Bikey the Skicycle and Other Tales of Jimmieboy

by John Kendrick Bangs

  "Writes?" asked Jimmieboy.

  "Exactly," replied Santa Claus. "It writes stories and poems and jokes.There are five keys goes with each machine--one poetry key, one jokekey, one fairy tale key, a story of adventure key, and a solemn Sundayschool story key that writes morals and makes you wonder whether you'reas good as you ought to be."

  "Well," said Jimmieboy, "now that I know about that, that's what I want,though as a matter of fact I rang you up for a glass of ice water."

  "What!" cried Santa Claus, indignantly, bounding about the room like atennis ball again. "Me? Do you mean to say you've summoned me away frommy work at this season of the year just to bring you a glass of icewater?"

  "I--I didn't mean for you to bring it," said Jimmieboy, meekly. "I--Imust have made a mistake----"

  "It's outrageous," said Santa Claus, stamping his foot, "You hadn'toughter make mistakes. I won't bring you anything on Christmas--no, nota thing. You----"

  A knock at the door interrupted the little old man, and Jimmieboy, ongoing to see who was there, discovered the hall boy with the pitcher ofwater.

  "What's that?" asked Santa, as Jimmieboy returned.

  "It's the water," replied the little fellow. "So I couldn't have made amistake after all."

  "Hum!" said Santa, stroking his beard slowly and thoughtfully. "Iguess--I guess the wires must be crossed--so it wasn't your fault--and Iwill bring you something, but the man who ought to have looked afterthose wires and didn't won't find anything in his stocking but a bighole in the toe on Christmas."

  The old fellow then shook hands good-by with the boy, and walked to thechimney.

  "Let's see--what shall I bring you?" he asked, pausing.

  "The windable writer," said Jimmieboy.

  "All right," returned Santa, starting up the chimney. "You can have oneif I get it finished in time, but I am afraid this annoying delay willcompel me to put off the distribution of those machines until some otheryear."

  And with that he was gone.

  Meanwhile Jimmieboy is anxiously waiting for Christmas to see if it willbring him the windable writer. I don't myself believe that it will, forthe last I heard Santa had not returned to his workshop, but whether hegot stuck in the hotel chimney or not nobody seems to know.

  IN THE BROWNIES' HOUSE

  _IN THE BROWNIES' HOUSE_

  Jimmieboy, like every other right-minded youth, was a great admirer ofthe Brownies. They never paid any attention to him, but went about theirbusiness in the books as solemnly as ever no matter what jokes he mightcrack at their expense. Nor did it seem to make any difference to themhow much noise was being made in the nursery, they swam, threwsnow-balls, climbed trees, floated over Niagara, and built houses asunconcernedly as ever. Nevertheless Jimmieboy liked them. He didn't needto have any attention paid to him by the little folk in pictures. Hedidn't expect it, and so it made no difference to him whatever whetherthey noticed him or not.

  The other day, however, just before the Christmas vacation had come toan end Jimmieboy had a very queer experience with his little picturebook acquaintances. He was feeling a trifle lonesome. His brothers hadgone to a party which was given by one of the neighbors for the babies,and Jimmieboy at the last moment had decided that he would not go. Hewasn't a baby any more, but a small man. He had pockets in his trousersand wore suspenders exactly like his father's, only smaller, and ofcourse a proper regard for his own dignity would not permit him to takepart in a mere baby party.

  "I'll spend my afternoon reading," he said in a lordly way. "I don'tfeel like playing 'Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush' now that I wearsuspenders."

  So he went down into his father's library where his mother had put abook-case for him, on the shelves of which he kept his treasured books.They were the most beautiful fairy books you ever saw; Brownie books andtrue story books by the dozen; books of funny poetry illustrated bystill funnier pictures, and, what I fancy he liked best of all, a halfdozen or more big blank books that his father had given him, in whichJimmieboy wrote poems of his own in great capital letters, some of whichstood on their heads and others on their sides, but all of which anybodywho could read at all could make out at the rate of one letter every tenminutes. I never read much of Jimmieboy's poetry myself and so cannotsay how good it was, but his father told me that the boy never had theslightest difficulty in making Massachusetts rhyme with Potato, orJacksonville with Lemonade, so that I presume they were remarkable intheir way.

  Arrived in the library Jimmieboy seated himself before his book-case,and after gloating over his possessions for a few moments, selected oneof the Brownie books, curled himself up in a comfortable armchair beforethe fire, and opened the book.

  "Why!" he cried as his eye fell upon one of the picture pages. "That'sfunny. I never saw that picture before. There isn't a Brownie in it;nothing but an empty house and a yard in front of it. Where can theBrownies have gone?"

  He hadn't long to wait for an answer. He had hardly spoken when thelittle door of the house opened and the Dude Brownie poked his head outand said softly:

  "'Tis not an empty house, my dear. The Brownies all have come in here. We've played so long to make you smile We thought we'd like to rest awhile. We're every one of us in bed With night-caps on each little head, And if you'll list you'll hear the roar With which the sleeping Brownies snore."

  Jimmieboy raised the book to his ear and listened, and sure enough,there came a most extraordinary noise out of the windows of the house.It sounded like a carpenter at work with a saw in a menagerie full ofroaring lions.

  "Well, that is funny," said Jimmieboy as he listened. "I never knewbefore that Brownies ever got tired. I thought they simply played andplayed and played all the time."

  The Dude Brownie laughed.

  "Now there, my boy, is where you make A really elegant mistake,"

  he said, and then he added,

  "If you will open wide the book We'll let you come inside and look. No other boy has e'er done that. Come in and never mind your hat."

  "I wouldn't wear my hat in the house anyhow," said Jimmieboy. "But Isay, Mr. Brownie, I don't see how I can get in there. I'm too big."

  "Your statement makes me fancy that You really don't know where you're at; For, though you're big and tall and wide, Already, sir, you've come inside,"

  replied the Dude Brownie, and Jimmieboy, rubbing his eyes as if hecouldn't believe it, looked about him and discovered that even as theDude Brownie had said, he had without knowing it already accepted theinvitation and stood in the hall of the Brownie mansion. And O! such amansion! It was just such a house as you would expect Brownies to have.There were no stairs in it, though it was three stories high. On thewalls were all sorts of funny pictures, pictures of the most remarkableanimals in the world or out of it, in fact most of the pictures were ofanimals that Jimmieboy had never heard of before, or even imagined.There was the Brownie Elephant, for instance, the cunningest littleanimal you ever saw, with forty pairs of spectacles running all the waydown its trunk; and a Brownie Pug-dog with its tail curled so tightlythat it lifted the little creature's hind legs off the floor; and mostinteresting of all, a Brownie Bear that could take its fur off in hotweather and put on a light flannel robe instead. Jimmieboy gazed witheyes and mouth wide open at these pictures.

  "What queer animals," he said. "Do you really have such animals asthose?"

  "Excuse me," said the Dude Brownie anxiously, "but before I answer, mustI answer in poetry or in prose? I'll do whichever you wish me to, butI'm a little tired this afternoon, and poetry is such an effort!"

  "I'm very fond of poetry," said Jimmieboy, "especially your kind, but ifyou are tired and would rather speak the other way, you can."

  The Dude Brownie smiled gratefully.

  "You're a very kind little man," he said. "This time I'll talk the otherway, but some day when I get it written I'll send you my book of poetryto make up for it. You like our animals, do you?"

  "Very much," said Jimmieboy. "I'd like
to see a Brownie zoo some time."

  "I'll attend to that," said the Dude Brownie. "I'll make a note of it onthe wall so that we won't forget it."

  Here he seized a huge pencil, almost as big as himself, and wrotesomething on the wall which Jimmieboy could not read, but which hesupposed was the Brownie's memorandum.

  "Won't you spoil your wall doing that?" queried the little visitor.

  "Oh no," said the Brownie. "All these walls are made of slate and weuse 'em to write on. It saves littering the house all up with paper, andevery Tuesday we have a house-cleaning bee and rub all the writing off.It's a very good scheme and I wonder your grown-up people don't have it,particularly in your nurseries. I've noticed children writing things onnursery walls lots of times and then they've been scolded for doing itbecause their nurses said it spoiled the paper. I can't understand whythey don't have slate walls instead that can't be spoiled. It's such atemptation to write on a wall, but it does spoil paper. But to come backto our animals, they're really lovely, and have such wonderfully sweetdispositions. There is the Brownie Elephant, for instance--he's the mostlight hearted creature you ever saw, and he has holes bored through histrunk like a flute and at night he plays the most beautiful music onit, while we Brownies sit around and listen to him."

  "What does he wear so many pairs of spectacles for?" asked Jimmieboy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  JIMMIEBOY--and SOMETHING

  _JIMMIEBOY--and SOMETHING_

  It was a warm, summer afternoon--just the sort of an afternoon for adrowse, and when the weather was just right for it Jimmieboy was a greatdrowser. In fact, a little golden-haired fairy with a silver wand hadjust whispered to a butterfly that when it came to drowsing in aninteresting way there was nobody in the world who could excel Jimmieboyin that accomplishment. Jimmieboy had overheard this much himself, buthe had never told anybody about it, because he found drowsing so veryeasy, and the pleasures of it so great, that he was a little afraidsomebody else might try it and make him divide up his fun with him. Itwas somewhat selfish of him to behave this way, perhaps, but then noone ever pretended that Jimmieboy was absolutely perfect, not even theboy himself.

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

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

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

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

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

  "So! You are going away?" said another voice, which, if his ears did notdeceive Jimmieboy, came this time from the rose bush.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "That's a good idea," said the voice up in the tree. "It's queer I neverthought of it, and I've been thinking and thinking ever so many years,trying to get up a scheme to pass the time."

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

  "I'm sure I don't know," the voice up the tree replied. "I've nevertried to sell them, so of course I can't tell whether they are valuableor not. Do you sell what you think?"

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