Chapter VII: The Poetry Book, and the End (2)

"He has weak eyes," said the Brownie. "That is, he has at night. He can't see his notes to play tunes by when it is dark, and so we've provided him with those spectacles to help him out. Then the Bear is very self-sacrificing. If anyone of us wants to go out anywhere in the cold he'll let us have his robe just for the asking. The Pug-dog isn't much use but he's playful and intelligent. If you tell him to go to the post-office for your mail he'll rush out of the front door, down the road to the grocer's and bring you back an apple or an orange, because he always knows that there isn't any mail. One of your hired men wouldn't know that, but would waste his time going to the post-office to find it out if you told him to."

Jimmieboy expressed his admiration of the intelligence of the Brownie Dog and the good nature of the other animals, and then asked if he mightn't go upstairs he was so curious to see the rest of the house.

"Certainly," said the Dude Brownie, "only you'll have to slide up the banisters. We haven't any stairs."

"Don't think I know how," said Jimmieboy. "I can slide down banisters, but I never learned to slide up 'em."

"You don't have to learn it," returned the Brownie. "All you have to do is to get aboard and slide. It's a poor banister that won't work both ways. The trouble with your banisters is that they are poor ones. Climb aboard and let yourself go."

The boy did as he was told, and pop! the first thing he knew he was in the midst of the Brownies on the second floor. Much to his surprise, while they were unquestionably snoring, they were all reading, or writing, or engaged in some other occupation.

"Well this beats everything!" said Jimmieboy. "I thought you said they were asleep?"

"They are," said the Dude Brownie. "So am I, for that matter, but we don't waste our time just because we happen to be asleep. Some of us do our best work while we are resting. The Chinese Brownie washes all our clothes while he's asleep, and the Dutch Brownie does his practising on his cornet at the same time. If people like you did the same thing you'd get twice as much work done. It's all very well and very necessary too to get eight hours of sleep every day, but what's the use of wasting that time? Take your sleep, but don't loaf while you're taking it. When I was only a boy Brownie I used to play all day and go to school after I'd gone to bed. In that way I learned a great deal and never got tired of school. You don't get tired while you are asleep."

"It's a wonderful plan," said Jimmieboy, "and I wish I knew how to work it. I'm not very fond of school myself and I'd a great deal rather play than go there in the daytime. Can't you tell me how it's done so that I can tell my papa all about it? Maybe he'd let me do it that way if I asked him."

"Of course I'll tell you," said the Dude Brownie. "It's just this way. You go to bed, pull the covers up over you, shut your eyes, fall asleep, and then--"

Alas! The sentence was never finished, for as the Brownie spoke a gong in the hallway below began to clang fearfully, and in an instant the whole Brownie troupe sprang to the banisters, slid down into the hall and rushed out into the yard. Their play time had come, and their manager had summoned them back to it. Jimmieboy followed, but he slid so fast that it made him dizzy. He thought he would never stop. Down the banisters he slid, out through the hall to the yard, over the heads of the Brownies he whizzed and landed with a thud in the soft embrace of the armchair once more, and just in time too, for hardly had he realized where he was when in walked his father and mother, and following in their train were his two baby brothers, their mouths and hands full of sweetmeats.

"Hullo," said Jimmieboy's father. "Where have you been, Jimmieboy?"

"In the Brown----" began the boy, but he stopped short. It seemed to him as if the Dude Brownie in the book tipped him a wink to be silent, and he returned the wink.

"I've been here, looking at my Brownie book," he said.

"Indeed?" said his father. "And do you never get tired of it?"

"No," said Jimmieboy quietly, "it seems to me I see something new in it every time I open it," and then in spite of the Brownie's wink he climbed out of the chair into his papa's lap and told him all that occurred, and his papa said it was truly wonderful, especially that part which told about how much could be done by an intelligent creature when fast asleep.

JIMMIEBOY--and SOMETHING

_JIMMIEBOY--and SOMETHING_

It was a warm, summer afternoon--just the sort of an afternoon for a drowse, and when the weather was just right for it Jimmieboy was a great drowser. In fact, a little golden-haired fairy with a silver wand had just whispered to a butterfly that when it came to drowsing in an interesting way there was nobody in the world who could excel Jimmieboy in that accomplishment. Jimmieboy had overheard this much himself, but he had never told anybody about it, because he found drowsing so very easy, and the pleasures of it so great, that he was a little afraid somebody else might try it and make him divide up his fun with him. It was somewhat selfish of him to behave this way, perhaps, but then no one ever pretended that Jimmieboy was absolutely perfect, not even the boy himself.

It so happened, that upon this particular afternoon, Jimmieboy was swinging idly in the hammock under the trees. On one side of him babbled a little mountain stream, while on the other lay a garden full of beautiful flowers, where the bees hummed the whole day through, and whence when day was done and the night shadows were coming over all even the sun's rays seemed sorry to go. In the house, a hundred feet away, Jimmieboy's mamma was playing softly on a zithern, and the music, floating out through the flower-scented air, set the boy to thinking, which with him is always the preliminary to a doze. His right eye struggled hard to keep awake, long after the left eye had given up the fight, and it was due possibly to this that Jimmieboy was wide enough awake at the time to hear a quaint little voice up in the tree calling to the tiger lilies over near the house.

"Say, Tige," the little voice cried, "what time is it?"

"I can't see the clock," returned the lily. "But," it added, dropping into verse:

"I judge from sundry tinkles
Of the bell upon the cow
That if it isn't later,
It is pretty nearly now."

"Thank you," said the voice up the tree, "I was afraid I'd miss my train."

"So! You are going away?" said another voice, which, if his ears did not deceive Jimmieboy, came this time from the rose bush.

"Yes," said the voice up in the tree. "Yes, I'm going away. I don't know where exactly, because I haven't bought my ticket yet. I may be going to the North Pole, or I may only be coming here. In fact, if my ticket turns out to be a return ticket, it will amount to that, which makes me wonder what's the use of going any way."

"But when does your train go?" asked the voice in the rose bush.

"A week from next Thursday," said the tree voice. "I didn't know but that it was then now. You see I always get mixed up as to what time it is or what day it is. This isn't a date tree, and I haven't any calendar."

"I guess you've got plenty of time," chuckled the tiger lily, nodding its head gleefully at the holly-hock. "It won't be a week from next Thursday for several days yet."

"Heigho," sighed the voice up in the tree. "Several days to wait, eh? I'm sure I don't know what I shall do to pass the time away."

"Oh, as for that," observed the holly-hock; "I know an easy scheme for passing time. I learned it from a fairy I met once.

"'Sit still and never raise your hands,'
Advised the little elf,
'Pay no attention to the clock,
And time will pass itself.'

"You have nothing to do with it doing it that way," the holly-hock added.

"That's a good idea," said the voice up in the tree. "It's queer I never thought of it, and I've been thinking and thinking ever so many years, trying to get up a scheme to pass the time."

"You're not very deep, I'm afraid," said the rose bush. "You can't think very valuable thoughts, can you?"

"I'm sure I don't know," the voice up the tree replied. "I've never tried to sell them, so of course I can't tell whether they are valuable or not. Do you sell what you think?"

"Certainly I do," returned the rose bush. "I suggested the idea of making honey to the bees. Wasn't that a great thing to do?"

"Yes, indeed," returned the voice. "It was splendid. I've never had any honey, but I'm told it's fine. It's very sticky, isn't it?"

"Very," said the rose bush. "I guess honey is about as sticky as anything can be."

"And very useful for that reason," said the voice up in the tree, kindly. "Very useful. I suppose, really, if it wasn't for honey, people couldn't make postage stamps stay on letters. You ought to be very happy to think that one of your thoughts has given people the idea of mucilage. Do they ever use honey for anything else but its stickiness?"

"Hoh!" jeered the rose bush. "Don't you know anything?"

"Not much," said the tree voice. "I know you, and me, and several other things, but that's not much, is it? It's really queer how little I know. Why, would you believe it, a sparrow asked me the other day what was the difference between a robin's egg and a red blackberry, and I didn't know."

"What did you tell him?" asked the holly-hock.

"I told him I couldn't tell until I had eaten them."

"And what did he say?" put in the tiger lily, with a grin.

"He said that wasn't the answer; that one was blue and the other was green, but how a red blackberry can be green I can't see," replied the voice up in the tree.

Jimmieboy smiled quietly at this, and the voice up the tree continued:

"Then he asked me what color blueberries were, and I told him they were blue; then he said he'd bet a mosquito I couldn't tell him what color huckleberries were, and when I said they were of a delicate huckle he laughed, and said I owed him a mosquito. I may owe him a mosquito, but I haven't an idea what he was laughing at."

"That's easy," said the holly-hock. "He was laughing because there isn't any such color as huckle."

"I don't think that's funny, though," said the voice in the tree. "Indeed, I think it's sad, because it seems to me that a very pretty color could be made out of huckle. Why do you suppose there isn't any such color?"

The lily and the rose and holly-hock bushes were silent for a moment, and then they said they didn't know.

"I'm glad you don't," said the tree voice. "I'm glad to find that there are some things you don't know. Just think how dreadful it would be if you knew everything. Why, if you knew everything, nobody could tell you anything, and then there'd never be any news in the world, and when you heard a joke you couldn't ever laugh because you'd have known it before."

Here Jimmieboy, impressed by the real good sense of this remark, leaned out of the hammock and peered up into the tree to see if possible who or what it was that was speaking.

"Don't," cried the voice. "Don't try to see me, Jimmieboy, I haven't got my company clothes on, and you make me nervous."

"But I want to see who you are," said Jimmieboy.

"Well you needn't want that any more," said the voice. "I'll tell you why. Nobody knows what I am. I don't even know myself."

"But what do you look like?" asked Jimmieboy.

"I don't know that, either. I never saw myself," replied the voice. "I'm something, of course, but just what I don't know. It may be that I am a horse and wagon, only I don't think I am, because horses, and wagons don't get up in trees. I saw a horse sitting on a whiffletree once, but that was down on the ground and not up here, so, of course, you see the chances are that I'm not that."

"What do you think you are?" asked Jimmieboy.

"I haven't thought much about it. But I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll tell you what, perhaps, I am, and maybe that will help you to find out, and if you do find out I beg that you will tell me, because I've some curiosity on the subject myself."

"Go ahead," said Jimmieboy. "You give me the perhapses and I'll try to guess."

"Well," began the voice, slowly, as if, whatever it was, the thing was trying to think. Let me see.

"Perhaps I am a house and lot,
Perhaps I am a pussy cat,
Perhaps I am a schooner yacht,
Or possibly an inky spot,
Perhaps a beaver hat."

"I've never seen any of those up a tree," said Jimmieboy. "I guess you aren't any of those."

"Very likely not," said the voice, "but I can try a few more.

"Perhaps I am a picture book,
It maybe I'm a candy box,
Perhaps I am a trolling-hook,
A tennis bat, or fancy cook,
Perhaps a pair of socks.

"Perchance I am a pair of shears,
Perhaps a piece of kindling-wood,
Perhaps I am a herd of deers,
Perhaps two crystal chandeliers,
Or some old lady's hood.

"No man can say I'm not a pad
On which a poet scribbles verse,
It may be I'm a nice fresh shad,
Or something else not quite as bad,
Or maybe something worse."

"But none of these things ever go up trees," protested Jimmieboy. "Can't you tell me some of the things that perhaps you are that are found up in trees?"

"No," said the voice, sadly. "I can't. I don't know what kind of things go up trees--unless it's pollywogs or Noah's arks."

"They don't go up trees," said Jimmieboy, scornfully.

"Well I was afraid they didn't, and that's why I didn't mention them before. But you see," the voice added with a mournful little tremor, "you see how useless it is to try to guess what I am. Why, if you really guessed, I wouldn't know if you'd guessed right--so what's the use?"

"I guess there isn't any use," said Jimmieboy. "If I could only see you once, though, maybe I could tell."

Here he leaned far out of the hammock, in a vain effort to see the creature he was talking to. He leaned so far out, in fact, that he lost his balance and fell head over heels on to the soft green turf.

The mountain brook seemed to laugh at this mishap, and went babbling on to the great river that bore its waters to the sea, while Jimmieboy, somewhat dazed by his afternoon's experience, walked wonderingly back to the house to make ready for supper. He was filled with regret that he had not been able to catch a glimpse of the strange little being in the tree, for he very much wished to know what manner of creature it was, so stupid and yet so kindly--as, indeed, would I, for really I haven't any more idea as to who or what it was than he. What do _you_ think it was?

JIMMIEBOY'S FIREWORKS

_JIMMIEBOY'S FIREWORKS_

It was a very great misfortune indeed that Jimmieboy should make the acquaintance of the bumblebee at that particular time--that is to say, everybody thought it was. The bumblebee, as a rule, was one of the jolliest bees in the hive, and passed most of his days humming away as if he were the happiest of mortals; but at the particular moment when Jimmieboy, who wasn't looking where he was going, ran into him, the bee was mad about something, and he settled down on Jimmieboy's cheek and stung him. He was a very thorough bee, too, unhappily, and he never did anything by halves, which is why it was that the sting was about as bad a one and as painful as any bee ever stang. I use the word "stang" here to please Jimmieboy, by the way. It is one of his favorites in describing the incident.

Now, it is bad enough, I have found, to be stung by a bee at any time, but when it happens on the night of July Fourth, and is so painful that the person stung has to go to bed with a poultice over his cheek and eye, and so cannot see the fireworks he has been looking forward to for weeks and weeks, it is about the worst affliction that a small boy can have overtake him--at least it seems so at the time--and that was exactly poor Jimmieboy's case. He had thought and thought and thought about those fireworks for days and days and days, and here, on Fourth of July night, he found himself lying in bed in his room, with one side of his face covered with a bandage, and his poor little other blue eye gazing at the ceiling, while his ears listened to the sizzling of the rockets and pin wheels and the thunderous booming of the bombs.

"Mean old bee!" he said, drowsily, as his other blue eye tried to peer out of the window in the hope of seeing at least one rocket burst into stars. "I didn't mean to upset him."

"I know you didn't," sobbed a little voice at his side. "And I didn't mean to sting you, only I didn't know it was you, and I was mad because somebody's picked a rose I'd had my eye on for a week, and you ran into me and spilled all the honey I'd gug--gathered, and then I--I was so irritated I stuck my stingers out and stang you. Can't you forgive me?"

Jimmieboy withdrew his other blue eye from the window in wonderment. He was used to queer things, but this seemed the queerest yet. The idea of a bumblebee coming to apologize to a boy for stinging him made him smile in spite of his disappointment and his pain.

"Who are you?" he said, looking toward the foot of the bed, whence the voice had come.

"I used to be a bumblebee," sobbed the little voice, "but I've changed my first letter from 'b' to 'h.' I'm only an humble-bee now, and all because I've treated you so badly. I really didn't mean to, and I've come to help you have a good time to-night, so that you won't miss the fireworks because of my misbehavior."

"Don't mention it," said Jimmieboy, kindly. "It was my fault, after all. I hadn't ought to have run into you."

"Yes, you had ought to have, too," moaned the little bee. "You were just right in running into me. I hadn't ought to have got in your way."

"Well, anyhow, it's all right," said Jimmieboy. "You're forgiven--though you did hurt me like everything."

"I know it," sobbed the bee. "I almost wish you'd get a pin and stick it into me once, so as to sort of just even things up. It would hurt me, I know, but then I'd feel better after I got well."

"Indeed I won't," said Jimmieboy, with a determined shake of his head. "That won't do any good, and what's the use anyhow, as long as you didn't mean it?"

"I'm sure I don't know," the bee answered. "I'm only a bug, after all, you know, and so I don't understand things that human beings which has got brains can understand. I've noticed, though, that sometimes when a boy gets hurt it sort of makes him feel better if he hurts back."

"I wouldn't mind a bit if I could see the fireworks," said Jimmieboy. "That's what hurts the most."

"Well, I'll tell you what you do," said the bee; "if that's all you feel bad about, we can fix it up in a jiffy. Do you know what a jiffy is?"

"No, I don't," said Jimmieboy.

"Well, I'll tell you," said the bee, "but don't you ever tell:

"Sixty seconds make a minute,
Sixty minutes make an hour;
But a second has within it
Sixty jiffies full of power.

"In other words, a jiffy is just the same thing to a second as the second is to the minute or the minute to the hour; and, dear me, what billions of things can happen in a jiffy! Why, they're simply enormous."

"They must be," said Jimmieboy, "if, as you say, you can fix me up in regard to the fireworks in a jiffy."

"There isn't any if about it," returned the bee. "Just turn over and put your face into the pillow, and see what you can see."

"I can't see anything with both eyes in my pillow, much less with one," said Jimmieboy.

"Well--try it," said the bee. "I know what I'm buzzing about."

So Jimmieboy, just to oblige his strange little friend, turned over and buried his face in the pillow. At first, as far as he could see, there was nothing going on in the pillow to make it worth while; but all of a sudden, just as he was about to withdraw his face, a great golden pin wheel began to whizz and whirr right in front of him, only instead of putting forth fire it spouted jewels and flowers, and finally right out of the middle of it there popped a tiny bit of a creature all dressed in spangles, looking for all the world like a Brownie. He bowed to Jimmieboy politely and requested him to open his mouth as wide as he could.

"What for?" asked Jimmieboy, naturally a little curious to know the meaning of this strange proceeding.

"I am going to set off the sugar-plum bomb," the little creature replied. "But of course if you don't want the sugar-plums you can keep your mouth closed."

"Can't I catch 'em in my hands?" said Jimmieboy.

"You can if you want to, but they won't be of any use if you do," returned the little creature. "You see, this bomb shoots out candy instead of sparks, but the candy is so delicate that, like the sparks in fire fireworks, it goes out just as soon as it comes down. If you catch 'em in your hands you won't be able to see how good they taste, don't you see?"

"Yeh," said Jimmieboy, opening his mouth as wide as he could, and so speaking with difficulty. "Hire ahay!"--by which I presume he meant fire away, only he couldn't say it plainly with his mouth open.

And then the little creature set off the sugar-plum bomb, and the candies it put forth were marvelous in number and sweetness, and, strange to say, there wasn't one of them that, in falling, came down anywhere but in the mouth of the small boy who had been "stang."

"Got any cannon crackers?" asked Jimmieboy, delighted with what he had already seen, as soon as the sweet taste from the sugar-plums died away. "I'm fond of noise, too."

"Well," said the little creature, "we have great big crackers, only they don't break the silence in just the way you mean. They make a noise, but it isn't just a plain ordinary crash such as your cannon crackers make. We call 'em our Grand Opera Crackers. I'll set one off and let you see what I mean."

So the little creature opened a big chest that in some way happened to come up out of the ground beside him, and with difficulty hauled from it a huge thing that looked like the ordinary giant crackers that Jimmieboy was used to seeing. It was twice as big as the little creature, but he got it out nevertheless.

"My!" cried Jimmieboy. "That's fine. That ought to make lots of noise."

"It will," returned the little creature, touching a match to the fuse. "Just listen now."

The fuse burned slowly along, and then, with a great puff of smoke, the cracker burst, but not into a mere crash as the little creature had hinted, but into a most entrancing military march, that was inspiring enough to set even the four legs of the heaviest dinner-table to strutting about the room. Jimmieboy could hardly keep his own feet still as the music went on, but he did not dare draw his face away from the pillow so that he might march about the room, for fear that by so doing he would lose what might remain of this wonderful exhibition, whose like he had never even dreamed of before, and alongside of which he felt that the display he had missed by having to go to bed must be as insignificant as a pin compared to Cleopatra's great stone needle.

"That was fine!" he cried, ecstatically, as the last echoes of the musical cracker died away. "I wouldn't mind having a hundred packs of those. Have you got any music torpedoes?"

"No," returned the little creature. "But we've got picture torpedoes. Look at this." The little creature here took a small paper ball from the chest, and, slamming it on the ground with all his might, it exploded, and the spot whereon it fell was covered with a gorgeous little picture of Jimmieboy himself, all dressed in sailor's clothes and dancing a hornpipe.

"That's a very good picture of you," said the little creature, looking at the dancing figure. "It's so full of motion, like you. Here's another one," he added, as the picture from the first torpedo faded away. "This shows how you'd look if you were a fairy."

The second torpedo was slammed down upon the ground just as the first had been, and Jimmieboy had the pleasure of seeing himself in another picture, only this time he had gossamer wings and a little wand, and he was flying about a great field of poppies and laughing with a lot of other fairies, among whom he recognized his little brothers and a few of his playmates. He could have looked at this all night and not grown weary of it, but, like a great many other good things, the picture could not last forever, and just at the most interesting point, when he saw himself about to fly a race across the poppy-field with a robin, the picture faded away, and the little creature called out: "Now for the finest of the lot. Here goes the Fairy-Book Rocket!"

With a tremendous whizz, up soared the most magnificent rocket you ever saw. It left behind it a trail of golden fire that was dazzling, and then, when it reached its highest point in the sky, it burst as all other rockets do, but, instead of putting forth stars, all the people in Jimmieboy's favorite fairy tales jumped out into the heavens. There was a glittering Jack chasing a dozen silver giants around about the moon; there was a dainty little Cinderella, with her gorgeous coach and four, driving up and down the Milky Way; Puss-in-Boots was hopping about from one cloud to another, as easily as if he were an ordinary cat jumping from an ordinary footstool on to an ordinary sofa. They were all there cutting up the finest pranks imaginable, when suddenly Jack of the beanstalk fame appeared at the side of the little creature who had set the rocket off, and planted a bean at his feet, and from it there immediately sprang forth a huge stalk covered with leaves of gold and silver, dropping showers of rubies and pearls and diamonds to the ground, as it grew rapidly upwards to where the fairy-land folk were disporting themselves in the skies. These, when the stalk had reached its full growth, rushed toward it, and in a moment were clambering back to earth again, and then, when they were all safely down, they ranged themselves in a row, sang a beautiful good-night song to the boy with his face in the pillow, and disappeared into the darkness.

"There!" said the little voice back of Jimmieboy. "That's what one jiffy will do."

Jimmieboy turned about and smiled happily at the bee--for it was the bee who had spoken.

"Sometime we'll have another," the bee added. "But now I must go--I've got to get ready for to-morrow, which will be bright and sunshiny, and in every way a great day for honey. Good-by!"

And Jimmieboy, as the bee flew out of the window, was pleased to notice that the pain in his cheek was all gone. With a contented smile on his face he turned over and went to sleep, and when his papa came in to look at him as he lay there in his little bed, noticing the smile, he turned to his mamma and said, "Well, he doesn't look as if he'd missed the fireworks very much, after all, does he?"

"No," said his mamma. "He seems to be just the same happy little fellow he always was."

And between us, I think they were both right, for we know that he didn't miss the fireworks, and as for being happy, he was just as much so as are most boys who know what it is to be contented, and who, when trials come upon them, endeavor to make the best of them, anyhow.

HIGH JINKS IN THE BARN

_HIGH JINKS IN THE BARN_

It was unquestionably a hot day; so hot, indeed, that John, the hired man, said the thermometer had had to climb a tree to get high enough to record the degree of the heat. Jimmieboy had been playing out under the apple-trees for two or three hours, and now, "just for greens," as the saying went, he had climbed into the old barouche in the barn, where it was tolerably cool and there was a soft cushion to lie off on. He closed his eyes for a moment, and then a strange thing happened.

The Wheelbarrow over by the barn door unmistakably spoke. "Say," it said to the Farm Wagon, "there's one thing I like about you."

"What's that?" said the Wagon.

"You have such a long tongue, and yet you never say an unkind word about anybody," replied the Barrow, with a creak of its wheel that sounded very much like a laugh.

"That may be so," said the big gray Horse that was used with the fat old bay to pull the farm wagon. "It may be just as you say, but that tongue has come between me and one of my best friends many a time, I tell you."

"I couldn't help that," retorted the Wagon. "The hired man made me do it; besides, I have a grudge against you."

"What's the grudge?" queried the Horse.

"You kicked me and my friend the Whiffletree that day you ran away down in the hay field," replied the Wagon. "I was dreadfully upset that day."

"I should say you were," put in the Rake. "And when you were upset you fell on me and knocked out five of my teeth. I never had such a time."

"You needed to have something done to those teeth, anyhow," said the Sickle. "They were nearly all gone when that happened."

"Oh, were they?" retorted the Rake. "And why were they nearly all gone? Do you know that?"

"I do not. I suppose you had been trying to crack chestnuts with them. Was that it?"

"No, it wasn't," retorted the Rake. "They were worn out cleaning up the lawns after you pretended to have finished them off."

"You think you're bright, don't you?" replied the Sickle, with a sneer.

"Well, if I was as dull as you are," returned the Rake, angrily, "I'd visit the Grindstone and get him to put a little more edge on me."

"Come, come; don't be so quarrelsome," said the Hose. "If you don't stop, I'll drown the whole lot of you."

"Tut!" retorted the Rake. "You look for all the world like a snake."

"He is a snake," put in the Curry-comb. "He's a water-snake. Aren't you, Hosey?"

"I'd show you whether I am or not if the faucet hadn't run dry."

"Dear me!" laughed the Sled. "Hear Hosey talk! The idea of a faucet running! It hasn't moved an inch since it came here. Why, I've got two runners that'll beat it out of sight on the side of a hill."

"Yes, the down side," said the Pony. "Anything can run down hill. Even a stupid old millstone can do that. But when it comes to running up hill, I'm ahead of you all. Why, the biggest river or avalanche in the world couldn't run up hill beside me."

"That's so," put in the Riding-Whip. "And you and I know who makes you do it--eh?"

"I didn't say anything about that," said the Pony. "But I'll tell you one thing: if you'll come down here where I can reach you with one of my hind legs, I'll show you what nice shoes I wear."

"Much obliged," said the Whip. "I don't wear shoes myself, and am not interested in the subject. But if any man who is interested in bugs wants to know how to make a horse fly, I can show him."

"You are a whipper-snapper," said the Pony angrily.

"Ho! ho!" jeered the Whip.

"Anybody call me?" queried the Hoe, from the corner where he had been asleep while all this conversation was going on.

Then they all burst out laughing, and peace was restored.

"They say the Fence is worn out," put in the Sickle.

"I should think it would be," replied the Rake. "It's been running all around this place night and day without ever stopping for the last twenty years."

"How many miles is that?" queried the Wagon.

"Well, once around is half a mile, but if it has gone around every night and every day for twenty years," said the Grindstone, "that's one mile every twenty-four hours--365 miles a year--3,650 miles in ten years, and 7,300 miles in twenty years. Quite a record, eh?"

"That's a good way for a Picket-fence to go," said the Wheelbarrow. "It would kill me to go half that distance."

"Well, if you live until you do go half that distance," put in the Hose, "you'll never die."

"Ho! ho!" jeered the Barrow.

"Somebody did call me that time!" cried the Hoe, waking up again. "I'm sure I heard my name."

"Yes, you did," said the Rake. "We waked you up to tell you that breakfast would be ready in about a month, and to say that if you wanted any you'd do well to go down to the river and see if you can't buy its mouth, because if you don't, nobody knows how you can eat it."

Here the loud and prolonged laugh caused Jimmieboy once more to open his eyes, and as his papa was standing by the side of the carriage holding out his hands to help him down and take him into the house to supper, the little fellow left the quarrelsome tools and horses and other things to themselves.

JIMMIEBOY'S VALENTINE

_JIMMIEBOY'S VALENTINE_

Jimmieboy had been watching for the postman all day and he was getting just a little tired of it. It was Valentine's Day, and he was very naturally expecting that some of his many friends would remember that fact and send him a valentine. Still the postman, strange to say, didn't come.

"He'll be later than usual," said Jimmieboy's mamma. "The postman always is late on Valentine's Day. He has so many valentines to leave at people's houses."

"Well, I wish he'd hurry," said Jimmieboy, "because I want to see what my valentimes look like."

Jimmieboy always called valentines valentimes, so nobody paid any attention to that mistake--and then the front door bell rang.

"I guess, maybe, perhaps that's the postman--though I didn't hear his whistle," said Jimmieboy, rushing to the head of the stairs and listening intently, but no one went to the door and Jimmieboy became so impatient that he fairly tumbled down the stairs to open it himself.

"Howdy do," he said, as he opened the door, and then he stopped short in amazement. There was no one there and yet his salutation was returned.

"Howdy do!" something said. "I'm glad you came to the door, because I mightn't have got in if the maid had opened it. People who don't understand queer things don't understand me, and I rather think if the girl had opened that door and had been spoken to by something she couldn't see she'd have started to run and hide, shrieking Lawk, meanwhile."

"I've half a mind to shriek Lawk, myself," said Jimmieboy, a little fearfully, for he wasn't quite easy about this invisible something he was talking to. "Who are you, anyhow?"

"I'm not a who, I'm a what," said the queer thing. "I'm not a person, I'm a thing--just a plain, homely, queer thing. I couldn't hurt a fly, so there's no reason why you should cry Lawk."

"Well, what kind of a queer thing are you?" asked Jimmieboy. "Are you the kind of a queer thing I can invite into the house or would it be better for me to shut the door and make you stay outside."

"I don't like to say," said the queer thing, with a pathetic little sigh. "I think I'm very nice and that anybody ought to be glad to have me in the house, but that's only my opinion of myself. Somebody else might think differently. In fact somebody else has thought differently. You know rhinoceroses and crocodiles think themselves very handsome, and that's why they sit and gaze at themselves in the water all the time. Everybody else though knows that they are very ugly. Now that's the way with me. As I have said, I'm sure in my own mind that I am perfectly splendid, and yet your Uncle Periwinkle, who thought of me, wouldn't write me and send me to you."

"You must be very wise if you know what you mean," said Jimmieboy. "I don't."

"Oh, no--I'm not so wise--I'm only splendid, that's all," said the other. "You see I'm a valentine, only I never was made. I was only thought of. Your Uncle Periwinkle thought of me and was going to send me to you and then he changed his mind and thought you'd rather have a box of candy; so he didn't write me and sent you a box of chocolate creams instead. The postman's got 'em and if he doesn't find out what they are and eat 'm all up you'll receive them this afternoon. Won't you let me come in and tell you about myself and see if you don't like me? I want to be liked--oh ever so much, and I was awfully disappointed when your uncle decided not to send me. I cried for eight minutes and then resolved to come here myself and see if after all he wasn't wrong. Let me come in and if you don't like me I'll go right out again and never come back."

"I like you already, without knowing what kind of a valentime you are," said Jimmieboy, kindly. "Of course you can come in, and you can stay as long as you want to. I don't believe you'll be in anybody's way."

"Thank you very much," said the valentine, gratefully, as it moved into the house, and, to judge from where its voice next came, settled down on the big sofa cushion. "I hoped you'd say that."

"What kind of a valentime are you?" asked Jimmieboy in a moment. "Are you a funny one or a solemn one, with paper frills all over it in a box and a little cupid peeping out from behind a tree?"

"I am almost afraid to tell you," said the valentine, timidly. "I am so afraid you won't like me."

"Oh, yes I will," said Jimmieboy, hastily. "I like all kinds of valentimes."

"Well, that's a relief," said the other. "I'm comic."

"Hooray!" cried Jimmieboy, "I just love comic valentimes with red and blue pictures in 'em and funny verses."

"Do you really?" returned the valentine, cheerfully. "Then I can say hooray, too, because that's what I was to be. I was to be a picture of a boy with red trousers on, sitting crosswise on a great yellow broomstick, galloping through a blue sky, toward a pink moon. How do you like that?"

"It _is_ splendid, just as you said," returned Jimmieboy, with a broad smile. "Those are my favorite colors."

"You like those colors better than you do chocolate cream color?" asked the valentine.

"Oh, my yes," said Jimmieboy. "Probably you wouldn't be so good to eat as a chocolate cream, but for a valentime, you're much better. I don't want to eat valentimes, I want to keep 'em."

"You don't know how glad you make me," said the pathetic little valentine, its voice trembling with happiness. "Now, if you like my verses as well as you do my picture, I will be perfectly content."

"I guess I'll like 'em," said Jimmieboy. "Can you recite yourself to me?"

"I'm not written--didn't I tell you?" returned the valentine. "That's the good part of it. I can tell you what I might have been and you can take your choice."

"That's good," said Jimmieboy. "Then I'm sure to be satisfied."

"Just so," said the valentine. "Now let me think what I might have been! Hum! Well, what do you think of this:

"If I had a cat with a bright red tail,
And a parrot whose voice was soft and low
I'd put 'em away in a water pail,
And send 'em to where the glowworm's glow.

"And then I would sit on an old whisk broom
And sail through the great, soft starlit sky,
To where the bright moonbeams gaily froom
Their songs to the parboiled Gemini.

"And I'd say to the frooming moonbeams that,
I'd come from the home of the sweet woodbine,
Deserting my parrot and red-tailed cat,
To ask if they'd be my valentine."

"I guess that's good," said Jimmieboy. "Only I don't know what frooming is."

"Neither do I," said the valentine, "but that needn't make any difference. You see, it's a nonsense rhyme any how, and I couldn't remember any word that rhymed with broom. Froom isn't a bad word, and inasmuch as it's new to us we can make it mean anything we want to."

"That's true," said Jimmieboy. "But why do you send the cat and the parrot off?"

"They aren't in the picture," said the valentine, "and so of course we have to get rid of them before we have the boy start off on the broomstick. It would be very awkward to go sailing off through the sky on a broomstick with a parrot and cat in tow. Then to show the moonbeams how much the boy thinks of them you have to have him leave something behind that he thinks a great deal of, and that something might just as well be a parrot and a cat as anything else."

"And what does it all mean?" asked Jimmieboy. "Is the boy supposed to be me?"

"No," explained the valentine. "The boy is supposed to be Uncle Periwinkle, and you are the moonbeams. In putting the poem the way I've told you it's just another and nonsense way of saying that he'll be your valentine and will take a great deal of trouble and make sacrifices to do it if necessary."

"I see," said Jimmieboy. "And I think it very nice indeed--though I might like some other verse better."

"Of course you might," said the valentine. "That's the way with everything. No matter how fine a thing may be, there may be something else that might be better, and the thing to do always is to look about and try to find that better thing. How's this:

"'The broom went around to Jimmieboy's,
And cried, 'Oh, Jimmieboy B.,
Come forth in the night, desert your toys,
And take a fine ride with me.

"I'll take you off through the starlit sky,
We'll visit the moon so fine,
If you will come with alacrity,
And be my valentine.'"

"That isn't so bad, either," said Jimmieboy. "I sort of wish a broomstick would come after me that way and take me sailing off to the moon. I'd be its valentime in a minute if it would do that. I'd like to take a trip through all the stars and see why they twinkle and----"

"Why they twinkle?" interrupted the valentine. "Why they twinkle? Hoh! Why, I can tell you that--for as a secret just between you and me, _I_ know a broomstick that has been up to the stars and he told me all about them. The stars twinkle because from where they are, they are so high up, they can see all that is going on in the world, and they see so many amusing things that it keeps 'em laughing all the time and they have to twinkle just as your eyes do when they see anything funny."

"That's it, is it?" said Jimmieboy.

"Yes, _sir_!" said the valentine, "and it's fine, too, to watch 'em when you are feeling sad. You know how it is when you're feeling sort of unhappy and somebody comes along who feels just the other way, who laughs and sings, how you get to feel better yourself right off? Well, remember the stars when you don't feel good. How they're always twinkling--watch 'em, and by and by you'll begin to twinkle yourself. You can't help it--and further, Jimmieboy," added this altogether strange valentine, "when anybody tries to make you think that this world has got more bad things than good things in it, look at the stars again. They wouldn't twinkle if that was so and until the stars stop twinkling and begin to frown, don't you ever think badly of the world."

"I won't," said Jimmieboy. "I always did like the world. As long as I've been in it I've thought it was a pretty fine place."

"It is," said the valentine. "Nobody can spoil it either--unless you do it yourself--but, I say, if you'd like to have me I'll introduce you to my broomstick friend sometime and maybe some day he'll give you that ride."

"Will you?" cried Jimmieboy with delight. "That will be fine. You are the dearest old valentime that ever was."

Saying which, forgetting in his happiness that the valentine was not to be seen and so could not be touched, Jimmieboy leaned over to hug him affectionately as he sat on the sofa cushion.

Which may account for the fact that when Jimmieboy's papa came home he found Jimmieboy clasping the sofa cushion in his arms, asleep and unconscious of the fact that the postman had come and gone, leaving behind him six comic valentines, four "solemn ones," and a package of chocolate creams from Uncle Periwinkle.

When he waked he was rejoiced to find them, but he has often told me since that the finest valentine he ever got was the one Uncle Periwinkle thought he wouldn't like as well as the candy; and I believe he still has hopes that the invisible valentine may turn up again some day, bringing with him his friend the broomstick who will take Jimmieboy off for a visit to the twinkling stars.

THE MAGIC SLED

_THE MAGIC SLED_

When Jimmieboy waked up the other morning the ground was white with snow and his heart was rejoiced. Like many another small youth Jimmieboy has very little use for green winters. He likes them white. Somehow or other they do not seem like winters if they haven't plenty of snow and he had been much afraid that the season was going to pass away without bringing to him an opportunity to use the beautiful sled Santa Claus had brought him at Christmas.

It was a fine sled, one of the finest he had ever seen. It had a red back, yellow runners and two swan heads standing erect in front of it to tell it which way it should go. On the red surface of the back was painted its name in very artistic blue letters, and that name was nothing more nor less than "Magic."

"Hooray," he cried as he rushed to the window and saw the dazzling silver coating on the lawn and street. "Snow at last! Now I can see if Magic can slide."

He dressed hastily--so hastily in fact that he had to undress again, because it was discovered by his mother, who came to see how he was getting along, that he had put on his stocking wrong side out, and that his left shoe was making his right foot uncomfortable.

"Don't be in such a hurry," said his Mamma. "There was a man once who was always in such a hurry that he forgot to take his head down town with him one day, and when lunch time came he hadn't anything with him to eat his lunch with."

"But I want to slide," said Jimmieboy, "and I'm afraid there'll be a slaw come along and melt the snow."

Jimmieboy always called thaws slaws, so his mother wasn't surprised at this remark, and in a few minutes the boy was ready to coast.

"Come along, Magic!" he said, gleefully catching up the rope. "We'll see now if Uncle Periwinkle was right when he said he didn't think you'd go more'n a mile a minute, unless you had a roller-skate on both your runners."

And then, though Jimmieboy did not notice it, the left-hand swan-head winked its eye at the other swan-head and whispered, "Humph! It's plain Uncle Periwinkle doesn't know that we are a magic sled."

"Well, why should he?" returned the other swan-head, with a laugh. "He never slode on us."

"I'm glad I'm not an uncle," said the left-hand head. "Uncles don't know half as much as we do."

"And why should they!" put in the other. "They haven't had the importunities we have for gaining knowledge. A man who has lived all his days in one country and which has never slad around the world like us has, don't see things the way us would."

And still Jimmieboy did not notice that the swan-heads were talking together, though I can hardly blame him for that, because, now that he was out of doors he had to keep his eyes wide open to keep from bumping his head into the snow balls the hired man was throwing at him. In a few minutes, however, he did notice the peculiar fact and he was so surprised that he sat plump down on the red back of the sled and was off for--well, where the sled took him, and of all the slides that ever were slid, that was indeed the strangest. No sooner had he sat down than with a leap that nearly threw him off his balance, the swans started. The steel runners crackled merrily over the snow, and the wind itself was soon left behind.

"C-can you sus-swans tut-talk?" Jimmieboy cried, in amazement, as soon as he could get his breath.

"Oh, no, of course not," said the right-hand swan. "_We_ can't talk, can we Swanny?"

"No, indeed, Swayny," returned the other with a laugh. "You may think we talk, you may even hear words from our lips, we might even recite a poem, but that wouldn't be talk--oh, no, indeed. Certainly not."

"It's a queer question for him to ask, eh Swanny?" said the right-hand head.

"Extraordinary, Swayny," said the one on the left. "Might as well ask a locomotive if it smokes."

"Well, I only wanted to know," said Jimmieboy.

"He only wanted to know, Swanny," said Swayny.

"I presume that was why he asked--as though we didn't know that," said Swanny. "He'd ask a pie-man with a tray full of pies, if he had any pies, I believe."

"Yes, or a cat if he could miaou. Queer boy," returned Swayny. And then he added:

"I think a boy, who'd waste his time
In asking questions such as that,
Would ask a man, who dealt in rhyme
If he'd a head inside his hat."

Jimmieboy laughed.

"You know poetry, don't you," he said.

"Well, rather," said Swayny. "That is to say, I can tell it from a church steeple."