Chapter XI: An Odd Party (2)

And so I began thus: "Little Lazy Larkin laughed and leaped, or longed and lounged the livelong day, and loved not labor, but liked leisure."

"Ha! ha!" cried the Wee Chick; "that sounds so funny!"

"It's got so many l's, that's the reason," said Fairy.

"Tell it right," said Sunbeam.

"Well, then," I said, "Larkin was an indolent juvenile, fond of mirthfulness and cachinatory and saltatory exercises--"

"I don't know what you mean!" said Fairy, just ready to get angry.

"Sech awful big words!" cried the Little Pullet; "they is as big--as big as punkins!"

"I guess that's what they call hifalutin," said Sunbeam; "now do tell it right."

And so I told it "right."

Larkin was an idle fellow, and was so utterly good-for-nothing, that he came to be called "Lazy Larkin." It is a dreadful thing to get a bad name when you are young. It sticks to you like a sand burr. Larkin would neither work nor study. He did not even like good, hearty play, for any great length of time, but was very fond of the play that boys call _mumble-the-peg_, because, as he said, you could sit down to play it. He fished a little, but if the fish did not bite at the first place, he sat down; he would not move, but just sat and waited for them to come to him.

He had gone out to Bass Lake to fish, one day, in company with some other boys, but they had put him out of the boat because he was too lazy to row when his turn came. The others were rowing about, trolling for pickerel, and he sat down on a point of land called "Duck Point," and went to fishing. As the fish would not bite, he sat looking at them in the clear water, and wishing that he was a fish--they had such a lazy time of it, lying there in the sun, or paddling idly around through the water. He saw a large pickerel lying perfectly still over a certain spot near the shore. When other fish came near the pickerel, it darted out and drove them off, and then paddled back to the same place again. Larkin dropped his bait near by, but the fish paid no attention to it, and, indeed, seemed to have nothing to do but to lie still in the same place.

"I wish I were a pickerel," said the lazy fellow; "I wouldn't have to carry in wood or pull weeds out of the garden, or feed the chickens, or get the multiplication table, or--or--do anything else;" and he gave one vast yawn, stretching his mouth so wide, and keeping it open so long, that it really seemed as if he never would get it together again. When it did shut, his eyes shut with it, for the fellow was too lazy to hold them open.

"Ha! ha! lazy fellow! lazy fellow!"

Larkin heard some one say this, and raised up his head to see who it was. Not finding any one about, he thought he must have been dreaming. So he just gave one more yawn, opening his mouth like the lid of an old tin coffee-pot, and keeping it open nearly a minute. Then he stretched himself upon the grass again.

"Ha! ha! lazy fellow! lazy fellow!"

This time there seemed to be half a dozen voices, but Larkin felt too lazy to look up.

"Ha! ha! very lazy fellow!"

Larkin just got one eye open a little, and looked around to see where the sound came from. After a while, he saw a dozen or more very odd, queer-looking creatures, sitting on the broad, round leaves of the water-lilies, that floated on the surface of the lake. These little people had white caps, for all the world like the white lily blossoms that were bobbing up and down around them. In fact, it took Larkin some time to make out clearly that they were not lilies. But finally he saw their faces peeping out, and noticed that they had no hands, but only fins instead. Then he noticed that their coats were beautifully mottled, like the sides of the pickerel, and their feet flattened out, like a fish's tail. Soon he saw that others of the same kind were coming up, all dripping, from the water, and taking their places on the leaves; and as each new-comer arrived, the others kept saying,

"Ha! ha! lazy fellow! very lazy fellow!"

And then the others would look at him, and shake their speckled sides with laughter, and say, "Lazy fellow! ha! ha!"

Poor Larkin was used to being laughed at, but it was provoking to be laughed at by these queer-looking folk, sitting on the lilies in the water. Soon he saw that there were nearly a hundred of them gathered.

"Come on, Joblilies!" cried one of them, who carried a long fish-bone, and seemed to be leader; "let's make a Joblily of him."

Upon that the whole swarm of them came ashore. The leader stuck his fish-bone in Larkin, and made him cry out. Then they all set up another laugh, and another cry of "lazy fellow!"

"Bring me three grains of silver-white sand from the middle of the lake," said the leader; and two of them jumped into the water and disappeared.

"Now fetch three blades of dry grass from the lining of the kingfisher's nest," he said; and immediately two others were gone.

When the four returned, the leader dropped the grains of sand in Larkin's eyes, saying,

"Three grains of silver sand,
From the Joblily's hand!
Where shall the Joblily lie,
When the young owl learns to fly?"

Then they all jumped upon him and stamped, but Larkin could not move hand or foot. In fact, he found that his hands were flattening out, like fins. The leader then put the three blades of grass in Larkin's mouth, and said,

"Eat a dry blade! eat a dry blade!
From the nest that the kingfisher made!
What will the Joblilies do,
When the old owl cries tu-whoo?"

And then the whole party set up such a cry of "tu-whoo! tu-whoo!" that Larkin was frightened beyond measure; and they caught him and rolled him over rapidly, until he found himself falling with a great splash into the water. On rising to the surface, he saw that he was changed into a Joblily himself.

Then the whole party broke out singing,

"When the sun shines the Joblilies roam;
When the storm comes we play with the foam;
When the owl hoots Joblilies fly home!"

When they had sung this, they all went under the water; and the leader, giving Larkin a thrust with his fish-bone, cried out, "Come along!" and Lazy Larkin had nothing to do but to swim after them. Once under the water, the scene was exceedingly beautiful. The great umbrella-like leaves of the lilies made spots of shadow in the water and on the pebbles of the bottom, while the streaks of sunshine that came down between flecked everything with patches of glorious light, just as you have seen the hills and valleys made glorious by alternate patches of light and shade, produced by the shadows of the clouds. And the tall lily stems, in the soft light, appeared to be pillars, while the great variety of water weed, that wound about them in strange festoons, was glorious beyond description. There were beautiful bass turning their sides up to the sun, and darting about through these strange, weird scenes, seeming to enjoy their glorious abode.

"You have an easy time of it, no doubt," said Larkin, to one of these fish.

"Easy time of it, indeed! I have rather a happy time of it, because I have plenty to do; but you are a strange Joblily if you do not know that I have anything but an easy time of it. Chasing minnows, jumping three feet out of water after a butterfly, catching wigglers and mosquitoes, and keeping a sharp lookout for unlucky grasshoppers that may chance to fall in my way; all these are not easy. I tell you, there is no family of our social position that has more trouble to earn a living than the bass family."

"Come along," said the Joblily, giving another punch with his fish-bone; and Larkin travelled on.

Presently they came to a log with something growing on it.

"What beautiful moss!"

"Moss, indeed!" said one of the Joblilies; "that is a colony of small animals, all fast to one stem."

"They have an easy time of it, I suppose," said Lazy Larkin; "they don't have to travel, for they cannot move."

"True, but these beautiful, transparent moss animals have to get their living by catching creatures so small that you cannot see them. They have great numbers of little fingers or feelers that are going all the time."

Larkin touched one, and it immediately drew itself in,--really _swallowed itself_; for these little things take this way of saving themselves from harm.

And so Larkin swam on, and found that it was a busy world beneath the lake. He saw mussels slowly crawling through the sand; he found that the pickerel, which he had supposed idle, was really standing guard over her nest, and fanning the water with her fins all day long, that a current of fresh water might be supplied to her eggs. And all the time the Joblilies kept singing--

"Work! work!
Never shirk!
There is work for you,
Work for all to do!
Happy they who do it,
They that shirk shall rue it!"

And after their long swim around the lake, the Joblilies came back to Duck Point again, and climbed out on the lily leaves. No sooner had Larkin seated himself with the rest than he heard a great owl cry, "Tu-whit! tu-whoo!"

Immediately the Joblilies leaped into the air, and the whole hundred of them dashed into the water like so many bull-frogs, crying, as they came down,

"What will the Joblily do,
When the great owl cries tu-whoo?"

Larkin looked around suddenly to see whither they had gone, but could discover no trace of them. A moment after, he found himself sitting under the same tree that he was under when the Joblilies came for him. The boys had gone, and he was forced to walk home alone. He thought carefully over his trip with the Joblilies, and, I am glad to say, gradually learned to be more industrious, though it took him a long while to overcome his lazy habits, and still longer to get rid of the name of Lazy Larkin. But he remembered the jingle of the Joblilies, and I trust you will not forget it:

"Work! work!
Never shirk!
There is work for you,
Work for all to do!
Happy they who do it,
They that shirk shall rue it!"

THE PICKANINNY.

It was rather a warm day in autumn. Aunt Cheerie had given the sewing-machine and the piano a holiday, and was sitting in the woodshed, paring apples for preserves. Wherever Aunt Cheerie was, the children were sure to be; and so there was Sunbeam, knife in hand, and Fairy, cutting a paring something less than half an inch thick, while the dear little Chicken was wiping apples for the others to pare, and little Tow-head, baby-brother, was trying to upset the peach-box, in which were a couple of pet chickens, that were hatched out too late, and that had to be kept in-doors to secure them from Jack Frost. For you must know that at "The Nest" Sunbeam is called the "Old Hen." That is, she has charge of the chickens. They know her so well that, when she feeds them, they fly up on her shoulders and eat out of her hands. And if there is any unfortunate one, it is well cared for. One poor, little wayward pullet wandered into our neighbor's garden. She was very naughty, doubtless, but she got severely punished; for our neighbor thinks a great deal of his garden, and not much of chickens, unless they are fricasseed. He shot at our little runaway pullet, and the poor thing came home dragging a broken and useless leg. Now, if any chicken ever had good care, our little "Lamey" has. After weary weeks of suffering in hot weather, it is at last able to walk on both feet, though the broken leg is sadly crooked. The children do not object to having the other chickens killed for the table, but little Lamey's life is insured.

But how did I get to talking about chickens? I was going to say that when I came home, and found the folks paring apples, I went out in the shed, too, and sat down by the Little Chick.

And Chicken Little jerked her head and looked mischievously out of her bright eyes, and said: "See how nice we is peelin' apples. We's makin' peserves, we is; 'cause they is good to eat, they is. And you mus' tell me a story, you mus', 'cause I'm a-helpin' Aunt Cheerie, I am."

For you must know that the Small Chick is not very polite, and doesn't say "please," when she can help it.

"Lend us a hand at the apples, too," said Aunt Cheerie.

"No, I can't tell stories and pare apples, too."

"Does you need your fingers to tell stories wid, like the dumbers that we heard talk without saying anything?"

Chicken Small had been to an exhibition of Professor Gillett's deaf and dumb pupils.

"Well, no," I said; "but you see, Chicken, I never could make my tongue and my fingers go at the same time."

"I should think you had never done much with your fingers, then," said Aunt Cheerie; "for I never knew your tongue to be still, except when you were asleep."

I felt a little anxious to change the subject, and so began the story at once.

"Little Sukey Gray----"

"What a funny name!" cried the Fairy.

Yes, and a funny girl was Sukey Gray. She had yellow hair that was tied up in an old-fashioned knot, behind, though she was only eleven years old; for you must know that Sukey lived in a part of the country where chignons and top-knots of the latest style were unknown. Now Sukey's way of doing up her hair in a great knot, behind, with an old-fashioned tuck comb, was not pretty. But Susan Gray lived in what was called the "White-Oak Flats;" a region sometimes called the "Hoop-Pole Country." It was not the most enlightened place in the world, for there was no school, except for a short time in winter, and the people were very superstitious, believing that if they carried a hoe through the house, or broke a looking-glass, somebody "would die before long," and thinking that a screech-owl's scream and the howling of a dog were warnings; and that potatoes must be planted in the "dark of the moon," because they grew underground, and corn in the "light of the moon," because it grew above ground; and that hogs must be killed in the increase of the moon, to keep the pork from frying away to gravy!

As Sukey had always lived in the White-Oak Flats, she did not know that they were dreary, for she was always happy, doing her work cheerfully. But one of Susan's cousins, who lived a hundred miles away, had made her a visit. This cousin, like Sukey, lived in the country, but she had plenty of books and had read many curious and wonderful things, with which she was accustomed to delight Sukey.

But when Cousin Annie was gone, Sukey found the Flats a dreary place. She wished there were some pagodas, such as they have in India, or that there were some cannibals living near her. She thought if she were rich, she would buy an omnibus, with four "blaze-faced" sorrel horses, to drive for her own amusement. She got tired of the pumpkins and cabbages, and longed for grizzly bears and red Indians. She hated to wash dishes and feed the chickens, but thought she would like to be a slave on a coffee plantation in Ceylon.

"Oh, dear!" she sighed, "I wish I was out of the Hoop-Pole Country. There is nothing beautiful or curious in these flats. I am tired of great yellow sunflowers and hollyhocks and pumpkin blossoms. I wish I could see something curious or beautiful."

Now, isn't it strange that any little girl should talk so, with plenty of birds and trees and sunshine? But so it is with most of us. We generally refuse to enjoy what is in our reach, and long for something that we cannot get. Just as Chicken Little, here, always wants milk when there is none, and always asks for tea when you offer her milk.

"Well, 'cause I'm firsty, that's the reason," said the Chicken.

Now, when Sukey said this, she was up in the loft, or second story, if you could call it story, of her father's house. She sat on a bench, looking out of the gable window at the old stick chimney, made by building a square _cob-house_ arrangement of sticks of wood, tapering toward the top, and plastering it with clay. The top of the chimney was surrounded by a barrel with both ends open, through which the smoke climbed lazily up into the air. Near by stood an oak-tree, in which a jay-bird was screaming and dancing in a jerky way. Sukey then looked away into the blue sky, and the clouds seemed to become pagodas, and palm-trees, and golden ships floating drowsily away. All at once she heard somebody say, in a queer, birdlike voice--

"Pray, look this way, little Sukey Gray. May I make bold to say you are looking grum to-day? You neither laugh nor play; now what's the reason, pray?"

Sukey started up to see where this funny jingle came from. There, in the oak-tree, where the jay-bird had stood a few minutes before, was a queer-looking little chap, in blue coat and pants, with a top-knot cap and a rather sharp nose. He looked a little like a jay-bird, but had a most comical face and blinky eyes, and brought his words out in short jerks, making them rhyme in an odd sort of jingle. And all the time he was dancing and laughing and turning rapid somersaults, as if the little blue coat could hardly hold so much fun.

"Well, now," broke out Sukey, "you are the only curious thing in all the Hoop Pole Country. I've been wishing for something odd or strange, and I am glad you have come, for there is nothing beautiful or curious in all the White-Oak Flats."

"Why, Sukey Gray! What's that you say? You must be blind as a pumpkin rind, or a leather-winged bat; this White-Oak Flat is just the place to look the beautiful right in the face. Now come with me, and we will see that the little bee, or this great oak tree, or the bright, blue skies, are beautiful things, if we open our eyes."

All the while the little fellow was getting off this queer speech, he was swinging and tumbling along up the great limb that reached out toward the window at which Sukey sat. By the time he had finished it, he was standing on the window-sill, where he had alighted after a giddy somersault. He laughed heartily--so heartily that Sukey laughed, too, though she could not tell why. Then he took off his cap, and said,

"A pickaninny, at your service, Sukey Gray! Will you take a walk with me to-day? Now jump, while you may!" and he took hold of her two hands and jumped, and she jumped after him, feeling as light as a feather.

They alighted on the branch of the oak-tree. He immediately began to pull lichens off the bark, and show Sukey how curious they were. He showed her how curiously one kind of lichen grew upon another, omitting its own stalk and leaves, and making use of those of the other. Then he laughed at her, because he had found curious things within ten feet of her window.

Next he took her to her own rosebush, and showed her how the limbs were swelled in some places. Then breaking off the twig, he placed it against a tree, and began to pound it with his fist. But his little arm was not strong, and he had to strike it several times before he could break it open. When it did fly open, Sukey started back at seeing it full of plant-lice, or aphides.

"Now," said the pickaninny, "in this little house what curious things! These little aphides have no wings. But their great-great-grandfathers, and their great-great-grandmothers had. Their mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers had none, and their children will have none, and their grandchildren will have none, and their great-grandchildren will have none; but their great-great-grandchildren will have wings again, for every ninth generation can fly."

"How curious!" said Sukey.

Then the pickaninny found a swamp blackbird's nest, and showed her how strangely it was made; then they climbed down the chimney of the school-house, and he showed her how the chimney swallow glued her nest together; and he coaxed a katydid to fiddle with his wings, that she might see that. At last they entered the pumpkin patch.

"Well," said Sukey, "there's nothing curious here. I know all about pumpkins."

With that the pickaninny commenced to jump up and down on one, but he was so light that he could not break it. He kept jumping higher and higher; now he was bouncing up ten feet in the air, then fifteen, then twenty, until at last he leaped up as high as the top of the oak-tree, and coming down, he struck his heels through the pumpkin. Sukey laughed till the tears ran off her chin. The pickaninny thrust his arm in and took out a seed. Then breaking that open, he showed Susan that the inside of a pumpkin seed was two white leaves, the first leaves of the young pumpkin vine. And so an hour passed while the pickaninny showed her many curious things, of which I have not time to tell you.

At last he said, "Now, Sukey Gray, pray let me fly away!"

"I shall not keep you if you want to go," said Susan.

"Then pluck the mistletoe, and let me go."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I cannot go until you pluck the mistletoe."

Sukey pulled a piece of mistletoe from the limb where they were standing, and he bowed and said,

"Now, Sukey Gray, good-day. Don't waste your sighs, but use your eyes."

With that he leaped into the air. Susy looked up, but there was only the bluejay, crying, "Jay! jay! jay!" in a peevish way, and herself looking out the window.

"What a wonderful country the White-Oak Flats must be," she said. And the more she used her eyes, the more she was satisfied that the Hoop-Pole Country was the most wonderful in the world.

THE GREAT PANJANDRUM HIMSELF.

Chicken Little was a picture, sitting on the floor by the window, with a stereoscope--"the thing 'at you look fru," she calls it--in her hand, and the pictures scattered about her.

Now some of the children think that I have been "making up" Chicken Little, and that there is no such a being. A few weeks ago, after I had been talking to a great church full of people, there came up to me a very sweet little girl.

"Do you write stories in _The Little Corporal_?" she asked.

When I told her I did, she looked up, and asked, earnestly, "Well, is there any real, live Chicken Little?"

Now there may be others of the great army of _The Little Corporal_ that want to know whether there is any "real, live Chicken Little." I tell you there is. If you could see her merry mischievous face; if you could see her when she stands up on my shoulders like a monkey; if you had heard her, yesterday, explain that God could see in the stove when all the doors were shut; if you could see how she always manages to do what you don't want her to do, and then find a good excuse for it afterward; you would think there was a live, real "Chicken Little." If you could have seen the old, funny twinkle in her eye, when I found her with the stereoscope, you would have thought she was a real, live Chicken, sure enough.

"Now, then, you've got to tell me a story," she said.

"'_Got to_' don't tell stories."

"Well, p'ease tell me one, then."

"Yes," said Sunbeam, peeping in, "about the Great Panjandrum himself."

"Ah! you little mink," I said, "how did you get hold of my secret?"

"Why, I knew it all the time."

Now, you see, the case was this; I did not know that the children understood where the names of the Garuly and the Joblily, and the Pickaninny came from. But Sunbeam, who dips a little here and there into a great many books, and who never forgets anything she hears, had somehow gotten hold of my secret. It was this. There was a man who could repeat whatever he read once. One of his friends undertook to write something that he could not remember. So he wrote nonsense, and the man with the long memory failed to remember it. The nonsense, which I read when I was a boy, is, if I remember it rightly, as follows:

"She went into the garden to cut a cabbage leaf to make an apple pie; and a great she-bear coming down the street thrust his head into the shop. 'What, no soap?' So he died, and she very imprudently married the barber. And there were present the Garulies, and the Joblilies, and the Pickaninnies, and the Great Panjandrum himself, with his little, round button-at-the-top; and they all fell to playing the game of 'Catch-as-catch-can,' till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots."

Now you see where the Garulies and the Joblilies and the Pickaninnies came from. And that's why the children thought the next story should be about the Great Panjandrum. And so I began:

I was wandering, one day, in the Land of Nod, in that part of it known as the state of Dreams, and in the county of Sleep, and in Doze township, not far from the village of Shuteyetown, in Sleepy Hollow, where stands the Church of the Seven Sleepers, on the corner of Snoring Lane and Sluggard Avenue, near Slumber Hall, owned by the Independent Association of Sleepy-headed Nincompoops.

"What a place!" said Fairy.

Well, as I was going to say, I was walking through Sleepy Hollow, when I met some children.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"We want to find a four-leaved clover and a beetle with one eye," said one of them; "for if we can find them, we shall be able to get into the Great Panjandrum's place, and there we can learn whether there is a bag of gold at the end of the rainbow or not."

Now, I was seized with a great desire to see the illustrious Panjandrum for myself, and to know what he had to say of that wonderful bag of gold that was to be found at the place where the rainbow touched the ground. And so I fell to work with the happy boys and girls, looking for a one-eyed beetle and a four-leaved clover. The clover was soon found, but it was a long time before we got the beetle. At last we came to a log on which two of that sort of beetles that children call "pinch-bugs" were fighting. Whether they were prize-fighters, engaged in a combat for one thousand dollars a side, or whether they were fighting a duel about some affair of honor, I do not know; but I did notice that they fought most brutally, scratching away savagely on each other's hard shells, without doing a great deal of damage, however. But one of them had lost one eye in the fight, and so we seized him and made off, leaving the other to snap his tongs together in anger because he had nobody to pinch. It must be a dreadful thing to want to hurt somebody and have nobody to hurt.

When we had gone some distance, we came to a gate that had a very curious sign over it. It read, "The Great Panjandrum Himself." There was a Garuly with a club standing by the gate, and a Pickaninny, in a blue coat with a long tail, hopping around on top of it. We showed the one-eyed beetle and the four-leaved clover, and the Garuly immediately hit the gate a ringing blow with his club, and shouted, "Beetle! beetle! beetle!" in a wonderfully sharp and squeaking voice, while the Pickaninny on top jerked a little bell rope, and sung out "Clover." Then we could see through the gate a Joblily lifting his head up out of a pond, inside the enclosure.

"How many eyes?" he asked.

"One," said the Garuly.

"How many leaves?" he said, again.

"Four," returned the Pickaninny.

"Then let them in that they may see the Great Panjandrum himself, and learn whether there be a bag of gold at the end of the rainbow." Saying this the Joblily went under the water and the gate opened.

We passed three gates, that were opened in the same manner, and found ourselves in front of a queer old house, with seventy-seven gables and ever so many doors, and over every door was written, "The Great Panjandrum Himself." There was a great bustle about the place, dried-up Garulies running around, dandy-looking Pickaninnies hopping about, and Joblilies swimming in the lake. We asked what it all meant, and were told that "she was going to marry the barber;" and then they all tittered, and we could not for the life of us tell what this pother meant. When we told a Garuly that we wanted to see the Great Panjandrum himself, and to find out whether there was a bag of gold at the end of the rainbow, he took our one-eyed beetle, and gave the four-leaved clover to a Pickaninny. Together they took them into the house, and a Joblily came out in a moment to tell us that the Great Panjandrum was having his little round button-at-the-top brushed up, and that if we chose we could wait for him in the museum.

The museum was a queer place. It was just inside the seventy-seventh gable of the house. There was an old Garuly who acted as showman. We first stopped before a cage that contained a crazy mouse. "This," said the showman, "is the mouse that ran up the clock. Just as he got up there, the clock struck one, and though the poor fellow ran back again, he has never been right since. This long slender cow, that you see, has a great taste for music. She is the one that jumped over the moon when the cat played the fiddle. The cat has never been allowed to play since. This is the little dog that laughed on that occasion. He was so much amused that he has never been able to get his face straight since. In this pot you see some of the cold plum porridge, with the eating of which the man in the South burnt his mouth. Here is a portrait of the man in the moon, when he came down too soon to inquire the way to Norwich. In one of the other gables of this house I can show you Mother Goose's cap frill. And here is the arrow with which Cock Robin was cruelly murdered by the sparrow. This is the original and genuine arrow; all others are humbugs. This is the bone that Mother Hubbard went to look for, but failed to find. Here are the skates on which the

"Three boys went a-skating
All on a summer's day,
They all fell in,
And the rest ran away."

And here is the skin of the wolf that Little Red Ridinghood met in the woods."

I was just going to inquire of him which was the true version of that story, whether the wolf really ate Little Red Ridinghood up, or whether she ate the wolf; but before I got a chance, a Joblily came in to say that the Great Panjandrum himself was coming, and soon the queerest little, old, round, fat man came in, puffing like a porpoise, and rolling from side to side as he walked. His hair looked like sea grass, and was partly covered by a queer concern, nothing less than the celebrated "little round button-at-the-top."

"And so you want to see whether there is really a bag of gold at the end of the rainbow, do you? Well, I'll show you, though I haven't much time, for he died last week, and she very imprudently intends to marry the barber."

This is what the Panjandrum said, and we never could tell who "she" was, nor, indeed, whom he meant by the barber.

"Pickaninnies, open the wonderful Pantoscopticon, and let them see."

The wonderful Pantoscopticon was brought out, and we were allowed to look in it.

There were holes enough for us all to see, and we beheld several rainbows in one sky. On one of them was marked "Get and keep," on another "Eat, drink, and be merry," besides some that were too far away for me to read. There was one that had an inscription in unknown letters that shone with their own light. Though I could not read the words, they reminded me somehow of the Latin sentence which I once read over the gate of a park belonging to the richest duke in England, which says, that goodness is the only true nobility, or something of the sort.

All the time we were looking the Great Panjandrum Himself, with his little round button-at-the-top on his head, was turning a crank in the side of the wonderful Pantoscopticon, which had a hopper on the top of it like that of an old-fashioned coffee-mill. As he turned he kept puffing out:

"If you want to find out whether there is any gold at the end of the rainbow, please walk up the ladder, get into the hopper, and be ground down to a proper size." He hissed out the word size, drawing it as long as his breath would hold.

I didn't know what his words meant until a lady with a red parasol went round behind the Pantoscopticon and climbed to the top. After looking down at the rattling wheels of the machinery a moment, she jumped into the hopper, just as the Panjandrum came round again to the word "s--i--z--e." I looked into the machine and had the satisfaction to see this lady come out, not in pieces as I expected, but looking just as she did when she went in, except that she was reduced to rather less than an inch in height. Her parasol was a mere rose-leaf for size--about as big as a silver three-cent piece. A gentleman with a white hat, whom I had seen walking through the museum with this lady, and who seemed to be her husband, stood looking into the peep-holes when she came out. He cried:

"Hold on, Amanda, and I'll go with you to see about the rainbows and the pot of gold."

But the little lady with the red parasol didn't seem to hear him, she only walked ahead eagerly toward the rainbows. The gentleman with the white hat rushed up the stairs and leaped into the hopper without a moment's pause, and the Great Panjandrum Himself, seeing that the man was in a hurry, turned the crank twice as fast as before. The gentleman was caught in the wheels and sent a-whirling. When he came to the bottom, properly reduced, the speed of the machinery was such that he was thrown out with a shock and his white hat, about the size of a doll's thimble, fell off, so that he had to pick it up, crying out as he did so:

"Hold on, Amanda, and I'll go with you."

The little lady with the red parasol seemed to hear him this time, for she turned her head long enough to say something, but she kept walking briskly forward, either because she couldn't help it, or more likely for fear somebody else would get the pot of gold which, as everybody knows, lies at the end of a rainbow. However, by running, the little inch-long gentleman caught up with the seven-eighths of an inch lady, and the two went along together to find the pot of gold.

Still the Great Panjandrum kept toiling at the crank, while others plunged into the hopper and came out "ground down to a proper size," as the Great Panjan kept saying. Presently some of the children who had come in with me jumped into the hopper and came out about half an inch in length. The others followed, and I went up to the top and looked at the whirling wheels, fearing to make the leap. But at last I became fascinated and could not take away my eyes. I did not care about the pot of gold, nor about the rainbows, nor did I exactly like the idea of being "ground down to a proper size." But I looked at the wheels until I became dizzy, and at length fell into the whirl and was pitched and turned about in the most frightful way until I came out at the bottom. I felt as big as ever, but when I looked up and saw the eyes of the people staring at me through the peep-holes and found that these eyes were nearly as large across as I was tall, I knew that I must have been ground down. I ran after the children and went on for a long time, trying to find the ends of the rainbows. There were many suns in the sky and many rainbows, but no pots of gold, nor would the ends of the rainbows wait for us.

At length we came to the one written over with unknown letters that shone with their own light. This one stood still, having one end resting in a low-lying valley and the other end on top of a high mountain, which was very steep and difficult to climb. At the lower end we found an earthen pot sealed up, which the gentleman in the white hat proceeded to open. To the disappointment of the lady with the red parasol and all of us, there was not a piece of gold in it--only a paper on which was written,

"THE GOLD IS AT THE HIGHEST END OF THE RAINBOW."

We looked up the mountain-side, but all of us by this time felt too weary and lazy to scramble up the cliffs, and among the thorns to find a pot of gold. Besides we were hungry, and not a little uneasy as to how we should get back our proper size. A ground-down Pickaninny who had joined us proposed to hop over along the arch of the rainbow and see whether there was any gold on the mountain-top. Being very light he easily ran up the bow, while we, anxious to get out, did not even wait for him to come back, but hurried down the long road toward the peep-holes and the grinding-machine. I say the long road, for it seemed miles to us little people. I suppose we had travelled twice the length of a good-sized house from the starting-point, and that is a long journey for legs so short.

All the way we wondered how we should get out, and whether we should ever regain our proper stature. When we came to the grinding place the mill was still. We accosted an old Garuly who was wandering about.

"How do we get out?" I said.

"Why, by getting the Great Panjandrum Himself to set the thing a-going the other way," he squeaked.

Then he walked to a speaking-tube and shouted:

"O Great Pan, grind 'em upward."

All this time I could see the eyes of ladies and gentlemen looking at us through the peep-holes, and their eyes were about as big as wagon-wheels to my sight. I felt mean to be stared at by such gigantic goggle-eyed creatures.

The Panjandrum did not start the wheels at once because he was looking around for his little round button-at-the-top without which he cannot do anything. At length when the wheels were set a-going, the man in the white hat and the lady with the red parasol went up, and I was just about to climb up the pipe myself, to get out of the glare of the people's eyes, when one of the children cried out:

"O sir! we'll never get home. We can't reach the tube."

So I took hold of them one after another and pushed them up the spout until the wheels running backward caught them. Whenever a boy or girl slipped out of my hands I would soon after see two more of those hateful big eyes looking at me through the peep-holes. All the time I was afraid the Panjandrum Himself would quit turning or that his little round button-at-the-top would blow off before I could get out. And just as I thrust the last boy up the spout the wheels began to slacken.

"Quick," cried the Garuly, "the Great Pan has let go of the machine. Your last chance for to-day is to get through on the headway."

I climbed in, immediately, but I could feel the works gradually stopping. Slowly my head and my body came out at the top, but the wheels stopped stock-still before my left foot could be drawn out. It was only by slipping my foot out of my boot that I escaped.

Just as I got out there came along the Pickaninny that had gone over on the rainbow. He had come back some other way known to Pickaninnies and had in his arms a pot just like the one we had seen. But this one was full, and he set it down for us to look at. There were doubloons of Spain, there were pistoles, guineas, Arabian pieces, Jewish money, coins of Alexander the Great, and I know not what besides.

While we were examining these, a Garuly came in to say that the she-bear had brought the soap, and that the barber was waiting. The Great Panjandrum, in a state of flustration, hurried past us, and we, not knowing what else to do, stood looking at each other. Just then a Joblily went by with a cabbage leaf.

"What is that?" asked one of the little girls of our party.

"A cabbage leaf to make an apple pie," he replied, without looking around.

Presently a Pickaninny came along with a small keg in his hands.

"What is that?" asked the same curious little girl.

"Gunpowder for the heels of their boots," he answered, and went on.

And a spark of fire from one of the seventy-seven chimneys fell into the keg, and there was a frightful explosion.

But I don't think it was the Panjandrum's house that got blown up, but we ourselves, for we found ourselves outside in the woods going home from Shuteyetown. I for one resolved that the next time I came to the rainbow with one foot in the valley and the other in the mountain. I should climb to the upper end of it.

Stories Told on a Cellar-door.

THE STORY OF A FLUTTER-WHEEL.

What queer places boys have of assembling. Sometimes in one place, sometimes in another. Hay-mows, river-banks, threshing-floors, these were the old places of resort for country boys. And nothing was so sweet to me, when I was a boy, as the newly cut clover-hay where I sat with two or three companions, watching the barn swallows chattering their incomprehensible gabble and gossip from the doors of their mud houses in the rafters. And what stories we told and what talks we had. In the city who does not remember the old-fashioned cellar-door, sloping down to the ground? These were always places of resort.

Tom Miller was the minister's son, and there was a party of boys who met regularly on Parson Miller's cellar-door. Mrs. Miller used herself to listen to the stories they told, as she sat by the window above them, though they were unconscious of her presence. They were boys full of life and ambition, but they were a good set of boys on the whole, and it was not till lessons were learned and work done that they met thus on the cellar-door. They belonged to the same class in school, and besides were "cronies" in all respects. There was Tom Miller, the minister's son, who intended to be a minister himself, and Jimmy Jackson, the shoemaker's boy, as full of fun and playfulness as a kitten, and poor Will Sampson, who stammered, and Harry Wilson, the son of a wealthy banker, and a brave boy too, and John Harlan, the widow's son, pale and slender, the pet of all, and great, stout Hans Schlegal, who bade fair to be a great scholar. These half dozen were nearly always on the cellar-door for half an hour on Friday evenings, when they happened to have a little more leisure than on other evenings.

"I say, boys," said Hans, "I've got an idea."

"How strange it must seem to you," said Tom Miller; whereupon they all laughed, good-natured Hans with the rest.

"Do let's hear it," said Harry; "there has not been an idea in this crowd for a month."

"Well," said Hans, "let's every fellow tell a story here on the cellar door, turn about, on Friday evenings."

"All except m-m-me," stammered Sampson, who was always laughing at his own defect; "I c-c-couldn't g-g-get through be-be-fore midnight."

"Well," said Miller, "we'll make Will Sampson chairman, to keep us in order."

They all agreed to this, and Sampson moved up to the top of the cellar-door and said: "G-g-gentlemen, th-th-this is th-th-the proudest m-m-moment of my life. I'm president of the C-c-cellar-d-d-door C-club! M-m-many thanks! Harry Wilson will tell the first st-st-story."

"Agreed!" said the boys. After thinking a minute, Harry began.

_HARRY WILSON'S STORY._

I will tell you a story that my father told me. In a village in Pennsylvania, on the banks of the Schuylkill River, there lived a wealthy man.

"Once upon a time," said Jimmy Jackson.

"B-be st-still! Come to order th-th-there, Jackson," stammered the chairman, and the story went on.

Yes, once upon a time, there lived a wealthy man who had two sons. The father was very anxious to make great men of them, or at least, educated men. I think, or rather my father thinks, that their father used to dream that one of these boys would grow to be President, and that the other would be a member of Congress, at any rate. But while his younger son grew to be a good student, the other one was a good, honest, industrious, and intelligent boy, who did not much like books. His father intended to make him a lawyer, and he got on well enough in Arithmetic and Geography, but Grammar came hard, and when he got into Latin he blundered dreadfully. He studied to please his parents, and from a sense of duty, but it mortified him greatly to think that he could not succeed as the other boys did. For you know it is hard to succeed at anything unless your heart is in it. And so one night he sat down and cried to think he must always be a dolt. His mother found him weeping and tried to comfort him. She walked out in the dusky evening with him and talked. But poor David, for that was his name, was broken-hearted. He had tried with all his might to get interested in "Hic, hæc, hoc," but it was of no use. He said there was something lacking in his head. "And I'll never amount to anything, never! Brother Joe gets his lesson in a few minutes, and I can't get mine at all."

His mother did not know what to say. But she only said that there was some use for everybody. She knew that David was not wanting in intelligence. In practical affairs he showed more shrewdness than his brother. But his father had set his heart on making him a scholar. That very day the teacher had said to his father that it was no use.

"Your father," she said, "intends to take you from school, and it is a great disappointment to him. But we know that you have done your best, and you must not be disheartened. If you were lazy, we should feel a great deal worse."

Just then they came to the orchard brook. Here she saw in the dim light something moving in the water.

"What is that, David?" she said.

"That's my flutter-wheel, and I feel like breaking it to pieces."

"Why?"

"Well, you see, all the boys made little water-mills to be run by the force of the stream. We call them 'flutter-wheels.' But I made one so curious that it beat them all," he said.

"Show it to me, Davie," she said. And David explained it to her, forgetting all about his unhappiness in the pleasure of showing the little cog-wheels, and the under-shot wheel that drove it.

"And why did you want to break it up?" she asked.

"Because, mother, Sam Peters said that I should never be good for anything but to make flutter-wheels, and it is true, I am afraid."

"If you were a poor man's son, Davie, you might be a good mechanic," said his mother.

That night Davie resolved to be a mechanic. "I won't be a good-for-nothing man in the world. If I can't be a learned professor, I may be a good carpenter or a blacksmith. If I learn to make a good horseshoe, I'll be worth something." So the next morning he asked his father's leave to enter a machine-shop. His father said he might, and with all the school-boys laughing at him, he took his tin-pail with his lunch in it, and went into the shop each morning. And now he began to love books, too. He gathered a library of works on mechanics. Everything relating to machinery he studied. He took up mathematics and succeeded. After a while he rose to a good position in the shop. And he became at last a great railroad engineer. He built that great bridge at Blankville.

"Why," said John Harlan, "I thought your Uncle David built that."

"So he did," said Harry. "My uncle was the boy that could not learn Latin."

"I suppose," said Tom Miller, "that God has use for us all, boys. Perhaps Jimmy's father was as much intended to make shoes as mine to preach. What a mistake it must be to get into the wrong place, though."

"Come, you're getting too awfully solemn, Tom," said Jimmy Jackson; "you'll put a fellow to sleep before he has time to go to bed." And Jackson pretended to snore.

"The m-m-meeting's adjourned," said the president. "Jimmy Jackson will be the sp-speaker at the n-next m-m-meeting of the Cellar-d-door S-society."

THE WOOD-CHOPPER'S CHILDREN.

The next Friday evening found all the members of the Cellar-door Club in their places. Will Sampson, the stammering "chairman," was at the top, full of life and fun as ever. Jimmie Jackson, running over with mischief, was by him, then came Tom Miller and John Harlan, while Hans Schlegel and Harry Wilson sat at the bottom. After a half-hour spent in general talk about school and plays, and such miscellaneous topics as every gathering of boys knows how to discuss, the "chairman" called out,

"Come t-to order! Th-th-the C-cellar-d-d-door Society is c-called to order. G-g-gentlemen, the Hon. J-Jeems Jackson is the speaker f-for the evening. I h-have the pl-pleasure of introducing him to you."

"No, you don't!" said the shoemaker's son; "don't put it on so thick. If you want me to tell my yarn along with the rest of you, why, I'm ready, but if you call it a speech, you scare me out of my shoes, just like the man that tried to make a speech in the legislature, but couldn't get any farther than 'Mr. Speaker, I am in favor of cartwheels and temperance.' Or, like a boy I knew, who tried to declaim the speech beginning: 'Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears!' and who got so badly confused on the first line that he said, 'I'd like to borrow your ears!'"

This raised a laugh at the expense of Harry Wilson, who had broken down on that line, though he did not make it as bad as Jimmy represented it.

"G-g-go on with your story!" stammered the chairman, and Jackson proceeded.

_JIMMY JACKSON'S STORY._