NOW RIDDLE ME THIS
The children were sitting in the swing. Florence Hammer, a little girl whose mother was spending the day at Miss Minerva's, was with them.
“Don't you-all wish Santa Claus had his birthday right now 'stead 'o waiting till Christmas to hang up our stockings?” asked Frances.
“Christmas isn't Santa Claus' birthday,” corrected Lina. “God was born on Christmas and that's the reason we hang up our stockings.”
“Yes; it is old Santa's birthday, too,” argued Jimmy, “'cause it's in the Bible and Miss Cecilia 'splained it to me and she 'bout the dandiest 'splainer they is.”
“Which you-all like the best: God or Doctor Sanford or Santa Claus?” asked Florence.
“I like God 'nother sight better 'n I do anybody,” declared Jimmy, “'cause He so forgivingsome. He's 'bout the forgivingest person they is. Santa Claus can't let you go to Heaven nor Doctor Sanford neither, nor our papas and mamas nor Miss Minerva. Now wouldn't we be in a pretty fix if we had to 'pend on Doctor Sanford or Santa Claus to forgive you every time you run off or fall down and bust your breeches. Naw; gimme God evy time.”
“I like Santa Claus the best,” declared Frances, “'cause he isn't f'rever getting in your way, and hasn't any castor oil like Doctor Sanford, and you don't f'rever have to be telling him you're sorry you did what you did, and he hasn't all time got one eye on you either, like God, and got to follow you 'round. And Santa Claus don't all time say, Shet your eyes and open your mouth,' like Doctor Sanford, 'and poke out your tongue.'”
“I like Doctor Sanford the best,” said Florence, “'cause he 's my uncle, and God and Santa Claus ain't kin to me.”
“And the Bible say, 'Love your kin-folks,' Miss Cecilia 'splained—”
“I use to like my Uncle Doc' heap better 'n what I do now,” went on the little girl, heedless of Jimmy's interruption, “till I went with daddy to his office one day. And what you reckon that man's got in his office? He's got a dead man 'thout no meat nor clo'es on, nothing a tall but just his bones.”
“Was he a hant?” asked Billy. “I like the Major best—he 's got meat on.”
“Naw; he didn't have no sheet on—just bones,” was the reply.
“No sheet on; no meat on!” chirruped Billy, glad of the rhyme.
“Was he a angel, Florence?” questioned Frances.
“Naw; he didn't have no harp and no wings neither.”
“It must have been a skeleton,” explained Lina.
“And Uncle Doc' just keeps that poor man there and won't let him go to Heaven where dead folks b'longs.”
“I spec' he wasn't a good man 'fore he died and got to go to the Bad Place,” suggested Frances.
“I'll betcher he never asked God to forgive him when he 'ceived his papa and sassed his mama,”—this from Jimmy, “and Doctor Sanford's just a-keeping old Satan from getting him to toast on a pitchfork.”
“I hope they'll have a Christmas tree at Sunday-School next Christmas,” said Frances, harking back, “and I hope I'll get a heap o' things like I did last Christmas. Poor little Tommy Knott he's so skeered he wasn't going to get nothing at all on the tree so he got him a great, big, red apple an' he wrote on a piece o' paper 'From Tommy Knott to Tommy Knott,' and tied it to the apple and put it on the tree for hi'self.”
“Let's ask riddles,” suggested Lina.
“All right,” shouted Frances, “I'm going to ask the first.”
“Naw; you ain't neither,” objected Jimmy. “You all time got to ask the first riddle. I'm going to ask the first one—
“'Round as a biscuit, busy as a bee,Prettiest little thing you ever did see?'—'A watch.'“Humpty Dumpty set on a wall,Humpty Dumpty had a great fall,All the king's horses and all the king's menCan't put Humpty Dumpty back again.''A egg.'“'Round as a ring, deep as a cup,All the king's horses can't pull it up.''A well.'“'House full, yard full, can't ketch—'”
“Hush, Jimmy!” cried Lina, in disgust. “You don't know how to ask riddles. You must n't give the answers, too. Ask one riddle at a time and let some one else answer it. I'll ask one and see who can answer it:
“'As I was going through a field of wheatI picked up something good to eat,'Twas neither fish nor flesh nor bone,I kept it till it ran alone?'”
“A snake! A snake!” guessed Florence. “That's a easy riddle.”
“Snake, nothing!” scoffed Jimmy, “you can't eat a snake. 'Sides Lina wouldn't 'a' picked up a snake. Is it a little baby rabbit, Lina?”
“It was neither fish nor flesh nor bone,” she declared; “and a rabbit is flesh and bone.”
“Then it's boun' to be a apple,” was Jimmy's next guess; “that ain't no flesh and blood and it's good to eat.”
“An apple can't run alone,” she triumphantly answered. “Give it up? Well, it was an egg and it hatched to a chicken. Now, Florence, you ask one.”
“S'pose a man was locked up in a house,” she asked, “how'd he get out?”
“Clam' outer a winder,” guessed Billy.
“'Twa'n't no winder to the house,” she declared.
“Crawled out th'oo the chim'ly, like Santa Claus,” was Billy's next guess.
“'Twa'n't no chim'ly to it. Give it up? Give it up?” the little girl laughed gleefully. “Well, he just broke out with measles.”
“It is Billy's time,” said Lina, who seemed to be mistress of ceremonies.
“Tabernicle learnt this here one at school; 'see, if y' all can guess it: 'Tabby had four kittens but Stillshee didn't have none 't all”'
“I don't see no sense a tall in that,” argued Jimmy, “'thout some bad little boys drownded 'em.”
“Tabby was a cat,” explained the other boy, “and she had four kittens; and Stillshee was a little girl, and she didn't have no kittens 't all.”
“What's this,” asked Jimmy: “'A man rode'cross a bridge and Fido walked? 'Had a little dog name' Fido.”
“You didn't ask that right, Jimmy,” said Lina, “you always get things wrong. The riddle is, 'A man rode across a bridge and Yet he walked,' and the answer is, 'He had a little dog named Yet who walked across the bridge.'”
“Well, I'd 'nother sight ruther have a little dog name' Fido,” declared Jimmy. “A little dog name' Yet and a little girl name' Stillshee ain't got no sense a tall to it.”
“Why should a hangman wear suspenders?” asked Lina. “I'll bet nobody can answer that.”
“To keep his breeches from falling off,” triumphantly answered Frances.
“No, you goose, a hangman should wear suspenders so that he 'd always have a gallows handy.”
IN THE HOUSE OF THE LORD.
It was a beautiful Sunday morning. The pulpit of the Methodist Church was not occupied by its regular pastor, Brother Johnson. Instead, a traveling minister, collecting funds for a church orphanage in Memphis, was the speaker for the day. Miss Minerva rarely missed a service in her own church. She was always on hand at the Love Feast and the Missionary Rally and gave liberally of her means to every cause. She was sitting in her own pew between Billy and Jimmy, Mr. and Mrs. Garner having remained at home. Across the aisle from her sat Frances Black, between her father and mother; two pews in front of her were Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton, with Lina on the outside next the aisle. The good Major was there, too; it was the only place he could depend upon for seeing Miss Minerva.
The preacher, after an earnest and eloquent discourse from the text, “He will remember the fatherless,” closed the big Bible with a bang calculated to wake any who might be sleeping. He came down from the pulpit and stood close to his hearers as he made his last pathetic appeal.
“My own heart,” said he, “goes out to every orphan child, for in the yellow fever epidemic of '78, when but two years old, I lost both father and mother. If there are any little orphan children here to-day, I should be glad if they would come up to the front and shake hands with me.”
Now Miss Minerva always faithfully responded to every proposal made by a preacher; it was a part of her religious conviction. At revivals she was ever a shining, if solemn and austere, light. When a minister called for all those who wanted to go to Heaven to rise, she was always the first one on her feet. If he asked to see the raised hands of those who were members of the church at the tender age of ten years, Miss Minerva's thin, long arm gave a prompt response. Once when a celebrated evangelist was holding a big protracted meeting under canvas in the town and had asked all those who had read the book of Hezekiah in the Bible to stand up, Miss Minerva on one side of the big tent and her devoted lover on the other side were among the few who had risen to their feet. She had read the good book from cover to cover from Genesis to Revelation over and over so she thought she had read Hezekiah a score of times.
So now, when the preacher called for little orphans to come forward, she leaned down and whispered to her nephew, “Go up to the front, William, and shake hands with the nice kind preacher.”
“Wha' fer?” he asked. “I don' want to go up there; ev'ybody here'll look right at me.”
“Are there no little orphans here?” the minister was saying. “I want to shake the hand of any little child who has had the misfortune to lose its parents.”
“Go on, William,” commanded his aunt. “Go shake hands with the preacher.”
The little boy again demurred but, Miss Minerva insisting, he obediently slipped by her and by his chum. Walking gracefully and jauntily up the aisle to the spot where the lecturer was standing by a broad table, he held out his slim, little hand.
Jimmy looked at these proceedings of Billy's in astonishment, not comprehending at all. He was rather indignant that the older boy had not confided in him and invited his participation.
But Jimmy was not the one to sit calmly by and be ignored when there was anything doing, so he slid awkwardly from the bench before Miss Minerva knew what he was up to. Signaling Frances to follow, he swaggered pompously behind Billy and he, too, held out a short, fat hand to the minister.
The speaker smiled benignly down upon them; lifting them up in his arms he stood the little boys upon the table. He thought the touching sight of these innocent and tender little orphans would empty the pockets of the audience. Billy turned red with embarrassment at his conspicuous position, while Jimmy grinned happily at the amused congregation. Horrified Miss Minerva half rose to her feet, but decided to remain where she was. She was a timid woman and did not know what course she ought to pursue. Besides, she had just caught the Major's smile.
“And how long have you been an orphan?” the preacher was asking of Billy.
“Ever sence me an' Wilkes Booth Lincoln's born,” sweetly responded the child.
“I 'bout the orphantest boy they is,” volunteered Jimmy.
Frances, responding to the latter's invitation, had crawled over her father's legs before he realized what was happening. She, too, went sailing down the aisle, her stiff white dress standing straight up in the back like a strutting gobbler's tail. She grabbed hold of the man's hand, and was promptly lifted to the table beside the other “orphans.” Tears stood in the good preacher's eyes as he turned to the tittering audience and said in a pathetic voice, “Think of it, my friends, this beautiful little girl has no mother.”
Poor Mrs. Black! A hundred pairs of eyes sought her pew and focused themselves upon the pretty young woman sitting there, red, angry, and shamefaced. Mr. Black was visibly amused and could hardly keep from laughing aloud.
As Frances passed by the Hamiltons' pew in her promenade down the aisle, Mrs. Hamilton leaned across her husband and made an attempt to clutch Lina; but she was too late; already that dignified little “orphan” was gliding with stately, conscious tread to join the others. This was too much for the audience. A few boys laughed out and for the first time the preacher's suspicions were aroused. As he clasped Lina's slender, graceful little hand he asked:
“And you have no father or mother, little girl?”
“Yes, I have, too,” she angrily retorted. “My father and mother are sitting right there,” and she pointed a slim forefinger to her crimson, embarrassed parents.
JOB AND POLLIE BUMPUS
“I never have told a downright falsehood,” said Lina. “Mother taught me how wicked it is to tell stories. Did you ever tell a fib to your mother, Frances?”
“'Tain't no use to try to 'ceive my mama,” was the reply of the other little girl; “she's got such gimlet eyes and ears she can tell with 'em shut if you're fibbing. I gave up hope long ago, so I just go 'long and tell her the plain gospel truth when she asks me, 'cause I know those gimlet eyes and ears of hers 're going to worm it out o' me somehow.”
“Grown folks pin you down so close sometimes,” said Jimmy, “you bound to 'varicate a little; and I always tell God I'm sorry. I tell my mama the truth 'most all time 'cepting when she asks questions 'bout things ain't none of her business a tall, and she all time want to know 'Who done it?' and if I let on it's me, I know she'll wear out all the slippers and hair-brushes they is paddling my canoe, 'sides switches, so I jus' say 'I do' know, 'm'—which all time ain't perzactly the truth. You ever tell Miss Minerva stories, Billy?”
“Aunt Cindy always say, 't wa'n't no harm 't all to beat 'bout the bush an' try to th'ow folks offer the track 'long as you can, but if it come to the point where you got to tell a out-an'-out fib, she say for me always to tell the truth, an' I jest nachelly do like she say ever sence I's born,” replied Billy.
The children swung awhile in silence. Presently Jimmy broke the quiet by remarking,
“Don't you all feel sorry for old Miss Pollie Bumpus? She live all by herself, and she 'bout a million years old, and Doctor Sanford ain't never brung her no chillens 'cause she ain't got 'er no husban' to be their papa, and she got a octopus in her head, and she poor as a post and deaf as job's old turkey-hen.”
“Job's old turkey-hen wasn't deaf,” retorted Lina primly; “she was very, very poor and thin.”
“She was deaf, too,” insisted Jimmy, “'cause it's in the Bible. I know all 'bout job,” bragged he.
“I know all 'bout job, too,” chirped Frances.
“Job, nothing!” said Jimmy, with a sneer; “you all time talking 'bout you know all 'bout job; you 'bout the womanishest little girl they is. Now I know job 'cause Miss Cecilia 'splained all 'bout him to me. He's in the Bible and he sold his birthmark for a mess of potatoes and—”
“You never can get anything right, Jimmy,” interrupted Lina; “that was Esau and it was not his birthmark, it was his birthstone; and he sold his birthstone for a mess of potash.”
“Yas,” agreed Frances; “he saw Esau kissing Kate and Esau had to sell him his birthstone to keep his mouth shut.”
“Mother read me all about job,” continued Lina; “he was afflicted with boils and his wife knit him a job's comforter to wrap around him, and he—”
“And he sat under a 'tato vine;” put in Frances eagerly, “what God grew to keep the sun off o' his boils and—”
“That was Jonah,” said Lina, “and it wasn't a potato vine; it was—”
“No, 't wasn't Jonah neither; Jonah is inside of a whale's bel—”
“Frances!”
“Stommick,” Frances corrected herself, “and a whale swallow him, and how's he going to sit under a pumpkin vine when he's inside of a whale?”
“It was not a pumpkin vine, it—”
“And I 'd jus' like to see a man inside of a whale a-setting under a morning-glory vine.”
“The whale vomicked him up,” said Jimmy.
“What sorter thing is a octopus like what y' all say is in Miss Pollie Bumpus's head?” asked Billy.
“'Tain't a octopus, it's a polypus,” explained Frances, “'cause she's named Miss Pollie. It's a someping that grows in your nose and has to be named what you's named. She's named Miss Pollie and she's got a polypus.”
“I'm mighty glad my mama ain't got no Eva-pus in her head,” was Jimmy's comment. “Ain't you glad, Billy, your Aunt Minerva ain't got no Miss Minervapus?”
“I sho' is,” fervently replied Miss Minerva's nephew; “she's hard 'nough to manage now like she is.”
“I'm awful good to Miss Pollie,” said Frances. “I take her someping good to eat 'most every day. I took her two pieces of pie this morning; I ate up one piece on the way and she gimme the other piece when I got there. I jus' don't believe she could get 'long at all 'thout me to carry her the good things to eat that my mama sends her; I takes her pies all the time, she says they're the best smelling pies ever she smelt.”
“You 'bout the piggiest girl they is,” said Jimmy, “all time got to eat up a poor old woman's pies. You'll have a Frances-pus in your stomach first thing you know.”
“She's got a horn that you talk th'oo,” continued the little girl, serenely contemptuous of Jimmy's adverse criticism, “and 'fore I knew how you talk into it, she says to me one day, 'How's your ma?' and stuck that old horn at me; so I put it to my ear, too, and there we set; she got one end of the horn to her ear and I got the other end to my ear; so when I saw this wasn't going to work I took it and blew into it; you-all 'd died a-laughing to see the way I did. But now I can talk th'oo it 's good's anybody.”
“That is an ear trumpet, Frances,” said Lina, “it is not a horn.”
“Le's play 'Hide the Switch,'” suggested Billy.
“I'm going to hide it first,” cried Frances.
“Naw, you ain't,” objected Jimmy, “you all time got to hide the switch first. I'm going to hide it first myself.”
“No, I'm going to say 'William Com Trimbleton,'” said Frances, “and see who's going to hide it first. Now you-all spraddle out your fingers.”
Mr. ALGERNON JONES
Again was it Monday, with the Ladies Aid Society in session. Jimmy was sitting on the grass in his own front yard, in full view of Sarah Jane, who was ironing clothes in her cabin with strict orders to keep him at home. Billy was in the swing in Miss Minerva's yard.
“Come on over,” he invited.
“I can't,” was the reply across the fence, “I'm so good now I 'bout got 'ligion; I reckon I'm going to be a mish'nary or a pol'tician, one or t' other when I'm a grownup man 'cause I'm so good; I ain't got but five whippings this week. I been good ever since I let you 'suade me to play Injun. I'm the goodest little boy in this town, I 'spec'. Sometimes I get scared 'bout being so good 'cause I hear a woman say if you too good, you going to die or you ain't got no sense, one. You come on over here; you ain't trying to be good like what I'm trying, and Miss Minerva don't never do nothing a tall to you 'cepting put you to bed.”
“I'd ruther to git whipped fifty hunderd times 'n to hafter go to bed in the daytime with Aunt Minerva lookin' at you. An' her specs can see right th'oo you plumb to the bone. Naw, I can't come over there 'cause she made me promise not to. I ain't never go back on my word yit.”
“I hope mama won't never ask me to promise her nothing a tall, 'cause I'm mighty curious 'bout forgetting. I 'spec' I'm the most forgettingest little boy they is. But I'm so glad I'm so good. I ain't never going to be bad no more; so you might just as well quit begging me to come over and swing, you need n't ask me no more,—'tain't no use a tall.”
“I ain't a-begging you,” cried Billy contemptuously, “you can set on yo' mammy's grass where you is, an' be good from now tell Jedgement Day an' 'twon't make no change in my business.”
“I ain't going to be 'ticed into no meanness, 'cause I'm so good,” continued the reformed one, after a short silence during which he had seen Sarah Jane turn her back to him, “but I don't b'lieve it'll be no harm jus' to come over and set in the swing with you; maybe I can 'fluence you to be good like me and keep you from 'ticing little boys into mischief. I think I'll just come over and set a while and help you to be good,” and he started to the fence. Sarah Jane turned around in time to frustrate his plans.
“You git right back, Jimmy,” she yelled, “you git erway f'om dat-ar fence an' quit confabbin' wid datar Willyum. Fixin' to make some mo' Injuns out o' yo'selfs, ain't yeh, or some yuther kin' o' skeercrows?”
Billy strolled to the other side of the big yard and climbed up and sat on the tall gate post. A stranger, coming from the opposite direction, stopped and spoke to him.
“Does Mr. John Smith live here?” he asked.
“Naw, sir,” was the reply; “don't no Mr. 'tall live here; jest me an' Aunt Minerva, an' she turns up her nose at anything that wears pants.”
“And where could I find your Aunt Minerva?” the stranger's grin was ingratiating and agreeable.
“Why, this here's Monday,” the little boy exclaimed. “Of course she's at the Aid; all the 'omans roun' here goes to the Aid on Monday.”
“Your aunt is an old friend of mine,” went on the man, “and I knew she was at the Aid. I just wanted to find out if you'd tell the truth about her. Some little boys tell stories, but I am glad to find out you are so truthful. My name is Mr. Algernon Jones and I'm glad to know you. Shake! Put it there, partner,” and the fascinating stranger held out a grimy paw.
Billy smiled down from his perch at him and thought he had never met such a pleasant man. If he was such an old friend of his aunt's maybe she would not object to him because he wore pants, he thought. Maybe she might be persuaded to take Mr. Jones for a husband. Billy almost hoped that she would hurry home from the Aid, he wanted to see the two together so.
“Is you much of a cusser?” he asked solemnly, “'cause if you is you'll hafter cut it out on these premises.”
Mr. Jones seemed much surprised and hurt at the question.
“An oath never passed these lips,” replied the truthful gentleman.
“Can you churn?”
“Churn—churn?” with a reminiscent smile, “I can churn like a top.”
Jimmy was dying of curiosity but the gate was too far away for him to do more than catch a word now and then. It was also out of Sarah Jane's visual line, so she knew nothing of the stranger's advent.
“And you're here all by yourself?” insinuated Billy's new friend. “And the folks next door, where are they?”
“Mrs. Garner's at the Aid an' Mr. Garner's gone to Memphis. That is they little boy a-settin' in they yard on they grass,” answered the child.
“I've come to fix your Aunt Minerva's water pipe,” said truth-loving Mr. Jones. “Come, show me the way; I'm the plumber.”
“In the bath-room?” asked the child. “I did n' know it needed no fixin'.”
He led the agreeable plumber through the hall, down the long back-porch to the bathroom, remarking “I'll jes' watch you work.” And he seated himself in the only chair.
Here is where Billy received one of the greatest surprises of his life. The fascinating stranger grabbed him with a rough hand and hissed:
“Don't you dare open your mouth or I'll crack your head open and scatter your brains. I'll eat you alive.”
The fierce, bloodshot eyes, which had seemed so laughing and merry before, now glared into those of the little boy as the man took a stout cord from his pocket, bound Billy to the chair, and gagged him with a large bath towel. Energetic Mr. Jones took the key out of the door, shook his fist at the child, went out, and locked the door behind him.
Jimmy, seeing no hope of eluding Sarah Jane's vigilance, resorted to strategy and deceit.
“'Tain't no fun setting out here,” he called to her, “so I 'm going in the house and take a nap.”
She willingly consented, as she was through with her ironing and thought to snatch a few winks of sleep herself.
The little boy slipped quietly through the house, noiselessly across the back-yard and into his father's big garden, which was separated from that of his neighbor by a high board-fence. He quickly climbed the fence, flew across Miss Minerva's tomato patch and tiptoed up her back steps to the back porch, his little bare feet giving no sign of his presence. Hearing curious noises coming from the bad-room, where Billy was bumping the chair up and down in his efforts to release his mouth, he made for that spot, promptly unlocked the door, and walked in. Billy by scuffling and tugging had freed his mouth from the towel that bound it at that moment.
“Hush!” he whispered as Jimmy opened the door, “you'll get eat up alive if you don't look out.” His tone was so mysterious and thrilling and he looked so scared tied to the chair that the younger boy's blood almost froze in his veins.
“What you doing all tied up so?” he asked in low, frightened tones.
“Mr. Algernon Jones done it. I spec' he's a robber an' is jes' a-robberin' right now,” answered Billy.
“I'll untie you,” said his chum.
“Naw; you better not,” said Billy bravely. “He might git away. You leave me jes' like he fixed me so's you can try to ketch him. I hear him in the dinin'-room now. You leave me right here an' step over to yo' house an' 'phone to some mens to come and git him quick. Shet the do' ag'in an' don't make no noise. Fly, now!”
And Jimmy did fly. He again took the garden route and in a minute was at the telephone with the receiver at his ear.
“Hello! Is that you, Miss Central? This is me,” he howled into the transmitter. “Gimme Miss Minerva's beau. I don't know his number, but he's got a office over my papa's bank.”
His father being out of town, the little boy shrewdly decided that Miss Minerva's beau was the next best man to help capture the robber.
“Miss Minerva what lives by me,” he shrieked.
Fortunately Central recognized his childish voice and was willing to humor him, so as she too knew Miss Minerva's beau. The connection was quickly made.
“Hello! Is that you, Major? This is me. If you don't want Mr. Algernon Jones to be robbering everything Miss Minerva's got you better get a move on and come right this minute. You got to hustle and bring 'bout a million pistols and guns and swords and tomahawks and all the mans you can find and dogs. He's the fiercest robber ever was, and he's already done tie Billy to a bath-room chair and done eat up 'bout a million cold biscuits, I spec'. All of us is 'bout to be slewed. Good-bye.”
The plump, round gentleman at the other end of the wire heard this amazing message in the utmost confusion and consternation. He frantically rang the telephone again and again but could get no answer from the Garners' home so he put on his hat and walked the short distance to Miss Minerva's house.
Jimmy was waiting to receive him at the front gate, having again eluded Sarah Jane's vigilance.
“Hush!” he whispered mysteriously, “he's in the dining-room. Ain't you bringed nobody else? Get your pistol and come on.”
Mr. Algernon Jones, feeling safe and secure for the next hour and having partaken of a light lunch, was in the act of transferring some silver spoons from the sideboard to his pockets when a noise at the dining-room door caused him to look in that direction. With an oath he sprang forward, and landed his fist upon the nose of a plump gentleman standing there, bringing a stream of blood and sending him sprawling to the floor. Mr. Jones overturned a big-eyed little boy who was in his way and, walking rapidly in the direction of the railroad, the erstwhile plumber was seen no more.
Jimmy quickly recovered himself and sprang to his feet. Seeing the blood streaming down the white shirt front of Miss Minerva's unconscious beau, he gathered his wits together and took the thread of events again into his own little hands. He flung himself over the fence, careless of Sarah Jane this time, mounted a chair and once more rang the telephone.
“Hello! Is that you, Miss Central? This is me some more. Gimme Doctor Sanford's office, please.”
“Hello! Is that you, Doctor? This is me. Mr. Algernon Jones done kilt Miss Minerva's beau. He's on her back-porch bloody all over. He's 'bout the deadest man they is. You 'd better come toreckly you can and bring the hearse, and a coffin and a clean shirt and a tombstone. He's wounded me but I ain't dead yet. Good-bye.”
Doctor Sanford received Jimmy's crazy message in astonishment. He, too, rang the telephone again and again but could hear nothing more, so he walked down to Miss Minerva's house and rang the door-bell. Jimmy opened the door and led the way to the back-porch, where the injured man, who had just recovered consciousness, was sitting limply in a chair.
“What does all this mean? Are you hurt?” asked the Doctor as he examined Mr. Jones's victim.
“No, I think I'm all right now,” was the reply; “but that scoundrel certainly gave me a severe blow.”
Billy, shut up in the bath-room and listening to all the noise and confusion, had been scared nearly out of his senses. He had kept as still as a mouse till now, when, thinking he heard friendly voices he yelled out, “Open the do' an' untie me.”
“We done forgot Billy,” said the little rescuer, as he ran to the bath-room door and opened it. He was followed by the Doctor, who cut the cords that bound the prisoner.
“Now, William,” commanded Doctor Sanford as they grouped themselves around the stout, plump gentleman in the chair, “begin at the beginning, and let us get at the bottom of this affair.”
“Mr. Algernon Jones he come to the gate,” explained the little boy, “an' he say he goin' to fix the water pipe an' he say he's a plumber. He's a very 'greeable man, but I don't want Aunt Minerva to marry him, now. I was plumb tickled at him an' I tuck him to the bath-room an' fust thing I knowed he grabbed holter me an' shuck me like what you see a cat do a mouse, an' he say—”
“And he'd more 'n a million whiskers,” interrupted Jimmy, who thought Billy was receiving too much attention, “and he—”
“One at a time,” said the Doctor. “Proceed, William.”
“An' he say he'll bust my brains outer my head if I holler, an' I ain't a-goin' to holler neither, an' he tie me to a chair an' tie my mouth up an' lock the do'—”
“And I comed over,” said Jimmy eagerly, “and I run home and I see Mr. Algernon Jones is a robber and I 'phoned to Miss Minerva's beau, and if he'd brunged what I telled him, he wouldn't never got cracked in the face like Mr. Algernon Jones done crack him, and Billy got to all time let robbers in the house so they can knock mans and little boys down.”
“While you stand talking here the scoundrel will get away,” said the injured man.
“That is so,” agreed Doctor Sanford, “so I'll go and find the Sheriff.”
Sarah Jane's huge form loomed up in the back-hall doorway, and she grabbed Jimmy by the arm.
“Yaas,” she cried, “you gwine take you a nap is yuh, yuh 'ceitful caterpillar. Come on home dis minute.”
“Lemme go, Sarah Jane,” protested the little boy, trying to jerk away from her, “I got to stay here and pertec' Billy and Miss Minerva's beau 'cause they's a robber might come back and tie 'em up and make 'em bleed if I ain't here.”
“Did Mr. Algernon Jones make all that blood?” asked an awe-stricken little boy gazing in admiration at the victim of Mr. Jones's energy. “You sho' is a hero to stan' up an' let him knock you down like he done.”
“Yes,” cried Jimmy, as the black woman dragged him kicking and struggling through the hall, “we's all heroes, but I bet I'm the heroest hero they is, and I bet Miss Minerva's going to be mad 'bout you all spilling all that blood on her nice clean floor.”
“Lemme see yo' big toe what was shot off by all them Yankees and Injuns what you killed in the war,” said Billy to Miss Minerva's beau.
The Major smiled at the little boy; a man-to-man smile, full of good comradeship, humor, and understanding. Billy's little heart went out to him at once.
“I can't take off my shoes at present,” said the veteran. “Well, I must be going; I feel all right now.”
Billy looked at him with big, solemn eyes.
“You couldn't never go 'thout yo' pants, could you?” he asked, “'cause Aunt Minerva jest nachelly despises pants.”
The man eyed him quizzically.
“Well, no; I don't think I could,” he replied; “I don't think I'd look any better in a Mother Hubbard or a kimono.”
The little boy sighed.
“Which you think is the fitteness name,” asked he, “Billy or William.”
“Billy, Billy,” enthusiastically came the reply.
“I like mens,” said William Green Hill, “I sho' wisht you could come and live right here with me and Aunt Minerva.”
“I wish so, too,” said the Major.
BILLY, THE CREDULOUS
After the advent and disappearance of the exciting Mr. Jones, Miss Minerva, much to Billy's joy, had a telephone put in the house. He sat in the hall the day it was put in waiting for it to ring.
Jimmy, coming up on the front porch and through the half-open door and seeing him sitting there, rang the door bell just for a joke, ready to burst into a laugh when the other little boy turned around and saw who it was. Billy, however, in his eagerness mistook the ring for the telephone bell and joyfully climbed up on the chair, which he had stationed in readiness. He took down the receiver as he had seen Jimmy do in his home and, without once seeing that little boy standing a few feet from him, he yelled at the top of his lungs:
“Hello! Who is that?”
“This is Marie Yarbrough,” replied Jimmy from the doorway, instantly recognizing Billy's mistake.
Marie Yarbrough was a little girl much admired by the two boys, as she had a pony and cart of her very own. However, she lived in a different part of the town and attended another Sunday-School, so they had no speaking acquaintance with her.
“I jus' wanted to talk to you,” went on the counterfeit Marie, stifling a laugh and trying to talk like a girl. “I think you're 'bout the sweetest little boy they is and I want you to come to my party.”
“I sho' will,” screamed the gratified Billy, “if Aunt Minerva'll lemme. What make you talk so much like Jimmy?”
“Who?—that little old Jimmy Garner? I hope I don't talk like that chicken, he's 'bout the measliest boy they is and I like you 'nother sight better 'n him; you're a plumb jim-dandy, Billy,” came from the doorway.
“So's you,” howled back the delighted and flattered Billy.
Jimmy thought he would pop wide open in his efforts to keep from laughing.
“How 'd you like to be my sweetheart?” he asked.
“I's already promise' to marry Miss Cecilia when I puts on long pants, but if we ever gits a 'vorce I'd 'nother sight ruther have you 'n anybody. You can be my ladyfrien', anyhow,” was the loud reply.
“I'm coming for you to go riding in my little pony and cart,” said a giggling Jimmy.
“All right, I's going to ask Aunt Minerva to lemme go. Can't we take Jimmy too?”
This was too much for the little boy. He had held himself in as long as possible. He burst into a peal of laughter so merry and so loud that Billy, turning, quickly, almost fell out of the chair.
“What you doin', a-listening to me talk to Marie Yarbrough th'oo the telephone?” he questioned angrily.
“Marie your pig's foot,” was the inelegant response. “That was just me a-talking to you all the time. You all time think you talking to little girls and all time 'tain't nobody but me.”
A light dawned upon the innocent one. He promptly hung up the receiver and got down out of the chair. Before Jimmy was fully aware of his intention, Billy had thrown him to the floor and was giving him a good pommeling.
“Say you got 'nough?” he growled from ibis position astride of the other boy.
“I got 'nough, Billy,” repeated Jimmy.
“Say you sorry you done it.”
“I say I sorry I done it,” abjectly repeated the younger child. “Get up, Billy, 'fore you bust my stommick open.”
“Say you ain't never a-goin' to tell nobody, cross yo' heart,” was the next command.
“I say I ain't never going to tell nobody, cross my heart. Get up, Billy, 'fore you make me mad, and ain't no telling what I'll do to you if I get mad.”
“Say you's a low-down Jezebel skunk.”
“I ain't going to say I'm nothing of the kind,” spiritedly replied the under-dog. “You all time wanting somebody to call theirselfs someping. You're a low-down Isabella skunk yourself.”
“You got to say it,” insisted the victor, renewing hostilities.
“I'll say I'm a Isabella 'cause Isabella discovered America and's in the Bible,” replied the tormented one; “Miss Cecilia 'splained it to me.”
Billy accepted his compromise and Jimmy's flattened stomach, relieved of its burden, puffed out to its usual roundness as that little boy rose to his feet, saying:
“Sam Lamb would 'a' died a-laughing, Billy, if he 'd seen you telephoning.”
“He 'd better never hear tell of it,” was the threatening rejoinder.