As the voice said this, sure enough a photograph did actually pop out of the bush, and land at Jimmieboy's feet. He sprang forward eagerly, stooped, and picking it up, gazed earnestly at it. And a singular creature the Bicyclopædia Bird must have been if the photograph did him justice. He had the head of an owl, but his body was oblong in shape, just like a book, and, as the voice had said, in place of legs were two wheels precisely like those of a bicycle. The effect was rather pleasing, but so funny that Jimmieboy really wanted to laugh. He did not laugh, however, for fear of hurting the Bird's feelings, which the Bird noticed and appreciated.
"Thank you," he said, simply.
"What for?" asked Jimmieboy, looking up from the photograph, and peering into the bush in the vain hope of catching a glimpse of the Bird itself.
"For not laughing," replied the Bird. "If you had laughed I should have biked away at once because I am of no value to any one who laughs at my personal appearance. It always makes me forget all I know, and that does me up for a whole year. If I forget all I know, you see, I have to study hard to learn it all over again, and that's a tremendous job, considering how much knowledge there is to be had in the world. So you see, by being polite and kind enough not to laugh at me, who can't help being funny to look at, and who am not to blame for looking that way, because I am not a self-made Bird, you are really the gainer, for I promise you I'll tell you anything you want to know."
"That's very nice of you," returned Jimmieboy; "and perhaps, to begin with, you'll tell me something that I ought to want to know, whether I do or not."
"That is a very wise idea," said the Bicyclopædia Bird, "and I'll try to do it. Let me see; now, do you know why the Pollywog is always amiable?"
"No," returned Jimmieboy. "I never even knew that he was, and so couldn't really wonder why."
"But you wonder why now, don't you?" asked the voice, anxiously. "For if you don't, I can't tell you."
"I'm just crazy to know," Jimmieboy responded.
"Then listen, and I will tell you," said the voice. And then the strange bird recited this poem about
THE POLLYWOG.
"The Pollywog's a perfect type
Of amiability.
He never uses angry speech
Wherever he may be.
He never calls his brother names,
Or tweaks his sister's nose;
He never pulls the sea-dog's tail,
Or treads upon his toes.
"He never says an unkind word,
And frown he never will.
A smile is ever on his lips,
E'en when he's feeling ill.
And this is why: when Pollywog
The first came on the scene,
He had a temper like a cat's—
His eye with it was green.
"Now, just about the time when he
Began to lose his tail,
To change into a croaking frog,
He came across a nail—
A nail so rusty that it looked
Just like an angle-worm,
Except that it was straight and stiff,
And so could never squirm.
"And Polly, feeling hungry, to
Assuage his appetite,
Swam boldly up to that old nail,
And gave it such a bite,
He nearly broke his upper jaw;
His lower jaw he bent.
And then he got so very mad,
His temper simply went.
"He lost it so completely as
He lashed and gnashed around,
That though this happened years ago,
It has not since been found.
And that is why, at all times, in
The Pollywog you see,
A model of that virtue rare—
True Amiability."
"Now, I dare say," continued the Bird—"I dare say you might have asked your father—who really knows a great deal, considering he isn't my twin brother—sixteen million four hundred and twenty-three times why the Pollywog is always so good-natured, and he couldn't have answered you more than once out of the whole lot, and he'd have been wrong even then."
"It must be lovely to know so much," said Jimmieboy.
"It is," said the Bird; "that is, it is lovely when you don't have to keep it all to yourself. It's very nice to tell things. That's really the best part of secrets, I think. It is such fun telling them. Now, why does the sun rise in the morning?"
"I don't know. Why?"
"For the same reason that you do," returned the sage Bird. "Because it is time to get up."
"Well, here's a thing I don't know about," said Jimmieboy. "What is 'to alarm?'"
"To frighten—to scare—to discombobulate," replied the Bird. "Why?"
"Well, I don't see why an alarm-clock is called an alarm-clock, because it doesn't ever alarm anybody," said Jimmieboy.
"Oh, it doesn't, eh?" cried the Bird. "Well, that's just where you are mistaken. It alarms the people or the animals you dream about when you are asleep, and they make such a noise getting away that they wake you up. Why, an alarm-clock saved my life once. I dreamed that I fell asleep on board a steamboat that went so fast hardly anybody could stay on board of her—she just regularly slipped out from under their feet, and unless a passenger could run fast enough to keep up with her, or was chained fast enough to keep aboard of her, he'd get dropped astern every single time. I dreamed I was aboard of her one day, and that to keep on deck I chained myself to the smoke-stack, and then dozed off. Just as I was dozing, a Misinformation Bird, who was jealous of me, sneaked up and cut the chain. As he expected, the minute I was cut loose the boat rushed from under me, and the first thing I knew I was struggling in the water. While I was struggling there, I was attacked by a Catfish. Cats are death to birds, you know, and I really had given myself up for lost, when 'ling-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling' went the alarm-clock in the corner of my cage; the fish turned blue with fear, swished his tail about in his fright, and the splashing of the water waked me up, and there I was standing on one wheel on my perch, safe and sound. If that clock hadn't gone off and alarmed that Catfish, I am afraid I should have been forever lost to the world."
"I see now; but I never knew before why it was called an alarm-clock, and I've wondered about it a good deal," said Jimmieboy. "Now, here's another thing I've bothered over many a time: What's the use of weeds?"
"Oh, that's easy," said the Bird, with a laugh. "To make lawns look prettier next year than they do this."
"I don't see how that is," said Jimmieboy.
"Clear as window-glass. This year you have weeds on your lawn, don't you?"
"Yes," returned Jimmieboy.
"And you make them get out, don't you?" said the Bird.
"Yes," assented Jimmieboy.
"Well, there you are. By getting out they make your lawns prettier. That's one of the simplest things in the world. But here's a thing I should think you'd wonder at. Why do houses have shutters on their windows?" asked the Bird.
"I know why," said Jimmieboy. "It's to keep the sun out."
"That's nonsense, because the sun is so much larger than any house that was ever built it couldn't get in if it tried," returned the feathered sage.
"Then I don't know why. Why?" asked Jimmieboy.
"So as to wake people up by banging about on windy nights, and they are a mighty useful invention too," said the Bird. "I knew of a whole family that got blown away once just because they hadn't any shutters to bang about and warn them of their danger. It was out in the West, where they have cyclones, which are things that pick up houses and toss them about just as you would pebbles. A Mr. and Mrs. Podlington had built a house in the middle of a big field for themselves and their seventeen children. Mr. Podlington was very rich, but awful mean, and when the house was finished, all except the shutters, he said he wasn't going to have any shutters because they cost too much, and so they hadn't a shutter on the house. One night after they had lived where they were about six months they all went to bed about nine o'clock, and by ten they were sound asleep, every one of them. At eleven o'clock a breeze sprang up. This grew very shortly into a gale. Then it became a hurricane, and by two o'clock it was a cyclone. One cyclone wouldn't have hurt much, but at three o'clock two more came along, and the first thing the Podlington family knew their house was blown off its foundations, lifted high up in the air, and at breakfast-time was out of sight, and, what is worse, it has never come down anywhere, and all this happened ten years ago."
"But where did it go?" asked Jimmieboy.
"Nobody knows. Maybe it landed in the moon. Maybe it's being blown about on the wings of those cyclones yet. I don't believe we'll ever know," answered the Bird. "But you can see just why that all happened. It was Mr. Podlington's meanness about the shutters, and nothing else. If he had had shutters on that house, at least one of them would have flopped bangety-bang against the house all night, and the chances are that they would all have been waked up by it before the cyclone came, and in plenty of time to save themselves. In fact, I think very likely they could have fastened the house more securely to the ground, and saved it too, if they had waked up and seen what was going on."
"I'll never build a house without shutters," said Jimmieboy, as he tried to fancy the condition of the Podlingtons whisking about in the air for ten long years—nearly five years longer than he himself had lived. If they had landed in the moon it wouldn't have been so bad, but this other possible and even more likely fate of mounting on the wind ever higher and higher and not landing anywhere was simply dreadful to think about.
"I wouldn't, especially in the cyclone country," returned the voice in the bush. "But I'll tell you of one thing that would save you if you really did have to build a house without shutters; build it with wings. You've heard of houses with wings, of course?"
"Yes, indeed," said Jimmieboy. "Why, our house has three wings. One of 'em was put on it last summer, so that we could have a bigger kitchen."
"I remember," said the Bird. "I wondered a good deal about that wing until I found out it was for a kitchen, and not to fly with. The house had enough wings to fly with without the new one. In fact, the new one for flying purposes would be as useless as a third wheel to a bicycle."
"What do you mean by to fly with?" asked Jimmieboy, puzzled at this absurd remark of the Bird.
"Exactly what I say. Wings are meant to fly with, aren't they? I hope you knew that!" said the Bird. "So if the Podlingtons' house had had wings it might have got back all right. It could have worked its way slowly out of the cyclone, and then sort of rested on its wings a little until it was prepared to swoop down on to its old foundations, alighting just where it was before. A trip through the air under such circumstances would have been rather pleasant, I think—much pleasanter than going off into the air forever, without any means of getting back."
"But," asked Jimmieboy, "even if Mr. Podlington's house had had wings, how could he have made them work?"
"Why, how stupid of you!" cried the Bird. "Don't you know that he could have taken hold of the——"
"Ting-a-ling-a-ling a-ling-a-ling!" rang the alarm-clock up in the cook's room, which had been set for six o'clock in the afternoon instead of for six in the morning by some odd mistake of Mary Ann's.
"The alarm! The alarm!" shrieked the Bird, in terror.
And then the invisible creature, if Jimmieboy could judge by the noise in the bush, seemed to make off as fast as he could go, his cries of fear growing fainter and fainter as the wise Bird got farther and farther away, until finally they died away in the distance altogether.
Jimmieboy sprang to his feet, looked down the road along which his strange friend had fled, and then walked into the house, wishing that the alarm-clock had held off just a little longer, so that he might have learned how the wings of a house should be managed to make the house fly off into the air. He really felt as if he would like to try the experiment with his own house.
VIII.
GIANT THE JACK KILLER.
Jimmieboy was turning over the pages of his fairy book the other night, trying to refresh his memory concerning the marvelous doings of the fairy-land people by looking at the pictures. His papa was too tired to read to him, and as no one else in the house was willing to undertake the task, the boy was doing his best to entertain himself, and as it happened he got more out of his own efforts than he ever derived from the efforts of others. He had dallied long over the weird experiences of Cinderella, and had just turned over the pages which lead up to the story of Jack the Giant Killer, when something in the picture of the Giant's castle seemed to move.
Looking a little more closely at the picture in a startled sort of way, Jimmieboy saw that the moving thing was the knob of the castle door, and in a jiffy the door itself opened, and a huge homely creature whom Jimmieboy recognized at once as an ogre stuck his head out. For a moment the little fellow felt disposed to cry for help. Surely if the Giant could open the door in the picture there was no reason why he should not step out of the book entirely and make a speedy meal of Jimmieboy, who, realizing that he was entirely unarmed, was inclined to run and hide behind his papa's back. His fast oozing courage was quickly restored, however, by the Giant himself, who winked at him in a genial sort of fashion as much as to say: "Nonsense, boy, I wouldn't eat you, if I could." The wink he followed up at once with a smile, and then he said:
"That you, Jimmieboy?"
"Yes, sir," said Jimmieboy, very civilly indeed. "I'm me. Are you you?"
The Giant laughed.
"Yes," he replied, "and so, of course, we are ourselves. Are you very busy?"
"Not very," said Jimmieboy. "Why?"
"I want a little advice from you," the Giant answered. "I think it's about time the tables were turned on that miserable little ruffian Jack. The idea of a big thing like me being killed every day of his life by a mosquito like Jack is very tiresome, and I want to know if you don't think it would be fair if I should kill him just once for the sake of variety. It won't hurt him. He'll come to life again right away just as we Giants do——"
"Don't you stay dead when Jack kills you?" asked Jimmieboy.
"You know the answer to that as well as I do," said the Giant. "You've had this story read to you every day now for three years, haven't you?"
"About that," said Jimmieboy.
"Well, if we staid dead how do you suppose we'd be on hand to be killed again the next time you had the story read to you?"
"I never thought of that," said Jimmieboy.
"Never thought of it?" echoed the ogre. "Why, what kind of thoughts do you think, anyhow? It's the only thought for a thinker to think I think, don't you think so?"
"Say that again, will you?" said Jimmieboy.
"Couldn't possibly," said the ogre. "In fact, I've forgotten it. But what do you think of my scheme? Don't you think it would be wise if I killed Jack just once?"
"Perhaps it would," said the boy. "That is if it wouldn't hurt him."
"Hurt him? Didn't I tell you it wouldn't hurt him?" said the Giant. "I wouldn't hurt that boy for all the world. If I did I'd lose my position. Why, all I am I owe to him. The fairy people let me live in this magnificent castle for nothing. They let me rob them of all their property, and all I have to do in return for this is to be killed by Jack whenever any little boy or girl in your world desires to be amused by a tragedy of that sort. So you see I haven't any hard feelings against him, even if I did call him a miserable little ruffian."
"Well, I don't exactly like to have Jack killed," said Jimmieboy. "I've always rather liked him. What do you suppose he would say to it?"
"That's just the point. I wouldn't kill him unless he was willing. That would be a violation of my agreement with him, and when he came to he might sue me for what the lawyers call a breach of contract," said the ogre. "Now, it seemed to me that if you were to go to Jack and tell him that you were getting a little tired of having this story end the way it does all the time, and that you thought it only fair to me that I should have a chance to celebrate a victory, say once a week—every Saturday night for instance—he'd be willing to do it."
"Where can I find him?" asked Jimmieboy. "I just as lief ask him."
"He's in the picture, two pages farther along, sharpening his sword," said the ogre.
"Very well, I'll go see him at once," said Jimmieboy. Then he said good-by to the Giant, and turned over the pages until he came to the pictures showing how Jack sharpened his sword on the soles of the shoes of another giant, whom he had bound and strapped to the floor.
At first Jimmieboy did not know how to address him. He had often spoken to the figures in the pictures, but they had never replied to anything he had said. However, he made a beginning.
"Ahem!" he said.
The effect was pleasing, for as he said this Jack stopped sharpening his blade and turned to see who had spoken.
"Ah, Jimmieboy!" said the small warrior. "Howdy do. Haven't seen much of you this week. You've been paying more attention to Hop o' My Thumb than to me lately."
"Well, I love you just the same," said Jimmieboy. "I've just seen the Giant that lives up in the castle with the dragon on the front stoop."
"He's a good fellow," said Jack. "I'm very fond of him. He never gives me any trouble, and dies just as easy as if he were falling off a log, and out of business hours we're great chums. He's had something on his mind lately, though, that I don't understand. He says being killed every day is getting monotonous."
"That's what he said to me," said Jimmieboy.
"Well, I hope he doesn't resign his position," said Jack, thoughtfully. "I know it isn't in every way a pleasant one, but he might go farther and fare worse. The way I kill him is painless, but if he got into that Bean-stalk boy's hands he'd be all bruised up. You can't fall a mile without getting hurt, you know, and I like the old fellow too well to have him go over to that Bean-stalk cousin of mine."
"He likes you, too," said Jimmieboy, pleased to find that there was so much good feeling between the two creatures. "But he thinks he ought to get a chance to win once in a while. He said if he could arrange it with you to have him kill you once a week—Saturday nights, for instance—he'd be perfectly contented."
"That's reasonable enough," said Jack, nodding his head approvingly. "Did he say how he would like to do it?"
"No, only that he'd kill you tenderly, so that you wouldn't suffer," said Jimmieboy.
"Oh, I know that!" said Jack, softly. "He's too tender-hearted to hurt anybody. I'm very much inclined to agree to the proposition, but he must let me choose the manner of the killing. He hasn't had much practice killing people, and if he were to do it by hitting me on the head with a stick of wood I'd be likely to wake up with a headache next day; neither should I like to be smothered because while that doesn't bruise one or break any bones its awfully stuffy, and if there's one thing I like it is fresh air."
"Perhaps he might eat you," suggested Jimmieboy.
"He isn't big enough to do that comfortably," said Jack, shaking his head. "He'd have to cut me up and chew me, because his throat isn't large enough for him to swallow me at one gulp. But I'll tell you what you can do. You go back to him, and tell him that I'll agree to his proposition, if he'll have me cooked in a plum-pudding four hundred feet in circumference. I'm very fond of plum-pudding, and while he is eating it from the outside I could be eating it from the inside, and, of course, I shouldn't be burned in the cooking, because in the middle of a pudding of that size the heat never could reach me."
"But when he reached you," said Jimmieboy, "you'd have the same trouble you said you'd have if he ate you up. He'd have to cut you to pieces and chew you."
"Ah!" said Jack, "don't you see my point? By the time he reached me he would have eaten so much plum-pudding that he wouldn't have room for me, so I'd escape."
"But, then, you wouldn't be killed," said Jimmieboy.
"That wouldn't make any difference," said Jack. "We'd stop the story before I escaped and everybody would think I'd been eaten up, and that's all he wants. He just wants to seem to win once. He doesn't really care about killing me dead. Don't you see."
"Yes, I think I do," said Jimmieboy, "and I'll go back and tell him what you say."
"Thank you," said Jack. "And while you are there give him my love, and tell him I'll be around to kill him as usual after tea."
All of which Jimmieboy did and the Giant readily agreeing to the plum-pudding scheme, said good-night to his little visitor, and retired into the castle, closing the door after him.
Then Jimmieboy went to bed in a great hurry, because he knew how sleep made time seem shorter than it really was, and he was very anxious to have Saturday night come around so that he could see how the new ending to the story of Jack the Giant Killer worked.
As yet that Saturday night has not turned up, so that I really cannot tell you whether or not the arrangement was a success.
IX.
JIMMIEBOY AND THE FIREWORKS.
There was whispering going on somewhere, and Jimmieboy felt that it was his duty to find out where it was, who it was that was doing it, and what it was that was being whispered. It was about an hour after supper on the evening of July 3d when it all happened. A huge box full of fire-works had arrived only a few hours before, and Jimmieboy was somewhat afraid that the whisperings might have come from burglars who, knowing that there were thirty-five rockets, twenty Roman candles, colored lights by the dozen, and no end of torpedoes and fire-crackers and other things in the house, had come to steal them, and, if he could help himself, Jimmieboy was not going to allow that. So he began to search about, and in a few minutes he had located the whisperers in the very room at the foot of the back stairs in which the fire-works were. His little heart almost stopped beating for a moment when he realized this. It isn't pleasant to feel that perhaps you will be deprived, after all, of something you have looked forward to for a whole month, and upon the very eve of the fulfillment of your dearest hopes at that.
"I'll have to tell papa about this," he said; and then, realizing that his papa was not at home, and that his mamma was up stairs trying to convince his small brother that it would be impossible to get the moon into the nursery, although it looked much smaller even than the nursery window, Jimmieboy resolved that he would take the matter in hand himself.
"A boygler wouldn't hurt me, and maybe if I talk gruff and keep out of sight, he'll think I'm papa and run," he said.
Then he tried his gruff voice, and it really was tremendously gruff—about as gruff as the bark of a fox-terrier. After he had done this, he tip-toed softly down the stairs until he stood directly opposite the door of the room where the fire-works were.
"Move on, you boygler you!" he cried, just as he thought his father would have said it.
The answer was an explosion—not exactly of fire-works, but of mirth.
"He thinks somebody's trying to steal us," said a funny little voice, the like of which Jimmieboy had never heard before.
"How siss-siss-sissingular of him," said another voice that sounded like a fire-cracker missing fire.
"He thinks he can fool us by imitating the voice of his pop-pop-pop-popper," put in a third voice, with a laugh.
At which Jimmieboy opened the door and looked in, and then he saw whence the whispering had come, and to say that he was surprised at what he saw is a too mild way of putting it. He was so astonished that he lost all control over his joints, and the first thing he knew he was sitting on the floor. The spectacle had, in fact, knocked him over, as well it might, for there, walking up and down the floor, swarming over chairs and tables, playing pranks with each other, and acting in a generally strange fashion, were the fire-works themselves. It was interesting, and at the same time alarming, for one or two reckless sky-rockets were smoking, a lot of foolish little fire-crackers were playing with matches in one corner, and a number of the great big cannon torpedoes were balancing themselves on the arms of the gas-fixture, utterly heedless of the fact that if they were to fall to the floor they would explode and be done for forever.
"Hullo, Jimmieboy!" said one of the larger rockets, taking off his funny little cap at the astonished youngster. "I suppose you've come down to see us rehearse?"
"I thought somebody was stealing you, and I came down to frighten them away," Jimmieboy replied.
The Rocket laughed. "Nobody can steal us," it said. "If anybody came to steal us, we'd cry, and get so soaked with tears nobody could get us to go off, so what good would we be?"
"Not much, I guess," said Jimmieboy.
"That's the answer," returned the Rocket. "You seem to be good at riddles. Let me give you another. What's the difference between a man who steals a whole wig and a fire-cracker?"
"I am sure I don't know," said Jimmieboy, still too full of wonderment to think out an answer to a riddle like that.
"Why, one goes off with a whole head of hair," said the Rocket, "and the other goes off only with a bang."
"That's good," said Jimmieboy. "Make it up yourself?"
"No," said the Rocket. "I got that out of the magazine."
"What magazine?" asked Jimmieboy, innocently.
"The powder-magazine," roared the Rocket, and then the Pin Wheel and other fire-works danced about, and threw themselves on the floor with laughter—all except the Torpedoes, which jumped up and down on a soft plush chair, where they were safe.
When the laughter over the Rocket's wit had subsided, one of the Roman Candles called to the Giant Cracker, and asked him to sing a song for Jimmieboy.
"I can't sing to-night," said the Cracker. "I'm very busy making ready my report for to-morrow."
Here the Cracker winked at Jimmieboy, as much as to say, "How is that for a joke?" Whereat Jimmieboy winked back to show that he thought it wasn't bad; which so pleased the Cracker that he said he guessed, after all, he would sing his song if the little Crackers would stop playing until he got through. The little Crackers promised, and the Giant Cracker sang this song:
"THE GIANT CRACKER AND THE MANDARIN'S DAUGHTER.
"He was a Giant Cracker bold,
His name was Wing-Hi-Ee.
He wore a dress of red and gold—
Was handsome as could be.
His master was a Mandarin,
Who lived in old Shang-Hai,
And had a daughter named Ah Din,
With sweet blue almond eye.
"Now Wing he loved this Saffron Queen,
And Ah Din she loved him;
But Chinese law came in between
Them with its measures grim.
For you must know, in that far land,
Where dwell the heathen wild,
A Cracker may not win the hand
Of any noble's child.
"This made their love a hopeless one—
Alas! that it should be
That anywhere beneath the sun
Exists such misery!
So they resolved, since she could not
Become his cherished bride,
Together they'd seek out some spot
And there they'd suicide.
"They hastened, weeping, from the town,
Wing-Hi and fair Ah Din,
And on the river-bank sat down
Until the tide came in.
Then Wing-Hi whispered, sitting there,
With tear-drops in his eye,
'Good-by, Ah Din!' And, in despair,
She answered him, 'Good-by.'
"And then she grasped a sulphur match;
She lit it on her shoe,
Whereat, with neatness and dispatch,
Wing-Hi she touched it to.
There came a flash, there came a shriek,
A sound surpassing weird,
And Wing-Hi brave and Ah Din meek
In pieces disappeared."
"Isn't that lovely?" asked the Rocket, his voice husky with emotion.
"It's very fine," said Jimmieboy. "It's rather sad, though."
"Yes; but it might have been sadder, you know," said the Giant Cracker. "She might not have loved him at all; and if she hadn't loved him, he wouldn't have wasted a match committing suicide for her sake, and then there wouldn't have been any tragedy, and, of course, no song would have been written about it. Why, there is no end to the misery there might have been."
Here one of the Torpedoes fell off the gas-fixture to the floor, where he exploded with a loud noise. There was a rush from all sides to see whether the poor little fellow was done for forever.
"Send for the doctor," said the Pin Wheel. "I think he can be mended."
"No, don't," said the injured Torpedo. "I can fix myself up again. Send for a whisk broom and bring me a parlor match, and I'll be all right."
"What's the whisk broom for?" asked Jimmieboy, somewhat surprised at the remedies suggested.
"Why," said the Torpedo, "if you will sweep me together with the whisk broom and wrap me up carefully, I'll eat the head off the parlor match, and I'll be all right again. The match head will give me all the snap I need, and if you'll wrap me up in the proper way, I'll show you what noise is to-morrow. You'll think I'm some relation to that Miss Din in the Giant Cracker's song, unless I'm mistaken, when you hear me explode."
The Fire-crackers jeered a little at this, because there has always been more or less jealousy between the Torpedoes and the Fire-crackers, but the Rocket soon put a stop to their sneers.
"What's the use of jeering?" he said. "You don't know whether he'll make much noise or not. The chances are he'll make more noise than a great many of you Crackers, who are just as likely as not to turn out sissers in the long-run."
The Fire crackers were very much abashed by the Rocket's rebuke, and retired shamefacedly into their various packs, whereupon the Pin Wheel suggested that the Rocket recite his poem telling the singular story of Nate and the Rocket.
"Would you like to hear that story, Jimmieboy?" asked the Rocket.
"Very much," said Jimmieboy. "The name of it sounds interesting."
"Well, I'll try to tell it. It's pretty long, and your ears are short; but we can try it, as the boy observed to the man who said he didn't think the boy's mouth was large enough to hold four pieces of strawberry short-cake. So here goes. The real title of the poem is
"THE DREADFUL FATE OF NAUGHTY NATE.
"Way back in eighty-two or three—
I don't recall the date—
There lived somewhere—'twixt you and me,
I really can't locate
The place exact; say Sangaree—
A lad; we'll call him Nate.
"His father was a grocer, or
A banker, or maybe
He kept a thriving candy store,
For all that's known to me.
Perhaps he was the Governor
Of Maine or Floridee.
"At any rate, he had a dad—
Or so the story's told;
Most youngsters that I've known have had—
And Nate's had stacks of gold,
And those who knew him used to add,
He spent it free and bold.
"If Nate should ask his father for
A dollar or a cent,
His father'd always give him more
Than for to get he went;
And then, before the day was o'er,
Nate always had it spent.
"Molasses taffy, circus, cake,
Tarts, soda-water, pie,
Hot butter-scotch, or rare beefsteak,
Or silk hats, Nate could buy.
His father'd never at him shake
His head and ask him 'Why?'
"'For but one thing,' his father cried,
'You must not spend your store;
Sky-rockets I cannot abide,
So buy them never more.
Let such, I pray, be never spied
Inside of my front door.'
"But Nate, alas! did not obey
His father's orders wise.
He hied him forth without delay,
Ignoring tarts and pies,
And bought a rocket huge, size A,
'The Monarch of the Skies.'
"He clasped it tightly to his breast,
And smiled a smile of glee;
And as the sun sank in the west,
He sat beneath a tree,
And then the rocket he invest-
I-g-a-t-e-d.
"Alas for Nate! The night was warm;
June-bugs and great fire-flies
Around about his head did swarm;
The mercury did rise;
And then a fine electric storm
Played havoc in the skies.
"Now if, perchance, it was a fly,
I'm not prepared to say;
Or if 'twas lightning from the sky,
That came along that way;
Or if 'twas only brought on by
The heat of that warm day,
"I am not certain, but 'tis clear
There came a sudden boom,
And high up in the atmosphere,
Enlightening the gloom,
The rocket flew, a fiery spear,
And Nate, too, I presume.
"For never since that July day
Has any man seen Nate.
But far off in the Milky Way,
Astronomers do state,
A comet brilliant, so they say,
Doth round about gyrate.
"It's head's so like small Natty's face,
They think it's surely he,
Aboard that rocket-stick in space,
Still mounting constantly;
And still must mount until no trace
Of it at all we see."
"Isn't that the most fearfully awfully terribly horribly horribly terribly fearful bit of awfulness you ever heard?" queried the Rocket, when he had finished.
"It is indeed," said Jimmieboy. "It really makes me feel unhappy, and I wish you hadn't told it to me."
"I would not bother about it," said the Rocket; "because really the best thing about it is that it never happened."
"Suppose it did happen," said Jimmieboy, after thinking it over for a minute or two. "Would Nate ever get back home again?"
"Oh, he might," returned the Rocket. "But not before six or seven million years, and that would make him late for tea, you know. By-the-way," the Rocket added, "do you know the best kind of tea to have on Fourth of July?"
"No," said Jimmieboy. "What?"
"R-o-c-k-e-tea," said the Rocket.
The Pin Wheels laughed so heartily at this that one of them fell over on a box of Blue Lights and set them off, and the Rocket endeavoring to put them out was set going himself, and the first thing Jimmieboy knew, his friend gave a fearful siss, and disappeared up the chimney. The sparks from the Rocket falling on the Roman Candles started them along, and three or four balls from them landed on a flower piece which was soon putting forth the most beautiful fiery roses imaginable, one of which, as it gave its dying sputter, flew up and landed on the fuse of a great set piece that was supposed to have a motto on it. Jimmieboy was almost too frightened to move, so he just sat where he was, and stared at the set piece until he could read the motto, which was, strange to say, no motto at all, but simply these words in red, white, and blue fire, "Wake up, and go to bed right." Whereupon Jimmieboy rubbed his eyes, and opened them wider than ever to find his papa bending over him, and saying the very words he had seen on the set piece.
Probably the reason why his papa was saying this was that Jimmieboy had been found by him on his return home lying fast asleep, snuggled up in the corner of the library lounge.
As for the fire-works, in some way or other they all managed to get back into the box again in good condition, except the broken torpedo, which was found in the middle of the floor just where it had fallen. Which Jimmieboy thinks was very singular.
X.
JIMMIEBOY'S PHOTOGRAPH.
Jimmieboy had been taken to the photographer's and had posed several times for the man who made pictures of little boys. One picture showed how he looked leaning against a picket fence with a tiger skin rug under his feet. Another showed him in the act of putting his hands into his pockets, while a third was a miserable attempt to show how he looked when he couldn't stand still. The last pleased Jimmieboy very much. It made him laugh and Jimmieboy liked laughing better than anything, perhaps, excepting custard, which was his idea of real solid bliss. Why it made him laugh, I do not know, unless it was because in the picture he was very much blurred and looked something like a mixture of a cloud and a pin-wheel.
"I like that one," Jimmieboy said to his mother, when the proof came home. "Won't you let me have it?"
"Yes," said his mother. "You can have it. I don't think any one else wants it."
So the proof became Jimmieboy's property, and he put it away in his collection of treasures, which already contained many valuable things, such as the whistle of a rubber ball, a piece of elastic, and a worn-out tennis racket. These treasures the boy used to have out two or three times a day, and the last time he had them out something queer happened. The blurred little figure in the picture spoke to him and told him something he didn't forget in a hurry.
"You think I'm a funny-looking thing don't you?" said the blurred picture of himself.
"Yes, I do," said Jimmieboy, "that's why I laugh at you whenever I see you."
"Well, I laugh when I see you, too," retorted the picture. "You are just as funny to look at sometimes as I am."
"I'm not either," said Jimmieboy. "I don't look like a cloud or a pin-wheel, and you do."
"I'm a picture of you, just the same," returned the proof, "and if you had stood still when the man was taking you, I'd have been all right. It's awful mean the way little boys have of not standing still when they are having their pictures taken, and then laughing at the thing they're responsible for afterward."
"I didn't mean to be mean," said Jimmieboy.
"Perhaps not," retorted the picture, "but if it hadn't been for you I'd have been a lovely picture, and your mamma would have had a nice little silver frame put around me, and maybe I'd have been standing on your papa's desk with the inkstand and the mucilage instead of having to live all my life with a broken whistle and a tennis bat that nobody but you has any use for."
Here the picture sighed, and Jimmieboy felt very sorry for it.
"Boys don't know what a terrible lot of horrid things happen because they don't stand still sometimes," continued the picture. "I know of lots of cases where untold misery has come from movey boys."
"From what?" queried Jimmieboy.
"Movey boys," replied the picture. "By that I mean boys that don't stand still when they ought to. Why, I knew of a boy once who wouldn't stand still and he shook a whole town to pieces."
"Ho!" jeered Jimmieboy. "I don't believe it."
"Well, it's so, whether you believe it or not," said the picture. "The boy's name was Bob, and he lived somewhere, I don't remember where. His mother told him to stand still and he wouldn't; he just jumped up and down, and up and down all the time."
"That may be, but I don't see how he could shake a whole town to pieces," said Jimmieboy, "unless he was a very heavy boy."
"He didn't weigh a bit more than you do," answered the picture. "He was heavy enough when he jumped to shake his nursery though, and the nursery was heavy enough to shake the house, and the house was heavy enough to shake the lot, and the lot was heavy enough to shake the street, and the street shook the whole town, and when the town shook, everybody thought there was an earthquake, and they all moved away, and took the name of the town with them, which is why I don't know where it was."
Jimmieboy was silent. He never knew before that not standing still could result in such an awful happening.
"I know another boy, too, who lived in—well, I won't say where, but he lived there. He broke a fine big mirror in his father's parlor by not standing still when he was told to."
"Did he shake it down?" asked Jimmieboy.
"No, indeed, he didn't," returned the picture. "He just stood in front of it and got so movey that the mirror couldn't keep up with him, but it tried to do it so hard that it shook itself to pieces. But that wasn't anything like as bad as what happened to Jumping Sam. He was the worst I ever knew. He never would keep still, and it all happened and he never could unhappen it, so that it's still so to this very day."
"But you haven't told me what happened yet," said Jimmieboy, very much interested in Jumping Sam.
"Well, I will tell you," said the picture, gravely. "And this is it. The story is a poem, Jimmieboy, and it's called:
"THE HORRID FATE OF JUMPING SAM.
"Small Sammy was as fine a lad
As ever you did see;
But one bad habit Sammy had,
A Jumper bold was he.
And, oh! his fate was very sad,
As it was told to me.
"He never, never, would stand still
In school or on the street;
He'd squirm if he were well or ill,
If on his back or feet.
He'd wriggle on the window-sill,
He'd waggle in his seat.
"And so it happened one fine day,
When all alone was he,
He got to jumping in a way
That was a sight to see.
He leaped two feet at first, they say,
And then he made it three.
"Then four, and five, the long day through,
Until he could not stop.
Each jump he jumped much longer grew,
Until he gave a hop
Up in the air a mile or two,
A-twirling like a top.
"He turned about and tried to jump
Back to his father's door,
But landed by the village pump,
Some twenty miles or more
Beyond it, and an awful bump
He'd got when it was o'er.
"And still his jumps increased in size,
Until they got so great,
He landed on the railway ties
In some far distant state;
And then he knew 'twould have been wise,
His jumping to abate.
"But as the years passed slowly by,
His jumping still went on,
Until he leaped from Italy,
As far as Washington.
And he confessed, with heavy eye,
It wasn't any fun.
"And when, in 1883,
I met him up in Perth,
He wept and said 'good-by' to me,
And jumped around the earth.
And I was saddened much to see
That he knew naught of mirth.
"Last year in far Allahabad,
Late in the month of June,
I met again this jumping lad—
'Twas in the afternoon—
As he with visage pale and sad
Was jumping to the moon.
"So all his days, leap after leap,
He takes from morn to night.
He cannot eat, he cannot sleep,
But flies just like a kite,
And all because he would not keep
From jumping when he might.
"And I believe the moral's true—
Though shown with little skill—
That whatsoever you may do,
Be it of good or ill,
Once in a while it may pay you
To practice keeping still."
A long silence followed the completion of the blurred picture's poem. For some reason or other it had made Jimmieboy think, and while he was thinking, wonderful to say, he was keeping very quiet, so that it was quite evident that the fate of Jumping Sam had had some effect upon him. Finally, however, the spell was broken, and he began to wiggle just as he wiggled while his picture was being taken, and then he said:
"I don't know whether to believe that story or not. I can't see your face very plainly here. Come over into the light and tell me the poem all over again, and I can tell by looking in your eye whether it is true or not."
The picture made no reply, and Jimmieboy, grasping it firmly in his hand, went to the window and gazed steadily at it for a minute, but it was useless. The picture not only refused to speak, but, as the rays of the setting sun fell full upon it, faded slowly from sight.
Nevertheless, true story or not, Jimmieboy has practiced standing still very often since the affair happened, which is a good thing for little boys to do, so that perhaps the brief life and long poem of the rejected picture were not wasted after all.