Pumpkin Jack and the Fountain

The Green Man and The Land

Pumpkin Jack and the Fountain

Just who is Mayor Jack?

Of course, if you are reading this story, then you would be asking yourself that question, wouldn't you? Who is he? What is he mayor of? How did he get that way? And other such questions. "Aha", you say to yourself, "but I'm asking the questions and you don't seem to be giving any answers!" Doesn't seem quite fair, does it?

And of course, the first rule of storytelling is to be fair to the listener; well, not the first rule, but we're not here to get caught up in dangling verbs and sentence parts like some English grammar test. Oh, no, we want the story, don't we? So here you go.

Mayor Jack was called that for two very good reasons. One is that he was, of course, the Mayor. The Mayor of what? Why, of Scarecrow Corners, of course. Can it be? You say you've never heard of Scarecrow Corners? How about Pumpkindale? Or Turkeytown? Or even, perhaps, you've never even heard of the Land of Fall?

Oh, my friend, it seems you're in for quite a time. In order to explain what and who Mayor Jack is, I must explain Scarecrow Corners; and in order to explain that little town, I must indeed tell about the Land of Fall.

First of all, the Land of Fall is not really a 'Land', as most people would think of it. It's more of an Island, just off the coast of the mainland. Now, there are two ways to get to this island (assuming, of course that you are human and not of the winged or finned sort of creature); that being by water and by train.

Traveling by water would seem to be the least common or safe of the two. You'd have to deal with tides and winds and hungry flapping seagulls and people getting quite ill, being this is usually their first time on board and Captain, could you please hand me that buck-... well, you get the idea.

Coming to the Land of Fall would be an adventure. Not the sort where you have pirates and parrots and skeletons singing odd songs and the much-repeated sound of flapping sails, but an adventure, nonetheless.

And you'd think that the train coming to the island would be safe, calm, quite comfortable, the sort of drowsy ride where you'd wake up and stretch and rub the sleep out of your eyes and ask your traveling companions, "Oh, are we here already?", that sort of ride.

But if you thought that about the train for the Land of Fall, whoo, boy, I'd not put much stock in your picking the winners of horse races or even frog races for that matter.

You see, the train which comes to the Land of Fall is quite different than the other trains people use today. It's pretty old, for one thing, running on steam and coal instead of the shiny electric trains that everyone seems to want to ride on to travel quickly here and there. And it's only got three parts; the cab or engine, a passenger car, and the caboose.

Now, which would you think to be the most important car? If you said the engine compartment, you're technically correct. Because without such a thing, of course, the whole train won't move. Lots of people's schedules would be thrown off, there would be much grumbling and muttering under one's breath and looking repeatedly at one's watch which, as any younger person knows, will not Help The Situation. Adults do tend to think differently, you know. But you'd be wrong.

If you said the caboose, you'd be wrong again, because the caboose is there to... well, it's... well, it's there to something; no one knows just quite what.

But the passenger car, now, that's a different thing entirely. For the passenger car is usually filled with passengers. Seems logical enough, you say, but not everything in this story (or most good ones, for that matter) is based on logic, or what people think should be, but what is.

The passengers on the train to the Land of Fall (which we explained earlier, was an Island Sort Of Land), are not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill, briefcase-carrying, watch-tending sort of passengers, oh, no. They come with a purpose.

What's the purpose, you might inquire? Oh, it varies from person to person; let's take a run through the car today and see who's there.