Chapter III: Part 3

"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.

XI.

JIMMIEBOY AND THE BLANK-BOOK.

Somebody had sighed deeply, and had said, "Oh dear!"

What bothered Jimmieboy was to find out who that somebody was. It couldn't have been mamma, because she had gone out that evening with papa to take dinner at Uncle Periwinkle's, and for the same reason, therefore, it could not have been papa that had sighed and said "Oh dear!" so plainly. Neither was it Moggie, as Jimmieboy called his nurse, companion, and friend, because Moggie, supposing him to be asleep, had gone up stairs to her own room to read. It might have been little Russ if it had only been a sigh that had come to Jimmieboy's ears, for little Russ was quite old enough to sigh; but as for adding "Oh dear!" that was quite out of the question, because all little Russ had ever been able to say was "Bzoo," and, as you may have observed for yourself, people who can only say "Bzoo" cannot say "Oh dear!"

It was so mysterious altogether that Jimmieboy sat up straight on his pillow, and began to wonder if it wouldn't be well for him to get frightened and cry. The question was decided in favor of a shriek of terror; but the shriek did not come, because just as Jimmieboy got his mouth open to utter it the strange somebody sighed again, and said:

"Aren't you sorry for me, Jimmieboy?"

"Who are you?" asked Jimmieboy, peering through the darkness, trying to see who it was that had addressed him.

"I'm a poor unhappy Blank-book," came the answer. "A Blank-book with no hope now of ever becoming great. Did you ever feel as if you wanted to become great, Jimmieboy?"

"Oh, yes, indeed," returned the boy. "I do yet. I'm going to be a fireman when I grow up, and drive an engine, and hold a hose, and put out great configurations, as papa calls 'em."

"Then you know," returned the Blank-book, "or rather you can imagine, my awful sorrow when I say that I have aspired to equally lofty honors, but find myself now condemned to do things I don't like, to devote my life not to great and noble deeds, but to miserable every-day affairs. You can easily see how I must feel if you will only try to imagine your own feelings if, after a life whose every thought and effort had been directed toward making you the proud driver of a fire-engine, you should find it necessary to settle down to the humdrum life of a lawyer, all your hopes destroyed, and the goal toward which you had ever striven placed far beyond your reach."

"You didn't want to be a fireman, did you?" asked Jimmieboy, softly.

"No," said the Blank-book, jumping off the table, and crossing over to Jimmieboy's crib, into which he climbed, much to the little fellow's delight. "No, I never wanted to be a fireman, or a policeman, or a car conductor, because I have always known that those were things I never could become. No matter how wise and great a Blank-book may be, there is a limit to his wisdom and his greatness. It sometimes makes us unhappy to realize this, but after all there is plenty in the world that a Blank-book can do, and do nobly, without envying others who have to do far nobler and greater things before they can be considered famous. Everything we have to do in this world is worth doing well, and everybody should be content to do the things that are given to his kind to accomplish. The poker should always try to poke as well as he can, and not envy the garden hose because the garden hose can sprinkle flowers, while he can't. The rake should be content to do the best possible rake's work, and not sigh because he cannot sing 'Annie Rooney' the way the hand-organ does."

"Then why do you sigh because of the work they have given you to do?"

"That's very simple," returned the Blank-book. "I can explain that in a minute. While I have no right to envy a glue-pot because it can hold glue and I can't, I have a right to feel hurt and envious when it falls to the lot of another Blank-book, no better than myself, to become the medium through which beautiful poems and lovely thoughts are given to the world, while I am compelled to do work of the meanest kind.

"It has always been my dream to become the companion of a poet, of a philosopher, or of a humorist--to be the Blank-book of his heart--to lie quiet in his pocket until he had thought a thought, and then to be pulled out of that pocket and to be made the receptacle of that thought.

"Oh, I have dreamed ambitious dreams, Jimmieboy--ambitious dreams that must now remain only dreams, and never be real. Once, as I lay with a thousand others just like me on the shelf of the little stationery shop where your mother bought me, I dreamed I was sold to a poet--a true poet. Everywhere he went, went I, and every beautiful line he thought of was promptly put down upon one of my leaves with a dainty gold pencil, contact with which was enough to thrill me through and through.

"Here is one of the things I dreamed he wrote upon my leaves:

"'What's the use of tears?
What's the use of moping?
What's the use of fears?
Here's to hoping!

"'Life hath more of joy
Than she hath of weeping.
When grief comes, my boy,
Pleasure's sleeping.

"'Only sleeping, child;
Thou art not forsaken,
Let thy smiles run wild--
She'll awaken!'

"Don't you think that's nice?" queried the Blank-book when he had finished reciting the poem.

"Very nice," said Jimmieboy. "And it's very true, too. Tears aren't any good. Why, they don't even wash your face."

"I know," returned the Blank-book. "Tears are just like rain clouds. A sunny smile can drive 'em away like autumn leaves before a whirl-wind."

"Or a clothes-line full of clothes before an east wind," suggested Jimmieboy.

"Yes; or like buckwheat cakes before a hungry school-boy," put in the Blank-book. "Then that same poet in my dream wrote a verse about his little boy I rather liked. It went this way:

"'Of rats and snails and puppy-dogs' tails
Some man has said boys are made;
But he who spoke to be truthful fails,
If 'twas of my boy 'twas said.

"'For honey, and wine, and sweet sunshine,
And fruits from over the swim,
And everything else that's fair and fine,
Are sure to be found in him.

"'His kisses are nice and sweet as spice,
His smile is richer than cake--
Which, if it were known to rats and mice,
The cheeses they would forsake.

"'His dear little voice is soft and choice,
He giggles all day with glee,
And it makes my heart and soul rejoice,
To think he belongs to me.'"

"That's first rate," said Jimmieboy. "Only Mother Goose has something very much like it about little girls."

"That was just it," returned the Blank-book. "She had been a little girl herself, and she was too proud to live. If she had been a boy instead of a girl, it would have been the boy who was made of sugar and spice and all that's nice."

"Didn't your dream-poet ever write anything funny in you?" asked Jimmieboy. "I do love funny poems."

"Well, I don't know whether some of the things he wrote were funny or not," returned the Blank-book, scratching his cover with a pencil he carried in a little loop at his side. "But they were queer. There was one about a small boy, named Napples, who spent all his time eating apples, till by some odd mistake he contracted an ache, and now with J. Ginger he grapples."

"That's the kind," said Jimmieboy. "I think to some people who never ate a green apple, or tasted Jamaica ginger, or contracted an ache, it would be real funny. I don't laugh at it, because I know how solemn Tommy Napples must have felt. Did you ever have any more like that?"

"Oh my, yes," returned the Blank-book. "Barrels full. This was another one--only I don't believe what it says is true:

"A man living near Navesink,
Eats nothing but thistles and zinc,
With mustard and glue,
And pollywog stew,
Washed down with the best of blue ink.'"

"That's pretty funny," said Jimmieboy.

"Is it?" queried the Blank-book, with a sigh. "I'll have to take your word for it. I can't laugh, because I have nothing to say ha! ha! with, and even if I could say ha! ha! I don't suppose I'd know when to laugh, because I don't know a joke when I see one."

"Really?" asked Jimmieboy, who had never supposed any one could be born so blind that he could not at least see a joke.

"Really," sighed the Blank-book. "Why, a man came into the store where I was for sale once, and said he wanted a Blank-book, and the clerk asked him what for--meaning, of course, did he want an account-book, a diary, or a copy-book. The man answered, 'To wash windows with, of course,' and everybody laughed but me. I simply couldn't see the point. Can you?"

"Why, certainly," said Jimmieboy, a broad smile coming over his lips. "It was very funny. The point was that people don't wash windows with Blank-books."

"What's funny about that?" asked the Blank-book. "It would be a great deal funnier if people did wash windows with a Blank-book. He might have said 'to go coasting on,' or 'to sweeten my coffee with,' or 'to send out to the heathen,' and it would have been just as funny."

"I guess that's true," said Jimmieboy. "But it was funny just the same."

"No doubt," returned the Blank-book; "but it seems to me what's funny depends on the other fellow. You might get off a splendid joke, and if he hadn't his joke spectacles on he'd think it was nonsense."

"Oh no," said Jimmieboy. "If he hadn't his joke spectacles on he wouldn't think it was nonsense. Jokes are nonsense."

"But you said a moment ago the fun of the Blank-book joke was that you couldn't wash windows with one. That's a fact, so how could it be nonsense?"

"I never thought of it in that way," said Jimmieboy.

"Ah!" ejaculated the Blank-book. "Now that is really funny, because I don't see how you could think of it in any other way."

"I don't see anything funny about that," began Jimmieboy.

"Oh dear!" sighed the Blank-book. "We never shall agree, except that I am willing to believe that you know more about nonsense than I do. Perhaps you can explain this poem to me. I dreamt my poet wrote this on my twelfth page. It was called 'A Plane Tale:'

"'I used to be so surly, that
All men avoided me;
But now I am a diplomat,
Of wondrous suavity.

"'I met a carpenter one night,
Who wore a dotted vest;
And when I asked if that was right,
He told me to go West.

"'I seized his saw and brandished it,
As fiercely as I could,
And told him, with much show of wit,
I thought he was no good.

"'At that he looked me in the face,
And said my tone was gruff;
My manner lacked a needed grace,
In every way was rough.

"'He seized and laid me on a plank,
He gave a little cough;
And then, although my spirits sank,
_He planed me wholly off_!

"'And ever since that painful night,
When he so treated me,
I've been as polished, smooth a wight,
As any one can be.'"

"There isn't much sense in that," said Jimmieboy.

"Well, now, I think there is," said the Blank-book. "There's a moral to that. Two of 'em. One's mind your own business. If the carpenter wanted to wear a dotted vest it was nobody's affair. The other moral is, a little plane speaking goes a great way."

"Oh, what a joke!" cried Jimmieboy.

"I didn't make any joke," retorted the Blank-book, his Russia-leather cover getting red as a beet.

"Yes, you did, too," returned Jimmieboy. "Plane and plain--don't you see? P-l-a-n-e and p-l-a-i-n."

"Bah!" said the Blank-book. "Nonsense! That can't be a joke. That's a coincidence. Is that what you call a joke?"

"Certainly," replied Jimmieboy.

"Well, then, I'm not as badly off as I thought. I wanted to be a poet's book and couldn't, but it is better to be used for a wash-list as I am than to help funny men to remember stuff like that. I am very grateful to you, Jimmieboy, for the information. You have made me see that I might have fared worse than I have fared, and I thank you, and as I hear your mamma and papa coming up the stairs now, I'll run back to the desk. Good-night!"

And the Blank-book kissed Jimmieboy, and scampered over to the desk as fast as it could, and the next day Jimmieboy begged so hard for it that his mamma gave it to him for his very own.

"What shall you do with it now that you have it?" asked mamma.

"I'm going to save it till I grow up," returned Jimmieboy. "Maybe I'll be a poet, and I can use it to write poems in."

XII.

JIMMIEBOY AND THE COMET.

Jimmieboy was thinking very hard. He was also blinking quite as hard because he was undeniably sleepy. His father had been reading something to his mamma about a curious thing that lived up in the sky called a comet. Jimmieboy had never seen a comet, nor indeed before that had he even heard of one, so of course his ideas as to what it looked like were rather confused. His father's description of it was clear enough, perhaps, but nevertheless Jimmieboy found it difficult to conjure up in his mind any reasonable creature that could in any way resemble a comet. Finally, however, he made up his mind that it must look like a queer kind of a dog with nothing but a head and a tail--or perhaps it was a sort of fiery pollywog.

At any rate, while he thought and blinked, what should he see peeping in at him through the window but the comet itself. Jimmieboy knew it was the comet because the comet told him so afterward, and besides it wore a placard suspended about its neck which had printed on it in great gold letters: "I'm the Comet. Come out and take a ride through the sky with me."

"Me?" cried Jimmieboy, starting up as soon as he had read the invitation.

Immediately the word "Yes" appeared on the placard and Jimmieboy walked over to the window and stepping right through the glass as though it were just so much air, found himself seated upon the Comet's back, and mounting to the sky so fast that his hair stood out behind him like so many pieces of stiff wire.

"Are you comfortable?" asked the Comet, after a few minutes.

"Yes," said Jimmieboy, "only you kind of dazzle my eyes. You are so bright."

The Comet appeared to be very much pleased at this remark, for he smiled so broadly that Jimmieboy could see the two ends of his mouth appear on either side of the back of his neck.

"You're right about that," said the Comet. "I'm the brightest thing there ever was. I'm all the time getting off jokes and things."

"Are you really?" cried Jimmieboy, delighted. "I am so glad, for I love jokes and--and things. Get off a joke now, will you?"

"Certainly," replied the obliging Comet. "You don't know why the moon is called she, do you?"

"No," said Jimmieboy. "Why is it?"

"Because it isn't a sun, so it must be a daughter," said the Comet. "Isn't that funny?"

"I guess so," said Jimmieboy, trying to look as if he thought the joke a good one. "But don't you know anything funnier than that?"

"Yes," returned the Comet. "What do you think of this: What is the only thing you can crack without splitting it?"

"That sounds interesting," said Jimmieboy, "but I'm sure I never could guess."

"Why, it's a joke, of course," said the Comet. "You can crack a joke eight times a day and it's as whole as it ever was when night comes."

"That's so," said Jimmieboy. "That's funnier than the other, too. I see now why they call you a Comic."

"I'm not a Comic," said the Comet, with a laugh at Jimmieboy's mistake. "I'm a Comet. I end with a T like the days when you have dinner in the afternoon. They end with a tea, don't they?"

"That's the best, yet," roared Jimmieboy. "If you give me another like that I may laugh harder and fall off, so I guess you'd better hadn't."

"How would you like to hear some of my poetry?" asked the Comet. "I'm a great writer of poetry, I can tell you. I won a prize once for writing more poetry in an hour than any other Comet in school."

"I'm very fond of it," said Jimmieboy. "Specially when it don't make sense."

"That's the kind I like, too," agreed the Comet. "I never can understand the other kind. I've got a queer sort of a head. I can't understand sense, but nonsense is as clear to me as--well as turtle soup. Ever see any turtle soup?"

"No," said Jimmieboy, "but I've seen turtles."

"Well, turtle soup is a million times clearer than turtles, so maybe you can get some idea of what I mean."

"Yes," said Jimmieboy. "I think I do. Nonsense poetry is like a window to you. You can see through it in a minute."

"Exactly," said the Comet. "Only nonsense poetry hasn't any glass in it, so it isn't exactly like a window to me after all."

"Well, anyhow," put in Jimmieboy. "Let's have some of the poetry."

"Very good," said the Comet. "Here goes. It's about an animal named the Speeler, and it's called 'The Speeler's Lament.'

"Oh, many years ago,
When Jack and Jill were young,
There wandered to and fro,
Along the glistening snow,
A Speeler, much unstrung.

"I asked the Speeler why
He looked so mortal sad?
He gazed into my eye,
And then he made reply,
In language very bad,

"'I'm sad,' said he, 'because
A Speeler true I be;
And yet, despite my jaws,
My wings, and beak, and claws,
Despite my manners free,

"'Despite my feathers fine,
My voice so soft and sweet,
My truly fair outline,
My very handsome spine,
And massive pair of feet,

"'In all this world of space--
On foot, on fin, on wing--
From Nature's top to base,
There never was a trace
Of any such strange thing.

"'And it does seem to me--
Indeed it truly does--
'Tis dreadful, sir, to be,
As you can plainly see,
A thing that never was!'"

"What's a Speeler?" said Jimmieboy.

"It isn't anything. There isn't any such thing as a Speeler and that's what made this particular Speeler feel so badly," said the Comet. "I know I'd feel that way myself. It must be dreadful to be something that isn't. I was sorry after I had written that poem and created the poor Speeler because it doesn't seem right to create a thing just for the sake of making it unhappy to please people who like poetry of that kind."

"I'm afraid it was a sensible poem," said Jimmieboy. "Because, really, Mr. Comet, I can't understand it."

"Well, let me try you on another then, and take away the taste of that one. How do you like this. It's called 'Wobble Doo, the Squaller.'

"The Wobble Doo was fond of pie,
He also loved peach jam.
But what most pleased his eagle eye,
Was pickled cakes and ham.

"But when, perchance, he got no cake,
Jam, ham, or pie at all,
He'd sit upon a garden rake,
And squall, and squall, and squall.

"And as these _never_ came his way,
This hero of my rhyme,
I really do regret to say,
Was squalling all the time."

"Your poems are all sad, aren't they?" said Jimmieboy. "Couldn't you have let Wobble Doo have just a little bit of cake and jam?"

"No. It was impossible," replied the Comet, sadly, "I couldn't afford it. I did all I could for him in writing the poem. Seems to me that was enough. It brought him glory, and glory is harder to get than cakes and peach jam ever thought of being. Perhaps you'll like this better:

"Abadee sollaker hollaker moo,
Carraway, sarraway mollaker doo--
Hobledy, gobbledy, sassafras Sam,
Taramy, faramy, aramy jam."

"I don't understand it at all," said Jimmieboy. "What language is it in?"

"One I made up myself," said the Comet, gleefully. "And it's simply fine. I call it the Cometoo language. Nobody knows anything about it except myself, and I haven't mastered it yet--but my! It's the easiest language in the world to write poetry in. All you have to do is to go right ahead and make up words to suit yourself, and finding rhyme is no trouble at all when you do that."

"But what's the good of it?" asked Jimmieboy.

"Oh, it has plenty of advantages," said the Comet, shaking his head wisely. "In the first place if you have a language all your own, that nobody else knows, nobody else can write a poem in it. You have the whole field to yourself. Just think how great a man would be if he was the only one to understand English and write poetry in it. He'd get all the money that ever was paid for English poetry, which would be a fortune. It would come to at least $800, which is a good deal of money, considering."

"Considering what?" asked Jimmieboy.

"Considering what it would bring if wisely invested," said the Comet. "Did you ever think of what $800 was worth in peanuts, for instance."

Jimmieboy laughed at the idea of spending $800 in peanuts, and then he said: "No, I never thought anything about it. What is it worth in peanuts?"

"Well," said the Comet, scratching his head with his tail, "it's a very hard bit of arithmetic, but, I'll try to write it out for you. Peanuts, you know, cost ten cents a quart."

"Do they?" said Jimmieboy. "I never bought a whole quart at once. I've only paid five cents a pint."

"Well, five cents a pint is English for ten cents a quart," said the Comet, "and in $800 there are eight thousand ten centses, so that you could get eight thousand quarts of peanuts for $800. Now every quart of peanuts holds about fifty peanut shellfuls, so that eight thousand quarts of peanuts equal four hundred thousand peanuts shellfuls. Each peanut shell holds two small nuts so that in four hundred thousand of them there are eight hundred thousand nuts."

"Phe-e-ew!" whistled Jimmieboy. "What a feast."

"Yes," said the Comet, "but just you wait. Suppose you ate one of these nuts a minute, do you know how long it would take you, eating eight hours a day, to eat up the whole lot?"

"No," said Jimmieboy, beginning to feel a little awed at the wondrous possibilities of $800 in peanuts.

"Four years, six months, three weeks and six days, and you'd have to eat Sundays to get through it in that time," said the Comet. "In soda water it would be quite as awful and in peppermint sticks at two cents a foot it would bring you a stick forty thousand feet, or more than seven miles long."

"Isn't $800 wonderful," said Jimmieboy, overcome by the mere thought of so much peppermint candy.

"Yes--but really I am much more wonderful when you think of me. You haven't been on my back more than ten minutes and yet in that time I have taken you all around the world," said the Comet.

"All the way!" said Jimmieboy.

"Yes," said the Comet, stopping suddenly. "Here we are back at your window again."

"But I didn't see China, and I wanted to," said the boy.

"Can't help it," said the Comet. "You had your chance, but you preferred to talk about poetry and peanuts. It isn't my fault. Off with you, now."

And then the Comet bucked like a wild Western Broncho, and as Jimmieboy went over his head through the window and landed plump in his papa's lap, the queer creature with the fiery tail flew off into space.

CHAPTER XIII.

JIMMIEBOY AND JACK FROST--IN WHICH JACK GIVES OFFENCE.

Jimmieboy is the proud possessor of a small brother, who, to use one of Jimmieboy's own expressions, is getting to be a good deal of a man. That is to say, he is old enough to go out driving all by himself, being eleven months of age, and quite capable of managing the fiery untamed nurse that pushes his carriage along the street. Of course, if the nurse had not been warranted kind and gentle when the baby's mamma went to find her in the beginning, little Russ would have had to have somebody go along with him when he went driving--somebody like Jimmieboy, for instance, to frighten off big dogs and policemen, and to see that the nurse didn't shy or run away--but as it was, the baby had developed force of character and self-reliance enough to go out unattended, and, except on one occasion, he got back again safe and sound.

This one occasion was early in December, when Nature, having observed that the great big boys had got through playing football and were beginning to think of snow-balls, sent word to the Arctic Cold Weather Company that she desired to have delivered at once five days of low temperature for general distribution among her friends, which days were sent through by special messenger, arriving late on the night of December 1st, giving great satisfaction to everybody, particularly to those who deal in ice, ear-tabs, and skates. At first Jimmieboy's mamma thought that Nature was perhaps a little too generous with her frosty weather, and for two days she kept her two sons, Jimmieboy and Russ, cooped up in the house, laying in a supply of furnace and log-fire heat sufficiently large to keep them warm until the third day, when she thought that they might safely go out.

Upon the third day Jimmieboy's papa said that he imagined the boys were warm enough to venture out-of-doors, so they were bundled up in leggings, fur-lined coats, flannel bands, scarfs, silk handkerchiefs, lamb's-wool rugs, and "arctics," the door was opened, and out they went. Jimmieboy staid out seven minutes, and then came in again to see if he could find out why his nose had suddenly changed its color, first from pink to red, and then from red to blue. He also wished to come in, he said, because the solid iron driver of his red express wagon had been "freezed stiff," and he was afraid if he staid out much longer he'd never thaw out again. Little Russ, on the contrary, lying luxuriously in his carriage, with no part of him visible save the tip end of his chin, which was so fat that the coverings would slip off, no matter how hard mamma and the nurse tried to make them stay on, remained out-of-doors for two hours, apparently very comfortable. His great blue eyes shone mirthfully when he came in, and until six o'clock that evening all went well with him, and then he began to whimper.

"What's the matter with my baby?" asked Jimmieboy.

Little Russ made no reply other than a grimace, which made Jimmieboy laugh, at which the baby opened his mouth as wide as he could and shrieked with wrath.

"I'm inclined to think," said the nurse, as she sought vainly to find where a possible pin might be creating a disturbance to the baby's discomfiture--"I'm inclined to think that perhaps he's got a pain somewhere."

And then the youthful Russ blinked his eyes, gave another shriek, and attempted to pout. Now it is a singular way little Russ has of pouting. He gets it from his mamma, who used to pout in just the same way when she was a little girl--so grandma says--and it consists entirely of sticking his chin out as far as he can, while concealing his lower lip as much as possible beneath the cherry-colored Cupid's bow that acts as his upper lip. A proceeding of this sort always results in making that chin the most conspicuous thing in the room, so that it is not surprising that when little Russ pouted every one in the room should at once notice that there was a great red spot upon it.

"Why, the poor little soul has been frost-bitten!" cried mamma, running for the cold cream--queer thing that, by-the-way, Jimmieboy thought. He would have put warm cream on a cold sore like that.

"So he is!" ejaculated papa, with an indignant glance at the chin, which only caused that fat little feature to pout the more. "Hadn't I better send for the doctor?"

"Does dogs frost-bite?" queried Jimmieboy, looking around the room for a stick with which to beat the dog that had done the biting, if perchance it was a dog that was responsible.

"No, indeed," said papa. "It wasn't a dog; it was Jack Frost, and nobody else. He ought to be muzzled."

"Who is Jack Frost, papa?" Jimmieboy asked, so much interested in Jack that he for a moment forgot his suffering small brother.

"Jack? Why, Jack is a man named Frost, who deals in cold, and he goes around in winter biting people. He's a sort of ice-man, only he's retired from trade, and gives things away, to people who don't want 'em. It would be better if he'd go into business, and sell his favors to people who do want 'em."

"Well, he's a naughty man," said Jimmieboy.

"Yes, indeed, he is," said papa. "Why, he's the man who withered all your mamma's plants, and painted our nice green lawn white; and then, when we wanted to dig holes for the fence posts, he came along and made the ground so hard it took all the edge off the spade, and made the hired man so tired that he overslept himself that night and let the furnace go out."

"Can't somebody catch him, and put him into prism?" asked Jimmieboy.

"Oh, he's been in prism lots of times," said papa, with a laugh at Jimmieboy's droll word; "but he manages to get out again."

"Where does he live, papa?" asked the boy.

"All around in winter. In summer he goes north for his health."

"And can't anybody ever get rid of him?"

"No. The only way to do that successfully would be to burn him out, and so far nobody has ever been able to do it entirely. You can put him out of your own house; but, if he wants to, he'll stay around the place and nip your plants, and freeze up your wells, and put a web of ice on your grass and sidewalks in spite of anything you can do."