Grown Animals50 cents.Cubs, Puppies, etc.4 dollars.
Jimmieboy laughed. "That's funny. They charge less for grown animals than they do for baby animals."
"Not so funny as your plan, mister," said a gruff voice at Jimmieboy's side, very respectfully however.
Jimmieboy looked around to see who it was that spoke and was a little startled at first to see that it was a fine specimen of a tiger that had addressed him.
"Don't shrink," said the tiger, seeing that the little boy was somewhat frightened. "I won't hurt you. I'm wild, but I'm kind. Let me show you my smile—you'll see what a big smile it is, and some day you'll learn that an animal with a fine open countenance like mine is when I smile can't be a bad animal. But to come back to what you think is a funny scheme. We charge more for cubs than for grown animals because they are more trouble. We talked it all over when we started the show and we found that there was ten times as much mischief in a cub or a puppy as there is in a grown up bear or dog, so we charged more; only as we don't mind a little mischief we make the babies pay only eight times as much as the others. It's simple and very natural, I think."
"That's true," said Jimmieboy. "It isn't so odd after all."
And then they went inside, where Jimmieboy was received by the mayor, a very handsome lion, and his wife the lioness. All the other animals cheered and the little boy soon came to feel that he was surrounded by friends; strange friends perhaps, but faithful ones. He sat in the front of the mayor's box and watched the cage-enclosed ring in which the Hagenbecks were to perform. A monkey band played several popular tunes in the gallery, after which the performance began.
First a baboon came out and announced a performance by six trained clowns, who he said would crack jokes and turn somersaults and make funny grimaces just as they did in their native lair. The monkey band struck up a tune and in ran the clowns. To Jimmieboy's eyes they were merely plain everyday circus clowns, but the way the baboon made them prance around was wonderful.One of the clowns was a trifle sulky and didn't want to crack his joke, but the baboon kept flicking him with the end of his whip until finally he did crack it, although he might better not have done so for he did it so badly that he spoiled it.
After this a pelican walked out and announced with a proud air that he would now exhibit his flock of trained dudes, who would dance and sing, and wear beautiful clothes and put the heads of their canes in their mouths as intelligently as though they were pelicans and not dudes. Jimmieboy was delighted with them, for after all he was quite like other boys and was accustomed to lavish a great deal of admiration upon such things as chewing gum and dudes. The most interesting feature of the dude exhibition was their chrysanthemum drill. It must have taken the pelican a long time to teach those dudes to pick up theirchrysanthemums and place them in their little button-holes with such military precision as they displayed. Everybody applauded this wildly and a great roar of laughter greeted the dudes' acknowledgment of the applause, for the magnificent way in which they took off their silk hats and bowed was truly droll.
"It's hard to believe they are merely human!" said the tiger to Jimmieboy. "Their intelligence is more that of the pelican than of the human kind."
"With a slight mixture of the monkey mind I should say, too," said the elephant. "I'm told these dudes are very imitative."
"The Jumping Billikins!" cried the manager of the exhibition.
"What on earth is a Jumping Billikins?" asked Jimmieboy, who had never heard of an animal of that kind before.
"Wait and see," said the tiger, with alaugh. "Most people call him a nerve centre, but you wouldn't understand that, so I say wait and see."
As Jimmieboy could do nothing else he waited and in a minute the jumping Billikins appeared, followed by six men. The jumping Billikins was nothing more than a pretty little boy, about five years of age, and what he did chiefly was to jump. The six men would put sofas about the ring and the jumping Billikins would jump from one to the other as easily as though he were a real chamois-skin goat. Then he gave a remarkable exhibition of his hopping powers. He hopped up and down on one leg for twenty-eight minutes, much to the wonderment of the elephant, who strong as he was couldn't hop on one leg at all.
"Now watch the men," whispered the tiger. "The jumping Billikins is going to have a romping match with them, and you'dhardly believe it but he'll have them worn out in less than five minutes and yet he'll be as fresh as a rose when he gets through."
Jimmieboy watched, and such a romp as followed he never had seen before. The jumping Billikins was everywhere all the time. One second he'd be riding pickaback on one man, the next you'd find him sitting on another man's head trying to put his feet into the vest pockets of the third and fourth men, while with his hands he'd be playing tag with the others. There was no describing that romp, but as the tiger had said, before five minutes the men were exhausted and the jumping Billikins, fresh as ever, was bowing his thanks to the audience for their applause. Then he walked proudly from the ring and the worn-out men were carried off by the baboon's assistants.
The next thing on the programme was a talking contest between a parrot and a chatterbox,but this Jimmieboy never saw, for a sudden shriek from the engine waiting with the train at the station for his return called him away. The animals expressed their regret at his early departure and requested him to come again sometime, which the little fellow promised to do.
"Idoan tink yo'll go again, mistah," said the porter, with a smile,as the train drew away from the station.
"Why not?" asked Jimmieboy.
"Because——" said the porter. "Be-cause——"
And then, strange to say, he faded out of sight and Jimmieboy, rubbing his eyes, was astonished to find that he wasn't on a railway train at all but in his papa's lap, where he had been all along.
Jimmieboy's father and mother had occasion to go to the city for a couple of days recently, and inasmuch as Jimmieboy is such a very movey young person they did not deem it well to leave him at home in the care of the nurse, who had as much as she could do taking care of his brothers, and so they took him along with them. One evening, having to go out to dinner, they invited a young man in Jimmieboy's father's employ to come up to the hotel and stay about and keep the little fellow amused until his bedtime, and to look out for him as well after that time until their return, which Fred was very willing to do since he received $2 reward for his trouble. He said afterward that he earnedthe two dollars in the first ten minutes playing Waterloo with Jimmieboy, in which pleasing game Jimmieboy was Wellington and Fred was Napoleon, but once a year he didn't mind earning a dollar or two extra in that way.
After the game of Waterloo was over and the Napoleonic Fred had managed to collect the buttons which had been removed from his vest in the first half of the game, the Wellingtonian Jimmieboy decided that he was tired enough to go to bed, and inasmuch as Fred didn't oppose him very hard, to bed he went, and a half hour later both the boys, young and old, were snoring away as though their lives depended on it. It was quite evident that neither of them was as yet sufficiently strong to stand the game of Waterloo for more than an hour—and I don't really wonder at it, for my own experience has led me to believe that evenBonaparte and Wellington themselves would have been wearied beyond endurance by an hour's play at that diversion, however well they may have stood up under the anxieties of the original battle. In my first game with Jimmieboy I lost five pounds, eight buttons, a necktie, two handfuls of hair and a portion of my temper. So, as I say, I do not wonder that they were exhausted by their efforts and willing to rest after them, though how either of them could sleep with the other snoring as loud as a factory whistle I could never understand.
Fred must have been unusually weary, for, as you will see, he slept more than Jimmieboy did—in fact, it wasn't later than nine o'clock when the latter waked up.
"Say, Fred," he cried.
Fred answered with a deeper snore than ever.
"Fred!" cried Jimmieboy again. "I want a drink of water."
"Puggrrh," snored Fred.
"Stop your growling and ring the telephone for some ice water," said Jimmieboy, and again Fred answered with a snore, and in his sleep muttered something that sounded like "It'll cost you $10 next time," the meaning of which Jimmieboy didn't understand, but which I think had some reference to what it would cost his father to secure Fred as a companion for Jimmieboy on another occasion.
"Guess I'll have to ring it up myself," said Jimmieboy, and with that he jumped out of bed and rushed to that delightful machine which is now to be found in most of the modern hotels, by means of which you can ring up anything you may happen to want, by turning a needle about on a dial until it points to the printed descriptionof the thing you desire and pushing a red button.
"Wonder how they spell ice water," said Jimmieboy. "E-y-e spells I, and s-e spells sss-e-y-e-s-e, ice." But he looked in vain for any such thing on the dial.
"O, well," he said, after searching and searching, "I'll ring up anything, and when the boy comes with it I'll order the ice water."
So he gave the needle an airy twist, pushed the button, and sat down to wait for the boy. Meanwhile he threw a pillow at Fred, who still lay snoring away on the sofa, only now he was puffing like a freight train engine when its wheels slip on an icy railway track.
"Lazybones," snickered Jimmieboy, as the pillow landed on Fred's curly head. But Fred answered never a word, which so exasperated Jimmieboy that he got up withthe intention of throwing himself at his sleeping companion, when he heard a queer noise over by the fireplace.
"Hullo, down there, 521. Is that you?" cried somebody.
Jimmieboy stared at the chimney in blank amazement.
"Hurry up below there, 521. Is that you?" came the voice again.
"This room is 521," replied Jimmieboy, realizing all of a sudden that it was no doubt to him that these words were addressed.
"Well, then, look sharp, will you? Turn off the fire—put it out—do something with it. You can't expect me to come down there with the fire burning, can you? I'm not fireproof, you know," returned the voice.
"There isn't any fire here," said Jimmieboy.
"Nonsense," cried the voice. "What's that roaring I hear?"
"Oh—that," Jimmieboy answered. "That's Fred. He's snoring."
"Ah! Then I will come down," came the voice, and in an instant there was a small fall of soot, a rustling in the chimney, and a round-faced, fat-stomached, white-bearded little old gentleman with a twinkling eye, appeared, falling like a football into the grate and bounding like a tennis ball out into the middle of the floor.
"Santa Claus, at your service," he said, bowing low to Jimmieboy.
The boy looked at him breathless with astonishment for a moment.
"Well—well——" put in the old man impatiently. "What is it you want with me? I'm very busy, so pray don't detain me. Is it one of my new Conversational Brownies you are after? If so, say so. Fine things, these Conversational Brownies."
"I never heard of 'em," said Jimmieboy.
"Coz why?" laughed Santa Claus, twirling airily about on the toes of his left foot. "Coz why? Bee-coz there ain't never been any for you to hear about. I invented 'em all by myself. You have Brownies in books that don't move. Good. I like 'em, you like 'em, we all like 'em. You have Brownies out of books. Better—but they can't talk and all bee-coz they're stuffed with cotton. It isn't their fault. It's the cotton's fault. Take a man and stuff him with cotton and he wouldn't be able to say a word, but stuff him with wit and anecdotes and he'll talk. Wherefore I have invented a Conversational Brownie. He's made of calico, but he's stuffed with remarks, and he has a little metal hole in his mouth, and when you squeeze him remarks oozes out between his lips and there you are. Eh? Fine?"
"Bully," said Jimmieboy.
"Was that what you rang for? Quick, hurry up, I haven't any time to waste at this season of the year."
"Well, no," Jimmieboy answered. "Not having ever heard of 'em, of course."
"Oh, then you wanted one of my live wood doll babies," said Santa Claus. "Of course. They're rather better than the Conversational Brownies, perhaps, I guess; I don't know. Still, they last longer, as long as you water 'em. Was it one of those you wanted?"
"What is a live wood doll baby?" asked Jimmieboy.
"One o' my newest new, new things," replied Santa Claus. "'Stead o' making wooden dolls out of dead wood, I makes 'em out o' live wood. Keep some o' the roots alive, make your doll, plant it proper, water it, and it'll grow just like a man. My live oak dolls that I'm making this year, ahundred years from now will be great giants."
"Splendid idea," said Jimmieboy. "But how about the leaves. Don't they sprout out and hide the doll?"
"Of course they do, if you don't see that they're pulled off," retorted Santa Claus. "You don't expect me to give you toys and look after 'em all at the same time, do you?"
"No," said Jimmieboy.
"Well, it's good you don't," said Santa Claus, turning a somersault backward. "It's werry good you don't, for should you had have you'd have been disappointed. But, I say, was that what you wanted, or were you after one of my new patent typewriters that you wind up? Don't keep me waiting all night——"
"I never heard of your new patent typewriters that you wind up," Jimmieboy answered.
"That isn't the question," interrupted Santa Claus nervously, "though I suppose it's the answer, for if you had heard of my windable writer it would have been the thing you wanted. It's a grand invention, that machine. You take a key, wind the thing up, having first loaded it with paper, and what do you suppose it does?"
"Writes?" asked Jimmieboy.
"Exactly," replied Santa Claus. "It writes stories and poems and jokes. There are five keys goes with each machine—one poetry key, one joke key, one fairy tale key, a story of adventure key, and a solemn Sunday school story key that writes morals and makes you wonder whether you're as good as you ought to be."
"Well," said Jimmieboy, "now that I know about that, that's what I want, though as a matter of fact I rang you up for a glass of ice water."
"What!" cried Santa Claus, indignantly, bounding about the room like a tennis ball again. "Me? Do you mean to say you've summoned me away from my work at this season of the year just to bring you a glass of ice water?"
"I—I didn't mean for you to bring it," said Jimmieboy, meekly. "I—I must have made a mistake——"
"It's outrageous," said Santa Claus, stamping his foot, "You hadn't oughter make mistakes. I won't bring you anything on Christmas—no, not a thing. You——"
A knock at the door interrupted the little old man, and Jimmieboy, on going to see who was there, discovered the hall boy with the pitcher of water.
"What's that?" asked Santa, as Jimmieboy returned.
"It's the water," replied the little fellow. "So I couldn't have made a mistake after all."
"Hum!" said Santa, stroking his beard slowly and thoughtfully. "I guess—I guess the wires must be crossed—so it wasn't your fault—and I will bring you something, but the man who ought to have looked after those wires and didn't won't find anything in his stocking but a big hole in the toe on Christmas."
The old fellow then shook hands good-by with the boy, and walked to thechimney.
"Let's see—what shall I bring you?" he asked, pausing.
"The windable writer," said Jimmieboy.
"All right," returned Santa, starting up the chimney. "You can have one if I get it finished in time, but I am afraid this annoying delay will compel me to put off the distribution of those machines until some other year."
And with that he was gone.
Meanwhile Jimmieboy is anxiously waiting for Christmas to see if it will bring him the windable writer. I don't myself believe that it will, for the last I heard Santa had not returned to his workshop, but whether he got stuck in the hotel chimney or not nobody seems to know.
Jimmieboy, like every other right-minded youth, was a great admirer ofthe Brownies. They never paid any attention to him, but went about their business in the books as solemnly as ever no matter what jokes he might crack at their expense. Nor did it seem to make any difference to them how much noise was being made in the nursery, they swam, threw snow-balls, climbed trees, floated over Niagara, and built houses as unconcernedly as ever. Nevertheless Jimmieboy liked them. He didn't need to have any attention paid to him by the little folk in pictures. He didn't expect it, and so it made no difference to him whatever whether they noticed him or not.
The other day, however, just before the Christmas vacation had come to an end Jimmieboy had a very queer experience with his little picture book acquaintances. He was feeling a trifle lonesome. His brothers had gone to a party which was given by one of the neighbors for the babies, and Jimmieboy at the last moment had decided that he would not go. He wasn't a baby any more, but a small man. He had pockets in his trousers and wore suspenders exactly like his father's, only smaller, and of course a proper regard for his own dignity would not permit him to take part in a mere baby party.
"I'll spend my afternoon reading," he said in a lordly way. "I don't feel like playing 'Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush' now that I wear suspenders."
So he went down into his father's library where his mother had put a book-case forhim, on the shelves of which he kept his treasured books. They were the most beautiful fairy books you ever saw; Brownie books and true story books by the dozen; books of funny poetry illustrated by still funnier pictures, and, what I fancy he liked best of all, a half dozen or more big blank books that his father had given him, in which Jimmieboy wrote poems of his own in great capital letters, some of which stood on their heads and others on their sides, but all of which anybody who could read at all could make out at the rate of one letter every ten minutes. I never read much of Jimmieboy's poetry myself and so cannot say how good it was, but his father told me that the boy never had the slightest difficulty in making Massachusetts rhyme with Potato, or Jacksonville with Lemonade, so that I presume they were remarkable in their way.
Arrived in the library Jimmieboy seatedhimself before his book-case, and after gloating over his possessions for a few moments, selected one of the Brownie books, curled himself up in a comfortable armchair before the fire, and opened the book.
"Why!" he cried as his eye fell upon one of the picture pages. "That's funny. I never saw that picture before. There isn't a Brownie in it; nothing but an empty house and a yard in front of it. Where can the Brownies have gone?"
He hadn't long to wait for an answer. He had hardly spoken when the little door of the house opened and the Dude Brownie poked his head out and said softly:
"'Tis not an empty house, my dear.The Brownies all have come in here.We've played so long to make you smileWe thought we'd like to rest awhile.We're every one of us in bedWith night-caps on each little head,And if you'll list you'll hear the roarWith which the sleeping Brownies snore."
Jimmieboy raised the book to his ear and listened, and sure enough, there came a most extraordinary noise out of the windows of the house. It sounded like a carpenter at work with a saw in a menagerie full of roaring lions.
"Well, that is funny," said Jimmieboy as he listened. "I never knew before that Brownies ever got tired. I thought they simply played and played and played all the time."
The Dude Brownie laughed.
"Now there, my boy, is where you makeA really elegant mistake,"
he said, and then he added,
"If you will open wide the bookWe'll let you come inside and look.No other boy has e'er done that.Come in and never mind your hat."
"I wouldn't wear my hat in the house anyhow," said Jimmieboy. "But I say,Mr. Brownie, I don't see how I can get in there. I'm too big."
"Your statement makes me fancy thatYou really don't know where you're at;For, though you're big and tall and wide,Already, sir, you've come inside,"
replied the Dude Brownie, and Jimmieboy, rubbing his eyes as if he couldn't believe it, looked about him and discovered that even as the Dude Brownie had said, he had without knowing it already accepted the invitation and stood in the hall of the Brownie mansion. And O! such a mansion! It was just such a house as you would expect Brownies to have. There were no stairs in it, though it was three stories high. On the walls were all sorts of funny pictures, pictures of the most remarkable animals in the world or out of it, in fact most of the pictures were of animals that Jimmieboy had never heard of before, or even imagined. There was theBrownie Elephant, for instance, the cunningest little animal you ever saw, with forty pairs of spectacles running all the way down its trunk; and a Brownie Pug-dog with its tail curled so tightly that it lifted the little creature's hind legs off the floor; and most interesting of all, a Brownie Bear that could take its fur off in hot weather and put on a light flannel robe instead. Jimmieboy gazed with eyes and mouth wide open at these pictures.
"What queer animals," he said. "Do you really have such animals as those?"
"Excuse me," said the Dude Brownie anxiously, "but before I answer, must I answer in poetry or in prose? I'll do whichever you wish me to, but I'm a little tired this afternoon, and poetry is such an effort!"
"I'm very fond of poetry," said Jimmieboy, "especially your kind, but if you aretired and would rather speak the other way, you can."
The Dude Brownie smiled gratefully.
"You're a very kind little man," he said. "This time I'll talk the other way, but some day when I get it written I'll send you my book of poetry to make up for it. You like our animals, do you?"
"Very much," said Jimmieboy. "I'd like to see a Brownie zoo some time."
"I'll attend to that," said the Dude Brownie. "I'll make a note of it on the wall so that we won't forget it."
Here he seized a huge pencil, almost as big as himself, and wrote something on the wall which Jimmieboy could not read, but which he supposed was the Brownie's memorandum.
"Won't you spoil your wall doing that?" queried the little visitor.
"Oh no," said the Brownie. "All thesewalls are made of slate and we use 'em to write on. It saves littering the house all up with paper, and every Tuesday we have a house-cleaning bee and rub all the writing off. It's a very good scheme and I wonder your grown-up people don't have it, particularly in your nurseries. I've noticed children writing things on nursery walls lots of times and then they've been scolded for doing it because their nurses said it spoiled the paper. I can't understand why they don't have slate walls instead that can't be spoiled. It's such a temptation to write on a wall, but it does spoil paper. But to come back to our animals, they're really lovely, and have such wonderfully sweet dispositions. There is the Brownie Elephant, for instance—he's the most light hearted creature you ever saw, and he has holes bored through his trunk like a flute and at night he plays the most beautiful music onit, while we Brownies sit around and listen to him."
"What does he wear so many pairs of spectacles for?" asked Jimmieboy.
"He has weak eyes," said the Brownie. "That is, he has at night. He can't see his notes to play tunes by when it is dark, and so we've provided him with those spectacles to help him out. Then the Bear is very self-sacrificing. If anyone of us wants to go out anywhere in the cold he'll let us have his robe just for the asking. The Pug-dog isn't much use but he's playful and intelligent. If you tell him to go to the post-office for your mail he'll rush out of the front door, down the road to the grocer's and bring you back an apple or an orange, because he always knows that there isn't any mail. One of your hired men wouldn't know that, but would waste his time going to the post-office to find it out if you told him to."
Jimmieboy expressed his admiration of the intelligence of the Brownie Dog and the good nature of the other animals, and then asked if he mightn't go upstairs he was so curious to see the rest of the house.
"Certainly," said the Dude Brownie, "only you'll have to slide up the banisters. We haven't any stairs."
"Don't think I know how," said Jimmieboy. "I can slide down banisters, but I never learned to slide up 'em."
"You don't have to learn it," returned the Brownie. "All you have to do is to get aboard and slide. It's a poor banister that won't work both ways. The trouble with your banisters is that they are poor ones. Climb aboard and let yourself go."
The boy did as he was told, and pop! the first thing he knew he was in the midst of the Brownies on the second floor. Much to his surprise, while they were unquestionablysnoring, they were all reading, or writing, or engaged in some other occupation.
"Well this beats everything!" said Jimmieboy. "I thought you said they were asleep?"
"They are," said the Dude Brownie. "So am I, for that matter, but we don't waste our time just because we happen to be asleep. Some of us do our best work while we are resting. The Chinese Brownie washes all our clothes while he's asleep, and the Dutch Brownie does his practising on his cornet at the same time. If people like you did the same thing you'd get twice as much work done. It's all very well and very necessary too to get eight hours of sleep every day, but what's the use of wasting that time? Take your sleep, but don't loaf while you're taking it. When I was only a boy Brownie I used to play all day and go to school after I'd gone to bed. Inthat way I learned a great deal and never got tired of school. You don't get tired while you are asleep."
"It's a wonderful plan," said Jimmieboy, "and I wish I knew how to work it. I'm not very fond of school myself and I'd a great deal rather play than go there in the daytime. Can't you tell me how it's done so that I can tell my papa all about it? Maybe he'd let me do it that way if I asked him."
"Of course I'll tell you," said the Dude Brownie. "It's just this way. You go to bed, pull the covers up over you, shut your eyes, fall asleep, and then—"
Alas! The sentence was never finished, for as the Brownie spoke a gong in the hallway below began to clang fearfully, and in an instant the whole Brownie troupe sprang to the banisters, slid down into the hall and rushed out into the yard. Their play timehad come, and their manager had summoned them back to it. Jimmieboy followed, but he slid so fast that it made him dizzy. He thought he would never stop. Down the banisters he slid, out through the hall to the yard, over the heads of the Brownies he whizzed and landed with a thud in the soft embrace of the armchair once more, and just in time too, for hardly had he realized where he was when in walked his father and mother, and following in their train were his two baby brothers, their mouths and hands full of sweetmeats.
"Hullo," said Jimmieboy's father. "Where have you been, Jimmieboy?"
"In the Brown——" began the boy, but he stopped short. It seemed to him as if the Dude Brownie in the book tipped him a wink to be silent, and he returned the wink.
"I've been here, looking at my Brownie book," he said.
"Indeed?" said his father. "And do you never get tired of it?"
"No," said Jimmieboy quietly, "it seems to me I see something new in it every time I open it," and then in spite of the Brownie's wink he climbed out of the chair into his papa's lap and told him all that occurred, and his papa said it was truly wonderful, especially that part which told about how much could be done by an intelligent creature when fast asleep.
It was a warm, summer afternoon—just the sort of an afternoon for a drowse, and when the weather was just right for it Jimmieboy was a great drowser. In fact, a little golden-haired fairy with a silver wand had just whispered to a butterfly that when it came to drowsing in an interesting way there was nobody in the world who could excel Jimmieboy in that accomplishment. Jimmieboy had overheard this much himself, but he had never told anybody about it, because he found drowsing so very easy, and the pleasures of it so great, that he was a little afraid somebody else might try it and make him divide up his fun with him. It was somewhat selfish of him to behave this way, perhaps, but then no oneever pretended that Jimmieboy was absolutely perfect, not even the boy himself.
It so happened, that upon this particular afternoon, Jimmieboy was swinging idly in the hammock under the trees. On one side of him babbled a little mountain stream, while on the other lay a garden full of beautiful flowers, where the bees hummed the whole day through, and whence when day was done and the night shadows were coming over all even the sun's rays seemed sorry to go. In the house, a hundred feet away, Jimmieboy's mamma was playing softly on a zithern, and the music, floating out through the flower-scented air, set the boy to thinking, which with him is always the preliminary to a doze. His right eye struggled hard to keep awake, long after the left eye had given up the fight, and it was due possibly to this that Jimmieboy was wide enough awake at the time to hear a quaintlittle voice up in the tree calling to the tiger lilies over near the house.
"Say, Tige," the little voice cried, "what time is it?"
"I can't see the clock," returned the lily. "But," it added, dropping into verse:
"I judge from sundry tinklesOf the bell upon the cowThat if it isn't later,It is pretty nearly now."
"Thank you," said the voice up the tree, "I was afraid I'd miss my train."
"So! You are going away?" said another voice, which, if his ears did not deceive Jimmieboy, came this time from the rose bush.
"Yes," said the voice up in the tree. "Yes, I'm going away. I don't know where exactly, because I haven't bought my ticket yet. I may be going to the North Pole, or I may only be coming here. In fact, if myticket turns out to be a return ticket, it will amount to that, which makes me wonder what's the use of going any way."
"But when does your train go?" asked the voice in the rose bush.
"A week from next Thursday," said the tree voice. "I didn't know but that it was then now. You see I always get mixed up as to what time it is or what day it is. This isn't a date tree, and I haven't any calendar."
"I guess you've got plenty of time," chuckled the tiger lily, nodding its head gleefully at the holly-hock. "It won't be a week from next Thursday for several days yet."
"Heigho," sighed the voice up in the tree. "Several days to wait, eh? I'm sure I don't know what I shall do to pass the time away."
"Oh, as for that," observed the holly-hock;"I know an easy scheme for passing time. I learned it from a fairy I met once.
"'Sit still and never raise your hands,'Advised the little elf,'Pay no attention to the clock,And time will pass itself.'
"You have nothing to do with it doing it that way," the holly-hock added.
"That's a good idea," said the voice up in the tree. "It's queer I never thought of it, and I've been thinking and thinking ever so many years, trying to get up a scheme to pass the time."
"You're not very deep, I'm afraid," said the rose bush. "You can't think very valuable thoughts, can you?"
"I'm sure I don't know," the voice up the tree replied. "I've never tried to sell them, so of course I can't tell whether they are valuable or not. Do you sell what you think?"
"Certainly I do," returned the rose bush. "I suggested the idea of making honey to the bees. Wasn't that a great thing to do?"
"Yes, indeed," returned the voice. "It was splendid. I've never had any honey, but I'm told it's fine. It's very sticky, isn't it?"
"Very," said the rose bush. "I guess honey is about as sticky as anything can be."
"And very useful for that reason," said the voice up in the tree, kindly. "Very useful. I suppose, really, if it wasn't for honey, people couldn't make postage stamps stay on letters. You ought to be very happy to think that one of your thoughts has given people the idea of mucilage. Do they ever use honey for anything else but its stickiness?"
"Hoh!" jeered the rose bush. "Don't you know anything?"
"Not much," said the tree voice. "Iknow you, and me, and several other things, but that's not much, is it? It's really queer how little I know. Why, would you believe it, a sparrow asked me the other day what was the difference between a robin's egg and a red blackberry, and I didn't know."
"What did you tell him?" asked the holly-hock.
"I told him I couldn't tell until I had eaten them."
"And what did he say?" put in the tiger lily, with a grin.
"He said that wasn't the answer; that one was blue and the other was green, but how a red blackberry can be green I can't see," replied the voice up in the tree.
Jimmieboy smiled quietly at this, and the voice up the tree continued:
"Then he asked me what color blueberries were, and I told him they were blue; then he said he'd bet a mosquito I couldn'ttell him what color huckleberries were, and when I said they were of a delicate huckle he laughed, and said I owed him a mosquito. I may owe him a mosquito, but I haven't an idea what he was laughing at."
"That's easy," said the holly-hock. "He was laughing because there isn't any such color as huckle."
"I don't think that's funny, though," said the voice in the tree. "Indeed, I think it's sad, because it seems to me that a very pretty color could be made out of huckle. Why do you suppose there isn't any such color?"
The lily and the rose and holly-hock bushes were silent for a moment, and then they said they didn't know.
"I'm glad you don't," said the tree voice. "I'm glad to find that there are some things you don't know. Just think how dreadful it would be if you knew everything. Why,if you knew everything, nobody could tell you anything, and then there'd never be any news in the world, and when you heard a joke you couldn't ever laugh because you'd have known it before."
Here Jimmieboy, impressed by the real good sense of this remark, leaned out of the hammock and peered up into the tree to see if possible who or what it was that was speaking.
"Don't," cried the voice. "Don't try to see me, Jimmieboy, I haven't got my company clothes on, and you make me nervous."
"But I want to see who you are," said Jimmieboy.
"Well you needn't want that any more," said the voice. "I'll tell you why. Nobody knows what I am. I don't even know myself."
"But what do you look like?" asked Jimmieboy.
"I don't know that, either. I never saw myself," replied the voice. "I'm something, of course, but just what I don't know. It may be that I am a horse and wagon, only I don't think I am, because horses, and wagons don't get up in trees. I saw a horse sitting on a whiffletree once, but that was down on the ground and not up here, so, of course, you see the chances are that I'm not that."
"What do you think you are?" asked Jimmieboy.
"I haven't thought much about it. But I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll tell you what, perhaps, I am, and maybe that will help you to find out, and if you do find out I beg that you will tell me, because I've some curiosity on the subject myself."
"Go ahead," said Jimmieboy. "You give me the perhapses and I'll try to guess."
"Well," began the voice, slowly, as if,whatever it was, the thing was trying to think. Let me see.
"Perhaps I am a house and lot,Perhaps I am a pussy cat,Perhaps I am a schooner yacht,Or possibly an inky spot,Perhaps a beaver hat."
"I've never seen any of those up a tree," said Jimmieboy. "I guess you aren't any of those."
"Very likely not," said the voice, "but I can try a few more.
"Perhaps I am a picture book,It maybe I'm a candy box,Perhaps I am a trolling-hook,A tennis bat, or fancy cook,Perhaps a pair of socks."Perchance I am a pair of shears,Perhaps a piece of kindling-wood,Perhaps I am a herd of deers,Perhaps two crystal chandeliers,Or some old lady's hood."No man can say I'm not a padOn which a poet scribbles verse,It may be I'm a nice fresh shad,Or something else not quite as bad,Or maybe something worse."
"But none of these things ever go up trees," protested Jimmieboy. "Can't you tell me some of the things that perhaps you are that are found up in trees?"
"No," said the voice, sadly. "I can't. I don't know what kind of things go up trees—unless it's pollywogs or Noah's arks."
"They don't go up trees," said Jimmieboy, scornfully.
"Well I was afraid they didn't, and that's why I didn't mention them before. But you see," the voice added with a mournful little tremor, "you see how useless it is to try to guess what I am. Why, if you really guessed, I wouldn't know if you'd guessed right—so what's the use?"
"I guess there isn't any use," said Jimmieboy."If I could only see you once, though, maybe I could tell."
Here he leaned far out of the hammock, in a vain effort to see the creature he was talking to. He leaned so far out, in fact, that he losthis balance and fell head over heels on to the soft green turf.
The mountain brook seemed to laugh at this mishap, and went babbling on to the great river that bore its waters to the sea, while Jimmieboy, somewhat dazed by his afternoon's experience, walked wonderingly back to the house to make ready for supper. He was filled with regret that he had not been able to catch a glimpse of the strange little being in the tree, for he very much wished to know what manner of creature it was, so stupid and yet so kindly—as, indeed, would I, for really I haven't any more idea as to who or what it was than he. What doyouthink it was?
It was a very great misfortune indeed that Jimmieboy should make theacquaintance of the bumblebee at that particular time—that is to say, everybody thought it was. The bumblebee, as a rule, was one of the jolliest bees in the hive, and passed most of his days humming away as if he were the happiest of mortals; but at the particular moment when Jimmieboy, who wasn't looking where he was going, ran into him, the bee was mad about something, and he settled down on Jimmieboy's cheek and stung him. He was a very thorough bee, too, unhappily, and he never did anything by halves, which is why it was that the sting was about as bad a one and as painful as any bee ever stang. I use the word"stang" here to please Jimmieboy, by the way. It is one of his favorites in describing the incident.
Now, it is bad enough, I have found, to be stung by a bee at any time, but when it happens on the night of July Fourth, and is so painful that the person stung has to go to bed with a poultice over his cheek and eye, and so cannot see the fireworks he has been looking forward to for weeks and weeks, it is about the worst affliction that a small boy can have overtake him—at least it seems so at the time—and that was exactly poor Jimmieboy's case. He had thought and thought and thought about those fireworks for days and days and days, and here, on Fourth of July night, he found himself lying in bed in his room, with one side of his face covered with a bandage, and his poor little other blue eye gazing at the ceiling, while his ears listened to the sizzling of the rocketsand pin wheels and the thunderous booming of the bombs.
"Mean old bee!" he said, drowsily, as his other blue eye tried to peer out of the window in the hope of seeing at least one rocket burst into stars. "I didn't mean to upset him."
"I know you didn't," sobbed a little voice at his side. "And I didn't mean to sting you, only I didn't know it was you, and I was mad because somebody's picked a rose I'd had my eye on for a week, and you ran into me and spilled all the honey I'd gug—gathered, and then I—I was so irritated I stuck my stingers out and stang you. Can't you forgive me?"
Jimmieboy withdrew his other blue eye from the window in wonderment. He was used to queer things, but this seemed the queerest yet. The idea of a bumblebee coming to apologize to a boy for stinging himmade him smile in spite of his disappointment and his pain.
"Who are you?" he said, looking toward the foot of the bed, whence the voice had come.
"I used to be a bumblebee," sobbed the little voice, "but I've changed my first letter from 'b' to 'h.' I'm only an humble-bee now, and all because I've treated you so badly. I really didn't mean to, and I've come to help you have a good time to-night, so that you won't miss the fireworks because of my misbehavior."
"Don't mention it," said Jimmieboy, kindly. "It was my fault, after all. I hadn't ought to have run into you."
"Yes, you had ought to have, too," moaned the little bee. "You were just right in running into me. I hadn't ought to have got in your way."
"Well, anyhow, it's all right," said Jimmieboy."You're forgiven—though you did hurt me like everything."
"I know it," sobbed the bee. "I almost wish you'd get a pin and stick it into me once, so as to sort of just even things up. It would hurt me, I know, but then I'd feel better after I got well."
"Indeed I won't," said Jimmieboy, with a determined shake of his head. "That won't do any good, and what's the use anyhow, as long as you didn't mean it?"
"I'm sure I don't know," the bee answered. "I'm only a bug, after all, you know, and so I don't understand things that human beings which has got brains can understand. I've noticed, though, that sometimes when a boy gets hurt it sort of makes him feel better if he hurts back."
"I wouldn't mind a bit if I could see the fireworks," said Jimmieboy. "That's what hurts the most."
"Well, I'll tell you what you do," said the bee; "if that's all you feel bad about, we can fix it up in a jiffy. Do you know what a jiffy is?"
"No, I don't," said Jimmieboy.
"Well, I'll tell you," said the bee, "but don't you ever tell:
"Sixty seconds make a minute,Sixty minutes make an hour;But a second has within itSixty jiffies full of power.
"In other words, a jiffy is just the same thing to a second as the second is to the minute or the minute to the hour; and, dear me, what billions of things can happen in a jiffy! Why, they're simply enormous."
"They must be," said Jimmieboy, "if, as you say, you can fix me up in regard to the fireworks in a jiffy."
"There isn't any if about it," returned the bee. "Just turn over and put your face into the pillow, and see what you can see."
"I can't see anything with both eyes in my pillow, much less with one," said Jimmieboy.
"Well—try it," said the bee. "I know what I'm buzzing about."
So Jimmieboy, just to oblige his strange little friend, turned over and buried his face in the pillow. At first, as far as he could see, there was nothing going on in the pillow to make it worth while; but all of a sudden, just as he was about to withdraw his face, a great golden pin wheel began to whizz and whirr right in front of him, only instead of putting forth fire it spouted jewels and flowers, and finally right out of the middle of it there popped a tiny bit of a creature all dressed in spangles, looking for all the world like a Brownie. He bowed to Jimmieboy politely and requested him to open his mouth as wide as he could.
"What for?" asked Jimmieboy, naturallya little curious to know the meaning of this strange proceeding.
"I am going to set off the sugar-plum bomb," the little creature replied. "But of course if you don't want the sugar-plums you can keep your mouth closed."
"Can't I catch 'em in my hands?" said Jimmieboy.
"You can if you want to, but they won't be of any use if you do," returned the little creature. "You see, this bomb shoots out candy instead of sparks, but the candy is so delicate that, like the sparks in fire fireworks, it goes out just as soon as it comes down. If you catch 'em in your hands you won't be able to see how good they taste, don't you see?"
"Yeh," said Jimmieboy, opening his mouth as wide as he could, and so speaking with difficulty. "Hire ahay!"—by which I presume he meant fire away, only he couldn't say it plainly with his mouth open.
And then the little creature set off the sugar-plum bomb, and the candies it put forth were marvelous in number and sweetness, and, strange to say, there wasn't one of them that, in falling, came down anywhere but in the mouth of the small boy who had been "stang."
"Got any cannon crackers?" asked Jimmieboy, delighted with what he had already seen, as soon as the sweet taste from the sugar-plums died away. "I'm fond of noise, too."
"Well," said the little creature, "we have great big crackers, only they don't break the silence in just the way you mean. They make a noise, but it isn't just a plain ordinary crash such as your cannon crackers make. We call 'em our Grand Opera Crackers. I'll set one off and let you see what I mean."
So the little creature opened a big chest that in some way happened to come up outof the ground beside him, and with difficulty hauled from it a huge thing that looked like the ordinary giant crackers that Jimmieboy was used to seeing. It was twice as big as the little creature, but he got it out nevertheless.
"My!" cried Jimmieboy. "That's fine. That ought to make lots of noise."
"It will," returned the little creature, touching a match to the fuse. "Just listen now."
The fuse burned slowly along, and then, with a great puff of smoke, the cracker burst, but not into a mere crash as the little creature had hinted, but into a most entrancing military march, that was inspiring enough to set even the four legs of the heaviest dinner-table to strutting about the room. Jimmieboy could hardly keep his own feet still as the music went on, but he did not dare draw his face away from thepillow so that he might march about the room, for fear that by so doing he would lose what might remain of this wonderful exhibition, whose like he had never even dreamed of before, and alongside of which he felt that the display he had missed by having to go to bed must be as insignificant as a pin compared to Cleopatra's great stone needle.
"That was fine!" he cried, ecstatically, as the last echoes of the musical cracker died away. "I wouldn't mind having a hundred packs of those. Have you got any music torpedoes?"
"No," returned the little creature. "But we've got picture torpedoes. Look at this." The little creature here took a small paper ball from the chest, and, slamming it on the ground with all his might, it exploded, and the spot whereon it fell was covered with a gorgeous little picture of Jimmieboy himself,all dressed in sailor's clothes and dancing a hornpipe.
"That's a very good picture of you," said the little creature, looking at the dancing figure. "It's so full of motion, like you. Here's another one," he added, as the picture from the first torpedo faded away. "This shows how you'd look if you were a fairy."
The second torpedo was slammed down upon the ground just as the first had been, and Jimmieboy had the pleasure of seeing himself in another picture, only this time he had gossamer wings and a little wand, and he was flying about a great field of poppies and laughing with a lot of other fairies, among whom he recognized his little brothers and a few of his playmates. He could have looked at this all night and not grown weary of it, but, like a great many other good things, the picture could not lastforever, and just at the most interesting point, when he saw himself about to fly a race across the poppy-field with a robin, the picture faded away, and the little creature called out: "Now for the finest of the lot. Here goes the Fairy-Book Rocket!"
With a tremendous whizz, up soared the most magnificent rocket you ever saw. It left behind it a trail of golden fire that was dazzling, and then, when it reached its highest point in the sky, it burst as all other rockets do, but, instead of putting forth stars, all the people in Jimmieboy's favorite fairy tales jumped out into the heavens. There was a glittering Jack chasing a dozen silver giants around about the moon; there was a dainty little Cinderella, with her gorgeous coach and four, driving up and down the Milky Way; Puss-in-Boots was hopping about from one cloud to another, as easily as if he were an ordinary cat jumpingfrom an ordinary footstool on to an ordinary sofa. They were all there cutting up the finest pranks imaginable, when suddenly Jack of the beanstalk fame appeared at the side of the little creature who had set the rocket off, and planted a bean at his feet, and from it there immediately sprang forth a huge stalk covered with leaves of gold and silver, dropping showers of rubies and pearls and diamonds to the ground, as it grew rapidly upwards to where the fairy-land folk were disporting themselves in the skies. These, when the stalk had reached its full growth, rushed toward it, and in a moment were clambering back to earth again, and then, when they were all safely down, they ranged themselves in a row, sang a beautiful good-night song to the boy with his face in the pillow, and disappeared into the darkness.
"There!" said the little voice back ofJimmieboy. "That's what one jiffy will do."
Jimmieboy turned about and smiled happily at the bee—for it was the bee who had spoken.
"Sometime we'll have another," the bee added. "But now I must go—I've got to get ready for to-morrow, which will be bright and sunshiny, and in every way a great day for honey. Good-by!"
And Jimmieboy, as the bee flew out of the window, was pleased to notice that the pain in his cheek was all gone. With a contented smile on his face he turned over and went to sleep, and when his papa came in to look at him as he lay there in his little bed, noticing the smile, he turned to his mamma and said, "Well, he doesn't look as if he'd missed the fireworks very much, after all, does he?"
"No," said his mamma. "He seems to bejust the same happy little fellow he always was."
And between us, I think they were both right, for we know that he didn't miss the fireworks, and as for being happy, he was just as much so as are most boys who know what it is to be contented, and who, when trials come upon them, endeavor to make the best of them, anyhow.