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Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed | |
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was | |
produced from images generously made available by The | |
Internet Archive/American Libraries.) | |
IN CAMP WITH A TIN SOLDIER. | |
IN CAMP WITH A TIN SOLDIER | |
BY | |
JOHN KENDRICK BANGS | |
ILLUSTRATED BY | |
E. M. ASHE | |
[Illustration] | |
NEW YORK | |
R. H. RUSSELL & SON | |
MDCCCXCII | |
COPYRIGHT, 1892. | |
BY JOHN KENDRICK BANGS. | |
TO | |
RUSSELL. | |
CHAPTER I. | |
THE START. | |
"Br-r-r-rub-a-dub-dub! Br-r-r-rub-a-dub-a-dub-dub! | |
Br-r-r-rub-adub-dub-a-dub-dub-a-dub-dub!" | |
"What's that?" cried Jimmieboy, rising from his pillow on the nursery | |
couch, and looking about him, his eyes wide open with astonishment. | |
"What's what?" asked mamma, who was sitting near at hand, knitting a | |
pair of socks for a small boy she knew who would shortly want them to | |
keep his feet warm when he went off coasting with his papa. | |
"I thought I heard soldiers going by," returned Jimmieboy, climbing up | |
on the window-sill and gazing anxiously up and down the street. "There | |
were drums playing." | |
"I didn't hear them," said mamma. "I guess you imagined it. Better lie | |
down again, Jimmieboy, and rest. You will be very tired when papa gets | |
home, and you know if you are tired you'll have to go to bed instead of | |
taking supper with him, and that would be too bad on his birthday." | |
"Is papa really going to have a birthday to-day?" queried the little | |
fellow. "And a cake with candles in it?" | |
"Yes," answered mamma. "Two cakes with candles on them, I think," she | |
added. | |
"What's he to have two cakes for? I had only one," said Jimmieboy. | |
"One cake wouldn't be big enough to hold all the candles," mamma | |
answered. "You see, papa is a few years older than you are--almost six | |
times as old to-day, and if he has a candle for every year, he'll have | |
to have two cakes to hold them all." | |
"Is papa six years old to-day?" asked Jimmieboy, resuming his recumbent | |
position on the pillow. | |
"Oh, indeed, yes, he's thirty," said mamma. | |
"How many is thirty?" asked Jimmieboy. | |
"Never mind, dearest," returned mamma, giving Jimmieboy a kiss. "Don't | |
you bother about that. Just close those little peepers and go to | |
sleep." | |
So Jimmieboy closed his eyes and lay very still for a few minutes. He | |
was not sorry to do it, either, because he really was quite sleepy. He | |
ought to have had his nap before luncheon, but his mamma had been so | |
busy all the morning, making ready for his papa's birthday dinner, that | |
she had forgotten to call him in from the playground, where he was so | |
absorbed in the glorious sport of seesawing with his little friend from | |
across the way that he never even thought of his nap. As many as five | |
minutes must have slipped by before Jimmieboy opened his eyes again, and | |
I doubt if he would have done so even then had he not heard repeated the | |
unmistakable sounds of drums. | |
"I did hear 'em that time, mamma," he cried, starting up again and | |
winking very hard, for the sand-man had left nearly a pint of sand in | |
Jimmieboy's eyes. "I heard 'em plain as could be." | |
To this second statement of Jimmieboy's that he heard soldiers going by | |
somewhere, there was no answer, for there was no one in the room to give | |
him one. His mamma, supposing that he had finally fallen asleep, had | |
tiptoed out of the room and was now down stairs, so that the little | |
fellow found himself alone. As a rule he did not like to be alone, | |
although he knew of no greater delight than that of conversing with | |
himself, and he was on the point of running to the door to call to his | |
mother to return, when his attention was arrested by some very curious | |
goings-on in a favorite picture of his that hung directly over the | |
fire-place. | |
This picture was not, under ordinary circumstances, what any one would | |
call a lively picture--in fact, it was usually a very quiet one, | |
representing a country lane shaded on either side by great oak-trees | |
that towered up into the sky, their branches overhanging the road so as | |
to form a leafy arch, through which only an occasional ray of the sun | |
ever found its way. From one end to the other of this beautiful avenue | |
there were no signs of life, save those which were presented by the | |
green leaves of the trees themselves, and the purling brook, bordered by | |
grasses and mosses, that was visible a short distance in; no houses or | |
cows or men or children were there in sight. Indeed, had it not been for | |
a faint glimmering of sunlight at the far end of the road, some persons | |
might have thought it a rather gloomy scene, and I am not sure but that | |
even Jimmieboy, had he not wondered what there could be beyond the | |
forest, and around the turn which the road took at that other end, | |
would have found the picture a little depressing. It was his interest in | |
what might possibly lie beyond the point at which the picture seemed to | |
stop that had made it so great a favorite with him, and he had | |
frequently expressed a desire to take a stroll along that road, to fish | |
in the little stream, and to explore the hidden country around the turn. | |
So great was his interest in it at one time, that Jimmieboy's papa, who | |
was a great person for finding out things, promised to write to the man | |
who had painted the picture and ask him all about the unseen land, so | |
that his little son's curiosity might be satisfied, a promise which he | |
must have kept, for some days later, on his return from business, he | |
took a piece of paper from his pocket and gave it to Jimmieboy, saying | |
that there was the artist's answer. Jimmieboy couldn't read it, of | |
course, because at that time he had not even learned his letters, so he | |
got his papa to do it for him, and they made the pleasing discovery that | |
the artist was a poet as well as a painter, for the answer was all in | |
rhyme. If I remember rightly, this is the way it read: | |
AROUND THE TURN. | |
Around the turn are kings and queens; | |
Around the turn are dogs and cats; | |
Around the turn are pease and beans, | |
And handsome light blue derby hats. | |
Around the turn are grizzly bears; | |
Around the turn are hills and dales; | |
Around the turn are mice and hares, | |
And cream and milk in wooden pails. | |
Indeed, you'll find there horses, pigs, | |
Great seas and cities you'll discern; | |
All things, in fact, including figs, | |
For all the world lies round the turn. | |
This explanation was quite satisfactory to Jimmieboy, although he was a | |
little fearful as to what might happen if the grizzly bears should take | |
it into their heads to come down into the nursery and hug him, which was | |
certainly not an unlikely thing for them to do, for the mice had | |
come--he had seen them himself--and his mamma had often said that he was | |
a most huggable little fellow. | |
Now there was undoubtedly some sign of life down the road, for Jimmieboy | |
could see it with his own eyes. There was something moving there, and | |
that something was dressed in gay colors, and in front of it was | |
something else that shone brightly as an occasional ray of the sun | |
shimmered through the trees and glistened upon it. In an instant all | |
thought of his mamma had flown from his mind, so absorbed was he by the | |
startling discovery he had made up there in the picture. To turn back | |
from the door and walk over to the fire-place was the work of a moment, | |
and to climb up on the fender and gaze into the picture occupied hardly | |
more than another moment, and then Jimmieboy saw what it was that was | |
moving down the road, and with delighted ears heard also what that other | |
thing was that preceded the moving thing. | |
The first thing was a company of tin soldiers marching in perfect time, | |
their colors flying and the captain on horseback; and the other thing in | |
front was a full brass band, discoursing a most inspiring military march | |
in a fashion that set Jimmieboy strutting about the nursery like a | |
general. | |
As the little fellow strode around the room his step was suddenly | |
arrested by a voice immediately at his feet. | |
"Hi, there, Jimmieboy!" it said. "Please be careful where you are | |
walking. You nearly stepped on me that time." | |
Jimmieboy stopped short and looked down upon the floor. | |
"Hello!" he said. "What are you doing there, colonel?"--for it was none | |
other than the colonel of the tin soldiers himself who had thus | |
requested him to look out where he stepped. | |
"There's trouble on hand," said the colonel, climbing up on to a | |
footstool so as to be nearer Jimmieboy's ear, for he did not wish to | |
alarm everybody by shouting out the dreadful news he had to impart. | |
Jimmieboy's mamma, for instance, was a timid little woman, and she would | |
have been very much frightened if she had known what had happened. | |
"There's a great deal of trouble on hand," the colonel repeated. "The | |
Noah in your ark fell asleep last night before the animals had gone to | |
bed, and while he was napping, the Parallelopipedon got loose, ate up | |
the gingerbread monkey and four peppermint elephants, and escaped out of | |
the back window to the woods. Noah didn't find it out until an hour ago, | |
when he went to feed the elephants, and immediately he made the | |
discovery word came from the Pannikins, who live around the turn there | |
in the woods, that the Parallelopipedon had eaten the roof off their | |
house, and was at the time the letter was written engaged in whittling | |
down the fences with a jackknife, and rolling all the pumpkins down the | |
mountainside into Tiddledywinkland, and ruining the whole country. We | |
have got to capture that animal before breakfast. If we don't, there's | |
no telling what may happen. He might even go so far as to come back, and | |
that would be horrible." | |
"I don't think I remember the Parawelopipedon," said Jimmieboy, | |
pronouncing the animal's name with some difficulty. "What kind of an | |
animal was that?" | |
"Oh, he's an awful animal," returned the colonel. "I don't blame you for | |
not remembering him, though, because he is a hard animal to remember. He | |
is the only animal they had like him in the ark. They couldn't find two | |
of his sort, and I rather guess they are glad they couldn't, because his | |
appetite is simply dreadful, and the things he eats are most | |
embarrassing. He's the one your papa was telling you about last night | |
before you went to bed. Don't you remember the rhyme he told | |
you--beginning this way: | |
'The Parallelopipedon | |
I do not like, because | |
He has so many, many sides, | |
And ninety-seven claws'?" | |
"Oh, yes," replied Jimmieboy. "He is the same animal that---- | |
'Hasn't got a bit of sense, | |
Or feather to his name; | |
No eye, no ear with which to hear, | |
But gets there just the same.'" | |
"That's it! that's it!" cried the colonel. "And don't you remember, | |
'There's not a thing he will not eat, | |
From pie to sealing-wax, | |
Although he shows a preference for | |
Red bricks and carpet tacks'?" | |
"Yes, I remember that very well now," said Jimmieboy. "Wasn't there a | |
verse about his color, too? Didn't it say: | |
'His color is a fearful one-- | |
A combination hue | |
Of yellow, green, and purple, mixed | |
With solferino blue'?" | |
"No; that was the Parallelogram," replied the colonel. "A | |
Parallelopipedon is six times as bad as a Parallelogram. His color has a | |
verse about it, though, that says: | |
'His hue is the most terrible | |
That ever man has seen; | |
'Tis pink and saffron, blue and red, | |
Mixed up with apple green'." | |
"Dear me!" cried Jimmieboy. "And do you mean to say he's really got | |
away?" | |
"I do, indeed," returned the colonel. "Got away, and Noah is glad of it, | |
because he doesn't have to feed him any more. But it'll never do to let | |
him stay loose; he will do too much damage. Why, Jimmieboy, suppose he | |
should overeat himself and die? He's the only one in the world, and we | |
can't afford to lose an animal like that; besides, after he has ruined | |
all the country around the turn, it's just as like as not he'll begin on | |
the rest of the picture, and eat it all up, frame and all." | |
"My!" cried the little boy. "That would be terrible, wouldn't it! You | |
are right--he must be captured. I have half a mind to go along with you | |
and help." | |
"Half a mind isn't enough," retorted the colonel, shaking his head. "You | |
can't go into the soldier business unless you have a whole mind--so | |
good-by, Jimmieboy. I must be running along; and should I not return, as | |
the poet says, | |
'Pray do not weep for me, my boy, | |
But, as the years slip by, | |
Drop all your pennies in a bank-- | |
Brave soldiers never die; | |
And some day I'll turn up again, | |
Exalted, high in rank, | |
And possibly I'll find some use | |
For that small sum in bank.'" | |
"I'm not going to stay here while you are fighting," said Jimmieboy, | |
with a determined shake of his head. "I've got a whole mind to go with | |
you, and a uniform to wear as well. But tell me, can I get up there on | |
the road?" | |
"Certainly," said the colonel. "I'll show you how, only put on your | |
uniform first. They won't let you go unless you are suitably dressed. | |
Little boys, with striped trousers like yours, would be out of place, | |
but with a uniform such as yours is, with real gold on the cap and brass | |
buttons on the coat--well, I'm not sure but what they'll elect you | |
water-carrier, or general, or something equally important." | |
So Jimmieboy hurried to his clothes-closet and quickly donned his | |
military suit, and grasping his sword firmly by the hilt, cried out: | |
"Ready!" | |
"All right," said the colonel. "They are waiting for us. Close your | |
eyes." | |
Jimmieboy did as he was told. | |
"One--two--three--eyes open!" cried the colonel. | |
Again Jimmieboy did as he was ordered, although he couldn't see why he | |
should obey the colonel, who up to this afternoon had been entirely | |
subject to his orders. He opened his eyes at the command, and, much to | |
his surprise, found himself standing in the middle of that wooded road | |
in the picture, beneath the arching trees, the leaves of which rustled | |
softly as a sweet perfumed breeze blew through the branches. About him | |
on every side were groups of tin soldiers talking excitedly about the | |
escape of the devastating Parallelopipedon, every man of them armed to | |
the teeth and eager for the colonel's command to start off on the search | |
expedition. The band was playing merrily under the trees up the road | |
near the little brook, and back in the direction from which he had come, | |
through the heavy gilt frame, Jimmieboy could see the nursery just as he | |
had left it, while before him lay the turn at the end of the wood and | |
the unknown country now soon to be explored. | |
CHAPTER II. | |
JIMMIEBOY RECEIVES HIS ORDERS. | |
For a few moments Jimmieboy was so overcome by the extreme novelty of | |
his position that he could do nothing but wander in and out among the | |
trees, wondering if he really was himself, and whether the soldiers by | |
whom he was surrounded were tin or creatures of flesh and blood. They | |
certainly looked and acted like human beings, and they talked in a | |
manner entirely different from what Jimmieboy was accustomed to expect | |
from the little pieces of painted tin he had so often played with on the | |
nursery floor, but he very soon learned that they were tin, and not made | |
up, like himself, of bone and sinew. | |
The manner of his discovery was this: One of the soldiers, in a very | |
rash and fool-hardy fashion, tried to pick up a stone from the road to | |
throw at a poor little zinc robin that was whistling in the trees above | |
his head, and in bending over after the stone and then straightening | |
himself up to take aim, he snapped himself into two distinct pieces--as | |
indeed would any other tin soldier, however strong and well made, and of | |
course Jimmieboy was then able to see that the band with whom he had for | |
the moment cast his fortunes were nothing more nor less than bits of | |
brittle tin, to whom in some mysterious way had come life. The boy was | |
pained to note the destruction of the little man who had tried to throw | |
the stone at the robin, because he was always sorry for everybody upon | |
whom trouble had come, but he was not, on the whole, surprised at the | |
soldier's plight, for the simple reason that he had been taught that | |
boys who threw stones at the harmless little birds in the trees were | |
naughty and worthy of punishment, and he could not see why a tin soldier | |
should not be punished for doing what a small boy of right feelings | |
would disdain to do. | |
After he had made up his mind that his companions were really of tin, he | |
became a bit fearful as to his own make-up, and the question that he now | |
asked himself was, "Am I tin, too, or what?" He was not long in | |
answering this question to his own satisfaction, for after bending his | |
little fingers to and fro a dozen or more times, he was relieved to | |
discover that he had not changed. The fingers did not snap off, as he | |
had feared they might, and he was glad. | |
Barely had Jimmieboy satisfied himself on this point when a handsomely | |
dressed soldier, on a blue lead horse, came galloping up, and cried out | |
so loud that his voice echoed through the tall trees of the forest: | |
"Is General Jimmieboy here?" | |
"Jimmieboy is here," answered the little fellow. "I'm Jimmieboy, but I | |
am no general." | |
"But you have on a general's uniform," said the soldier. | |
"Have I?" queried Jimmieboy, with a glance at his clothes. "Well, if I | |
have, it's because they are the only soldier clothes I own." | |
"Well, I am very sorry," said the soldier on horseback, "but if you wear | |
those clothes you've got to be general. It's a hard position to occupy, | |
and of course you'd rather be a high-private or a member of the band, | |
but as it is, there is no way out of it. If the clothes would fit any | |
one else here, you might exchange with him; but they won't, I can tell | |
that by looking at the yellow stripes on your trousers. The stripes | |
alone are wider than any of our legs." | |
"Oh!" responded Jimmieboy, "I don't mind being general. I'd just as lief | |
be a general as not; I know how to wave a sword and march ahead of the | |
procession." | |
At this there was a roar of laughter from the soldiers. | |
"How queer!" said one. | |
"What an absurd idea!" cried another. | |
"Where did he ever get such notions as that?" said a third. | |
And then they all laughed again. | |
"I am afraid," said the soldier on horseback, with a kindly smile which | |
won Jimmieboy's heart, "that you do not understand what the duties of a | |
general are in this country. We aren't bound down by the notions of you | |
nursery people, who seem to think that all a general is good for is to | |
be stood up in front of a cannon loaded with beans, and knocked over | |
half a dozen times in the course of a battle. Have you ever read those | |
lines of High-private Tinsel in his little book, 'Poems in Pewter,' in | |
which he tells of the trials of a general of the tin soldiers?" | |
"Of course I haven't," said Jimmieboy. "I can't read." | |
"Just the man for a general, if he can't read," said one of the | |
soldiers. "He'll never know what the newspapers say of him." | |
"Well, I'll tell you the story," said the horseman, dismounting, and | |
standing on a stump by the road-side to give better effect to the poem, | |
which he recited as follows: | |
"THE TIN SOLDIER GENERAL. | |
I walked one day | |
Along the way | |
That leads from camp to city; | |
And I espied | |
At the road-side | |
The hero of my ditty. | |
His massive feet, | |
In slippers neat, | |
Were crossed in desperation; | |
And from his eyes | |
Salt tears did rise | |
In awful exudation." | |
"In what?" asked Jimmieboy, who was not quite used to grown-up words | |
like exudation. | |
"Quarts," replied the soldier, with a frown. "Don't interrupt. This poem | |
isn't good for much unless it goes right through without a stop--like an | |
express train." | |
And then he resumed: | |
"It filled my soul | |
With horrid dole | |
To see this wailing creature; | |
How tears did sweep, | |
And furrow deep, | |
Along his nasal feature! | |
My eyes grew dim | |
To look at him, | |
To see his tear-drops soiling | |
His necktie bold, | |
His trimmings gold, | |
And all his rich clothes spoiling; | |
And so I stopped, | |
Beside him dropped, | |
And quoth, 'Wilt tell me, mortal, | |
Wherefore you sighed?' | |
And he replied: | |
'Wilt I? Well, I shouldst chortle.'" | |
"I don't know what chortle means," said Jimmieboy. | |
"Neither do I," said the soldier. "But I guess the man who wrote the | |
poem did, so it's all right, and we may safely go on to the next verse, | |
which isn't very different in its verbiology--" | |
"Its wha-a-at?" cried a dozen tin soldiers at once. | |
"Gentlemen," said the declaiming soldier, severely, "there are some | |
words in our language which no creature should be asked to utter more | |
than once in a life-time, and that is one of them. I shall not endanger | |
my oratorical welfare by speaking it again. Suffice it for me to say | |
that if you want to use that word yourselves, you will find it in the | |
dictionary somewhere under F, or Z, or Ph, or some other letter which I | |
cannot at this moment recall. But the poem goes on to say: | |
"Then as we sat | |
The road-side at-- | |
His tears a moment quelling-- | |
In accents pale | |
He told the tale | |
Which I am also telling." | |
"Dear me!" said a little green corporal at Jimmieboy's side. "Hasn't he | |
begun the story yet?" | |
"Yes, stupid," said a high-private. "Of course he has; but it's one of | |
those stories that take a long time to begin, and never finish until the | |
very end." | |
"Oh yes, I know," said another. "It's a story like one I heard of the | |
other day. You can lay it down whenever you want to, and be glad to have | |
the chance." | |
"That's it," said the high-private. | |
"I wish you fellows would keep still," said the soldier who was | |
reciting. "I ought to have been a quarter of the way through the first | |
half of that poem by this time, and instead of that I'm only a sixteenth | |
of the way through the first eighth." | |
"You can't expect to go more than eight miles an hour," said the | |
corporal, "even in poetry like that. It can't be done." | |
"But what happened?" asked Jimmieboy, who was quite interested to hear | |
the rest of the poem. | |
"I'll have to tell you some other time, general," replied the soldier. | |
"These tin warriors here haven't any manners. Some day, when you have | |
time to spare, I'll tell you the rest of it, because I know you'll be | |
glad to hear it." | |
"Yes, general," put in the corporal, with a laugh. "Some day when you | |
have a year to spare get him to tell you the first twenty-seventh of the | |
next ninety-sixth of it. It won't take him more than eleven months and | |
thirty-two days to do it." | |
"Bah!" said the poetic soldier, mounting his horse and riding off with | |
an angry flush on his cheek. "Some day, when I get promoted to the | |
ranks, I'll get even with you." | |
"Who is he, anyhow?" asked Jimmieboy, as the soldier rode off. | |
"He's Major Blueface, and he has to look after the luggage," replied the | |
corporal. "And as for that poem of his, Jimmieboy, I want to warn you. | |
He has a printed copy of it that takes seven trunks to carry. He says it | |
was written by High-private Tinsel, but that's all nonsense. He wrote it | |
himself." | |
"Then I like it all the better," said Jimmieboy. "I always like what | |
people I like write." | |
"There's no accounting for tastes," returned the corporal. "We don't any | |
of us like the major. That's why we made him major. Looking after | |
luggage is such awfully hard work, we didn't want to make any one else | |
do it, and so we elected him." | |
"Why don't you like him?" asked Jimmieboy. "He seems to me to be a very | |
nice soldier." | |
"That's just it," returned the corporal. "He's just the kind of soldier | |
to please little boys like you, and he'd look perfectly splendid in a | |
white and gold parlor like your mamma's, but in camp he's a terror. | |
Keeps his boots shined up like a looking-glass; wears his Sunday uniform | |
all the time; in fact, he has seven Sunday uniforms--one for each day of | |
the week; and altogether he makes the rest of us feel so mean and cheap | |
that we can't like him. He offered a prize once to the soldier who'd | |
like him the best, and who do you think won it?" | |
"I don't know," said Jimmieboy. "Who?" | |
"He won it himself," retorted the corporal. "Nobody else tried. But | |
you'd better go over to the colonel's quarters right away, Jimmieboy. | |
You know he wants you." | |
"He hasn't sent for me, has he?" asked the boy. | |
"Of course he has. That's what the major came to tell you," answered the | |
corporal. | |
"But he didn't say so," returned Jimmieboy. | |
"No, he never does what he is sent to do," explained the corporal. | |
"That's how we know. If he had told you the colonel wanted you, we'd all | |
know the colonel didn't want you. He's a queer bird, that major. He's so | |
anxious to read his poem to somebody that he always forgets his orders, | |
and when he does half remember what he is sent to do, we can tell what | |
the orders are by what he doesn't say." | |
"I shouldn't think he'd be a good man to look after the luggage if he | |
forgets everything that way," said Jimmieboy. | |
"That's just where he's great," returned the corporal. "For, don't you | |
see, every man in the regiment wants to carry about three times as much | |
luggage as he ought to, and the major makes it all right by forgetting | |
two-thirds of it. Oh, there's no denying that he's one of the greatest | |
luggage men there ever was; but you run along now, or the colonel may | |
lose his temper, and that always delays things." | |
"I'm not afraid of the colonel," said Jimmieboy, bravely. | |
"Neither are we," said the corporal, in reply to this, "but we don't | |
like to have our campaign delayed, and when the colonel loses his temper | |
we have to wait and wait until he finds it again. Sometimes it takes him | |
a whole week." | |
So Jimmieboy, wondering more and more at the singular habits of the tin | |
soldiers, ran off in search of the colonel, whom he found sitting by the | |
brook-side fishing, and surrounded by his staff. | |
"Hello!" said Jimmieboy, as he caught sight of the colonel. "Having any | |
luck?" | |
"Lots," said the colonel. "Been here only five minutes, and I've caught | |
three hickory twigs, a piece of wire, and one of the finest colds in my | |
head I ever had." | |
"Good," said Jimmieboy, with a laugh. "But aren't there any fish there?" | |
"Plenty of 'em," answered the colonel. "But they're all so small I'd | |
have to throw 'em back if I caught 'em. They know that well enough, and | |
so save me trouble by not biting. But I say, I suppose you know we can't | |
start this expedition without ammunition?" | |
"What's that?" queried Jimmieboy, to whom the word ammunition was | |
entirely new. | |
"Ammunition? Why, that's stuff to load our guns with," returned the | |
colonel. "You must be a great general not to know that." | |
"You must excuse me," said Jimmieboy, with a blush. "There is a great | |
deal that I don't know. I'm only five years old, and papa hasn't had | |
time to tell me everything yet." | |
"Well, it's all right, anyhow," replied the colonel. "You'll learn a | |
great deal in the next hundred years, so we won't criticise; but of | |
course, you know, we can't go off without ammunition any more than a gun | |
can. Now, as general of the forces, it is your duty to look about you | |
and lay in the necessary supplies. For the guns we shall need about | |
fourteen thousand rounds of preserved cherries, seventeen thousand | |
rounds of pickled peaches for the cannon, and a hundred and sixty-two | |
dozen cans of strawberry jam for me." | |
Jimmieboy's eyes grew so round and large as he listened to these words | |
that the major turned pale. | |
"Then," continued the colonel, "we have to have powder and shell, of | |
course. Perhaps four hundred and sixteen pounds of powdered sugar and | |
ninety-seven barrels of shells with almonds in 'em would do for our | |
purposes." | |
"But--but what are we to do with all these things, and where am I to | |
get them?" gasped Jimmieboy, beginning to be very sorry that he had | |
accepted so important a position as that of general. | |
"Do with 'em?" cried the colonel. "What'll we do with 'em? Why, capture | |
the Parallelopipedon, of course. What did you suppose we'd do with | |
'em--throw them at canary-birds?" | |
"You don't load guns with preserved cherries, do you?" asked the boy. | |
"We don't, eh? Well, I just guess we do," returned the colonel. "And we | |
load the cannon with pickled peaches, and to keep me from deserting and | |
going over to the enemy, they keep me loaded to the muzzle with | |
strawberry jam from the time I start until we get back." | |
"You can't kill a Parawelopipedon with cherries and peaches, can you?" | |
asked Jimmieboy. | |
"Not quite, but nearly," said the colonel. "We never hit him with enough | |
of them to kill him, but just try to coax him with 'em, don't you see? | |
We don't do as you do in your country. We don't shoot the enemy with | |
lead bullets, and try to kill him and make him unhappy. We try to coax | |
him back by shooting sweetmeats at him, and if he won't be coaxed, we | |
bombard him with pickled peaches until they make him sick, and then he | |
has to surrender." | |
"It must be pretty fine to be an enemy," said Jimmieboy, smacking his | |
lips as he thought of being bombarded with sweetmeats. | |
"It is," exclaimed the colonel, with enthusiasm. "It's so nice, that | |
they have to do the right thing by me in the matter of jam to keep me | |
from being an enemy myself." | |
"But what do I get?" returned Jimmieboy, who couldn't see why it would | |
not be pleasant for him to be an enemy, and get all these delightful | |
things. | |
"You? Why, you get the almonds and the powdered sugar and all the | |
mince-pie you can eat--what more do you want?" said the colonel. | |
"Nothing," gasped Jimmieboy, overcome by the prospect. "I wouldn't mind | |
being a general for a million years at that rate." | |
With which noble sentiment the little fellow touched his cap to the | |
colonel, and set off, accompanied by a dozen soldiers, to find the | |
cherries, the peaches, the almonds, and the powdered sugar. | |
CHAPTER III. | |
MAJOR BLUEFACE TRIES TO ASSIST. | |
The expedition under Jimmieboy's command had hardly been under way a | |
quarter of an hour when the youthful general realized that the colonel | |
had not told him where the cherries and peaches and other necessary | |
supplies were to be found. | |
"Dear me," he said, stopping short in the road. "I don't know anything | |
about this country, and I am sure I sha'n't be able to find all those | |
good things--except in my mamma's pantry, and it would never do for me | |
to take 'em from there. I might have to fight cook to get 'em, and that | |
would be dreadful." | |
"Yes, it would," said Major Blueface, riding up as Jimmieboy spoke these | |
words. "It would be terribly awful, for if you should fight with her | |
now, she wouldn't make you a single pancake or pie or custard or | |
anything after you got back." | |
"I'm glad you've come," said Jimmieboy, with a sigh of relief. "Perhaps | |
you can tell me what I've got to do to get that ammu--that ammu--oh, | |
that ammuknow, don't you?" | |
"Ammunition?" suggested the major. | |
"Yes, that's it," said Jimmieboy. "Could you tell me where to get it?" | |
"I could; but, really," returned the major, "I'm very much afraid I'd | |
better not, unless you'll promise not to pay any attention to what I | |
say." | |
"I don't see what good that would do," said Jimmieboy, a little | |
surprised at the major's words. "What's the use of your saying anything, | |
if I am not to pay any attention to you?" | |
"I'll tell you if you'll sit down a moment," was the major's reply, upon | |
which he and Jimmieboy sat down on a log at the road-side. | |
The major then recited his story as follows: | |
"THE MAJOR'S MISFORTUNE. | |
When I was born, some years ago, | |
The world was standing upside down; | |
Pekin was off in Mexico, | |
And Paris stood near Germantown. | |
The moon likewise was out of gear. | |
And shone most brilliantly by day; | |
The while the sun did not appear | |
Until the moon had gone away. | |
Which was, you see, a very strange, | |
Unhappy way of doing things, | |
And people did not like the change, | |
Save clods who took the rank of kings. | |
For kings as well were going wrong, | |
And 'stead of crowns wore beaver hats, | |
While those once mean and poor grew strong; | |
The dogs e'en ran from mice and rats. | |
The Frenchman spoke the Spanish tongue, | |
The Russian's words were Turkestan; | |
And England's nerves were all unstrung | |
By cockneys speaking Aryan. | |
Schools went to boys, and billie-goats | |
Drove children harnessed up to carts. | |
The rivers flowed up hill, and oats | |
Were fed to babies 'stead of tarts. | |
With things in this shape was I born. | |
The stars were topsy-turvy all, | |
And hence it is my fate forlorn | |
When things are short to call them tall; | |
When thing are black to call them white; | |
And if they're good to call them bad; | |
To say 'tis day when it is night; | |
To call an elephant a shad. | |
And when I say that this is this, | |
That it is that you'll surely know; | |
For truth's a thing I always miss, | |
And what I say is never so." | |
"Poor fellow!" cried Jimmieboy. "How very unpleasant! Is that really a | |
true story?" | |
"No," returned the major, sadly. "It is not true." | |
And then Jimmieboy knew that it was true, and he felt very sorry for the | |
major. | |
"Never mind, major," he said, tapping his companion affectionately on | |
the shoulder. "I'll believe what you say if nobody else does." | |
"Oh, don't, don't! I beg of you, don't!" cried the major, anxiously. "I | |
wouldn't have you do that for all the world. If you did, it would get us | |
into all sorts of trouble. If I had thought you'd do that, I'd never | |
have told you the story." | |
"Very well," said Jimmieboy, "then I won't. Only I should think you'd | |
want to have somebody believe in you." | |
"Oh, you can believe in me all you want," returned the major. "I'm one | |
of the finest fellows in the world, and worthy of anybody's | |
friendship--and if anybody ought to know, Jimmieboy, I'm the one, for I | |
know myself intimately. I've known myself ever since I was a little bit | |
of a boy, and I can tell you if there's any man in the world who has a | |
noble character and a good conscience and a heart in the right place, | |
I'm him. It's only what I say you mustn't believe in. Remember that, and | |
we shall be all right." | |
"All right," said Jimmieboy. "We'll do it that way. Now tell me what you | |
don't know about finding preserved cherries and pickled peaches. We've | |
got to lay in a very large supply of them, and I haven't the first idea | |
how to get 'em." | |
"H'm! What I don't know about 'em would take a long time to tell," | |
returned the major, with a shake of his head, "because there's so much | |
of it. In the first place, | |
"I do not know | |
If cherries grow | |
On trees, or roofs, or rocks; | |
Or if they come | |
In cans--ho-hum!-- | |
Or packed up in a box. | |
Mayhap you'll find | |
The proper kind | |
Down where they sell red paint; | |
And then, you see, | |
Oh, dear! Ah, me! | |
And then again you mayn't." | |
"That appears to settle the cherries," said Jimmieboy, somewhat | |
impatiently, for it did seem to him that the major was wasting a great | |
deal of valuable time. | |
"Oh, dear me, no!" ejaculated the major. "I could go on like that | |
forever about cherries. For instance: | |
"You might perchance | |
Get some in France, | |
And some in Germany; | |
A crate or two | |
In far Barboo, | |
And some in Labradee." | |
"Where's Labradee?" asked Jimmieboy. | |
"It's Labrador," said the major, with a smile; "but Labradee rhymes | |
better with Germany, and as long as you know I'm not telling the truth, | |
and are not likely to go there, it doesn't make any difference if I | |
change it a little." | |
"That's so," said Jimmieboy, with a snicker. "But how about those | |
peaches? Do you know anything that isn't so about them?" | |
"Oh, yes, lots," said the major. | |
"I know that when the peach is green, | |
And growing on the tree, | |
It's harder than a common bean, | |
And yellow as can be. | |
I know that if you eat a peach | |
That's just a bit too young, | |
A lesson strong the act will teach, | |
And leave your nerves unstrung. | |
And, furthermore, I know this fact: | |
The crop, however hale | |
In every year before 'tis packed, | |
Doth never fail to fail." | |
"That's very interesting," said Jimmieboy, when the major had recited | |
these lines, "but it doesn't help me a bit. What I want to know is how | |
the pickled peaches are to be found, and where." | |
"Oh, that's it, is it?" said the major. "Well, it's easy enough to tell | |
you that. First as to how you are to find them--this applies to | |
huckleberries and daisies and fire-engines and everything else, just as | |
well as it does to peaches, so you'd better listen. It's a very valuable | |
thing to know. | |
"The way to find a pickled peach, | |
A cow, or piece of pumpkin pie, | |
A simple lesson is to teach, | |
As can be seen with half an eye. | |
Look up the road and down the road, | |
Look North and South and East and West. | |
Let not a single episode | |
Come in betwixt you and your quest. | |
Search morning, night, and afternoon, | |
From Monday until Saturday; | |
By light of sun and that of moon, | |
Nor mind the troubles in your way. | |
And keep this up until you get | |
The thing that you are looking for, | |
And then, of course, you need not fret | |
About the matter any more." | |
"You are a great help," said Jimmieboy. | |
"Don't mention it, my dear boy," replied the major, so pleased that he | |
smiled and cracked some of the red enamel on his lips. "I like to be | |
useful. It's almost as good as being youthful. In fact, to people who | |
lisp and pronounce their esses as though they were teeaitches, it's | |
quite the same. It was very easy to tell you how to find a pickled | |
peach, but it's much harder to tell you where. In fact, I don't know | |
that I can tell you where, but if I were not compelled to ignore the | |
truth I should inform you at once that I haven't the slightest idea. | |
But, of course, I can tell you where you might find them if they were | |
there--which, of course, they aren't. For instance: | |
"Pickled peaches might be found | |
In the gold mines underground; | |
Pickled peaches might be seen | |
Rolling down the Bowling Green; | |
Pickled peaches might spring up | |
In a bed of custard cup; | |
Pickled peaches might sprout forth | |
From an ice-cake in the North; | |
I have seen them in the South | |
In a pickaninny's mouth; | |
I have seen them in the West | |
Hid inside a cowboy's vest; | |
I have seen them in the East | |
At a small boy's birthday feast; | |
Maybe, too, a few you'd see | |
In the land of the Chinee; | |
And this statement broad I'll dare: | |
You might find them anywhere." | |
"Thank you," said Jimmieboy. "I feel easier now that I know all this. I | |
don't know what I should have done if I hadn't met you, major." | |
"It's very unkind of you to say so," said the major, very much pleased | |
by Jimmieboy's appreciation. "Of course you know what I mean." | |
"Yes," answered Jimmieboy, "I do. Now I'll tell you what I think. I | |
think pickled peaches come in cans and bottles." | |
"Bottles and cans, | |
Bottles and cans, | |
When a man marries it ruins his plans," | |
quoted the major. "I got married once," he added, "but I became a | |
bachelor again right off. My wife wrote better poetry than I could, and | |
I couldn't stand that, you know. That's how I came to be a soldier." | |
"That hasn't anything to do with the pickled peaches," said Jimmieboy, | |
impatiently. "Now, unless I am very much mistaken, we can go to the | |
grocery store and buy a few bottles." | |
"Ho!" jeered the major. "What's the use of buying bottles when you're | |
after pickled peaches? | |
'Of all the futile, futile things-- | |
Remarked the Apogee-- | |
That is as truly futilest | |
As futilest can be.' | |
You never heard my poem on the Apogee, did you, Jimmieboy?" | |
"No. I never even heard of an Apogee. What is an Apogee, anyhow?" asked | |
the boy. | |
"To give definitions isn't a part of my bargain," answered the major. "I | |
haven't the slightest idea what an Apogee is. He may be a bird with a | |
whole file of unpaid bills, for all I know, but I wrote a poem about him | |
once that made another poet so jealous that he purposely caught a bad | |
cold and sneezed his head off; and I don't blame him either, because it | |
was a magnificent thing in its way. I'll tell it to you. Listen: | |
"THE APOGEE. | |
The Apogee wept saline tears | |
Into the saline sea, | |
To overhear two mutineers | |
Discuss their pedigree. | |
Said he: | |
Of all the futile, futile things | |
That ever I did see. | |
That is as truly futilest | |
As futilest can be. | |
He hied him thence to his hotel, | |
And there it made him ill | |
To hear a pretty damosel | |
A bass song try to trill. | |
Said he: | |
Of all the futile, futile things-- | |
To say it I am free-- | |
That is about the futilest | |
That ever I did see. | |
He went from sea to mountain height, | |
And there he heard a lad | |
Of sixty-eight compare the sight | |
To other views he'd had; | |
And he | |
Remarked: Of all the futile things | |
That ever came to me, | |
This is as futily futile | |
As futile well can be. | |
Then in disgust he went back home, | |
His door-bell rang all day, | |
But no one to the door did come: | |
The butler'd gone away. | |
Said he: | |
This is the strangest, queerest world | |
That ever I did see. | |
It's two per cent. of earth, and nine- | |
Ty-eight futility." | |
"Isn't that elegant?" added the major, when he had finished. | |
"It sounds well," said Jimmieboy. "But what does it mean? What's | |
futile?" | |
"Futile? What does futile mean?" said the major, slowly. "Why, | |
it's--it's a word, you know, and sort of stands for 'what's the use.'" | |
"Oh," replied Jimmieboy. "I see. To be futile means that you are wasting | |
time, eh?" | |
"That's it," said the major. "I'm glad you said it and not I, because | |
that makes it true. If I'd said it, it wouldn't have been so." | |
"Well, all I've got to say," said Jimmieboy, "is that if anybody ever | |
came to me and asked me where he could find a futile person, I'd send | |
him over to you. Here we've wasted nearly the whole afternoon and we | |
haven't got a single thing. We haven't even talked of anything but | |
peaches and cherries, and we've got to get jam and sugar and almonds | |
yet." | |
Here the major smiled. | |
"It isn't any laughing matter," said Jimmieboy. "It's a very serious | |
piece of business, in fact. Here's this Parawelopipedon going around | |
ruining everything he can lay his claws on, and instead of helping me | |
out of the fix I'm in, and starting the expedition off, you sit here and | |
tell me about Apogees and other things I haven't time to hear about." | |
"I was only smiling to show how sorry I was," said the major, | |
apologetically. | |
"I always smile when I am sad, | |
And when I'm filled with glee | |
A solitary tear-drop trick- | |
Les down the cheek of me." | |
"Oh, that's it," said Jimmieboy. "Well, let's stop fooling now and get | |
those supplies." | |
"All right," assented the major. "Where are the soldiers who accompanied | |
you? We'll give 'em their orders, and you'll have the supplies in no | |
time." | |
"How's that?" queried Jimmieboy. | |
"Why, don't you see," said the major, "that's the nice thing about being | |
a general. If you have to do something you don't know how to do, you | |
command your men to go and do it. That lifts the responsibility from | |
your shoulders to theirs. They don't dare disobey, and there you are." | |
"Good enough!" cried Jimmieboy, delighted to find so easy a way out of | |
his troubles. "I'll give them their orders at once. I'll tell them to | |
get the supplies. Will they surely do it?" | |
"They'll have to, or be put in the guard-house," returned the major. | |
"And they don't like that, you know, because the guard-house hasn't any | |
walls, and it's awfully draughty. But, as I said before, where are the | |
soldiers?" | |
"Why!" said Jimmieboy, starting up and looking anxiously about him. | |
"They've gone, haven't they?" | |
"They seem to have," said the major, putting his hand over his eyes and | |
gazing up and down the road, upon which no sign of Jimmieboy's command | |
was visible. "You ordered them to halt when you sat down here, didn't | |
you?" | |
"No," said Jimmieboy, "I didn't." | |
"Then that accounts for it," returned the major, with a scornful glance | |
at Jimmieboy. "They've gone on. They couldn't halt without orders, and | |
they must be eight miles from here by this time." | |
"What'll happen?" asked the boy, anxiously. | |
"What'll happen?" echoed the major. "Why, they'll march on forever | |
unless you get word to them to halt. You are a gay general, you are." | |
"But what's to be done?" asked Jimmieboy, growing tearful. | |
"There are only two things you can do. The earth is round, and in a few | |
years they'll pass this way again, and then you can tell them to stop. | |
That's one thing you can do. The second is to despatch me on horseback | |
to overtake and tell them to keep right on. They'll know what you mean, | |
and they'll halt and wait until you come up." | |
"That's the best plan," cried Jimmieboy, with a sigh of relief. "You | |
hurry ahead and make them wait for me, and I'll come along as fast as I | |
can." | |
So the major mounted his horse and galloped away, leaving Jimmieboy | |
alone in the road, trudging manfully ahead as fast as his small legs | |
could carry him. | |
[Illustration: THE PARALLELOPIPEDON AND THE MIRROR. PAGE 54.] | |
CHAPTER IV. | |
JIMMIEBOY MEETS THE ENEMY. | |
As the noise made by the clattering hoofs of Major Blueface's horse grew | |
fainter and fainter, and finally died away entirely in the distance, | |
Jimmieboy was a little startled to hear something that sounded very like | |
a hiss in the trees behind him. At first he thought it was the light | |
breeze blowing through the branches, making the leaves rustle, but when | |
it was repeated he stopped short in the road and glanced backward, | |
grasping his sword as he did so. | |
"Hello there!" he cried. "Who are you, and what do you want?" | |
"Sh-sh-sh!" answered the mysterious something. "Don't talk so loud, | |
general, the major may come back." | |
"What if he does?" said Jimmieboy. "I rather think I wish he would. I | |
don't know whether or not I'm big enough not to be afraid of you. Can't | |
you come out of the bushes and let me see you?" | |
"Not unless the major is out of sight," was the answer. "I can't stand | |
the major; but you needn't be afraid of me. I wouldn't hurt you for all | |
the world. I'm the enemy." | |
"The what?" cried Jimmieboy, aghast. | |
"I'm the enemy," replied the invisible object. "That's what I call | |
myself when I'm with sensible people. Other people have a long name for | |
me that I never could pronounce or spell. I'm the animal that got away." | |
"Not the Parallelopipedon?" said Jimmieboy. | |
"That's it! That's the name I can't pronounce," said the invisible | |
animal. "I'm the Parallelandsoforth, and I've been trying to have an | |
interview with you ever since I heard they'd made you general. The fact | |
is, Jimmieboy, I am very anxious that you should succeed in capturing | |
me, because I don't like it out here very much. The fences are the | |
toughest eating I ever had, and I actually sprained my wisdom-tooth at | |
breakfast this morning trying to bite a brown stone ball off the top of | |
a gate post." | |
"But if you feel that way," said Jimmieboy, somewhat surprised at this | |
unusual occurrence, "why don't you surrender?" | |
"Me?" cried the Parallelopipedon. "A Parallelandsoforth of my standing | |
surrender right on the eve of a battle that means all the sweetmeats I | |
can eat, and more too? I guess not." | |
"I wish I could see you," said Jimmieboy, earnestly. "I don't like | |
standing here talking to a wee little voice with nothing to him. Why | |
don't you come out here where I can see you?" | |
"It's for your good, Jimmieboy; that's why I stay in here. I am an awful | |
spectacle. Why, it puts me all in a tremble just to look at myself; and | |
if it affects me that way, just think how it would be with you." | |
"I wouldn't be afraid," said Jimmieboy, bravely. | |
"Yes, you would too," answered the Parallelopipedon. "You'd be so scared | |
you couldn't run, I am so ugly. Didn't the major tell you that story | |
about my reflection in the looking-glass?" | |
"No," answered Jimmieboy. "He didn't say anything about it." | |
"That's queer. The story is in rhyme, and the major always tells | |
everybody all the poetry he knows," said the invisible enemy. "That's | |
why I never go near him. He has only enough to last one year, and the | |
second year he tells it all over again. I'm surprised he never told you | |
about my reflection in the mirror, because it is one of his worst, and | |
he always likes them better than the others." | |
"I'll ask him to tell it to me next time I see him," said Jimmieboy, | |
"unless you'll tell it to me now." | |
"I'd just as lief tell you," said the Parallelopipedon. "Only you | |
mustn't laugh or cry, because you haven't time to laugh, and generals | |
never cry. This is the way it goes: | |
"THE PARALLELOPIPEDON AND THE MIRROR. | |
The Parallelopipedon so very ugly is, | |
His own heart fills with terror when he looks upon his phiz. | |
That's why he wears blue goggles--twenty pairs upon his nose, | |
And never dares to show himself, no matter where he goes. | |
One day when he was walking down a crowded village street, | |
He looked into a little shop where stood a mirror neat. | |
He saw his own reflection there as plain as plain could be; | |
And said, 'I'd give four dollars if that really wasn't me.' | |
And, strange to say, the figure in the mirror's silver face | |
Was also filled with terror at the other's lack of grace; | |
And this reflection trembled till it strangely came to pass | |
The handsome mirror shivered to ten thousand bits of glass. | |
To this tale there's a moral, and that moral briefly is: | |
If you perchance are burdened with a terrifying phiz, | |
Don't look into your mirror--'tis a fearful risk to take-- | |
'Tis certain sure to happen that the mirror it will break." | |
"Well, if that's so, I guess I don't want to see you," said Jimmieboy. | |
"I only like pretty things. But tell me; if all this is true, how did | |
the major come to say it? I thought he couldn't tell the truth." | |
"That's only as a rule. Rules have exceptions. For instance," explained | |
the Parallelopipedon, "as a rule I can't pronounce my name, but in | |
reciting that poem to you I did speak my name in the very first | |
line--but if you only knew how it hurt me to do it! Oh dear me, how it | |
hurt! Did you ever have a tooth pulled?" | |
"Once," said Jimmieboy, wincing at the remembrance of his painful | |
experience. | |
"Well, pronouncing my name is to me worse than having all my teeth | |
pulled and then put back again, and except when I get hold of a fine | |
general like you I never make the sacrifice," said the Parallelopipedon. | |
"But tell me, Jimmieboy, you are out after preserved cherries and | |
pickled peaches, I understand?" | |
"Yes," said Jimmieboy. "And powdered sugar, almonds, jam, and several | |
other things that are large and elegant." | |
"Well, just let me tell you one thing," said the Parallelopipedon, | |
confidentially. "I'm so sick of cherries and peaches that I run every | |
time I see them, and when I run there is no tin soldier or general of | |
your size in the world that can catch me. Now what are we here for? I am | |
here to be captured; you are here to capture me. To accomplish our | |
various purposes we've got to begin right, and you might as well | |
understand now as at any other time that you are beginning wrong." | |
"I don't know what else to do," said Jimmieboy. "I'm obeying orders. The | |
colonel told me to get those things, and I supposed I ought to get 'em." | |
"It doesn't pay to suppose," said the Parallelopipedon. "Many a victory | |
has been lost by a supposition. As that old idiot Major Blueface said | |
once, when he tried to tell an untruth, and so hit the truth by mistake: | |
'Success always comes to | |
The mortal who knows, | |
And never to him who | |
Does naught but suppose. | |
For knowledge is certain, | |
While hypothesees | |
Oft drop defeat's curtain | |
On great victories.'" | |
"What are hypothesees?" asked Jimmieboy. | |
"They are ifs in words of four syllables," said the Parallelopipedon, | |
"and you want to steer clear of them as much as you can." | |
"I'll try to," said Jimmieboy. "But how am I to get knowledge instead of | |
hypotheseeses? I have to take what people tell me. I don't know | |
everything." | |
"Well, that's only natural," said the Parallelopipedon, kindly. "There | |
are only two creatures about here that do know everything. They--between | |
you and me--are me and myself. The others you meet here don't even begin | |
to know everything, though they'll try to make you believe they do. Now | |
I dare say that tin colonel of yours would try to make you believe that | |
water is wet, and that fire is hot, and other things like that. Well, | |
they are, but he doesn't know it. He only thinks it. He has put his hand | |
into a pail of water and found out that it was wet, but he doesn't know | |
why it is wet any more than he knows why fire is hot." | |
"Do you?" queried Jimmieboy. | |
"Certainly," returned the Parallelopipedon. "Water is wet because it is | |
water, and fire is hot because it wouldn't be fire if it wasn't hot. Oh, | |
it takes brains to know everything, Jimmieboy, and if there's one thing | |
old Colonel Zinc hasn't got, it's brains. If you don't believe it, cut | |
his head off some day and see for yourself. You won't find a whole brain | |
in his head." | |
"It must be nice to know everything," said Jimmieboy. | |
"It's pretty nice," said the Parallelopipedon, cautiously. "But it's not | |
always the nicest thing in the world. If you are off on a long journey, | |
for instance, it's awfully hard work to carry all you know along with | |
you. It has given me a headache many a time, I can tell you. Sometimes I | |
wish I did like your papa, and kept all I know in books instead of in my | |
head. It's a great deal better to do things that way; then, when you go | |
travelling, and have to take what you know along with you, you can just | |
pack it up in a trunk and make the railroad people carry it." | |
"Do you know what's going to happen to-morrow and the next day?" asked | |
Jimmieboy, gazing in rapt admiration at the spot whence the voice | |
proceeded. | |
"Yes, indeed. That's just where the great trouble comes in," answered | |
the Parallelopipedon. "It isn't so much bother to know what has | |
been--what everybody knows--but when you have to store up in your mind | |
thousands and millions of things that aren't so now, but have got to be | |
so some day, it's positively awful. Why, Jimmieboy," he said, | |
impressively, "you'd be terrified if I told you what is going to be | |
known by the time you go to school; it's awful to think of all the | |
things you will have to learn then that aren't things yet, but are going | |
to be within a year or two. I'm real sorry for the little boys who will | |
live a hundred years from now, when I think of all the history they will | |
have to learn when they go to school--history that isn't made yet. Just | |
take the Presidents of the United States, for instance. In George | |
Washington's time it didn't take a boy five seconds to learn the list of | |
Presidents; but think of that list to-day! Why, there are twenty-five | |
names on it now, and more to come. It gets harder every year. Now I--I | |
know the names of all the Presidents there's ever going to be, and it | |
would take me just eighteen million nine hundred and sixty-seven years, | |
eleven months and twenty-six days, four hours and twenty-eight minutes | |
to tell you all of them, and even then I wouldn't be half through." | |
"Why, it's terrible," said Jimmieboy. | |
"Yes, indeed it is," returned the Parallelopipedon. "You ought to be | |
glad you are a little boy now instead of having to wait until then. The | |
boys of the year 19,605,726,422 are going to have the hardest time in | |
the world learning things, and I don't believe they'll get through | |
going to school much before they're ninety years old." | |
"I guess the colonel is glad he doesn't know all that," said Jimmieboy, | |
"if it's so hard to carry it around with you." | |
"Indeed he ought to be, if he isn't," ejaculated the Parallelopipedon. | |
"There's no two ways about it; if he had the weight of one half of what | |
I know on his shoulders, it would bend him in two and squash him into a | |
piece of tin-foil." | |
"Say," said Jimmieboy, after a moment's pause. "I heard my papa say he | |
thought I might be President of the United States some day. If you know | |
all the names of the Presidents that are to come, tell me, will I be?" | |
"I don't remember any name like Jimmieboy on the list," said the | |
Parallelopipedon; "but that doesn't prove anything. You might get | |
elected on your last name. But don't let's talk about that--that's | |
politics, and I don't like politics. What I want to know is, do you | |
really want to capture me?" | |
"Yes, I do," said Jimmieboy. | |
"Then you'd better give up trying to get the peaches and cherries," said | |
the Parallelopipedon, firmly. "I won't have 'em. You can shoot 'em at me | |
at the rate of a can a minute for ninety-seven years, and I'll never | |
surrender. I hate 'em." | |
"But what am I to do, then?" queried the little general. "What must I do | |
to capture you?" | |
"Get something in the place of the cherries and peaches that I like, | |
that's all. Very simple matter, that." | |
"But I don't know what you like," said Jimmieboy. "I never took lunch | |
with you." | |
"No--and you never will," answered the Parallelopipedon. "And for a very | |
good reason. I never eat lunch, breakfast, tea, or supper. I never eat | |
anything but dinner, and I eat that four times a day." | |
Jimmieboy laughed, half with mirth at the oddity of the | |
Parallelopipedon's habit of eating, and half with the pleasure it gave | |
him to think of what a delectable habit it was. Four dinners a day | |
seemed to him to be the height of bliss, and he almost wished he too | |
were a Parallelopipedon, that he might enjoy the same privilege. | |
"Don't you ever eat between meals?" he asked, after a minute of silence. | |
"Never," said the Parallelopipedon. "Never. There isn't time for it in | |
the first place, and in the second there's never anything left between | |
meals for me to eat. But if you had ever dined with me you'd know | |
mighty well what I like, for I always have the same thing at every | |
single dinner--two platefuls of each thing. It's a fine plan, that of | |
having the same dishes at every dinner, day after day. Your stomach | |
always knows what to expect, and is ready for it, so you don't get | |
cholera morbus. If you want me to, I'll tell you what I always have, and | |
what you must get me before you can coax me back." | |
"Thank you," said Jimmieboy. "I'll be very much obliged." | |
And then the Parallelopipedon recited the following delicious bill of | |
fare for the young general. | |
"THE PARALLELOPIPEDON'S DINNER. | |
First bring on a spring mock-turtle | |
Stuffed with chestnuts roasted through, | |
Served in gravy; then a fertile | |
Steaming bowl of oyster stew. | |
Then about six dozen tartlets | |
Full of huckleberry jam, | |
Edges trimmed with juicy Bartletts-- | |
Pears, these latter--then some ham. | |
Follow these with cauliflower, | |
Soaked in maple syrup sweet; | |
Then an apple large and sour, | |
And a rich red rosy beet. | |
Then eight quarts of cream--vanilla | |
Is the flavor I like best-- | |
Acts sublimely as a chiller, | |
Gives your fevered system rest. | |
After this a pint of coffee, | |
Forty jars of marmalade, | |
And a pound of peanut toffee, | |
Then a pumpkin pie--home-made. | |
Top this off with pickled salmon, | |
Cold roast beef, and eat it four | |
Times each day, and ghastly famine | |
Ne'er will enter at your door." | |
"H'm! h'm! h'm!" cried Jimmieboy, dancing up and down, and clapping his | |
hands with delight at the very thought of such a meal. "Do you mean to | |
say that you eat that four times a day?" | |
"Yes," said the Parallelopipedon, "I do. In fact, general, it is that | |
that has made me what I am. I was originally a Parallelogram, and I ate | |
that four times a day, and it kept doubling me up until I became six | |
Parallelograms as I am to-day. Get me those things--enough of them to | |
enable me to have 'em five times a day, and I surrender. Without them, I | |
go on and stay escaped forever, and the longer I stay escaped, the worse | |
it will be for these people who live about here, for I shall devastate | |
the country. I shall chew up all the mowing-machines in Pictureland. | |
I'll bite the smoke-stack off every railway engine I encounter, and | |
throw it into the smoking car, where it really belongs. I'll drink all | |
the water in the wells. I'll pull up all the cellars by the roots; I may | |
even go so far as to run down into your nursery, and gnaw into the wire | |
that holds this picture country upon the wall, and let it drop into the | |
water pitcher. But, oh dear, there's the major coming down the road!" he | |
added, in a tone of alarm. "I must go, or he'll insist on telling me a | |
poem. But remember what I say, my boy, and beware! I'll do all I | |
threaten to do if you don't do what I tell you. Good-by!" | |
There was a slight rustling among the leaves, and the Parallelopipedon's | |
voice died away as Major Blueface came galloping up astride of his | |
panting, lather-covered steed. | |
CHAPTER V. | |
THE MAJOR RETURNS. | |
"Well," said Jimmieboy, as the major dismounted, "did you catch up with | |
them?" | |
"No, I didn't," returned the major, evidently much excited. "I should | |
have caught them but for a dreadful encounter I had up the road, for | |
between you and me, Jimmieboy, I have had a terrible adventure since I | |
saw you last, and the soldiers I went to order back have been destroyed | |
to the very last man." | |
"Dear me!" cried Jimmieboy. "I am glad I didn't go with you. What | |
happened?" | |
"I was attacked about four miles up the road by a tremendous sixty-pound | |
Quandary, and I was nearly killed," said the major. "The soldiers had | |
only got four and a half miles on their way, and hearing the disturbance | |
and my cries for help they hastened to the rescue, and were simply | |
an-ni-hi-lated, which is old English for all mashed to pieces." | |
"But how did you escape?" said the boy. | |
"Oh, I had a way, and it worked, that's all. I'm the safest soldier in | |
the world, I am. You can capture me eight times a day, but I am always | |
sure to escape," said the major, proudly. "But, my dear general, how is | |
it that you do not tremble? Are you not aware that under the | |
circumstances you ought to be a badly frightened warrior?" | |
"I don't tremble, because I don't know whether you are telling the truth | |
or not," said Jimmieboy. "Besides, I never saw a Quandary, and so I | |
can't tell how terrible he is. Is he dreadful?" | |
"He's more than dreadful," returned the major. "No word of two syllables | |
expresses his dreadfulness. He is simply calamitous; and if there was a | |
longer word in the dictionary applying to his case I'd use it, if it | |
took all my front teeth out to say it." | |
"That's all very well," said Jimmieboy, "but you can't make me shiver | |
with fear by saying he's calamitous. What does he do? Bite?" | |
"Bite? Well, I guess not," answered the major, scornfully. "He doesn't | |
need to bite. Would you bite an apple if you could swallow it whole?" | |
"I think I would," said Jimmieboy. "How would I get the juice of it if I | |
didn't?" | |
"You'd get just as much juice whether you bit it or not," snapped the | |
major, who did not at all like Jimmieboy's coolness under the | |
circumstances. "The Quandary doesn't bite anything, because his mouth is | |
so large there isn't anything he can bite. He just takes you as you | |
stand, gives a great gulp, and there you are." | |
"Where?" queried Jimmieboy, who could not quite follow the major. | |
"Wherever you happen to be, of course," said the major, gruffly. "You | |
aren't a very sharp general, it seems to me. You don't seem to be able | |
to see through a hole with a millstone in it. I have to explain | |
everything to you just as if you were a baby or a school-teacher, but I | |
can just tell you that if you ever were attacked by a Quandary you | |
wouldn't like it much, and if he ever swallowed you you'd be a mighty | |
lonesome general for a little while. You'd be a regular land Jonah." | |
"Don't get mad at me, major," said Jimmieboy, clapping his companion on | |
the back. "I'll be frightened if you want me to. Br-rr-rrr-rrr-rrrrr! | |
There, is that the kind of a tremble you want me to have?" | |
"Thank you, yes," the major replied, his face clearing and his smile | |
returning. "I am very much obliged; and now to show you that you haven't | |
made any mistake in getting frightened, I'll tell you what a Quandary | |
is, and what he has done, and how I managed to escape; and as poetry is | |
the easiest method for me to express my thoughts with, I'll put it all | |
in rhyme. | |
"THE QUANDARY. | |
He is a fearful animal, | |
That quaint old Quandary-- | |
A cousin of the tragical | |
And whimsically magical | |
Dilemma-bird is he. | |
He has an eye that's wonderful-- | |
'Tis like a public school: | |
It has a thousand dutiful, | |
Though scarcely any beautiful, | |
Small pupils 'neath its rule. | |
And every pupil--marvelous | |
Indeed, sir, to relate-- | |
When man becomes contiguous, | |
Makes certainty ambiguous-- | |
Which is unfortunate. | |
For when this ambiguity | |
Has seized upon his prize, | |
Whate'er man tries, to do it he | |
Will find when he is through it, he | |
Had best done otherwise. | |
And hence it is this animal, | |
Of which I sing my song, | |
This creature reprehensible, | |
Is held by persons sensible | |
Responsible for wrong. | |
So if a friend or foe you see | |
Departing from his aim, | |
Be full, I pray, of charity-- | |
He may have met the Quandary, | |
And so is not to blame." | |
"That is very pretty," said Jimmieboy, as the major finished; "but, do | |
you know, major, I don't understand one word of it." | |
Much to Jimmieboy's surprise the major was pleased at this remark. | |
"Thank you, Jimmieboy," he said. "That proves that I am a true poet. I | |
think there's some meaning in those lines, but it's so long since I | |
wrote them that I have forgotten exactly what I did mean, and it's that | |
very thing that makes a poem out of the verses. Poetry is nothing but | |
riddles in rhyme. You have to guess what is meant by the lines, and the | |
harder that is, the greater the poem." | |
"But I don't see much use of it," said Jimmieboy. "Riddles are fun | |
sometimes, but poetry isn't." | |
"That's very true," said the major. "But poetry has its uses. If it | |
wasn't for poetry, the poets couldn't make a living, or if they did, | |
they'd have to go into some other business, and most other businesses | |
are crowded as it is." | |
"Do people ever make a living writing poetry?" Jimmieboy asked. | |
"Once in a while. I knew a man once who did. He called himself the | |
Grocer-Poet, because he was a grocer in the day-time and a poet at | |
night. He sold every poem he wrote, too," said the major. | |
"To a newspaper?" asked Jimmieboy. | |
"Oh, no," said the major. "He bought 'em from himself. When he'd wake up | |
in the morning as a grocer he'd read what he had written the night | |
before as a poet, and then he'd buy the verses from himself and throw | |
them into the fire. But to return to the Quandary. He has awfully bad | |
manners. He stares you right in the face whenever he meets you, and no | |
matter what you want to do he tries to force you to do the other thing. | |
The only way to escape him is not to do anything, but go back where you | |
started from, and begin all over again." | |
"Where did you meet him?" asked Jimmieboy. | |
"Where? Why, where he's always met, of course, at a fork in the road. | |
That's where he gets in his fine work," said the major. "Suppose, for | |
instance, you were out for a stroll, and you thought you'd like to | |
go--well, say to Calcutta. You stroll along, and you stroll along, and | |
you stroll along. Then you come to a place where the road splits, one | |
half going to the right and one to the left, or, if you don't like right | |
and left, we'll say one going to Calcutta by way of Cape Horn, and the | |
other going to Calcutta by way of Greenland's icy mountains." | |
"It's a long walk either way," said Jimmieboy. | |
"Yes. It's a walk that isn't often taken," assented the major, with a | |
knowing shake of the head. "But at the fork of this road the Quandary | |
attacks you. He stops you and says, 'Which way are you going to | |
Calcutta?' and you say, 'Well, as it is a warm day, I think I'll go by | |
way of Greenland's icy mountains.' 'No,' says the Quandary, 'you won't | |
do any such thing, because it may snow. You'd better go the other way.' | |
'Very well,' say you, 'I'll go the other way, then.' 'Why do you do | |
that?' queries the Quandary. 'If it should grow very warm you'd be | |
roasted to death.' 'Then I don't know what to do,' say you. 'What is the | |
matter with going both ways?' says the Quandary, to which you reply, | |
'How can I do that?' 'Try it and see,' he answers. Then," continued the | |
major, his voice sinking to a whisper--"then you do try it and you do | |
see, unless you are a wise, sagacious, sapient, perspicacious, astute, | |
canny, penetrating, needle-witted, learned man of wisdom like myself who | |
knows a thing or two. In that case you don't try, for you can see | |
without trying that any man with two legs who tries to walk along two | |
roads leading in different directions at once is just going to split | |
into at least two halves before he has gone twenty miles, and that is | |
just what the Quandary wants you to do, for it's over such horrible | |
spectacles as a man divided against himself that he gloats, and when he | |
is through gloating he swallows what's left." | |
"And what does the wise, sagacious, sappy, perspiring man of wisdom like | |
yourself who knows a thing or two do?" asked Jimmieboy. | |
"I didn't say sappy or perspiring," retorted the major. "I said sapient | |
and perspicacious." | |
"Well, anyhow, what does he do?" asked Jimmieboy. | |
"He gives up going to Calcutta," observed the major. | |
"Oh, I see. To gain a victory over the Quandary you turn and run away?" | |
asked Jimmieboy. | |
"Yes, that's it. That's what saved me. I cried for help, turned about, | |
and ran back here, and I can tell you it takes a brave man to turn his | |
back on an enemy," said the major. | |
"And why didn't the soldiers do it too?" queried Jimmieboy. | |
"There wasn't anybody to order a retreat, so when the Quandary attacked | |
them they marched right on, single file, and every one of 'em split in | |
two, fell in a heap, and died." | |
"But I should think you would have ordered them to halt," insisted | |
Jimmieboy. | |
"I had no power to do so," the major replied. "If I had only had the | |
power, I might have saved their lives by ordering them to march two by | |
two instead of single file, and then when they met the Quandary they | |
could have gone right ahead, the left-hand men taking the left-hand | |
road, the right-hand men the right, but of course I only had orders to | |
tell them to come back here, and a soldier can only obey his orders. It | |
was awful the way those noble lives were sacrifi--" | |
Here Jimmieboy started to his feet with a cry of alarm. There were | |
unmistakable sounds of approaching footsteps. | |
"Somebody or something is coming," he cried. | |
"Oh, no, I guess not," said the major, getting red in the face, for he | |
recognized, as Jimmieboy did not, the firm, steady tread of the | |
returning soldiers whom he had told Jimmieboy the Quandary had | |
annihilated. "It's only the drum of your ear you hear," he added. "You | |
know you have a drum in your ear, and every once in a while it begins | |
its rub-a-dub-dub just like any other drum. Oh, no, you don't hear | |
anybody coming. Let's take a walk into the forest here and see if we | |
can't find a few pipe plants. I think I'd like to have a smoke." | |
"Why, you naughty major!" cried Jimmieboy, shaking his arm, which his | |
companion had taken, free from the major's grasp. "You've been telling | |
me a great big fib, because there are the soldiers coming back again." | |
"What!" ejaculated the major, in well-affected surprise. "Well, I | |
declare! So they are. Dear me! Why, do you know, general, that is the | |
most marvelous cure I ever saw in my life. To think that all those men | |
whom I saw not an hour ago lying dead on the field of battle, all ready | |
for the Quandary's luncheon, should have been resusitated in so short a | |
time, as--" | |
"Halt!" roared Jimmieboy, interrupting the major in a most | |
unceremonious fashion, for the soldiers by this time had reached a point | |
in the road directly opposite where he was sitting. | |
The soldiers halted. | |
"Break ranks!" cried Jimmieboy, after the corporal had told him the | |
proper order to give next. | |
The soldiers broke ranks, and in sheer weariness threw themselves down | |
on the soft turf at the side of the road--all except the corporal, who | |
at Jimmieboy's request came and sat down at the general's side to make | |
his report. | |
"This is fine weather we are having, corporal," said the major, winking | |
at the subordinate officer, and trying to make him understand that the | |
less he said about the major the better it would be for all concerned. | |
"Yes," returned the corporal. "Better for sleeping than for military | |
duty, eh, major?" | |
Here the major grew pale, but had the presence of mind to remark that he | |
thought it might rain in time for tea. | |
"There's something behind all this," thought Jimmieboy; "and I'm going | |
to know what it all means." | |
Then he said aloud, "You have had a very speedy recovery, corporal." | |
Here the major cleared his throat more loudly than usual, blushed rosy | |
red, and winked twice as violently at the corporal as before. | |
"Did you ever hear my poem on the 'Cold Tea River in China'?" he asked. | |
"No," said the corporal, "I never did, and I never want to." | |
"Then I will recite it for you," said the major. | |
"After the corporal has made his report, major," said Jimmieboy. | |
"It goes this way," continued the major, pretending not to hear. | |
"Some years ago--'way back in '69--a | |
Friend and I went for a trip through China, | |
That pleasant land where rules King Tommy Chang, | |
Where flows the silver river Yangtse-Wang-- | |
Through fertile fields, through sweetest-scented bowers | |
Of creeping vinous vines and floral flowers." | |
"My dear major," interrupted Jimmieboy, "I do not want to hurt your | |
feelings, but much as I like to hear your poetry I must listen to the | |
report of the corporal first." | |
"Oh, very well," returned the major, observing that the corporal had | |
taken to his heels as soon as he had begun to recite. "Very well. Let | |
the corporal proceed." | |
Jimmieboy then saw for the first time that the corporal had fled. | |
"Why, where is he?" he asked. | |
"I do not know," returned the major, coldly. "I fancy he has gone to the | |
kitchen to cook his report. He always goes off when I recite." | |
"Oh, well, never mind," said Jimmieboy, noticing that the major was | |
evidently very much hurt. "Go on with the poem about 'Cold Tea River.'" | |
"No, I shall not," replied the major. "I shall not do it for two | |
reasons, general, unless you as my superior officer command me to do it, | |
and I hope you will not. In the first place, you have publicly | |
humiliated me in the presence of a tin corporal, an inferior in rank, | |
and consequently have hurt my feelings more deeply than you imagine. I | |
am not tall, sir, but my feelings are deep enough to be injured most | |
deeply, and in view of that fact I prefer to say nothing more about that | |
poem. The other reason is that there is really no such poem, because | |
there is really no such a stream as Cold Tea River in China, though | |
there might have been had Nature been as poetic and fanciful as I, for | |
it is as easy to conceive of a river having its source in the land of | |
the tea-trees, and having its waters so full of the essence of tea | |
gained from contact with the roots of those trees, that to all intents | |
and purposes it is a river of tea. Had you permitted me to go on | |
uninterrupted I should have made up a poem on that subject, and might | |
possibly by this time have had it done, but as it is, it never will be | |
composed. If you will permit me I will take a horseback ride and see if | |
I cannot forget the trials of this memorable day. If I return I shall be | |
back, but otherwise you may never see me again. I feel so badly over | |
your treatment of me that I may be rash enough to commit suicide by | |
jumping into a smelting-pot and being moulded over again into a piece of | |
shot, and if I do, general, if I do, and if I ever get into battle and | |
am fired out of a gun, I shall seek out that corporal, and use my best | |
efforts to amputate his head off so quickly that he won't know what has | |
happened till he tries to think, and finds he hasn't anything to do it | |
with." | |
Breathing which horrible threat, the major mounted his horse and | |
galloped madly down the road, and Jimmieboy, not knowing whether to be | |
sorry or amused, started on a search for the corporal in order that he | |
might hear his report, and gain, if possible, some solution of the | |
major's strange conduct. | |
CHAPTER VI. | |
THE CORPORAL'S FAIRY STORY. | |
Jimmieboy had not long to search for the corporal. He found that worthy | |
in a very few minutes, lying fast asleep under a tree some twenty or | |
thirty rods down the road, snoring away as if his life depended upon it. | |
It was quite evident that the poor fellow was worn out with his | |
exertions, and Jimmieboy respected his weariness, and restrained his | |
strong impulse to awaken him. | |
His consideration for the tired soldier was not without its reward, for | |
as Jimmieboy listened the corporal's snores took semblance to words, | |
which, as he remembered them, the snores of his papa in the early | |
morning had never done. Indeed, Jimmieboy and his small brother Russ | |
were agreed on the one point that their father's snores were about the | |
most uninteresting, uncalled for, unmeaning sounds in the world, which, | |
no doubt, was why they made it a point to interrupt them on every | |
possible occasion. The novelty of the present situation was delightful | |
to the little general. To be able to stand there and comprehend what it | |
was the corporal was snoring so vociferously, was most pleasing, and he | |
was still further entertained to note that it was nothing less than a | |
rollicking song that was having its sweetness wasted upon the desert air | |
by the sleeping officer before him. | |
This is the song that Jimmieboy heard: | |
"I would not be a man of peace, | |
Oh, no-ho-ho--not I; | |
But give me battles without cease; | |
Give me grim war with no release, | |
Or let me die-hi-hi. | |
I love the frightful things we eat | |
In times of war-or-or; | |
The biscuit tough, the granite meat, | |
And hard green apples are a treat | |
Which I adore-dor-dor. | |
I love the sound of roaring guns | |
Upon my e-e-ears, | |
I love in routs the lengthy runs, | |
I do not mind the stupid puns | |
Of dull-ull grenadiers. | |
I should not weep to lose a limb, | |
An arm, or thumb-bum-bum. | |
I laugh with glee to hear the zim | |
Of shells that make my chance seem slim | |
Of getting safe back hum. | |
Just let me sniff gunpowder in | |
My nasal fee-a-ture, | |
And I will ever sing and grin. | |
To me sweet music is the din | |
Of war, you may be sure." | |
"Well, I declare!" cried Jimmieboy. "If my dear old papa could snore | |
songs like that, wouldn't I let him sleep mornings!" | |
"He does," snored the corporal. "The only trouble is he doesn't snore as | |
clearly as I do. It takes long practice to become a fluent snorer like | |
myself--that is to say, a snorer who can be understood by any one | |
whatever his age, nation, or position in life. That song I have just | |
snored for you could be understood by a Zulu just as well as you | |
understood it, because a snore is exactly the same in Zuluese as it is | |
in your language or any other--in which respect it resembles a cup of | |
coffee or a canary-bird." | |
"Are you still snoring, or is this English you are speaking?" asked | |
Jimmieboy. | |
"Snoring; and that proves just what I said, for you understood me just | |
as plainly as though I had spoken in English," returned the corporal, | |
his eyes still tightly closed in sleep. | |
"Snore me another poem," said Jimmieboy. | |
"No, I won't do that; but if you wish me to I'll snore you a fairy | |
tale," answered the corporal. | |
"That will be lovely," said Jimmieboy. "I love fairy tales." | |
"Very well," observed the corporal, turning over on his back and | |
throwing his head back into an uncomfortable position so that he could | |
snore more loudly. "Here goes. Once upon a time there was a small boy | |
named Tom whose parents were so poor and so honest that they could not | |
afford to give him money enough to go to the circus when it came to | |
town, which made him very wretched and unhappy, because all the other | |
little boys who lived thereabouts were more fortunately situated, and | |
had bought tickets for the very first performance. Tom cried all night | |
and went about the town moaning all day, for he did want to see the | |
elephant whose picture was on the fences that could hold itself up on | |
its hind tail; the man who could toss five-hundred-pound cannon balls in | |
the air and catch them on top of his head as they came down; the trick | |
horse that could jump over a fence forty feet high without disturbing | |
the two-year-old wonder Pattycake who sat in a rocking-chair on his | |
back. As Tom very well said, these were things one had to see to | |
believe, and now they were coming, and just because he could not get | |
fifty cents he could not see them. | |
"Then he thought, 'Here! why can't I go out into the world, and by hard | |
work earn the fifty cents I so much need to take me through the doors of | |
the circus tent into the presence of these marvelous creatures?' | |
"And he went out and called upon a great lawyer and asked him if he did | |
not want a partner in his business for a day, but the lawyer only | |
laughed and told him to go to the doctor and ask him. So Tom went to the | |
doctor, and the doctor said he did not want a partner, but he did want a | |
boy to take medicines for him and tell him what they tasted like, and he | |
promised Tom fifty cents if he would be that boy for a day, and Tom said | |
he would try. | |
"Then the doctor got out his medicine-chest and gave Tom twelve bottles | |
of medicine, and told him to taste each one of them, and Tom tasted two | |
of them, and decided that he would rather do without the circus than | |
taste the rest, so the doctor bade him farewell, and Tom went to look | |
for something else to do. As he walked disconsolately down the street | |
and saw by the clock that it was nearly eleven o'clock, he made up his | |
mind that he would think no more about the circus, but would go home and | |
study arithmetic instead, the chance of his being able to earn the | |
fifty cents seemed so very slight. So he turned back, and was about to | |
go to his home, when he caught sight of another circus poster, which | |
showed how the fiery, untamed giraffe caught cocoanuts in his mouth--the | |
cocoanuts being fired out of a cannon set off by a clown who looked as | |
if he could make a joke that would make an owl laugh. This was too much | |
for Tom. He couldn't miss that without at least making one further | |
effort to earn the money that would pay for his ticket. | |
"So off he started again in search of profitable employment. He had not | |
gone far when he came to a crockery shop, and on stopping to look in the | |
large shop window at the beautiful dishes and graceful soup tureens that | |
were to be seen there, he saw a sign on which was written in great | |
golden letters 'BOY WANTED.' Now Tom could not read, but something told | |
him that that sign was a good omen for him, so he went into the shop and | |
asked if they had any work that a boy of his size could do. | |
"'Yes,' said the owner of the shop. 'We want an errand-boy. Are you an | |
errand-boy?' | |
"Tom answered bravely that he thought he was, and the man said he would | |
give him a trial anyhow, and sent him off on a sample errand, telling | |
him that if he did that one properly, he would pay him fifty cents a | |
day for as many days as he kept him, giving him a half holiday on all | |
circus-days. Tom was delighted, and started off gleefully to perform | |
the sample errand, which was to take a basketful of china plates to the | |
house of a rich merchant who lived four miles back in the country. | |
Bravely the little fellow plodded along until he came to the gate-way | |
of the rich man's place, when so overcome was he with happiness at | |
getting something to do that he could not wait to get the gate open, | |
but leaped like a deer clear over the topmost pickets. But, alas! his | |
very happiness was his ruin, for as he landed on the other side the | |
china plates flew out of the basket in every direction, and falling on | |
the hard gravel path were broken every one." | |
"Dear me!" cried Jimmieboy, sympathetically. "Poor little Tom." | |
"Whereat the cow | |
Remarked, 'Pray how-- | |
If what you say is true-- | |
How should the child, | |
However mild, | |
Become so wildly blue?'" | |
snored the corporal. | |
"What's the matter with you?" asked Jimmieboy, very much surprised at | |
the rhyme, which, so far as he could see, had nothing to do with the | |
fairy story. | |
"What's the matter with me?" returned the corporal. "Nothing. Why?" | |
"There wasn't anything about a cow in the fairy story you were telling | |
about Tom," said Jimmieboy. | |
"Was I telling that story about Tom?" asked the sleeping soldier. | |
"Certainly," replied Jimmieboy. | |
"Then you must have interrupted me," snored the corporal. "You must | |
never interrupt a person who is snoring until he gets through, because | |
the chances are nine out of ten that, being asleep, he won't remember | |
what he has been snoring about, and will go off on something else | |
entirely. Where was I when you interrupted?" | |
"You had got to where Tom jumped over the gate and broke all the china | |
plates," answered Jimmieboy. | |
"Very well, then. I'll go on, but don't you say another thing until I | |
have finished," said the corporal. Then resuming his story, he snored | |
away as follows: "And falling on the hard gravel path the plates were | |
broken every one, which was awfully sad, as any one could understand | |
who could see how the poor little fellow threw himself down on the grass | |
and wept. Dear me, how he wept! He wept so long and such great tears, | |
that the grass about him for yards and yards looked as fresh and green | |
as though there had been a rain-storm. | |
"'Oh, dear! what shall I do?' cried Tom, ruefully regarding the | |
shattered plates. 'They'll beat me if I go back to the shop, and I'll | |
never get to see the circus after all.' | |
"'No,' said a voice. 'They will not beat you, and I will see that you | |
get to the circus.' | |
"'Who are you?' asked Tom, looking up and seeing before him a beautiful | |
lady, who looked as if she might be a part of the circus herself. 'Are | |
you the lady with the iron jaw or the horseback lady that jumps through | |
hoops of fire?' | |
"'Neither,' replied the lady. 'I am your Fairy Godmother, and I have | |
come to tell you that if you will gather up the broken plates and take | |
them up to the great house yonder, I will fix it so that you can go to | |
the circus.' | |
"'Won't they scold me for breaking the plates?' asked Tom, his eyes | |
brightening and his tears drying. | |
"'Take them and see,' said the Fairy Godmother, and Tom, who was always | |
an obedient lad, did as he was told. He gathered up the broken plates, | |
put them in his basket, and went up to the house. | |
"'Here are your plates,' he said, all of a tremble as he entered. | |
"'Let's see if any of them are broken,' said the merchant in a voice so | |
gruff that Tom trembled all the harder. Surely he was now in worse | |
trouble than ever. | |
"'H'm!' said the rich man taking one out and looking at it. 'That seems | |
to be all right.' | |
"'Yes,' said Tom, meekly, surprised to note that the plate was as good | |
as ever. 'It has been very neatly mended.' | |
"'Very what?' roared the rich man, who didn't want mended plates. 'Did | |
you say mended?' | |
"'Oh, no, sir!' stammered Tom, who saw that he had made a bad mistake. | |
'That is, I didn't mean to say mended. I meant to say that they'd been | |
very highly recommended.' | |
"'Oh! Recommended, eh?' returned the rich man more calmly. 'That's | |
different. The rest of them seem to be all right, too. Here, take your | |
basket and go along with you. Good-by!' | |
"And so Tom left the merchant's house very much pleased to have got out | |
of his scrape so easily, and feeling very grateful to his Fairy | |
Godmother for having helped him. | |
"'Well,' said she, when he got back to the gate where she was awaiting | |
him, 'was everything all right?' | |
"'Yes,' said Tom, happily. 'The plates were all right, and now they are | |
all left.' | |
"The Fairy Godmother laughed and said he was a bright boy, and then she | |
asked him which he would rather do: pay fifty cents to go to the circus | |
once, or wear the coat of invisibility and walk in and out as many times | |
as he wanted to. To this Tom, who was a real boy, and preferred going to | |
the circus six times to going only once, replied that as he was afraid | |
he might lose the fifty cents he thought he would take the coat, though | |
he also thought, he said, if his dear Fairy Godmother could find it in | |
her heart to let him have both the coat and the fifty cents he could | |
find use for them. | |
"At this the Fairy Godmother laughed again, and said she guessed he | |
could, and, giving him two shining silver quarters and the coat of | |
invisibility, she made a mysterious remark, which he could not | |
understand, and disappeared. Tom kissed his hand toward the spot where | |
she had stood, now vacant, and ran gleefully homeward, happy as a bird, | |
for he had at last succeeded in obtaining the means for his visit to the | |
circus. That night, so excited was he, he hardly slept a wink, and even | |
when he did sleep, he dreamed of such unpleasant things as the bitter | |
medicines of the doctor and the broken plates, so that it was just as | |
well he should spend the greater part of the night awake. | |
"His excitement continued until the hour for going to the circus | |
arrived, when he put on his coat of invisibility and started. To test | |
the effect of the coat he approached one of his chums, who was standing | |
in the middle of the long line of boys waiting for the doors to open, | |
and tweaked his nose, deciding from the expression on his friend's | |
face--one of astonishment, alarm, and mystification--that he really was | |
invisible, and so, proceeding to the gates, he passed by the | |
ticket-taker into the tent without interference from any one. It was | |
simply lovely; all the seats in the place were unoccupied, and he could | |
have his choice of them. Surely nobody could ask for anything better. | |
"You may be sure he chose one well down in front, so that he should miss | |
no part of the performance, and then he waited for the beginning of the | |
very wonderful series of things that were to come. | |
"Alas! poor Tom was again doomed to a very mortifying disappointment. He | |
forgot that his invisibility made his lovely front seat appear to be | |
unoccupied, and while he was looking off in another direction a great, | |
heavy, fat man entered and sat down upon him, squeezing him so hard that | |
he could scarcely breathe, and as for howling, that was altogether out | |
of the question, and there through the whole performance the fat man | |
sat, and the invisible Tom saw not one of the marvelous acts or the | |
wonderful animals, and, what was worse, when a joke was got off he | |
couldn't see whether it was by the clown or the ring-master, and so | |
didn't know when to laugh even if he had wanted to. It was the most | |
dreadful disappointment Tom ever had, and he went home crying, and spent | |
the night groaning and moaning with sorrow. | |
"It was not until he began to dress for breakfast next morning, and his | |
two beautiful quarters rolled out of his pocket on the floor, that he | |
remembered he still had the means to go again. When he had made this | |
discovery he became happy once more, and started off with his invisible | |
coat hanging over his arm, and paid his way in for the second and last | |
performance like all the other boys. This time he saw all there was to | |
be seen, and was full of happiness, until the lions' cage was brought | |
in, when he thought it would be a fine thing to put on his invisible | |
coat, and enter the cage with the lion-tamer, which he did, having so | |
exciting a time looking at the lions and keeping out of their way that | |
he forgot to watch the tamer when he went out, so that finally when the | |
circus was all over Tom found himself locked in the cage with the lions | |
with nothing but raw meat to eat. This was bad enough, but what was | |
worse, the next city in which the circus was to exhibit was hundreds of | |
miles away from the town in which Tom lived, and no one was expected to | |
open the cage doors again for four weeks. | |
"When Tom heard this he was frightened to death almost, and rather than | |
spend all that time shut up in a small cage with the kings of the | |
beasts, he threw off the coat of invisibility and shrieked, and then--" | |
"Yes--then what?" cried Jimmieboy, breathlessly, so excited that he | |
could not help interrupting the corporal, despite the story-teller's | |
warning. | |
"The bull-dog said he thought it might, | |
But pussy she said 'Nay,' | |
At which the unicorn took fright, | |
And stole a bale of hay," | |
snored the corporal with a yawn. | |
"That can't be it! that can't be it!" cried Jimmieboy, so excited to | |
hear what happened to little Tom in the lions' cage that he began to | |
shake the corporal almost fiercely. | |
"What can't be what?" asked the corporal, sitting up and opening his | |
eyes. "What are you trying to talk about, general?" | |
"Tom--and the circus--what happened to him in the lions' cage when he | |
took off his coat?" cried Jimmieboy. | |
"Tom? And the circus? I don't know anything about any Tom or any | |
circus," replied the corporal, with a sleepy nod. | |
"But you've just been snoring to me about it," remonstrated Jimmieboy. | |
"Don't remember it at all," said the corporal. "I must have been asleep | |
and dreamed it, or else you did, or maybe both of us did; but tell me, | |
general, in confidence now, and don't ever tell anybody I | |
asked you, have you such a thing as a--as a gum-drop in your pocket?" | |
And Jimmieboy was so put out with the corporal for waking up just at | |
the wrong time that he wouldn't answer him, but turned on his heel, and | |
walked away very much concerned in his mind as to the possible fate of | |
poor little Tom. | |
CHAPTER VII. | |
A DISAGREEABLE PERSONAGE. | |
It cannot be said that Jimmieboy was entirely happy after his falling | |
out with the corporal. Of course it was very inconsiderate of the | |
corporal to wake up at the most exciting period of his fairy story, and | |
leave his commanding officer in a state of uncertainty as to the fate of | |
little Tom; but as he walked along the road, and thought the matter all | |
over, Jimmieboy reflected that after all he was himself as much to blame | |
as the corporal. In the first place, he had interrupted him in his story | |
at the point where it became most interesting, though warned in advance | |
not to do so, and in the second, he had not fallen back upon his | |
undoubted right as a general to command the corporal to go to sleep | |
again, and to stay so until his little romance was finished to the | |
satisfaction of his superior officer. The latter was without question | |
the thing he should have done, and at first he thought he would go back | |
and tell the corporal he was very sorry he hadn't done so. Indeed, he | |
would have gone back had he not met, as he rounded the turn, a | |
singular-looking little fellow, who, sitting high in an oak-tree at the | |
side of the road, attracted his attention by winking at him. Ordinarily | |
Jimmieboy would not have noticed anybody who winked at him, because his | |
papa had told him that people who would wink would smoke a pipe, which | |
was very wrong, particularly in people who were as small as this droll | |
person in the tree. But the singular-looking little fellow winked aloud, | |
and Jimmieboy could not help noticing him. Like most small boys | |
Jimmieboy delighted in noises, especially noises that went off like | |
pop-guns, which was just the kind of noise the tree dwarf made when he | |
winked. | |
"Hello, you!" said Jimmieboy, as the sounds first attracted his | |
attention. "What are you doing up there?" | |
"Sitting on a limb and counting the stars in the sky," answered the | |
dwarf. | |
Jimmieboy laughed. This seemed such a curious thing to do. | |
"How many are there?" he asked. | |
"Seventeen," replied the dwarf. | |
"Ho!" jeered Jimmieboy. | |
"There are, really," said the dwarf. "I counted 'em myself." | |
"There's more than that," said Jimmieboy. "I've had stories told me of | |
twenty-seven or twenty-eight." | |
"That doesn't prove anything," returned the dwarf, "that is, nothing but | |
what I said. If there are twenty-eight there must be seventeen, so you | |
can't catch me up on that." | |
"Come down," said Jimmieboy. "I want to see you." | |
"I can't come now," returned the dwarf. "I'm too busy counting the | |
eighteenth star, but I'll drop my telescope and let you see me through | |
that." | |
"I'll help you count the stars if you come," put in Jimmieboy. "How many | |
stars can you count a day?" | |
"Oh, about one and a half," said the dwarf. "I could count more than | |
that, only I'm cross-eyed and see double, so that after I've got through | |
counting, I have to divide the whole number by two to get the proper | |
figures, and I never was good at dividing. I've always hated | |
division--particularly division of apples and peaches. There is no | |
meaner sum in any arithmetic in the world than that I used to have to | |
do every time I got an apple when I was your age." | |
"What was the sum?" asked Jimmieboy. | |
"It was to divide one apple by three boys," returned the queer little | |
man. "Most generally that would be regarded as a case of three into one, | |
but in this instance it was one into three; and, worse than all, while | |
it pretended to be division, and was as hard as division, as far as I | |
was concerned it was subtraction too, and I was always the leftest part | |
of the remainder." | |
"But I don't see why you had to divide your apples every time you got | |
any," said Jimmieboy. | |
"That's easy enough to explain," said the dwarf. "If I didn't divide, | |
and did eat the whole apple, I'd have a fearful pain in my heart; | |
whereas if I gave my little brothers each a third, it would often happen | |
that they would get the pain and not I. After one or two experiments I | |
fixed it so that I never got the pain part any more--for you know every | |
apple has an ache in it--and they did, so, you see, I kept myself well | |
as could be, and at the same time built up quite a reputation for | |
generosity." | |
"How did you fix it so as to give them the pain part always?" queried | |
Jimmieboy. | |
"Why, I located the part of the apple that held the pain. I did not | |
divide one apple I got, but ate the whole thing myself, part by part. I | |
studied each part carefully, and discovered that apples are divided by | |
Nature into three parts, anyhow. Pleasure was one part, pain was another | |
part, and the third part was just nothing--neither pleasure nor pain. | |
The core is where the ache is, the crisp is where the pleasure is, and | |
the skin represents the part which isn't anything. When I found that out | |
I said, 'Here! What is a good enough plan for Nature is a good enough | |
plan for me. I'll divide my apples on Nature's plan.' Which I did. To | |
one brother I gave the core; to the other the skin; the rest I ate | |
myself." | |
"It was very mean of you to make your brothers suffer the pain," said | |
Jimmieboy. | |
"Well, they had their days off. One time one brother'd have the core; | |
another time the other brother'd have it. They took turns," said the | |
dwarf. | |
"It was mean, anyhow!" cried Jimmieboy, who was so fond of his own | |
little brother that he would gladly have borne all his pains for him if | |
it could have been arranged. | |
"Well, meanness is my business," said the dwarf. | |
"Your business?" echoed Jimmieboy, opening his eyes wide with | |
astonishment, meanness seemed such a strange business. | |
"Certainly," returned the dwarf. "Don't you know what I am? I am an | |
unfairy." | |
"What's that?" asked Jimmieboy. | |
"You know what a fairy is, don't you?" said the dwarf. | |
"Yes. It's a dear lovely creature with wings, that goes about doing | |
good." | |
"That's right. An unfairy is just the opposite," explained the dwarf. "I | |
go about doing unfair things. I am the fairy that makes things go wrong. | |
When your hat blows off in the street the chances are that I have paid | |
the bellows man, who works up all these big winds we have, to do it. If | |
I see people having a good time on a picnic, I fly up to the sky and | |
push a rain cloud over where they are and drench them, having first of | |
course either hidden or punched great holes in their umbrellas. Oh, I | |
can tell you, I am the meanest creature that ever was. Why, do you know | |
what I did once in a country school?" | |
"No, I don't," said Jimmieboy, in tones of disgust. "I don't know | |
anything about mean things." | |
"Well, you ought to know about this," returned the dwarf, "because it | |
was just the meanest thing anybody ever did. There was a boy who'd | |
studied awfully hard in hopes that he would lead his class when the | |
holidays came, and there was another boy in the school who was equal to | |
him in everything but arithmetic, and who would have been beaten on that | |
one point, so that the other boy would have stood where he wanted to, | |
only I helped the second boy by rubbing out all the correct answers of | |
the first boy and putting others on the slate instead, so that the first | |
boy lost first place and had to take second. Wasn't that mean?" | |
"It was horrid," said Jimmieboy, "and it's a good thing you didn't come | |
down here when I asked you to, for if you had, I think I should now be | |
slapping you just as hard as I could." | |
"Another time," said the unfairy, ignoring Jimmieboy's remark, "I turned | |
myself into a horse-fly and bothered a lame horse; then I changed into a | |
bull-dog and barked all night under the window of a man who wanted to go | |
to sleep, but my regular trick is going around to hat stores and taking | |
the brushes and brushing all the beaver hats the wrong way. Sometimes | |
when people get lost here in the woods and want to go to | |
Tiddledywinkland, I give them the wrong directions, so that they bring | |
up on the other side of the country, where they don't want to be; and | |
once last winter I put rust on the runners of a little boy's sled so | |
that he couldn't use it, and then when he'd spent three days getting | |
them polished up, I pushed a warm rain cloud over the hill where the | |
snow was and melted it all away. I hide toys I know children will be | |
sure to want; I tear the most exciting pages out of books; I spill salt | |
in the sugar-bowls and plant weeds in the gardens; I upset the ink on | |
love-letters; when I find a man with only one collar I fray it at the | |
edges; I roll collar buttons under bureaus; I--" | |
"Don't you dare tell me another thing!" cried Jimmieboy, angrily. "I | |
don't like you, and I won't listen to you any more." | |
"Oh, yes, you will," replied the unfairy. "I am just mean enough to make | |
you, and I'll tell you why. I am very tired of my business, and I think | |
if I tell you all the horrid things I do, maybe you'll tell me how I can | |
keep from doing them. I have known you for a long time, only you didn't | |
know it." | |
"I don't believe it," said Jimmieboy. | |
"Well, I have, just the same," returned the dwarf. "And I can prove it. | |
Do you remember, one day you went out walking, how you walked two miles | |
and only met one mud-puddle, and fell into that?" | |
"Yes, I do," said Jimmieboy, sadly. "I spoiled my new suit when I fell, | |
and I never knew how I came to do it." | |
"I made you do that!" said the unfairy, triumphantly. "I grabbed hold of | |
your foot, and upset you right into it. I waited two hours to do it, | |
too." | |
"You did, eh?" said Jimmieboy. "Well, I wish I had an axe. I'd chop that | |
tree down, and catch you and make you sorry for it." | |
"I am sorry for it," said the dwarf. "Real sorry. I've never ceased to | |
regret it." | |
"Oh, well, I forgive you," said Jimmieboy, "if you are really sorry." | |
"Yes, I am," said the dwarf; "I'm awfully sorry, because I didn't do it | |
right. You only ruined your suit and not that beautiful red necktie you | |
had on. Next time I'll be more careful and spoil everything. But let me | |
give you more proof that I've known you. Who do you suppose it was bent | |
your railway tracks at Christmas so they wouldn't work?" | |
"You!" ejaculated Jimmieboy. | |
"Yes, sirree!" roared the dwarf. "I did, and, what is more, it was I | |
who chewed up your best shoes and bit your plush dog's head off; it was | |
I who ate up your luncheon one day last March; it was I who pawed up all | |
the geraniums in your flower-bed; and it was I who nipped your friend | |
the postman in the leg on St. Valentine's day so that he lost your | |
valentine." | |
"I've caught you there," said Jimmieboy. "It wasn't you that did those | |
things at all. It was a horrid little brown dog that used to play around | |
our house did all that." | |
"You think you are smart," laughed the dwarf. "But you aren't. I was the | |
little brown dog." | |
"I don't see how you can have any friends if that is the way you | |
behave," said Jimmieboy, after a minute or two of silence. "You don't | |
deserve any." | |
"No," said the dwarf, his voice trembling a little--for as Jimmieboy | |
peered up into the tree at him he could see that he was crying just a | |
bit--"I haven't any, and I never had. I never had anybody to set me a | |
good example. My father and my mother were unfairies before me, and I | |
just grew to be one like them. I didn't want to be one, but I had to be; | |
and really it wasn't until I saw you pat a hand-organ monkey on the | |
head, instead of giving him a piece of cake with red pepper on it, as I | |
would have done, that I ever even dreamed that there were kind people in | |
the world. After I'd watched you for a while and had seen how happy you | |
were, and how many friends you had, I began to see how it was that I was | |
so miserable. I was miserable because I was mean, but nobody has ever | |
told me how not to be mean, and I'm just real upset over it." | |
"Poor fellow!" said Jimmieboy, sympathetically. "I am really very, very | |
sorry for you." | |
"So am I," sobbed the dwarf. "I wish you could help me." | |
"Perhaps I can," said Jimmieboy. | |
"Well, wait a minute," said the dwarf, drying his eyes and peering | |
intently down the road. "Wait a minute. There is a sheep down the road | |
there tangled up in the brambles. Wait until I change myself into a big | |
black dog and scare her half to death." | |
"But that will be mean," returned Jimmieboy; "and if you want to change, | |
and be good, and kind, why don't you begin now and help the sheep out?" | |
"H'm!" said the dwarf. "Now that is an idea, isn't it! Do you know, I'd | |
never have thought of that if you hadn't suggested it to me. I think I | |
will. I'll change myself into a good-hearted shepherd's boy, and free | |
that poor animal at once!" | |
The dwarf was as good as his word, and in a moment he came back, smiling | |
as happily as though he had made a great fortune. | |
"Why, it's lovely to do a thing like that. Beautiful!" he said. "Do you | |
know, Jimmieboy, I've half a mind to turn mean again for just a minute, | |
and go back and frighten that sheep back into the bushes just for the | |
bliss of helping her out once more." | |
"I wouldn't do that," said Jimmieboy, with a shake of his head. "I'd | |
just change myself into a good fairy if I were you, and go about doing | |
kind things. When you see people having a picnic, push the rain cloud | |
away from them instead of over them. Do just the opposite from what | |
you've been doing all along, and pretty soon you'll have heaps and heaps | |
of friends." | |
"You are a wonderful boy," said the dwarf. "Why, you've hit without | |
thinking a minute the plan I've been searching for for years and years | |
and years, and I'll do just what you say. Watch!" | |
The dwarf pronounced one or two queer words the like of which Jimmieboy | |
had never heard before, and, presto change! quick as a wink the unfairy | |
had disappeared, and there stood at the small general's side the | |
handsomest, sweetest little sprite he had ever even dreamed or read | |
about. The sprite threw his arms about Jimmieboy's neck and kissed him | |
affectionately, wiped a tear of joy from his eye, and then said: | |
"I am so glad I met you. You have taught me how to be happy, and I am | |
sure I have lost eighteen hundred and seven tons in weight, I feel so | |
light and gay; and--joy! oh, joy! I no longer see double! My eyes must | |
be straight." | |
"They are," said Jimmieboy. "Straight as--straight as--well, as straight | |
as your hair is curly." | |
And that was as good an illustration as he could have found, for the | |
sprite's hair was just as curly as it could be. | |
CHAPTER VIII. | |
ARRANGEMENTS FOR A DUEL. | |
"Where are you going, Jimmieboy?" asked the sprite, after they had | |
walked along in silence for a few minutes. | |
"I haven't the slightest idea," said Jimmieboy, with a short laugh. "I | |
started out to provision the forces before pursuing the Parawelopipedon, | |
but I seem to have fallen out with everybody who could show me where to | |
go, and I am all at sea." | |
"Well, you haven't fallen out with me," said the sprite. "In fact, | |
you've fallen in with me, so that you are on dry land again. I'll show | |
you where to go, if you want me to." | |
"Then you know where I can find the candied cherries and other things | |
that soldiers eat?" asked Jimmieboy. | |
"No, I don't know where you can find anything of the sort," returned the | |
sprite. "But I do know that all things come to him who waits, so I'd | |
advise you to wait until the candied cherries and so forth come to you." | |
"But what'll I do while I am waiting?" asked Jimmieboy, who had no wish | |
to be idle in this new and strange country. | |
"Follow me, of course," said the sprite, "and I'll show you the most | |
wonderful things you ever saw. I'll take you up to see old | |
Fortyforefoot, the biggest giant in all the world; after that we'll stop | |
in at Alltart's bakery and have lunch. It's a great bakery, Alltart's | |
is. You just wish for any kind of cake in the world, and you have it in | |
your mouth." | |
"Let's go there first, I'm afraid of giants," said Jimmieboy. "They eat | |
little boys like me." | |
"Well, I don't blame them for that," said the sprite. "A little boy as | |
sweet as you are is almost too good not to eat; but I'll take care of | |
you. Fortyforefoot I haven't a doubt would like to eat both of us, but I | |
have a way of getting the best of fellows of that sort, so if you'll | |
come along you needn't have the slightest fear for your safety." | |
"All right," said Jimmieboy, after thinking it all over. "Go ahead. I'll | |
follow you." | |
At this moment the galloping step of a horse was heard approaching, and | |
in a minute Major Blueface rode up. | |
"Why, how do you do, general?" he cried, his face beaming with pleasure | |
as he reined in his steed and dismounted. "I haven't seen you | |
in--my!--why, not in years, sir. How have you been?" | |
"Quite well," said Jimmieboy, with a smile, for the major amused him | |
very much. "It doesn't seem more than five minutes since I saw you | |
last," he added, with a sly wink at the sprite. | |
"Oh, it must be longer than that," said the major, gravely. "It must be | |
at least ten, but they have seemed years to me--a seeming, sir, that is | |
well summed up in that lovely poem a friend of mine wrote some time ago: | |
"'When I have quarreled with a dear | |
Old friend, a minute seems a year; | |
And you'll remember without doubt | |
That when we parted we fell out.'" | |
"Very pretty," said the sprite. "Very pretty, indeed. Reminds me of the | |
poems of Major Blueface. You've heard of him, I suppose?" | |
"Yes," said the major, frowning at the sprite, whom he had never met | |
before. "I have heard of Major Blueface, and not only have I heard of | |
him, but I am also one of his warmest friends and admirers." | |
"Really?" said the sprite, not noticing apparently that Jimmieboy was | |
nearly exploding with mirth. "How charming! What sort of a person is the | |
major, sir?" | |
"Superb!" returned the major, his chest swelling with pride. "Brave as a | |
lobster, witty as a porcupine, and handsome as a full-blown rose. In | |
short, he is a wonder. Many a time have I been with him on the field of | |
battle, where a man most truly shows what he is, and there it was, sir, | |
that I learned to love and admire Major Blueface. Why, once I saw that | |
man hit square in the back by the full charge of a brass cannon loaded | |
to the muzzle with dried pease. The force of the blow was | |
tremendous--forcible enough, sir, in fact, to knock the major off his | |
feet, but he never quailed. He rose with dignity, and walked back to | |
where the enemy was standing, and dared him to do it again, and when the | |
enemy did it again, the major did not forget, as some soldiers would | |
have done under the circumstances, that he was a gentleman, but he rose | |
up a second time and thanked the enemy for his courtesy, which so won | |
the enemy's heart that he surrendered at once." | |
"What a hero!" said the sprite. | |
"Hero is no name for it, sir. He is a whole history full of heroes. On | |
another occasion which I recall," cried the major, with enthusiasm, "on | |
another occasion he was pursued by a lion around a circular path--he is | |
a magnificent runner, the major is--and he ran so much faster than the | |
lion that he soon caught up with his pursuer from the rear, and with one | |
blow of his sword severed the raging beast's tail from his body. Then he | |
sat down and waited until the lion got around to him again, his appetite | |
increased so by the exercise he had taken that he would have eaten | |
anything, and then what do you suppose that brave soldier did?" | |
"What?" asked Jimmieboy, who had stopped laughing to listen. | |
"He gave the hungry creature his own tail to eat, and then went home," | |
returned the major. | |
"Is that a true story?" asked the sprite. | |
"Do you think I would tell an untrue story?" asked the major, angrily. | |
"Not at all," said the sprite; "but if the major told it to you, it may | |
have grown just a little bit every time you told it." | |
"No, sir. That could not be, for I am Major Blueface himself," | |
interrupted the major. | |
"Then you are a brave man," said the sprite, "and I am proud to meet | |
you." | |
"Thank you," said the major, his frown disappearing and his pleasant | |
smile returning. "I have heard that remark before; but it is always | |
pleasant to hear. But what are you doing now, general?" he added, | |
turning and addressing Jimmieboy. | |
"I am still searching for the provisions, major," returned Jimmieboy. | |
"The soldiers were so tired I hadn't the heart to command them to get | |
them for me, as you said, so I am as badly off as ever." | |
"I think you need a rest," said the major, gravely; "and while it is | |
extremely important that the forces should be provided with all the | |
canned goods necessary to prolong their lives, the health of the | |
commanding officer is also a most precious consideration. As | |
commander-in-chief why don't you grant yourself a ten years' vacation on | |
full pay, and at the end of that time return to the laborious work you | |
have undertaken, refreshed?" | |
"But what becomes of the war?" asked Jimmieboy. "If I go off, there | |
won't be any war." | |
"No, but what of it?" replied the major. "That'll spite the enemy just | |
as much as it will our side; and maybe he'll get so tired waiting for | |
us to begin that he'll lie down and die or else give himself up." | |
"Well, I don't know what to do," said Jimmieboy, very much perplexed. | |
"What would you do?" he continued, addressing the sprite. | |
"I'd hire some one else to take my place if I were you, and let him do | |
the fighting and provisioning until you are all ready," said the sprite. | |
"Yes, but whom can I hire?" asked the boy. | |
"The Giant Fortyforefoot," returned the sprite. "He'd be just the man. | |
He's a great warrior in the first place and a great magician in the | |
second. He can do the most wonderful tricks you ever saw in all your | |
life. For instance, | |
"He'll take two ordinary balls, | |
He'll toss 'em to the sky, | |
And each when to the earth it falls | |
Will be a satin tie. | |
He'll take a tricycle in hand, | |
He'll give the thing a heave, | |
He'll mutter some queer sentence, and | |
'Twill go right up his sleeve. | |
He'll ask you what your name may be, | |
And if you answer 'Jim!' | |
He'll turn a handspring--one, two, three! | |
Your name will then be Tim. | |
He'll take a fifty-dollar bill, | |
He'll tie it to a chain, | |
He'll cry out 'Presto!' and you will | |
Not see your bill again." | |
"I'd like to see him," said Jimmieboy. "But I can't say I want to be | |
eaten up, you know, and I'd like to have you tell me before we go how | |
you are going to prevent his eating me." | |
"Very proper," said Major Blueface. "You suffer under the great | |
disadvantage of being a very toothsome, tender morsel, and in all | |
probability Fortyforefoot would order you stewed in cream or made over | |
into a tart. My!" added the major, smacking his lips so suggestively | |
that Jimmieboy drew away from him, slightly alarmed. "Why, it makes my | |
mouth water to think of a pudding made of you, with a touch of cinnamon | |
and a dash of maple syrup, and a shake of sawdust and a hard sauce. | |
Tlah!" | |
This last word of the major's was a sort of ecstatic cluck such as boys | |
often make after having tasted something they are particularly fond of. | |
"What's the use of scaring the boy, Blueface?" said the sprite, angrily, | |
as he noted Jimmieboy's alarm. "I won't have anymore of that. You can be | |
as brave and terrible as you please in the presence of your enemies, but | |
in the presence of my friends you've got to behave yourself." | |
The major laughed heartily. | |
"Jimmieboy afraid of me?" he said. "Nonsense! Why, he could rout me | |
with a frown. His little finger could, unaided, put me to flight if it | |
felt so disposed. I was complimenting him--not trying to frighten him. | |
"When I went into ecstasies | |
O'er pudding made of him, | |
'Twas just because I wished to please | |
The honorable Jim; | |
And now, in spite of your rebuff, | |
The statement I repeat: | |
I think he's really good enough | |
For any one to eat." | |
"Well, that's different," said the sprite, accepting the major's | |
statement. "I quite agree with you there; but when you go clucking | |
around here like a hen who has just tasted the sweetest grain of corn | |
she ever had, or like a boy after eating a plate of ice-cream, you're | |
just a bit terrifying--particularly to the appetizing morsel that has | |
given rise to those clucks. It's enough to make the stoutest heart | |
quail." | |
"Nonsense!" retorted the major, with a wink at Jimmieboy. "Neither my | |
manner nor the manner of any other being could make a stout hart quail, | |
because stout harts are deer and quails are birds!" | |
This more or less feeble joke served to put the three travelers in good | |
humor again. Jimmieboy smiled over it; the sprite snickered, and the | |
major threw himself down on the grass in a perfect paroxysm of laughter. | |
When he had finished he got up again and said: | |
"Well, what are we going to do about it? I propose we attack | |
Fortyforefoot unawares and tie his hands behind his back. Then Jimmieboy | |
will be safe." | |
"You are a wonderfully wise person," retorted the sprite. "How on earth | |
is Fortyforefoot to show his tricks if we tie his hands?" | |
"By means of his tricks," returned the major. "If he is any kind of a | |
magician he'll get his hands free in less than a minute." | |
"Then why tie them at all?" asked the sprite. "I'm not good at | |
conundrums," said the major. "Why?" | |
"I'm sure I don't know," returned the sprite, impatiently. | |
"Then why waste time asking riddles to which you don't know the answer?" | |
roared the major. "You'll have me mad in a minute, and when I'm mad woe | |
be unto him which I'm angry at." | |
"Don't quarrel," said Jimmieboy, stepping between his two friends, with | |
whom it seemed to be impossible to keep peace for any length of time. | |
"If you quarrel I shall leave you both and go back to my company." | |
"Very well," returned the major. "I accept the sprite's apology. But he | |
mustn't do it again. Now as you have chosen to reject my plan of | |
attacking Fortyforefoot and tying his hands, suppose you suggest | |
something better, Mr. Sprite." | |
"I think the safe thing would be for Jimmieboy to wear this invisible | |
coat of mine when in the giant's presence. If Fortyforefoot can't see | |
him he is safe," said the sprite. | |
"I don't see any invisible coat anywhere," said the major. "Where is | |
it?" | |
"Nobody can see it, of course," said the sprite, scornfully. "Do you | |
know what invisible means?" | |
"Yes, I do," retorted the major. "I only pretended I didn't so that I | |
could make you ask the question, which enables me to say that something | |
invisible is something you can't see, like your jokes." | |
"I can make a better joke than you can with my hands tied behind my | |
back," snapped the sprite. | |
"I can't make jokes with your hands tied behind your back, but I can | |
make one with my own hands tied behind my back that Jimmieboy here can | |
see with his eyes shut," said the major, scornfully. | |
"What is it? I like jokes," said Jimmieboy. | |
"Why--er--let me see; why--er--when is a sunbeam sharp?" asked the | |
major, who did not expect to be taken up so quickly. | |
"I don't know; when?" asked Jimmieboy. | |
"When it's a ray, sir. See? Ray, sir--razor. Ha! ha! Pretty good, eh?" | |
laughed the major. | |
"Bad as can be," said the sprite, his nose turned up until it interfered | |
with his eyesight. "Now hear mine, Jimmieboy. When is a joke not a | |
joke?" | |
"Haven't the slightest idea," observed Jimmieboy, after scratching his | |
head and trying to think for a minute or two. | |
"When it's one of the major's," roared the sprite, whereat the woods | |
rang with his laughter. | |
The major first turned pale and then grew red in the face. | |
"That settles it," he said, throwing off his coat. "That is a deadly | |
insult, and there is now no possible way to avoid a duel." | |
"I am ready for you at any time," said the sprite, calmly. "Only as the | |
challenged party I have the choice of weapons, and inasmuch as this is a | |
hot day, I choose the jawbone." | |
"Not a talking match, I hope?" said the major, with a gesture of | |
impatience. | |
"Not at all," replied the sprite. "A story-telling contest. We will | |
withdraw to that moss-covered rock underneath the trees in there, gather | |
enough huckleberries and birch bark for our luncheon, and catch a mess | |
of trout from the brook to go with them, and then we can fight our duel | |
all the rest of the afternoon." | |
"But how's that going to satisfy my wounded honor?" asked the major. | |
"I'll tell one story," said the sprite, "and you'll tell another, and | |
when we are through, the one that Jimmieboy says has told the best story | |
will be the victor. That is better than trying to hurt each other, I | |
think." | |
"I think so too," put in Jimmieboy. "I'm ready for it." | |
"Well, it isn't a bad scheme," agreed the major. "Particularly the | |
luncheon part of it; so you may count on me. I've got a story that will | |
lift your hair right off your head." | |
So Jimmieboy and his two strange friends retired into the wood, gathered | |
the huckleberries and birch bark, caught, cooked, and ate the trout, and | |
then sat down together on the moss-covered rock to fight the duel. The | |
two fighters drew lots to find out which should tell the first story, | |
and as the sprite was the winner, he began. | |
And the story he told was as follows. | |
CHAPTER IX. | |
THE SPRITE'S STORY. | |
"When I was not more than a thousand years old--" said the sprite. | |
"Excuse me," interrupted the major. "But what was the figure?" | |
"One thousand," returned the sprite. "That was nine thousand years | |
ago--before this world was made. I celebrated my | |
ten-thousand-and-sixteenth birthday last Friday--but that has nothing to | |
do with my story. When I was not more than a thousand years of age, my | |
parents, who occupied a small star about forty million miles from here, | |
finding that my father could earn a better living if he were located | |
nearer the moon, moved away from my birthplace and rented a good-sized, | |
four-pronged star in the suburbs of the great orb of night. In the old | |
star we were too far away from the markets for my father to sell the | |
products of his farm for anything like what they cost him; freight | |
charges were very heavy, and often the stage-coach that ran between | |
Twinkleville and the moon would not stop at Twinkleville at all, and | |
then all the stuff that we had raised that week would get stale, lose | |
its fizz, and have to be thrown away." | |
"Let me beg your pardon again," put in the major. "But what did you | |
raise on your farm? I never heard of farm products having fizz to lose." | |
"We raised soda-water chiefly," returned the sprite, amiably. | |
"Soda-water and suspender buttons. The soda-water was cultivated and the | |
suspender buttons seemed to grow wild. We never knew exactly how; though | |
from what I have learned since about them, I think I begin to understand | |
the science of it; and I wish now that I could find a way to return to | |
Twinkleville, because I am certain it must be a perfect treasure-house | |
of suspender buttons by this time. Even in my day they used to lie about | |
by the million--metallic buttons every one of them. They must be worth | |
to-day at least a dollar a thousand." | |
"What is your idea about the way they happened to come there, based on | |
what you have learned since?" asked the major. | |
"Well, it is a very simple idea," returned the sprite. "You know when a | |
suspender button comes off it always disappears. Of course it must go | |
somewhere, but the question is, where? No one has ever yet been known to | |
recover the suspender button he has once really lost; and my notion of | |
it is simply that the minute a metal suspender button comes off the | |
clothes of anybody in all the whole universe, it immediately flies up | |
through the air and space to Twinkleville, which is nothing more than a | |
huge magnet, and lies there until somebody picks it up and tries to sell | |
it. I remember as a boy sweeping our back yard clear of them one | |
evening, and waking the next morning to find the whole place covered | |
with them again; but we never could make money on them, because the moon | |
was our sole market, and only the best people of the moon ever used | |
suspenders, and as these were unfortunately relatives of ours, we had to | |
give them all the buttons they wanted for nothing, so that the button | |
crops became rather an expense to us than otherwise. But with soda-water | |
it was different. Everybody, it doesn't make any difference where he | |
lives, likes soda-water, and it was an especially popular thing in the | |
moon, where the plain water is always so full of fish that nobody can | |
drink it. But as I said before, often the stage-coach wouldn't or | |
couldn't stop, and we found ourselves getting poorer every day. Finally | |
my father made up his mind to lease, and move into this new star, sink a | |
half-dozen soda-water wells there, and by means of a patent he owned, | |
which enabled him to give each well a separate and distinct flavor, | |
drive everybody else out of the business." | |
"You don't happen to remember how that patent your father owned worked, | |
do you?" asked the major, noticing that Jimmieboy seemed particularly | |
interested when the sprite mentioned this. "If you do, I'd like to buy | |
the plan of it from you and give it to Jimmieboy for a Christmas | |
present, so that he can have soda-water wells in his own back yard at | |
home." | |
"No, I can't remember anything about it," said the sprite. "Nine | |
thousand years is a long time to remember things of that kind, though I | |
don't think the scheme was a very hard one to work. For vanilla cream, | |
it only required a well with plain soda-water in it with a quart of | |
vanilla beans and three pints of cream poured into it four times a week; | |
same way with other flavors--a quart of strawberries for strawberry, | |
sarsaparilla for sarsaparilla, and so forth; but the secret was in the | |
pouring; there was something in the way papa did the pouring; I never | |
knew just what it was. He always insisted on doing the pouring himself. | |
But if you don't stop asking questions I'll never finish my story." | |
"You shouldn't make it so interesting if you don't want us to have our | |
curiosity excited by it," said Jimmieboy. "I'd have asked those | |
questions if the major hadn't. But go ahead. What happened?" | |
"Well, we moved, and in a very short time were comfortably settled in | |
the suburban star I have mentioned," continued the sprite. "As we | |
expected, my father grew very, very rich. He was referred to in the moon | |
newspapers as 'The Soda-water King,' and once an article about him said | |
that he owned the finest suspender-button mine in the universe, which | |
was more or less true, but which, as it turned out, was unfortunate in | |
its results. Some moon people hearing of his ownership of the | |
Twinkleville Button Mines came to him and tried to persuade him that | |
they ought to be worked. Father said he didn't see any use of it, | |
because the common people didn't wear suspenders, and so didn't need the | |
buttons. | |
"'True,' said they, 'but we can compel them to need them, by making a | |
law requiring that everybody over sixteen shall wear suspenders.' | |
"'That's a good idea,' said my father, and he tried to have it made a | |
law that every one should wear suspenders, high or low, and as a result | |
he got everybody mad at him. The best people were angry, because up to | |
that time the wearing of suspenders had been regarded as a sign of noble | |
birth, and if everybody, including the common people, were to have them | |
they would cease to be so. The common people themselves were angry, | |
because to have to buy suspenders would simply be an addition to the | |
cost of living, and they hadn't any money to spare. In consequence we | |
were cut off by the best people of the moon. Nobody ever came to see us | |
except the very commonest kind of common people, and they came at night, | |
and then only to drop pailfuls of cod-liver oil, squills, ipecac, and | |
other unpopular things into our soda-water wells, so that in a very | |
short time my poor father's soda-water business was utterly ruined. | |
People don't like to order ten quarts of vanilla cream soda-water for | |
Sunday dinner, and find it flavored with cod-liver oil, you know." | |
"Yes, I do know," said Jimmieboy, screwing his face up in an endeavor to | |
give the major and the sprite some idea of how little he liked the taste | |
of cod-liver oil. "I think cod-liver oil is worse than measles or | |
mumps, because you can't have measles or mumps more than once, and there | |
isn't any end to the times you can have cod-liver oil." | |
"I'm with you there," said the major, emphasizing his remark by slapping | |
Jimmieboy on the back. "In fact, sir, on page 29 of my book called | |
'Musings on Medicines' you will find--if it is ever published--these | |
lines: | |
"The oils of cod! | |
The oils of cod! | |
They make me feel tremendous odd, | |
Nor hesitate | |
I here to state | |
I wildly hate the oils of cod." | |
"Bravo!" cried the sprite. "When I start my autograph album I want you | |
to write those lines on the first page." | |
"With pleasure," returned the major. "When shall you start the album?" | |
"Never, I hope," replied the sprite, with a chuckle. "And now suppose | |
you don't interrupt my story again." | |
Clouds began to gather on the major's face again. The sprite's rebuke | |
had evidently made him very angry. | |
"Sir," said he, as soon as his feelings permitted him to speak. "If you | |
make any more such remarks as that, another duel may be necessary after | |
this one is fought--which I should very much regret, for duels of this | |
sort consume a great deal of time, and unless I am much mistaken it will | |
shortly rain cats and dogs." | |
"It looks that way," said the sprite, "and it is for that very reason | |
that I do not wish to be interrupted again. Of course ruin stared father | |
in the face." | |
"How rude of ruin!" whispered the major to Jimmieboy, who immediately | |
silenced him. | |
"Trade having fallen away," continued the sprite, "we had to draw upon | |
our savings for our bread and butter, and finally, when the last penny | |
was spent, we made up our minds to leave the moon district entirely and | |
try life on the dog-star, where, we were informed, people only had one | |
eye apiece, and every man had so much to do that it took all of his one | |
eye's time looking after his own business so that there wasn't any left | |
for him to spend on other people's business. It seemed to my father that | |
in a place like this there was a splendid opening for him." | |
"In what line?" queried the major. | |
"Renting out his extra eye to blind men," roared the sprite. | |
Jimmieboy fell off the rock with laughter, and the major, angry at being | |
so neatly caught, rose up and walked away but immediately returned. | |
"If this wasn't a duel I wouldn't stay here another minute," he said. | |
"But you can't put me to flight that way. Go on and finish." | |
"The question now came up as to how we should get to the dog-star," | |
resumed the sprite. "Our money was all gone. Nobody would lend us any. | |
Nobody would help us at all." | |
"I should think they'd have been so glad you were leaving they'd have | |
paid your fare," said the major, but the sprite paid no attention. | |
"There was no regular stage line between the moon and the dog-star," | |
said he, "and we had only two chances of really getting there, and they | |
were both so slim you could count their ribs. One was by getting aboard | |
the first comet that was going that way, and the other was by jumping. | |
The trouble with the first chance was that as far as any one knew there | |
wasn't a comet expected to go in the direction of the dog-star for eight | |
million years--which was rather a long time for a starving family to | |
wait, and besides we had read of so many accidents in the moon papers | |
about people being injured while trying to board comets in motion that | |
we were a little timid about it. My father and I could have managed | |
very well; but mother might not have--ladies can't even get on horse | |
cars in motion without getting hurt, you know. | |
"Then the other scheme was equally dangerous. It's a pretty big jump | |
from the moon to the dog-star, and if you don't aim yourself right you | |
are apt to miss it, and either fall into space or land somewhere else | |
where you don't want to go. For instance, a cousin of mine | |
who lived on Mars wanted to visit us when we lived at Twinkleville, but | |
he was too mean to pay his fare, thinking he could jump it cheaper. | |
Well, he jumped and where do you suppose he landed?" | |
"In the sun!" cried the major, in horror. | |
"No. Nowhere!" returned the sprite. "He's jumping yet. He didn't come | |
anywhere near Twinkleville, although he supposed that he was aimed in | |
the right direction." | |
"Will you tell me how you know he's falling yet?" asked the major, who | |
didn't seem to believe this part of the sprite's story. | |
"Certainly. I saw him yesterday through a telescope," replied the | |
sprite. | |
The major began to whistle. | |
"And he looked very tired, too," said the sprite. "Though as a matter of | |
fact he doesn't have to exert himself any. All he has to do is fall, | |
and, once you get started, falling is the easiest thing in the world. | |
But of course with the remembrance of my cousin's mistake in our minds, | |
we didn't care so much about making the jump, and we kept putting it off | |
and putting it off until finally some wretched people had a law made | |
abolishing us from the moon entirely, which meant that we had to leave | |
inside of twenty-four hours; so we packed up our trunks with the few | |
possessions we had left and threw them off toward the dog-star; then | |
mother and father took hold of hands and jumped and I was to come along | |
after them with some of the baggage that we hadn't got ready in time. | |
"According to my father's instructions I watched him carefully as he | |
sped through space to see whether he had started right, and to my great | |
joy I observed that he had--that very shortly both he and mother would | |
arrive safely on the dog-star--but alas! My joy was soon turned to | |
grief, for a terrible thing happened. Our great heavy family trunk that | |
had been dispatched first, and with truest aim, landed on the head of | |
the King of the dog-star, stove his crown in and nearly killed him. | |
Hardly had the king risen up from the ground when he was again knocked | |
down by my poor father, who, utterly powerless to slow up or switch | |
himself to one side, landed precisely as the trunk had landed on the | |
monarch's head, doing quite as much more damage as the trunk had done in | |
the beginning. When added to these mishaps a shower of hat-boxes and | |
hand-bags, marked with our family name, fell upon the Lord Chief | |
Justice, the Prime Minister and the Heir Apparent, my parents were | |
arrested and thrown into prison and I decided that the dog-star was no | |
place for me. Wild with grief, and without looking to see where I was | |
going, nor in fact caring much, I gave a running leap out into space and | |
finally through some good fortune landed here on this earth which I have | |
found quite good enough for me ever since." | |
Here the sprite paused and looked at Jimmieboy as much as to say, "How | |
is that for a tale of adventure?" | |
"Is that all?" queried Jimmieboy. | |
"Mercy!" cried the major, "Isn't it enough?" | |
"No," said Jimmieboy. "Not quite. I don't see how he could have jumped | |
so many years before the world was made and yet land on the world." | |
"I was five thousand years on the jump," explained the sprite. | |
"It was leap-year when you started, wasn't it?" asked the major, with a | |
sarcastic smile. | |
"And your parents? What finally became of them?" asked Jimmieboy, | |
signaling the major to be quiet. | |
"I hadn't the heart to inquire. I am afraid they got into serious | |
trouble. It's a very serious thing to knock a king down with a trunk and | |
land on his head yourself the minute he gets up again," sighed the | |
sprite. | |
"But didn't you tell me your parents were unfairies?" put in Jimmieboy, | |
eying the sprite distrustfully. | |
"Yes; but they were only my adopted parents," explained the sprite. | |
"They were a very rich old couple with lots of money and no children, so | |
I adopted them not knowing that they were unfairies. When they died they | |
left me all their bad habits, and their money went to found a storeroom | |
for worn out lawn-mowers. That was a sample of their meanness." | |
"Well that's a pretty good story," said Jimmieboy. | |
"Yes," said the sprite, with a pleased smile. "And the best part of it | |
is it's all true." | |
"Tut!" ejaculated the major, scornfully. "Wait until you hear mine." | |
CHAPTER X. | |
THE MAJOR'S TALE. | |
"A great many years ago when I was a souvenir spoon," said the major, "I | |
belonged to a very handsome and very powerful potentate." | |
"I didn't quite understand what it was you said you were," said the | |
sprite, bending forward as if to hear better. | |
"At the beginning of my story I was a souvenir spoon," returned the | |
major. | |
"Did you begin your career as a spoon?" asked the sprite. | |
"I did not, sir," replied the major. "I began my career as a nugget in a | |
lead mine where I was found by the king of whom I have just spoken, and | |
on his return home with me he gave me to his wife who sent me out to a | |
lead smith's and had me made over into a souvenir spoon--and a mighty | |
handsome spoon I was too. I had a poem engraved on me that said: | |
'Aka majo te roo li sah, | |
Pe mink y rali mis tebah.' | |
Rather pretty thought, don't you think so?" added the major as he | |
completed the couplet. | |
"Very!" said the sprite, with a knowing shake of his head. | |
"Well, I don't understand it at all," said Jimmieboy. | |
"Ask this native of Twinkleville what it means," observed the major with | |
a snicker. "He says it's a pretty thought, so of course he understands | |
it--though I assure you I don't, for it doesn't mean anything. I made it | |
up, this very minute." | |
The sprite colored deeply. It was quite evident that he had fallen into | |
the trap the major had set for him. | |
"I was only fooling," he said, with a sickly attempt at a smile. "Go on | |
with your story." | |
"I think perhaps the happiest time of my life was during the hundreds of | |
years that I existed in the royal museum as a spoon," resumed the major. | |
"I was brought into use only on state occasions. When the King of | |
Mangapore gave a state banquet to other kings in the neighborhood I was | |
the spoon that was used to ladle out the royal broth." | |
Here the major paused to smack his lips, and then a small tear appeared | |
in one corner of his eye and trickled slowly down the side of his nose. | |
"I always weep," he said, as soon as he could speak, "when I think of | |
that broth. Here is what it was made of: | |
'Seven pies of sweetest mince, | |
Then a ripe and mellow quince, | |
Then a quart of tea. | |
Then a pint of cinnamon, | |
Next a roasted apple, done | |
Brown as brown can be. | |
Add of orange juice, a gill, | |
And a sugared daffodil, | |
Then a yellow yam. | |
Sixty-seven strawberries | |
Should be added then to these, | |
And a pot of jam. | |
Mix with maple syrup and | |
Let it in the ice-box stand | |
Till it's good and cold-- | |
Throw a box of raisins in, | |
Stir it well--just make it spin-- | |
Till it looks like gold.' | |
Oh, my!" cried the major. "What a dish it was, and I, I used to be | |
dipped into a tureen full of it sixteen times at every royal feast, | |
and before the war we had royal feasts on an average of three times | |
a day." | |
"Three royal banquets a day?" cried Jimmieboy, his mouth watering to | |
think of it. | |
"Yes," returned the major. "Three a day until the unhappy war broke out | |
which destroyed all my happiness, and resulted in the downfall of | |
sixty-four kings." | |
"How on earth did such a war as that ever happen to be fought?" asked | |
the sprite. | |
"I am sorry to say," replied the major, sadly, "that I was the innocent | |
cause of it all. It was on the king's birthday that war was declared. He | |
used to have magnificent birthday parties, quite like those that boys | |
like Jimmieboy here have, only instead of having a cake with a candle in | |
it for each year, King Fuzzywuz used to have one guest for each year, | |
and one whole cake for each guest. On his twenty-first birthday he had | |
twenty-one guests; on his thirtieth, thirty, and so on; and at every one | |
of these parties I used to be passed around to be admired, I was so very | |
handsome and valuable." | |
"Absurd!" said the sprite, with a sneering laugh. "The idea of a lead | |
spoon being valuable!" | |
"If you had ever been able to get into the society of kings," the major | |
answered, with a great deal of dignity, "you would know that on the | |
table of a monarch lead is much more rare than silver and gold. It was | |
this fact that made me so overpoweringly valuable, and it is not | |
surprising that a great many of the kings who used to come to these | |
birthday parties should become envious of Fuzzywuz and wish they owned a | |
treasure like myself. One very old king died of envy because of me, and | |
his heir-apparent inherited his father's desire to possess me to such a | |
degree that he too pined away and finally disappeared entirely. Just | |
regularly faded out of sight. Didn't die, you know, as you would, but | |
vanished. | |
"So it went on for years, and finally on his sixty-fourth birthday King | |
Fuzzywuz gave his usual party, and sixty-four of the choicest kings in | |
the world were invited. They every one came, the feast was made ready, | |
and just as the guests took their places around the table, the broth | |
with me lying at the side of the tureen was brought in. The kings all | |
took their crowns off in honor of my arrival, when suddenly pouf! a gust | |
of wind came along and blew out every light in the hall. All was | |
darkness, and in the midst of it I felt myself grabbed by the handle and | |
shoved hastily into an entirely strange pocket. | |
"'What, ho, without there!' cried Fuzzywuz. 'Turn off the wind and bring | |
a light.' | |
"The slaves hastened to do as they were told, and in less time than it | |
takes to tell it, light and order were restored. And then a terrible | |
scene ensued. I could see it very plainly through a button-hole in the | |
cloak of the potentate who had seized me and hidden me in his pocket. | |
Fuzzywuz immediately discovered that I was missing. | |
"'What has become of our royal spoon?' he roared to the head-waiter, | |
who, though he was an African of the blackest hue, turned white as a | |
sheet with fear. | |
"'It was in the broth, oh, Nepotic Fuzzywuz, King of the Desert and most | |
noble Potentate of the Sand Dunes, when I, thy miserable servant, | |
brought it into the gorgeous banqueting hall and set it here before | |
thee, who art ever my most Serene and Egotistic Master,' returned the | |
slave, trembling with fear and throwing himself flat upon the | |
dining-hall floor. | |
"'Caitiff!' cried the king. 'I believe thou hast played me false. Do | |
spoons take wings unto themselves and fly away? Are they tadpoles that | |
they develop legs and hop as frogs from our royal presence? Do spoons | |
evapidate----' | |
"'Evaporate, my dear,' suggested the queen in a whisper. | |
"'Thanks,' returned the king. 'Do spoons evaporate like water in the | |
sun? Do they raise sails like sloops of war and thunder noiselessly out | |
of sight? No, no. Thou hast stolen it and thou must bear the penalty of | |
thy predilection----' | |
"'Dereliction,' whispered the queen, impatiently. | |
"'He knows what I mean,' roared the king, 'or if he doesn't he will when | |
his head is cut off.'" | |
"Is that what all those big words meant?" asked Jimmieboy. | |
"As I remember the occurrence, it is," returned the major. "What the | |
king really meant was always uncertain; he always used such big words | |
and rarely got them right. Reprehensibility and tremulousness were great | |
favorites of his, though I don't believe he ever knew what they meant. | |
But, to continue my story, at this point the king rose and sharpening | |
the carving knife was about to behead the slave's head off when the | |
potentate who had me in his pocket cried out: | |
"'Hold, oh Fuzzywuz! The slave is right. I saw the spoon myself at the | |
side of yon tureen when it was brought hither.' | |
"'Then,' returned the king, 'it has been percolated----' | |
"'Peculated,' whispered the queen. | |
"'That's what I said,' retorted Fuzzywuz, angrily. 'The spoon has been | |
speculated by some one of our royal brethren at this board. The point to | |
be liquidated now is, who has done this deed. What, ho, without there! A | |
guard about the palace gates--and lock the doors and bar the windows. We | |
shall have a search. I am sorry to say, that every king in this room | |
save only myself and my friend Prince Bigaroo, who at the risk of his | |
kingly dignity deigned to come to the rescue of my slave, must repeal--I | |
should say reveal--the contents of his pockets. Prince Bigaroo must be | |
innocent or he would not have ejaculated as he hath.' | |
"You see," said the major, in explanation, "Bigaroo having stolen me was | |
smart enough to see how it would be if he spoke. A guilty person in nine | |
cases out of ten would have kept silent and let the slave suffer. So | |
Bigaroo escaped; but all the others were searched and of course I was | |
not found. Fuzzywuz was wild with sorrow and anger, and declared that | |
unless I was returned within ten minutes he would wage war upon, and | |
utterly destroy, every king in the place. The kings all turned | |
pale--even Bigaroo's cheek grew white, but having me he was determined | |
to keep me and so the war began." | |
"Why didn't you speak and save the innocent kings?" asked the sprite. | |
"How could I?" retorted the major. "Did you ever see a spoon with a | |
tongue?" | |
The sprite made no answer. He evidently had never seen a spoon with a | |
tongue. | |
"The war was a terrible one," said the major, resuming his story. "One | |
by one the kings were destroyed, and finally only Bigaroo remained, and | |
Fuzzywuz not having found me in the treasures of the others, finally | |
came to see that it was Bigaroo who had stolen me. So he turned his | |
forces toward the wicked monarch, defeated his army, and set fire to his | |
palace. In that fire I was destroyed as a souvenir spoon and became a | |
lump of lead once more, lying in the ruins for nearly a thousand years, | |
when I was sold along with a lot of iron and other things to a junk | |
dealer. He in turn sold me to a ship-maker, who worked me over into a | |
sounding lead for a steamer he had built. On my first trip out I was | |
sent overboard to see how deep the ocean was. I fell in between two | |
huge rocks down on the ocean's bed and was caught, the rope connecting | |
me with the ship snapped, and there I was, twenty thousand fathoms under | |
the sea, lost, as I supposed, forever. The effect of the salt water upon | |
me was very much like that of hair restorer on some people's heads. I | |
began to grow a head of green hair--seaweed some people call it--and to | |
this fact, strangely enough, I owed my escape from the water. A sea-cow | |
who used to graze about where I lay, thinking that I was only a tuft of | |
grass gathered me in one afternoon and swallowed me without blinking, | |
and some time after, the cow having been caught and killed by some giant | |
fishermen, I was found by the wife of one of the men when the great cow | |
was about to be cooked. These giants were very strange people who | |
inhabited an island out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, which was | |
gradually sinking into the water with the weight of the people on it, | |
and which has now entirely disappeared. There wasn't one of the | |
inhabitants that was less than one hundred feet tall, and in those days | |
they used to act as light-houses for each other at night. They had but | |
one eye apiece, and when that was open it used to flash just like a | |
great electric light, and they'd take turns at standing up in the | |
middle of the island all night long and turning round and round and | |
round until you'd think they'd drop with dizziness. I staid with these | |
people, I should say, about forty years, when one morning two of the | |
giants got disputing as to which of them could throw a stone the | |
farthest. One of them said he could throw a pebble two thousand miles, | |
and the other said he could throw one all the way round the world. At | |
this the first one laughed and jeered, and to prove that he had told the | |
truth the second grabbed up what he thought was a pebble, but which | |
happened to be me and threw me from him with all his force." | |
"Did you go all the way around?" queried Jimmieboy. | |
"Did I? Well, rather. I went around once and a half. And sad to say I | |
killed the giant who threw me," returned the major. "I went around the | |
world so swiftly that when I got back to the island the poor fellow | |
hadn't had time to get out of my way, and as I came whizzing along I | |
struck him in the back, went right through him, and leaving him dead on | |
the island went on again and finally fell into a great gun manufactory | |
in Massachusetts where I was smelted over into a bullet, and sent to the | |
war. I did lots of work for George Washington. I think I must have | |
killed off half a dozen regiments of his enemies, and between you and | |
me, General Washington said I was his favorite bullet, and added that as | |
long as he had me with him he wasn't afraid of anybody." | |
Here the major paused a minute to smile at the sprite who was beginning | |
to look a little blue. It was rather plain, the sprite thought, that the | |
major was getting the best of the duel. | |
"Go on," said Jimmieboy. "What next? How long did you stay with George | |
Washington?" | |
"Six months," said the major. "I'd never have left him if he hadn't | |
ordered me to do work that I wasn't made for. When a bullet goes to war | |
he doesn't want to waste himself on ducks. I wanted to go after hostile | |
generals and majors and cornet players, and if Mr. Washington had used | |
me for them I'd have hit home every time, but instead of that he took me | |
off duck shooting one day and actually asked me to knock over a | |
miserable wild bird he happened to want. I rebelled at this. He | |
insisted, and I said, 'very well, General, fire away.' He fired, the | |
duck laughed, and I simply flew off into the woods on the border of the | |
bay and rested there for nearly a hundred years. The rest of my story | |
is soon told. I lay where I had fallen until six years ago when I was | |
picked up by a small boy who used me for a sinker to go fishing with, | |
after which I found my way into the smelting pot once more, and on the | |
Fifteenth of November, 1892, I became what I am, Major Blueface, the | |
handsomest soldier, the bravest warrior, the most talented tin poet that | |
ever breathed." | |
A long silence followed the completion of the major's story. Which of | |
the two he liked the better Jimmieboy could not make up his mind, and he | |
hoped his two companions would be considerate enough not to ask him to | |
decide between them. | |
"I thought they had to be true stories," said the sprite, gloomily. "I | |
don't think it's fair to tell stories like yours--the idea of your being | |
thrown one and a half times around the world!" | |
"It's just as true as yours, anyhow," retorted the major, "but if you | |
want to begin all over again and tell another I'm ready for you." | |
"No," said the sprite. "We'll leave it to Jimmieboy as it is." | |
"Then I win," said the major. | |
"I don't know about that, major," said Jimmieboy. "I think you are just | |
about even." | |
"Do you really think so?" asked the sprite, his face beaming with | |
pleasure. | |
"Yes," said Jimmieboy. "We'll settle it this way: we'll give five points | |
to the one who told the best, five points to the one who told the | |
longest, and five points to the one who told the shortest story. As the | |
stories are equally good you both get five points for that. The major's | |
was the longest, I think, so he gets five more, but so does the sprite | |
because his was the shortest. That makes you both ten, so you both win." | |
"Hurrah!" cried the major. "Then I do win." | |
"Yes," said the sprite, squeezing Jimmieboy's hand affectionately, "and | |
so do I." | |
Which after all, I think, was the best way to decide a duel of that | |
sort. | |
CHAPTER XI. | |
PLANNING A VISIT. | |
"Well, now that that is settled," said the major with a sigh of relief, | |
"I suppose we had better start off and see whether Fortyforefoot will | |
attend to this business of getting the provisions for us." | |
"Yes," said the sprite. "The major is right there, Jimmieboy. You have | |
delayed so long on the way that it is about time you did something, and | |
the only way I know of for you to do it is by getting hold of | |
Fortyforefoot. If you wanted an apple pie and there was nothing in sight | |
but a cart-wheel he would change it into an apple pie for you." | |
"That's all very well," replied Jimmieboy, "but I'm not going to call on | |
any giant who'd want to eat me. You might just as well understand that | |
right off. I'll try on your invisible coat and if that makes me | |
invisible I'll go. If it doesn't we'll have to try some other plan." | |
"That is the prudent thing to do," said the major, nodding his approval | |
to the little general. "As my poem tries to teach, it is always wise to | |
use your eyes--or look before you leap. The way it goes is this: | |
'If you are asked to make a jump, | |
Be careful lest you prove a gump-- | |
Awake or e'en in sleep-- | |
Don't hesitate the slightest bit | |
To show that you've at least the wit | |
To look before you leap. | |
Why, in a dream one night, I thought | |
A fellow told me that I ought | |
To jump to Labrador. | |
I did not look but blindly hopped, | |
And where do you suppose I stopped? | |
Bang! On my bedroom floor! | |
I do not say, had I been wise | |
Enough that time to use my eyes-- | |
As I've already said-- | |
To Labrador I would have got: | |
But this _is_ certain, I would not | |
Have tumbled out of bed.' | |
"The moral of which is, be careful how you go into things, and if you | |
are not certain that you are coming out all right don't go into them," | |
added the major. "Why, when I was a mouse----" | |
"Oh, come, major--you couldn't have been a mouse," interrupted the | |
sprite. "You've just told us all about what you've been in the past, and | |
you couldn't have been all that and a mouse too." | |
"So I have," said the major, with a smile. "I'd forgotten that, and you | |
are right, too. I couldn't have been a mouse. I should have put what I | |
was going to say differently. If I had ever been a mouse--that's the way | |
it should be--if I had ever been a mouse and had been foolish enough to | |
stick my head into a mouse-trap after a piece of cheese without knowing | |
that I should get it out again, I should not have been here to-day, in | |
all likelihood. Therefore the general is right. Try on the invisible | |
coat, Jimmieboy, and let's see how it works before you risk calling on | |
Fortyforefoot." | |
"Here it is," said the sprite, holding out his hands with apparently | |
nothing in them. | |
Jimmieboy laughed a little, it seemed so odd to have a person say "here | |
it is" and yet not be able to see the object referred to. He reached out | |
his hand, however, to take the coat, relying upon the sprite's statement | |
that it was there, and was very much surprised to find that his hand did | |
actually touch something that felt like a coat, and in fact was a coat, | |
though entirely invisible. | |
"Shall I help you on with it?" asked the major. | |
"Perhaps you'd better," said Jimmieboy. "It feels a little small for | |
me." | |
"That's what I was afraid of," said the sprite. "You see it covers me | |
all over from head to foot--that is the coat covers all but my head and | |
the hood covers that--but you are very much taller than I am." | |
Here Jimmieboy, having at last got into the coat and buttoned it about | |
him, had the strange sensation of seeing all of himself disappear | |
excepting his head and legs. These remaining uncovered were of course | |
still in sight. | |
"Ha-ha-ha!" laughed the major, merrily, as Jimmieboy walked around. | |
"That is the most ridiculous thing I ever saw. You're nothing but a head | |
and pair of legs." | |
Jimmieboy smiled and placed the hood over his head and the major roared | |
louder than ever. | |
"Ha-ha-ha-ha!" he cried. "Oh, my--oh, dear! That's funnier still--now | |
you're nothing but a pair of legs. Hee-hee-hee! Take it off quick or | |
I'll die with laughter." | |
Jimmieboy took off the hood. | |
"I'm afraid it won't do, Spritey," he said. "Fortyforefoot would see my | |
legs and if he caught them I'd be lost." | |
"That's a fact," said the sprite, thoughtfully. "The coat is almost two | |
feet too short for you." | |
"It's more than two feet too short," laughed the major. "It's two whole | |
legs too short." | |
"This is no time for joking," said the sprite. "We've too much to talk | |
about to use our mouths for laughing." | |
"All right," said the major. "I won't get off any more, or if I do they | |
won't be the kind to make you laugh. They will be sad jokes--like yours. | |
But I say, boys," he added, "I have a scheme. It is of course the scheme | |
of a soldier and may be attended by danger, but if it is successful all | |
the more credit to the one who succeeds. We three people can attack | |
Fortyforefoot openly, capture him, and not let him go until he provides | |
us with the provisions." | |
"That sounds lovely," sneered the sprite. "But I'd like to know some of | |
the details of this scheme. It is easy enough to say attack him, capture | |
him and not let him go, but the question is, how shall we do all this?" | |
"It ought to be easy," returned the major. "There are only three things | |
to be done. The first is to attack him. That certainly ought to be easy. | |
A kitten can attack an elephant if it wants to. The second is to capture | |
him, which, while it seems hard, is not really so if the attack is | |
properly made. The third is not to let him go." | |
"Clear as a fog," put in the sprite. "But go on." | |
"Now there are three of us--Jimmieboy, Spriteyboy and Yourstrulyboy," | |
continued the major, "so what could be more natural than that we should | |
divide up these three operations among us? Nothing! Therefore I propose | |
that Jimmieboy here shall attack Fortyforefoot; the sprite shall capture | |
him and throw him into a dungeon cell and I will crown the work by not | |
letting him go." | |
"Magnificent!" said the sprite. "Jimmieboy and I take all the danger I | |
notice." | |
"Yes," returned the major. "I am utterly unselfish about | |
it. I am willing to put myself in the background and let you have all | |
the danger and most of the glory. I only come in at the very end--but I | |
don't mind that. I have had glory enough for ten life-times, so why | |
should I grudge you this one little bit of it? My feelings in regard to | |
glory will be found on the fortieth page of Leaden Lyrics or the Ballads | |
of Ben Bullet--otherwise myself. The verses read as follows: | |
'Though glory, it must be confessed, | |
Is satisfying stuff, | |
Upon my laurels let me rest | |
For I have had enough. | |
Ne'er was a glorier man than I, | |
Ne'er shall a glorier be, | |
Than, trembling reader, you'll espy-- | |
When haply you spy me. | |
So bring no more--for while 'tis good | |
To have, 'tis also plain | |
A bit of added glory would | |
Be apt to make me vain.' | |
And I don't want to be vain," concluded the major. | |
"Well, I don't want any of your glory," said the sprite, "and if I know | |
Jimmieboy I don't think he does either. If you want to reverse your | |
order of things and do the dangerous part of the work yourself, we will | |
do all in our power to make your last hours comfortable, and I will see | |
to it that the newspapers tell how bravely you died, but we can't go | |
into the scheme any other way." | |
"You talk as if you were the general's prime minister, or his nurse," | |
retorted the major, "whereas in reality I, being his chief of staff, am | |
they if anybody are." | |
Here the major blushed a little because he was not quite sure of his | |
grammar. Neither of his companions seemed to notice the mixture, | |
however, and so he continued: | |
"General, it is for you to say. Shall my plan go or shall she stay?" | |
"Well, I think myself, major, that it is a little too dangerous for me, | |
and if any other plan could be made I'd like it better," answered | |
Jimmieboy, anxious to soothe the major's feelings which were evidently | |
getting hurt again. "Suppose I go back and order the soldiers to attack | |
Fortyforefoot and bring him in chains to me?" | |
"Couldn't be done," said the sprite. "The minute the chains were clapped | |
on him he would change them into doughnuts and eat them all up." | |
"Yes," put in the major, "and the chances are he would turn the soldiers | |
into a lot of toy balloons on a string and then cut the string." | |
"He couldn't do that," said the sprite, "because he can't turn people or | |
animals into anything. His power only applies to things." | |
"Then what shall we do?" said Jimmieboy, in despair. | |
"Well, I think the best thing to do would be for me to change myself | |
into a giant bigger than he is," said the sprite. "Then I could put you | |
and the major in my pockets and call upon Fortyforefoot and ask him, in | |
a polite way, to turn some pebbles and sticks and other articles into | |
the things we want, and, if he won't do it except he is paid, we'll pay | |
him if we can." | |
"What do you propose to pay him with?" asked the major. "I suppose | |
you'll hand him half a dozen checkerberries and tell him if he'll turn | |
them into ten one dollar bills he'll have ten dollars. Fine way to do | |
business that." | |
"No," said the sprite, mildly. "You can't tempt Fortyforefoot with | |
money. It is only by offering him something to eat that we can hope to | |
get his assistance." | |
"Ah? And you'll request him to turn a handful of pine cones into a dozen | |
turkeys on toast, I presume?" asked the major. | |
"I shall do nothing of the sort. I shall simply offer to let him have | |
you for dinner--you will serve up well in croquettes--Blueface | |
croquettes--eh, Jimmieboy?" laughed the sprite. | |
The poor major turned white with fear and rage. At first he felt | |
inclined to slay the sprite on the spot, and then it suddenly flashed | |
across his mind that before he could do it the sprite might really turn | |
himself into a giant and do with him as he had said. So he contented | |
himself with turning pale and giving a sickly smile. | |
"That would be a good joke on me," he said. "But really, my dear Mr. | |
Sprite, I don't think I would enjoy it, and after all I have a sort of | |
notion that I would disagree with Fortyforefoot--which would be | |
extremely unfortunate. I know I should rest like lead on his | |
digestion--and that would make him angry with you and I should be | |
sacrificed for nothing." | |
"Well, I wouldn't consent to that anyhow," said Jimmieboy. "I love the | |
major too much to----" | |
"So do we all," interrupted the sprite. "Why even I love the major and I | |
wouldn't let anybody eat him for anything--no, sir!--not if I were | |
offered a whole vanilla eclaire would I permit the major to be eaten. | |
But my scheme is the only one possible. I will turn myself into a giant | |
twice as big as Fortyforefoot; I will place you and the major in my | |
pockets and then I will call upon him. He will be so afraid of me that | |
he will do almost anything I ask him to, but to make him give us the | |
very best things he can make I would rather deal gently with him, and | |
instead of forcing him to make the peaches and cherries I'll offer to | |
trade you two fellows off for the things we need. He will be pleased | |
enough at the chance to get anything so good to eat as you look, and | |
he'll prepare everything for us, and he will put you down stairs in the | |
pantry. Then I will tell him stories, and some of the major's jokes, to | |
make him sleepy, and when finally he dozes off I will steal the pantry | |
key and set you free. How does that strike you, general?" | |
"It's a very good plan unless Fortyforefoot should find us so toothsome | |
looking that he would want to eat us raw. We may be nothing more than | |
fruit for him, you know, and truly I don't want to be anybody's apple," | |
said Jimmieboy. | |
"You are quite correct there, general," said the major, with a chuckle. | |
"In fact, I'm quite sure he'd think you and I were fruit because being | |
two we are necessarily a pear." | |
"It won't happen," said the sprite. "He isn't likely to think you are | |
fruit and even if he does I won't let him eat you. I'll keep him from | |
doing it if I have to eat you myself." | |
"Oh, of course, then, with a kind promise like that there is nothing | |
left for us to do but accept your proposition," said the | |
major. "As Ben Bullet says: | |
'When only one thing can be done-- | |
If people only knew it-- | |
The wisest course beneath the sun | |
Is just to go and do it.'" | |
"I'm willing to take my chances," said Jimmieboy, "if after I see what | |
kind of a giant you can turn yourself into I think you are terrible | |
enough to frighten another giant." | |
"Well, just watch me," said the sprite, taking off his coat. "And mind, | |
however terrifying I may become, don't you get frightened, because I | |
won't hurt you." | |
"Go ahead," said the major, valiantly. "Wait until we get scared before | |
talking like that to us." | |
"One, two, three!" cried the sprite. "Presto! Change! | |
'Bazam, bazam, | |
A sprite I am, | |
Bazoo, bazee, | |
A giant I'd be.'" | |
Then there came a terrific noise; the trees about the little group shook | |
to the very last end of their roots, all grew dark as night, and as | |
quickly grew light again. In the returning light Jimmieboy saw looming | |
up before him a fearful creature, eighty feet high, clad in a | |
magnificent suit embroidered with gold and silver, a fierce mustache | |
upon his lip, and dangling at his side was a heavy sword. | |
It was the sprite now transformed into a giant--a terrible-looking | |
fellow, though to Jimmieboy he was not terrible because the boy knew | |
that the dreadful creature was only his little friend in disguise. | |
"How do I look?" came a bellowing voice from above the trees. | |
"First rate. Horribly frightful. I'm sure you'll do, and I am ready," | |
said Jimmieboy, with a laugh. "What do you think, major?" | |
But there came no answer, and Jimmieboy, looking about him to see why | |
the major made no reply, was just in time to see that worthy soldier's | |
coat-tails disappearing down the road. | |
The major was running away as fast as he could go. | |
CHAPTER XII. | |
IN FORTYFOREFOOT VALLEY. | |
"You've frightened him pretty well, Spritey," said Jimmieboy, with a | |
laugh, as the major passed out of sight. | |
"Yes," returned the sprite. "But you don't seem a bit afraid." | |
"I'm not--though I think I should be if I didn't know who you are," | |
returned Jimmieboy. "You are really a pretty hideous affair." | |
"Well, I need to be if I am to get the best of Fortyforefoot, but, I | |
say, you mustn't call me Spritey now that I am a giant. It won't do to | |
call me by any name that would show Fortyforefoot who I really am," said | |
the sprite, with a warning shake of his head. | |
"But what shall I call you?" asked Jimmieboy. | |
"Bludgeonhead is my name now," replied the sprite. "Benjamin B. | |
Bludgeonhead is my full name, but you know me well enough to call me | |
plain Bludgeonhead." | |
"All right, plain Bludgeonhead," said Jimmieboy, "I'll do as you | |
say--and now don't you think we'd better be starting along?" | |
"Yes," said Bludgeonhead, reaching down and grabbing hold of Jimmieboy | |
with his huge hand. "We'll start right away, and until we come in sight | |
of Fortyforefoot's house I think perhaps you'll be more comfortable if | |
you ride on my shoulder instead of in my coat-pocket." | |
"Thank you very much," said Jimmieboy, as Bludgeonhead lifted him up | |
from the ground and set him lightly as a feather on his shoulder. "My, | |
what a view!" he added, as he gazed about him. "I think I'd like to be | |
as tall as this all the time, Bludgeonhead. What a great thing it would | |
be on parade days to be as tall as this. Why I can see miles and miles | |
of country from here." | |
"Yes, it's pretty fine--but I don't think I'd care to be so tall | |
always," returned Bludgeonhead, as he stepped over a great broad river | |
that lay in his path. "It makes one very uppish to be as high in the air | |
as this; and you'd be all the time looking down on your friends, too, | |
which would be so unpleasant for your friends that they wouldn't have | |
anything to do with you after a while. Hang on tight now. I'm going to | |
jump over this mountain in front of us." | |
Here Bludgeonhead drew back a little and then took a short run, after | |
which he leaped high in the air, and he and Jimmieboy sailed easily over | |
the great hills before them, and then alighted safe and sound on the | |
other side. | |
"That was just elegant!" cried Jimmieboy, clapping his hands with glee. | |
"I hope there are lots more hills like that to be jumped over." | |
"No, there aren't," said Bludgeonhead, "but if you like it so much I'll | |
go back and do it again." | |
"Let's," said Jimmieboy. | |
Bludgeonhead turned back and jumped over the mountain half a dozen times | |
until Jimmieboy was satisfied and then he resumed his journey. | |
"This," he said, after trudging along in silence for some time, "this is | |
Fortyforefoot Valley, and in a short time we shall come to the giant's | |
castle; but meanwhile I want you to see what a wonderful place this is. | |
The valley itself will give you a better idea of Fortyforefoot's great | |
power as a magician than anything else that I know of. Do you know what | |
this place was before he came here?" | |
"No," said Jimmieboy. "What was it?" | |
"It was a great big hole in the ground," returned Bludgeonhead. "A | |
regular sand pit. Fortyforefoot liked the situation because it was | |
surrounded by mountains and nobody ever wanted to come here because sand | |
pits aren't worth visiting. There wasn't a tree or a speck of a green | |
thing anywhere in sight--nothing but yellow sand glaring in the sun all | |
day and sulking in the moon all night." | |
"Why how could that be? It's all covered with beautiful trees and | |
gardens and brooks now," said Jimmieboy, which was quite true, for the | |
Fortyforefoot Valley was a perfect paradise to look at, filled with | |
everything that was beautiful in the way of birds and trees and flowers | |
and water courses. "How could he make the trees and flowers grow in dry | |
hot sand like that?" | |
"By his magic power, of course," answered Bludgeonhead. "He filled up a | |
good part of the sand pit with stones that he found about here, and then | |
he changed one part of the desert into a pond so that he could get all | |
the water he wanted. Then he took a square mile of sand and changed | |
every grain of it into blades of grass. Other portions he transformed | |
into forests until finally simply by the wonderful power he has to | |
change one thing into another he got the place into its present shape." | |
"But the birds, how did he make them?" asked the little general. | |
"He didn't," said Bludgeonhead. "They came of their own accord. They saw | |
what a beautiful place this was and they simply moved in." | |
Bludgeonhead paused a moment in his walk and set Jimmieboy down on the | |
ground again. | |
"I think I'll take a rest here before going on. We are very near to | |
Fortyforefoot's castle now," he said. "I'll sit down here for a few | |
moments and sharpen my sword and get in good shape for a fight if one | |
becomes necessary. Don't wander away, Jimmieboy. This place is full of | |
traps for just such fellows as you who come in here. That's the way | |
Fortyforefoot catches them for dinner." | |
So Jimmieboy staid close by Bludgeonhead's side and was very much | |
entertained by all that went on around him. He saw the most wonderful | |
birds imaginable, and great bumble-bees buzzed about in the flowers | |
gathering honey by the quart. Once a great jack-rabbit, three times as | |
large as he was, came rushing out of the woods toward him, and Jimmieboy | |
on stooping to pick up a stone to throw at Mr. Bunny to frighten him | |
away, found that all the stones in that enchanted valley were precious. | |
He couldn't help laughing outright when he discovered that the stone he | |
had thrown at the rabbit was a huge diamond as big as his fist, and that | |
even had he stopped to choose a less expensive missile he would have had | |
to confine his choice to pearls, rubies, emeralds, and other gems of the | |
rarest sort. And then he noticed that what he thought was a rock upon | |
which he and Bludgeonhead were sitting was a massive nugget of pure | |
yellow gold. This lead him on to inspect the trees about him and then he | |
discovered a most absurd thing. Fortyforefoot's extravagance had | |
prompted him to make all his pine trees of the most beautifully polished | |
and richly inlaid mahogany; every one of the weeping willows was made of | |
solid oak, ornamented and carved until the eye wearied of its beauty, | |
and as for the birds in the trees, their nests were made not of stray | |
wisps of straw and hay stolen from the barns and fields, but of the | |
softest silk, rich in color and lined throughout with eiderdown, the | |
mere sight of which could hardly help being restful to a tired bird--or | |
boy either, for that matter, Jimmieboy thought. | |
"Did he make all this out of sand? All these jewels and magnificent | |
carvings?" he asked. | |
"Yes," said Bludgeonhead. "Simply took up a handful of sand and tossed | |
it up in the air and whatever he commanded it to be it became. But the | |
most wonderful thing in this place is his spring. He made what you might | |
call a 'Wish Dipper' out of an old tin cup. Then he dug a hole and | |
filled it with sand which he commanded to become liquid, and, when the | |
sand heard him say that, it turned to liquid, but the singular thing | |
about it is that as Fortyforefoot didn't say what kind of liquid it | |
should be, it became any kind. So now if any one is thirsty and wants a | |
glass of cider all he has to do is to dip the wish dipper into the | |
spring and up comes cider. If he wants lemonade up comes lemonade. If he | |
wants milk up comes milk. It's simply great." | |
As Bludgeonhead spoke these words Jimmieboy was startled to hear | |
something very much like an approaching footstep far down the road. | |
"Did you hear that?" he asked, seizing Bludgeonhead by the hand. | |
"Yes, I did," replied Bludgeonhead, in a whisper. "It sounded to me like | |
Fortyforefoot's step, too." | |
"I'd better hide, hadn't I?" said Jimmieboy. | |
"Yes," said Bludgeonhead. "Come here and be quick about it. Climb inside | |
my coat and snuggle down out of sight in my pocket. We musn't let him | |
see you yet awhile." | |
Jimmieboy did as he was commanded, and found the pocket a very | |
comfortable place, only it was a little stuffy. | |
"It's pretty hot in here," he whispered. | |
"Well, look up on the left hand corner of the outer side of the pocket | |
and you'll find two flaps that are buttoned up," replied Bludgeonhead, | |
softly. "Unbutton them. One will let in all the air you want, and the | |
other will enable you to peep out and see Fortyforefoot without his | |
seeing you." | |
In a minute the buttons were found and the flaps opened. Everything | |
happened as Bludgeonhead said it would, and in a minute Jimmieboy, | |
peering out through the hole in the cloak, saw Fortyforefoot | |
approaching. | |
The owner of the beautiful valley seemed very angry when he caught sight | |
of Bludgeonhead sitting on his property, and hastening up to him, he | |
cried: | |
"What business have you here in the Valley of Fortyforefoot?" | |
Jimmieboy shrank back into one corner of the pocket, a little overcome | |
with fear. Fortyforefoot was larger and more terrible than he thought. | |
"I am not good at riddles," said Bludgeonhead, calmly. "That is at | |
riddles of that sort. If you had asked me the difference between a duck | |
and a garden rake I should have told you that a duck has no teeth and | |
can eat, while a rake has plenty of teeth and can't eat. But when you | |
ask me what business I have here I am forced to say that I can't say." | |
"You are a very bright sort of a giant," sneered Fortyforefoot. | |
"Yes," replied Bludgeonhead. "The fact is I can't help being bright. My | |
mother polishes me every morning with a damp chamois." | |
"Do you know to whom you are speaking?" asked Fortyforefoot, | |
threateningly. | |
"No; not having been introduced to you, I can't say I know you," | |
returned Bludgeonhead. "But I think I can guess. You are Anklehigh, the | |
Dwarf." | |
At this Fortyforefoot turned purple with rage. | |
"Anklehigh the Dwarf?" he roared. "I'll right quickly teach thee a | |
lesson thou rash fellow." | |
Fortyforefoot strode up close to Bludgeonhead, whose size he could not | |
have guessed because Bludgeonhead had been sitting down all this time | |
and was pretty well covered over by his cloak. | |
[Illustration: BLUDGEONHEAD SHOWS JIMMIEBOY TO FORTYFOREFOOT. PAGE | |
174.] | |
[Blank Page] | |
"I'll take thee by thine ear and toss thee to the moon," he cried, | |
reaching out his hand to make good his word. | |
"Nonsense, Anklehigh," returned Bludgeonhead, calmly. "Don't be foolish. | |
No dwarf can fight with a giant of my size." | |
"But I am not the dwarf Anklehigh," shrieked Fortyforefoot. "I am | |
Fortyforefoot." | |
"And I am Bludgeonhead," returned the other, rising and towering way | |
above the owner of the valley. | |
"Mercy sakes!" cried Fortyforefoot, falling on his knees in abject | |
terror. "He'd make six of me! Pardon, O, Bludgeonhead. I did not know | |
you when I was so hasty as to offer to throw you to the moon. I thought | |
you were--er--that you were--er----" | |
"More easily thrown," suggested Bludgeonhead. | |
"Yes--yes--that was it," stammered Fortyforefoot. "And now, to show that | |
you have forgiven me, I want you to come to my castle and have dinner | |
with me." | |
"I'll be very glad to," replied Bludgeonhead. "What are you going to | |
have for dinner?" | |
"Anything you wish," said Fortyforefoot. "I was going to have a very | |
plain dinner to-night because for to-morrow's dinner I have invited my | |
brother Fortythreefoot and his wife Fortytwoinch to have a little | |
special dish I have been so fortunate as to secure." | |
"Ah?" said Bludgeonhead. "And what is that dish, pray?" | |
"Oh, only a sniveling creature I caught in one of my traps this | |
afternoon. He was a soldier, and he wasn't very brave about being | |
caught, but I judge from looking at him that he will make good eating," | |
said Fortyforefoot. "I couldn't gather from him who he was. He had on a | |
military uniform, but he behaved less like a warrior than ever I | |
supposed a man could. It seems from his story that he was engaged upon | |
some secret mission, and on his way back to his army, he stumbled over | |
and into one of my game traps where I found him. He begged me to let him | |
go, but that was out of the question. I haven't had a soldier to eat for | |
four years, so I took him to the castle, had him locked up in the | |
ice-box, and to-morrow we shall eat him." | |
"Did he tell you his name?" asked Bludgeonhead, thoughtfully. | |
"He tried to but didn't succeed. He told me so many names that I didn't | |
believe he really owned any of them," said Fortyforefoot. "All I could | |
really learn about him was that he was as brave as a lion, and that if I | |
would spare him he would write me a poem a mile long every day of my | |
life." | |
"Very attractive offer, that," said Bludgeonhead, with a smile. | |
"Yes; but I couldn't do it. I wouldn't miss eating him for anything," | |
replied Fortyforefoot, smacking his lips, hungrily. "I'd give anything | |
anybody'd ask, too, if I could find another as good." | |
"Would you, honestly?" asked Bludgeonhead. "Well, now, I thought you | |
would, and that is really what I have come here for. I have in my pocket | |
here a real live general that I have captured. Now between you and me, I | |
don't eat generals. I don't care for them--they fight so. I prefer | |
preserved cherries and pickled peaches and--er--strawberry jam and | |
powdered sugar and almonds, and other things like that, you know, and it | |
occurred to me that if I let you have the general you would supply me | |
with what I needed of the others." | |
"You have come to the right place, Bludgeonhead," said Fortyforefoot, | |
eagerly. "I'll give you a million cans of jam, all the pickled peaches | |
and other things you can carry if this general you speak about is a fine | |
specimen." | |
"Well, here he is," said Bludgeonhead, hauling Jimmieboy out of his | |
pocket--whispering to Jimmieboy at the same time not to be afraid | |
because he wouldn't let anything happen to him, and so of course | |
Jimmieboy felt perfectly safe, though a little excited. | |
"Beautiful!" cried Fortyforefoot. "Superb! Got any more?" | |
"No," answered Bludgeonhead, putting Jimmieboy back into his pocket | |
again. "If I ever do find another, though, you shall have him." | |
This of course put Fortyforefoot in a tremendously good humor, and | |
before an hour had passed he had not only transformed pebbles and twigs | |
and leaves of trees and other small things into the provisions that the | |
tin soldiers needed, but he had also furnished horses and wagons enough | |
to carry them back to headquarters, and then Fortyforefoot accompanied | |
by Bludgeonhead entered the castle, where the proprietor demanded that | |
Jimmieboy should be given up to him. | |
Bludgeonhead handed him over at once, and ten minutes later Jimmieboy | |
found himself locked up in the pantry. | |
Hardly had he time to think over the strange events of the afternoon | |
when he heard a noise in the ice-box over in one corner of the pantry, | |
and on going there to see what was the cause of it he heard a familiar | |
voice repeating over and over again these mournful lines: | |
"From Giant number one I ran-- | |
But O the sequel dire! | |
I truly left a frying-pan | |
And jumped into a fire." | |
"Hullo in there," whispered Jimmieboy. "Who are you?" | |
"The bravest man of my time," replied the voice in the ice-box. "Major | |
Mortimer Carraway Blueface of the 'Jimmieboy Guards.'" | |
"Oh, I am so glad to find you again," cried Jimmieboy, throwing open the | |
ice-box door. "I thought it was you the minute I heard your poetry." | |
"Ah!" said the major, with a sad smile. "You recognized the beauty of | |
the poem?" | |
"Not exactly," said Jimmieboy. "But you said you were in the fire when I | |
knew you were in the ice-box, and so of course----" | |
"Of course," said the major, with a frown. "You remembered that when I | |
say one thing I mean another. Well, I'm glad to see you again, but why | |
did you desert me so cruelly?" | |
CHAPTER XIII. | |
THE RESCUE. | |
For a moment Jimmieboy could say nothing, so surprised was he at the | |
major's question. Then he simply repeated it, his amazement very evident | |
in the tone of his voice. | |
"Why did we desert you so cruelly?" | |
"Yes," returned the major. "I'd like to know. When two of my companions | |
in arms leave me, the way you and old Spriteyboy did, I think you ought | |
to make some explanation. It was mean and cruel." | |
"But we didn't desert you," said Jimmieboy. "No such idea ever entered | |
our minds. It was you who deserted us." | |
"I?" roared the major fiercely. | |
"Certainly," said Jimmieboy calmly. "You. The minute Spritey turned into | |
Bludgeonhead you ran away just about as fast as your tin legs could | |
carry you--frightened to death evidently." | |
"Jimmieboy," said the major, his voice husky with emotion, "any other | |
person than yourself would have had to fight a duel with me for casting | |
such a doubt as you have just cast upon my courage. The idea of me, of | |
I, of myself, Major Mortimer Carraway Blueface, the hero of a hundred | |
and eighty-seven real sham fights, the most poetic as well as the | |
handsomest man in the 'Jimmieboy Guards' being accused of running away! | |
Oh! It is simply dreadful! | |
"I've been accused of dreadful things, | |
Of wearing copper finger-rings, | |
Of eating green peas with a spoon, | |
Of wishing that I owned the moon, | |
Of telling things that weren't the truth, | |
Of having cut no wisdom tooth, | |
In times of war of stealing buns, | |
And fainting at the sound of guns, | |
Yet never dreamed I'd see the day | |
When it was thought I'd run away. | |
Alack--O--well-a-day--alas! | |
That this should ever come to pass! | |
Alas--O--well-a-day--alack! | |
It knocks me flat upon my back. | |
Alas--alack--O--well-a-day! | |
It fills me full of sore dismay. | |
Aday--alas--O--lack-a-well--" | |
"Are you going to keep that up forever?" asked Jimmieboy. "If you are | |
I'm going to get out. I've heard stupid poetry in this campaign, but | |
that's the worst yet." | |
"I only wanted to show you what I could do in the way of a lamentation," | |
said the major. "If you've had enough I'll stop of course; but tell me," | |
he added, sitting down upon a cake of ice, and crossing his legs, "how | |
on earth did you ever get hold of the ridiculous notion that I ran away | |
frightened?" | |
"How?" ejaculated Jimmieboy. "What else was there to think? The minute | |
the sprite was changed into Bludgeonhead I turned to speak to you, and | |
all I could see of you was your coat-tails disappearing around the | |
corner way down the road." | |
"And just because my coat-tails behaved like that you put me down as a | |
coward?" groaned the major. | |
"Didn't you run away?" Jimmieboy asked. | |
"Of course not," replied the major. "That is, not exactly. I hurried | |
off; but not because I was afraid. I was simply going down the road to | |
see if I couldn't find a looking-glass so that Spriteyboy could see how | |
he looked as a giant." | |
Jimmieboy laughed. | |
"That's a magnificent excuse," he said. | |
"I thought you'd think it was," said the major, with a pleased smile. | |
"And when I finally found that there weren't any mirrors to be had | |
along the road I went back, and you two had gone and left me." | |
"And what did you do then?" asked Jimmieboy. | |
"I wrote a poem on sleep. It's a great thing, sleep is, and I wrote the | |
lines off in two tenths of a fifth of a second. As I remember it, this | |
is the way they went: | |
"SLEEP. | |
Deserted by my friends I sit, | |
And silently I weep, | |
Until I'm wearied so by it, | |
I lose my little store of wit; | |
I nod and fall asleep. | |
Then in my dreams my friends I spy-- | |
Once more are they my own. | |
I cease to murmur and to cry, | |
For then 'tis sure to be that I | |
Forget I am alone. | |
'Tis hence I think that sleep's the best | |
Of friends that man has got-- | |
Not only does it bring him rest | |
But makes him feel that he is blest | |
With blessings he has not." | |
"Why didn't you go to sleep if you felt that way?" said Jimmieboy. | |
"I wanted to find you and I hadn't time. There was only time for me to | |
scratch that poem off on my mind and start to find you and Bludgeyboy," | |
replied the major. | |
"His name isn't Bludgeyboy," said Jimmieboy, with a smile. "It's | |
Bludgeonhead." | |
"Oh, yes, I forgot," said the major. "It's a good name, too, | |
Bludgeonpate is." | |
"How did you come to be captured by Fortyforefoot?" asked Jimmieboy, | |
after he had decided not to try to correct the major any more as to | |
Bludgeonhead's name. | |
"There you go again!" cried the major, angrily. "The idea of a miserable | |
ogre like Fortyforefoot capturing me, the most sagacitacious soldier of | |
modern times. I suppose you think I fell into one of his game traps?" | |
"That's what he said," said Jimmieboy. "He said you acted in a very | |
curious way, too--promised him all sorts of things if he'd let you go." | |
"That's just like those big, bragging giants," said the major. "The | |
idea! why he didn't capture me at all. I came here of my own free will | |
and accord." | |
"What? Down here into this pantry and into the ice-chest? Oh, come now, | |
major. You can't fool me," said Jimmieboy. "That's nonsense. Why should | |
you want to come here?" | |
"To meet you, of course," retorted the major. "That's why. I knew it | |
was part of your scheme to come here. You and I were to be put into the | |
pantry and then old Bludgeyhat was to come and rescue us. I was the one | |
to make the scheme, wasn't I?" | |
"No. It was Bludgeonhead," said Jimmieboy, who didn't know whether to | |
believe the major or not. | |
"That's just the way," said the major, indignantly, "he gets all the | |
credit just because he's big and I don't get any, and yet if you knew of | |
all the wild animals I've killed to get here to you, how I met | |
Fortyforefoot and bound him hand and foot and refused to let him go | |
unless he would permit me to spend a week in his ice-chest, for the sole | |
and only purpose that I wished to meet you again, you'd change your mind | |
mighty quick about me." | |
"You bound Fortyforefoot? A little two-inch fellow like you?" said | |
Jimmieboy. | |
"Why not?" asked the major. "Did you ever see me in a real sham battle?" | |
"No, I never did," said Jimmieboy. | |
"Well, you'd better never," returned the major, "unless you want to be | |
frightened out of your wits. I have been called the living telescope, | |
sir, because when I begin to fight, in the fiercest manner possible, I | |
sort of lengthen out and sprout up into the air until I am taller than | |
any foe within my reach." | |
"Really?" queried Jimmieboy, with a puzzled air about him. | |
"Do you doubt it?" asked the major. | |
"Well, I should like to see it once," said Jimmieboy. "Then I might | |
believe it." | |
"Then you will never believe it," returned the major, "because you will | |
never see it. I never fight in the presence of others, sir." | |
As the major spoke these words a heavy footstep was heard on the stairs. | |
"What is that?" cried the major, springing to his feet. | |
"I do not ask you for your gold, | |
Nor for an old straw hat-- | |
I simply ask that I be told | |
Oh what, oh what is that?" | |
"It is a footstep on the stairs," said Jimmieboy. | |
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" moaned the major "If it is Fortyforefoot all is | |
over for us. This is what I feared. | |
"I was afraid he could not wait, | |
The miserable sinner, | |
To serve me up in proper state | |
At his to-morrow's dinner. | |
Alas, he comes I greatly fear | |
In search of Major Me, sir, | |
And that he'll wash me down with beer | |
This very night at tea, sir." | |
"Oh, why did I come here--why----" | |
"I shall!" roared a voice out in the passage-way. | |
"You shall not," roared another voice, which Jimmieboy was delighted to | |
recognize as Bludgeonhead's. | |
"I am hungry," said the first voice, "and what is mine is my own to do | |
with as I please. I shall eat both of them at once. Stand aside!" | |
"I will toss you into the air, my dear Fortyforefoot," returned | |
Bludgeonhead's voice, "if you advance another step; and with such force, | |
sir, that you will never come down again." | |
"Tut, tut! I am not so easily tossed. Stand aside," roared the voice of | |
Fortyforefoot. | |
The two prisoners in the pantry heard a tremendous scuffling, a crash, | |
and a loud laugh. | |
Then Bludgeonhead's voice was heard again. | |
"Good-by, Fortyforefoot," it cried. | |
"I hope he is not going to leave us," whispered Jimmieboy, but the major | |
was too frightened to speak, and he trembled so that half a dozen times | |
he fell off the ice-cake that he had been sitting on. | |
"Give my love to the moon when you pass her, and when you get up into | |
the milky way turn half a million of the stars there into baked apples | |
and throw 'em down to me," called Bludgeonhead's voice. | |
"If you'll only lasso me and pull me back I'll do anything you want me | |
to," came the voice of Fortyforefoot from some tremendous height, it | |
seemed to Jimmieboy. | |
"Not if I know it," replied Bludgeonhead, with a laugh. "I think I'd | |
like to settle down here myself as the owner of Fortyforefoot Valley. | |
Good-bye." | |
Whatever answer was made to this it was too indistinct for Jimmieboy to | |
hear, and in a minute the key of the pantry door was turned, the door | |
thrown open, and Bludgeonhead stood before them. | |
"You are free," he said, grasping Jimmieboy's hand and squeezing it | |
affectionately. "But I had to get rid of him. It was the only way to do | |
it. He wanted to eat you right away." | |
"And did you really throw him off into the air?" asked Jimmieboy, as he | |
walked out into the hall. | |
"Yes," said Bludgeonhead. "See that hole in the roof?" he added, | |
pointing upward. | |
"My!" ejaculated Jimmieboy, as he glanced upward and saw a huge rent in | |
the ceiling, through which, gradually rising and getting smaller and | |
smaller the further he rose, was to be seen the unfortunate | |
Fortyforefoot. "Did he go through there?" | |
"Yes," replied Bludgeonhead. "I simply picked him up and tossed him over | |
my head. He'll never come back. I shall turn myself into Fortyforefoot | |
and settle down here forever, only instead of being a bad giant I shall | |
be a good one--but hallo! Who is this?" | |
The major had crawled out of the ice-chest and was now trying to appear | |
calm, although his terrible fright still left him trembling so that he | |
could hardly speak. | |
"It is Major Blueface," said Jimmieboy, with a smile. | |
"Oh!" cried Bludgeonhead. "He was Fortyforefoot's other prisoner." | |
"N--nun--not at--t--at--at all," stammered the major. "I | |
def--fuf--feated him in sus--single combat." | |
"But what are you trembling so for now?" demanded Bludgeonhead. | |
"I--I am--m not tut--trembling," retorted the major. "I--I am o--only | |
sh--shivering with--th--the--c--c--c--cold. I--I--I've bub--been in | |
th--that i--i--i--ice bu--box sus--so long." | |
Jimmieboy and Bludgeonhead roared with laughter at this. Then giving the | |
major a warm coat to put on they sent him up stairs to lie down and | |
recover his nerves. | |
After the major had been attended to, Bludgeonhead changed himself back | |
into the sprite again, and he and Jimmieboy sauntered in and out among | |
the gardens for an hour or more and were about returning to the castle | |
for supper when they heard sounds of music. There was evidently a brass | |
band coming up the road. In an instant they hid themselves behind a | |
tree, from which place of concealment they were delighted two or three | |
minutes later to perceive that the band was none other than that of the | |
"Jimmieboy Guards," and that behind it, in splendid military form, | |
appeared Colonel Zinc followed by the tin soldiers themselves. | |
"Hurrah!" cried Jimmieboy, throwing his cap into the air. | |
"Ditto!" roared the sprite. | |
"The same!" shrieked the colonel, waving his sword with delight, and | |
commanding his regiment to halt, as he caught sight of Jimmieboy. | |
[Illustration: BLUDGEONHEAD COMES TO THE RESCUE. PAGE 187.] | |
[Blank Page] | |
"Us likewise!" cheered the soldiers: following which came a trembling | |
voice from one of the castle windows which said: | |
"I also wish to add my cheer | |
Upon this happy day; | |
And if you'll kindly come up here | |
You'll hear me cry 'Hooray.'" | |
"It's Major Blueface's voice!" cried the colonel. "Is the major ill?" | |
"No," said the sprite, motioning to Jimmieboy not to betray the major. | |
"Only a little worn-out by the fight we have had with Fortyforefoot." | |
"With Fortyforefoot?" echoed the colonel. | |
"Yes," said the sprite, modestly. "We three have got rid of him at | |
last." | |
"Then the victory is won!" cried the colonel. "Do you know who | |
Fortyforefoot really was?" | |
"No; who?" asked Jimmieboy, his curiosity aroused. | |
"The Parallelopipedon himself," said the colonel. "We found that out | |
last night, and fearing that he might have captured our general and our | |
major we came here to besiege him in his castle and rescue our | |
officers." | |
"But I don't see how Fortyforefoot could have been the | |
Parallelopipedon," said Jimmieboy. "What would he want to be him for, | |
when, all he had to do to get anything he wanted was to take sand and | |
turn it into it?" | |
"Ah, but don't you see," explained the colonel, "there was one thing he | |
never could do as Fortyforefoot. The law prevented him from leaving this | |
valley here in any other form than that of the Parallelopipedon. He | |
didn't mind his confinement to the valley very much at first, but after | |
a while he began to feel cooped up here, and then he took an old packing | |
box and made it look as much like a living Parallelopipedon as he could. | |
Then he got into it whenever he wanted to roam about the world. Probably | |
if you will search the castle you will find the cast-off shell he used | |
to wear, and if you do I hope you will destroy it, because it is said to | |
be a most horrible spectacle--frightening animals to death and causing | |
every flower within a mile to wither and shrink up at the mere sight of | |
it." | |
"It's all true, Jimmieboy," said the sprite. "I knew it all along. Why, | |
he only gave us those cherries and peaches there in exchange for | |
yourself because he expected to get them all back again, you know." | |
"It was a glorious victory," said the colonel. "I will now announce it | |
to the soldiers." | |
This he did and the soldiers were wild with joy when they heard the | |
news, and the band played a hymn of victory in which the soldiers | |
joined, singing so vigorously that they nearly cracked their voices. | |
When they had quite finished the colonel said he guessed it was time to | |
return to the barracks in the nursery. | |
"Not before the feast," said the sprite. "We have here all the | |
provisions the general set out to get, and before you return home, | |
colonel, you and your men should divide them among you." | |
So the table was spread and all went happily. In the midst of the feast | |
the major appeared, determination written upon every line of his face. | |
The soldiers cheered him loudly as he walked down the length of the | |
table, which he acknowledged as gracefully as he could with a stiff bow, | |
and then he spoke: | |
"Gentlemen," he said, "I have always been a good deal of a favorite with | |
you, and I know that what I am about to do will fill you with deep | |
grief. I am going to stop being a man of war. The tremendous victory we | |
have won to-day is the result entirely of the efforts of myself, General | |
Jimmieboy and Major Sprite--for to the latter I now give the title I | |
have borne so honorably for so many years. Our present victory is one of | |
such brilliantly brilliant brilliance that I feel that I may now retire | |
with lustre enough attached to my name to last for millions and millions | |
of years. I need rest, and here I shall take it, in this beautiful | |
valley, which by virtue of our victory belongs wholly and in equal parts | |
to General Jimmieboy, Major Sprite and myself. Hereafter I shall be | |
known only as Mortimer Carraway Blueface, Poet Laureate of Fortyforefoot | |
Hall, Fortyforefoot Valley, Pictureland. As Governor-General of the | |
country we have decided to appoint our illustrious friend, Major | |
Benjamin Bludgeonhead Sprite. General Jimmieboy will remain commander of | |
the forces, and the rest of you may divide amongst yourselves, as a | |
reward for your gallant services, all the provisions that may now be | |
left upon this table. It is all yours. I demand but one condition. That | |
is that you do not take the table. It is of solid mahogany and must be | |
worth a very considerable sum. | |
Now let the saddest word be said, | |
Now bend in sorrow deep the head. | |
Let tears flow forth and drench the dell: | |
Farewell, brave soldier boys, farewell." | |
Here the major wiped his eyes sadly and sat down by the sprite who shook | |
his hand kindly and thanked him for giving him his title of major. | |
"We'll have fine times living here together," said the sprite. | |
"Well, rather!" ejaculated the major. "I'm going to see if I can't have | |
myself made over again, too, Spritey. I'll be pleasanter for you to look | |
at. What's the use of being a tin soldier in a place where even the | |
cobblestones are of gold and silver." | |
"You can be plated any how," said Jimmieboy. | |
"Yes, and maybe I can have a platinum sword put in, and a real solid | |
gold head--but just at present that isn't what I want," said the major. | |
"What I am after now is a piece of birthday cake with real fruit raisins | |
in it and strips of citron two inches long, the whole concealed beneath | |
a one inch frosting. Is there any?" | |
CHAPTER XIV. | |
HOME AGAIN. | |
"I don't think we have any here," said Jimmieboy, who was much pleased | |
to see the sprite and the major, both of whom he dearly loved, on such | |
good terms. "But I'll run home and see if I can get some." | |
"Well, we'll all go with you," said the colonel, starting up and | |
ordering the trumpeters to sound the call to arms. | |
"All except Blueface and myself," said the sprite. "We will stay here | |
and put everything in readiness for your return." | |
"That is a good idea," said Jimmieboy. "And you'll have to hurry for we | |
shall be back very soon." | |
This, as it turned out, was a very rash promise for Jimmieboy to make, | |
for after he and the tin soldiers had got the birthday cake and were | |
ready to enter Pictureland once more, they found that not one of them | |
could do it, the frame was so high up and the picture itself so hard | |
and impenetrable. Jimmieboy felt so badly to be unable to return to his | |
friends, that, following the major's hint about sleep bringing | |
forgetfulness of trouble, he threw himself down on the nursery couch, | |
and closing his brimming eyes dozed off into a dreamless sleep. | |
It was quite dark when he opened them again and found himself still on | |
the couch with a piece of his papa's birthday cake in his hand, his | |
sorrows all gone and contentment in their place. His papa was sitting at | |
his side, and his mamma was standing over by the window smiling. | |
"You've had a good long nap, Jimmieboy," said she, "and I rather think, | |
from several things I've heard you say in your sleep, you've been | |
dreaming about your tin soldiers." | |
"I don't believe it was a dream, mamma," he said, "it was all too real." | |
And then he told his papa all that had happened. | |
"Well, it is very singular," said his papa, when Jimmieboy had finished, | |
"and if you want to believe it all happened you may; but you say all the | |
soldiers came back with you except Major Blueface?" | |
"Yes, every one," said Jimmieboy. | |
"Then we can tell whether it was true or not by looking in the tin | |
soldier's box. If the major isn't there he may be up in Fortyforefoot | |
castle as you say." | |
Jimmieboy climbed eagerly down from the couch and rushing to the toy | |
closet got out the box of soldiers and searched it from top to bottom. | |
The major was not to be seen anywhere, nor to this day has Jimmieboy | |
ever again set eyes upon him. | |
THE END. | |
Transcriber's Note: | |
The use of capitalisation for major and general has been retained as | |
appears in the original publication. Punctuation has been standardised. | |
Changes have been made as follows: | |
Page 60 | |
ejaculated the Paralleopipedon _changed to_ | |
ejaculated the Parallelopipedon? | |
Page 74 | |
should have been resusticated _changed to_ | |
should have been resusitated | |
Page 85 | |
he would pay him fifty cent _changed to_ | |
he would pay him fifty cents | |
Page 131 | |
For intance, a cousin of mine _changed to_ | |
For instance, a cousin of mine | |
Page 159 | |
to do but accept your propostion _changed to_ | |
to do but accept your proposition | |
End of Project Gutenberg's In Camp With A Tin Soldier, by John Kendrick Bangs | |
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