Rootabaga Stories is a collection of fiction by
Carl Sandburg.
Part one is copyright 1922, renewed in 1950 which let it fall into the public domain on January 1, 1978. Part two is copyright 1923, renewed in 1951 and would have become public domain in 1979, save for a 1978 law that extended things to 95 years from the date of first publication.
The copyright on part 2 will expire January 1, 2018, unless congress extends things again.
An abridgement of the first story, How They Broke Away to Go to the Rootabaga Country was used in my mother in law's memorial service on June 27, 2002.
The table of contents reads as follows :
Part One - Rootabaga Stories
- Three stories about the finding of the zigzag railroad, the pigs with bibs on, the circus clown ovens, the village of liver and onions, the village of cream puffs.
- Five stories about the potato face blind man.
- Three stories about the gold buckskin whincher
- Four stories about the deep doom of dark doorways
- Three stories about three ways the wind went winding
- Four stories about dear, dear eyes.
- One story -- "Only the fire-born understand blue"
- Two stories about corn fairies, blue foxes, flongboos and happenings that happened in the United States and Canada.
Part Two - Rootabaga Pigeons
- Two stories told by the potato face blind man
- Two stories about bugs and eggs
- Five stories about Hatrack the Horse, six pigeons, three wild Babylonian baboons, six umbrellas, Bozo the Button Buster
- Two stories about four boys who had different dreams.
- Two stories told by the potato face blind man about two girls with red hearts.
- Three stories about moonlight, pigeons, bees, Egypt, Jesse James, Spanish onions, the queen of cracked heads, the king of paper sacks
- Two stories out of the tall grass
- Two stories out of Oklahoma and Nebraska
- One story about big people now and little people long ago
- Three stories about the letter X and how it got into the alphabet