So, by taking
care not to exhaust his strength, he grew as strong and rugged as a boy may
be.
Mombi's curious magic often frightened her neighbors, and they treated her
shyly, yet respectfully, because of her weird powers. But Tip frankly hated
her, and took no pains to hide his feelings. Indeed, he sometimes showed
less respect for the old woman than he should have done, considering she was
his guardian.
There were pumpkins in Mombi's corn-fields, lying golden red among the rows
of green stalks; and these had been planted and carefully tended that the
four-horned cow might eat of them in the winter time. But one day, after the
corn had all been cut and stacked, and Tip was carrying the pumpkins to the
stable, he took a notion to make a "Jack Lantern" and try to give the old
woman a fright with it.
So he selected a fine, big pumpkin -- one with a lustrous, orange-red color
-- and began carving it. With the point of his knife he made two round eyes,
a three-cornered nose, and
Line-Art Drawing
10
a mouth shaped like a new moon. The face, when completed, could not have
been considered strictly beautiful; but it wore a smile so big and broad,
and was so Jolly in expression, that even Tip laughed as he looked
admiringly at his work.
The child had no playmates, so he did not know that boys often dig out the
inside of a "pumpkin-jack," and in the space thus made put a lighted candle
to render the face more startling; but he conceived an idea of his own that
promised to be quite as effective.
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