointed eyes fastened sadly on the rainy world outside. You might even have seen rain in those eyes themselves, though I wouldn’t be positive of that. That roundish nose there against the first window was Humpty Dumpty’s; the turned-up one was Jill’s; the straight little pretty one was Miss Muffett’s; all those pert affairs sticking out of the buttonholes of the Shoe were no others than the noses of the children of the Old Woman Who Lived there.

The only nose that was not plastered against a window was Simple Simon’s and the reason that Simple Simon’s nose was not there was because Simple Simon himself was out in the rain, and his nose was with him. Yes, that foolish fellow was standing in front of the butcher shop, and as composedly as if it were the sun, and not the rain, that was beating down on his head. But why was he holding that long thick rope so carefully in his right hand? And what was that tiny object on the walk to which his eyes were directed so intently?

That object seemed to be a purse, a very, very small purse--oh, now we know what poor Simple Simon thought he was doing, don’t we? He thought he was going to fool somebody with that old, old trick. He thought somebody would come along pretty soon, stoop to pick up the pocketbook, and that he, the clever Simon, would jerk it out of reach. He could see now, in his mind’s eye, how silly the somebody would look, and he snickered there to himself at the mere thought of that delicious moment. Oh, Simon, Simon! As if anybody with half an eye would not have seen the rope long before he saw the wee pocketbook. As if anybody would have been apt to come strolling along in the rain, anyway! Ah, me, I’m afraid Simple Simon’s wits do not improve much with the years.

Well, it kept on raining and Simple Simon kept on standing there and the rest of the Pudding Lane children kept on looking forlornly at the rain, when whirr, swish, plop,--down dropped Mother Goose on the gander’s back, directly in front of Simple Simon. Simple Simon wrenched his eyes a moment from the purse to smile swiftly and delightedly at the beloved old lady, who now hardly looked like herself, so drenched and dripping was she.

“Good morning, Simon,” said Mother Goose, as the gander shook a shower of water from his back.

Simon’s smile waxed wider.

“Morning, mum,” he answered with a bow, then straightened up and sent his eyes flying back to the purse. He didn’t want anybody to come along and pick it up when he wasn’t looking, you see! Mother Goose regarded him curiously for a moment.

“Fooling somebody, Simple Simon?” she asked.

“Yes’m,” replied Simple Simon gleefully.

Mother Goose laughed softly.

“Well, I guess it’s Simple Simon you’re fooling,” she said, and ran into the Clauses’ next door.

Simple Simon meditated a while over what Mother Goose had just said and was highly pleased. How funny that was, he thought, to be fooling yourself! For, of course, Simple Simon did not mind in the least being the butt of his own joke. And if he didn’t mind, I suppose we needn’t. Only it does seem like a queer kind of April Fool’s trick to go to all that trouble just to fool yourself, doesn’t it?

Inside the cozy little kitchen at the Clauses’ Mother Goose dried her clothes and visited comfortably with her daughter, Mrs. Claus, and the rest of the family.

“My goodness, Santa,” she exclaimed, “you _are_ a long-faced little boy! And the twins! Why, what can be the matter with these children, Nellie?” She turned to her daughter, “Are they ill?”

“It’s April Fool’s Day, Mother Goose,” spoke up little Santa.

“I know that,” replied his grandmother promptly. “And I, for one, think that the Weather Man has done a fine job of fooling all you children.”

Santa Claus looked up surprised.

“Do you suppose that’s why he sent the rain?” he asked Mother Goose.

“Not a doubt of it in the world,” answered the old lady vigorously. “The Weather Man has to have a little fun, you know. And I’ll venture he’s laughing fit to kill at the sight of your doleful chops.”

Here Mother Goose laughed merrily, and Santa Claus tried manfully to laugh too; but it’s hard to laugh when the joke’s on you, and I’m afraid he didn’t make a very good job of it.

“Maybe he’ll fool you again and send the sun pretty soon,” suggested Mrs. Claus. She felt pretty sorry for the children, did Mrs. Claus, and she was surprised that Mother Goose did not seem more sympathetic.

“Nonsense,” said Mother Goose tartly. “I say, you people are serious-minded folk for such a day as April Fool’s. You must take a joke better than this, you know, or you’ll spoil the Weather Man’s fun entirely. Why, I shall be ashamed to show my face up there at the Weather Man’s house if he thinks my grandchildren don’t know how to take a joke!”

“Are you going up to see the Weather Man?” asked Mrs. Claus.

“I’m on my way there now,” Mother Goose told her.

“And what about the Man in the Moon?” asked Mrs. Claus, smirking at the baker, who tried his best to smirk back.

“The Man in the Moon is suffering a temporary eclipse,” replied the old lady sharply, at which Mrs. Claus and Mr. Claus both laughed heartily, and Santa wondered what kind of disease an eclipse was, and if it hurt as much as the mumps did.

“As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives, Mr. Claus,” said Mother Goose casually to her son-in-law.

Mr. Claus jumped out of his chair.

“Seven wives!” he exclaimed. “Great snakes, Mother Goose, seven wives! Why, what would a man want with _seven_ of ’em--that is--oh, dear, seven!” Clearly Mr. Claus was greatly agitated over this piece of news.

“But they weren’t his wives, Mr. Claus,” added Mother Goose. “They were his brothers’ wives. Ha, ha, April Fool!” cried Mother Goose. At which she and Mrs. Claus and the children shouted with delight, as poor Mr. Claus grinned foolishly and wished he hadn’t been so quick to bite at Mother Goose’s bait.

But while all this was going on in the Clauses’ house, Simple Simon was playing another joke all by himself outside. For it had occurred to him that it would be the best possible fun to play a joke on old Mother Goose herself. And so, what did Simple Simon do but step softly around to the shed where the old lady had left her gander? What did he do but take that gander and carry him into The-House-that-Jack-Built, that big uninhabited house a few doors away? What did he do but hide the gander there and then come out on to Pudding Lane again, looking as wicked and proud of himself as you please?

“Well,” said Mother Goose, when she went out to the shed and found that the gander was not there, “this is a pretty pickle.”

Mrs. Claus agreed that it was a pretty pickle, but Mr. Claus differed a bit with the ladies and called it a “fine how-do-you-do.” Anyway what they all meant was that it wasn’t a pretty pickle, or even a fine how-do-you-do, but that it was instead a very serious thing for Mother Goose to lose her gander. So they started straightway to hunt the gander, but although they searched and searched and called and called that bird, they could not find him in all of Pudding Lane. And at last they came back to the house, drenched with rain, and sat down in a gloomy circle around the stove.

“Whatever will you do without the gander, Mother Goose?” asked Mrs. Claus.

“Do?” repeated Mother Goose with some asperity. “Well, I’ll just stay here the rest of my days, I suppose. I certainly can’t fly around the world with nothing to fly on, can I?”

“But what will the Weather Man think when you don’t appear for your visit?”

“Goodness only knows,” answered Mother Goose. “He’ll think something, you may be sure. And we’ll know soon enough what he thinks. If he’s angry, he might even send a tornado. Oh, don’t shiver now, baker. It hasn’t struck us yet. What _is_ coming over that bird? He acts like a loon sometimes. I really think I’ll have to get myself a fine turkey gobbler to ride on. They have more sense than ganders.”

Mother Goose would not have scolded and fussed like this at the poor absent gander had she known what a flutter that bird was in himself. For the gander had not run away at all, but had been taken by Simple Simon entirely against his will, and now as he stood in The-House-that-Jack-Built, tied fast to a bedpost, his were harsh and desperate thoughts. To think that he had been tricked like this by that absurd Simple Simon, he of all fowls the most trustworthy, the most sagacious. Tied to a bedpost indeed! What humiliation, what degradation! The poor gander squirmed and writhed with the bitter shame of it; but he might as well have stood still, for he was tied with that very rope Simple Simon had used for his other joke, and that rope, as we know, was a very substantial affair, such as no mere gander could break.

But while Mother Goose fussed and the gander squirmed, one person was laughing aloud at the fun of it all, and that person was, of course, Simple Simon. He could hardly contain himself as he stood there in the rain and thought about it. And to tell the truth, Mother Goose and Mr. Claus _had_ looked pretty funny as they ran down Pudding Lane, calling the gander. Mother Goose, indeed, always looked funny when she ran, for the good old lady was so accustomed to riding that she took very ill to running. But when she ran in a rainstorm, as she did on this day, she was just a little more ridiculous than ever, with her long skirts wound damply around her legs, her glasses streaming with water, her feet in Mr. Claus’s enormous rubber boots which sloshed, sloshed, sloshed.

As for Mr. Claus, he was not quite so funny until you noticed the cascade of rain that came spouting down on his nose through a hole in his umbrella, and then he became very funny indeed. And the really ludicrous thing about that was that the more Mr. Claus tried to dodge the waterfall, the faster it came through the hole; and the more he shifted the umbrella around, the more accurately did the waterfall strike him on the very tip-tip of his nose. Yes, that was very amusing, and Simple Simon laughed himself weak now as he remembered it. All the other children at the windows had laughed at the sight too, though they did not know why Mr. Claus and Mother Goose were out in the rain like that. They had paid no attention to Simon and his tricks. Nobody ever did.

Up in his home the Weather Man was becoming decidedly worried at the non-arrival of his expected guest, Mother Goose, and he confessed to the Weather Woman, his wife, that he was afraid something was terribly, terribly wrong.

“She always keeps her engagements,” he said. “She is a most punctual woman.”

“Perhaps she is ill,” suggested the Weather Woman.

“She’s never been ill in her life,” said the Weather Man.

“No sign she never will be,” retorted the Weather Woman.

Just then the Weather Girl and the Weather Boy came in, those two hardy children of the Weather Man.

“Where’s Mother Goose?” they demanded.

“Not here,” replied the Weather Man.

“Didn’t come,” said the Weather Woman.

“Not here! Didn’t come!” repeated the Weather Children. “Why, what’s the matter? Is the rain too much for her?”

The Weather Man looked thoughtful at this suggestion, then turned to his wife.

“Weather Woman,” he addressed her, “do you suppose that this rain could possibly be the reason for Mother Goose’s failure to appear?”

“I shouldn’t wonder a bit,” replied the Weather Woman. “You know how those earth-people are about rain. I declare, sometimes I think they’ll never get used to it, the way they carry umbrellas in the rain, and wear waterproofs against it, and stay at home because of it, as if a little water once in a while would hurt the dear creatures!”

“Well,” spoke the Weather Man, “if that’s the reason that Mother Goose hasn’t come, we’ll have to stop the rain, that’s all. Weather Children,” he ordered, “kindly shut off the rain and turn on the sun. Perhaps we’ve fooled the children of Pudding Lane long enough, anyway.”

So that is how it happened that three minutes later, Pudding Lane found itself bathed in clear, sparkling sunshine which left no sign of the previous rain except the puddles in the street, the gently dripping trees, and some little ruffled-up birds, who shook themselves furiously in the sun and sang loud songs of thanksgiving that the downpour was over. And that is how it happened that all the children came tumbling out of their homes pell-mell as they did and began fooling each other as fast as ever they could to make up for lost time.

Such jokes as those children played too! There was Handy-Spandy, Jack-a-Dandy, for example, who really was such easy prey it was almost too bad to fool him. For when Santa Claus offered the greedy fellow a nice plum cake, or what looked like a plum cake, Handy-Spandy just grabbed it and sank his teeth into it without a single question--without even much of a thank-you, though I guess that mumble in his throat was meant for a thank-you. And when he bit down into the cake, oh, how the children screamed, for it wasn’t a plum cake at all, but a cotton cake, which Mr. Claus had made especially for the children to fool Handy with on that first day of April.

They fooled Santa Claus too, telling him that Judy wanted him down at the Shoe; but when Santa ran as fast as he could run down to the shoe, there was nothing waiting there for him but a big sign which said, “April Fool, Santa!” Which did surprise that little boy vastly, for he had forgotten he could be fooled, so busy was he trying to fool other people.

The children had a good deal of fun with Tom, Tom, the piper’s son, for when he wasn’t looking, Johnny Bo-Peep pinned a big card on Tom’s back which read, “Please to kick me, my dears!” And then when the children proceeded to obey the injunction, poor Tom looked so bewildered and foolish that it almost seemed as if that were the very funniest joke of all.

Oh, everybody was fooled good and plenty, and great was the noise, the laughter and shouting. And at last, when all the tricks had been exhausted, and when the children were exhausted too, out came Mother Goose from the Clauses’ house.

“I say,” she cried to the children, who had surrounded her until you couldn’t see a thing of her but the tip of her pointed hat, “I say, I know somebody you haven’t fooled!”

Oh, was there still somebody to fool? Delightful!

“Yes,” went on Mother Goose, “we can still fool somebody else. We can still fool the gander, children! For he’s run off to fool us, I suppose, and now if we find him, it’ll be a joke on the silly bird, you see.”

So they started out on the great search for the gander, all of them, scattered in every direction. And what of Simple Simon? Well, Simple Simon was just as pleased as he could possibly be over the whole affair, for now that he had fooled Mother Goose by hiding her gander, he was perfectly willing to fool the gander by bringing him back to Mother Goose. You see, he was so simple that he didn’t comprehend that to bring the gander back would not really fool him at all. So into The-House-that-Jack-Built trotted Simple Simon, chuckling jovially at the whole affair, and out he came again in half a minute, leading the dejected old gander behind him.

“Bless me,” said Mother Goose, when she caught sight of the gander, “here he is. Why, Simple Simon, you are a fine fellow, indeed you are.”

Simple Simon, no longer able to contain himself, laughed outright.

“I did fool you, after all, didn’t I?” he asked proudly. “I hid the gander, Mother Goose,” he went on excitedly, “and you never guessed it at all.”

And there the absurd fellow had given the whole thing away! Oh, how the children enjoyed that joke, and how Mother Goose laughed too. But above all the racket could be heard Simple Simon’s great guffaws celebrating his own wit and smartness, like the simpleton he was.