In Camp With A Tin Soldier

by John Kendrick Bangs

  CHAPTER IX.

  THE SPRITE'S STORY.

  "When I was not more than a thousand years old--" said the sprite.

  "Excuse me," interrupted the major. "But what was the figure?"

  "One thousand," returned the sprite. "That was nine thousand yearsago--before this world was made. I celebrated myten-thousand-and-sixteenth birthday last Friday--but that has nothing todo with my story. When I was not more than a thousand years of age, myparents, who occupied a small star about forty million miles from here,finding that my father could earn a better living if he were locatednearer the moon, moved away from my birthplace and rented a good-sized,four-pronged star in the suburbs of the great orb of night. In the oldstar we were too far away from the markets for my father to sell theproducts of his farm for anything like what they cost him; freightcharges were very heavy, and often the stage-coach that ran betweenTwinkleville and the moon would not stop at Twinkleville at all, andthen all the stuff that we had raised that week would get stale, loseits fizz, and have to be thrown away."

  "Let me beg your pardon again," put in the major. "But what did youraise on your farm? I never heard of farm products having fizz to lose."

  "We raised soda-water chiefly," returned the sprite, amiably."Soda-water and suspender buttons. The soda-water was cultivated and thesuspender buttons seemed to grow wild. We never knew exactly how; thoughfrom what I have learned since about them, I think I begin to understandthe science of it; and I wish now that I could find a way to return toTwinkleville, because I am certain it must be a perfect treasure-houseof suspender buttons by this time. Even in my day they used to lie aboutby the million--metallic buttons every one of them. They must be worthto-day at least a dollar a thousand."

  "What is your idea about the way they happened to come there, based onwhat you have learned since?" asked the major.

  "Well, it is a very simple idea," returned the sprite. "You know when asuspender button comes off it always disappears. Of course it must gosomewhere, but the question is, where? No one has ever yet been known torecover the suspender button he has once really lost; and my notion ofit is simply that the minute a metal suspender button comes off theclothes of anybody in all the whole universe, it immediately flies upthrough the air and space to Twinkleville, which is nothing more than ahuge magnet, and lies there until somebody picks it up and tries to sellit. I remember as a boy sweeping our back yard clear of them oneevening, and waking the next morning to find the whole place coveredwith them again; but we never could make money on them, because the moonwas our sole market, and only the best people of the moon ever usedsuspenders, and as these were unfortunately relatives of ours, we had togive them all the buttons they wanted for nothing, so that the buttoncrops became rather an expense to us than otherwise. But with soda-waterit was different. Everybody, it doesn't make any difference where helives, likes soda-water, and it was an especially popular thing in themoon, where the plain water is always so full of fish that nobody candrink it. But as I said before, often the stage-coach wouldn't orcouldn't stop, and we found ourselves getting poorer every day. Finallymy father made up his mind to lease, and move into this new star, sink ahalf-dozen soda-water wells there, and by means of a patent he owned,which enabled him to give each well a separate and distinct flavor,drive everybody else out of the business."

  "You don't happen to remember how that patent your father owned worked,do you?" asked the major, noticing that Jimmieboy seemed particularlyinterested when the sprite mentioned this. "If you do, I'd like to buythe plan of it from you and give it to Jimmieboy for a Christmaspresent, so that he can have soda-water wells in his own back yard athome."

  "No, I can't remember anything about it," said the sprite. "Ninethousand years is a long time to remember things of that kind, though Idon't think the scheme was a very hard one to work. For vanilla cream,it only required a well with plain soda-water in it with a quart ofvanilla beans and three pints of cream poured into it four times a week;same way with other flavors--a quart of strawberries for strawberry,sarsaparilla for sarsaparilla, and so forth; but the secret was in thepouring; there was something in the way papa did the pouring; I neverknew just what it was. He always insisted on doing the pouring himself.But if you don't stop asking questions I'll never finish my story."

  "You shouldn't make it so interesting if you don't want us to have ourcuriosity excited by it," said Jimmieboy. "I'd have asked thosequestions if the major hadn't. But go ahead. What happened?"

  "Well, we moved, and in a very short time were comfortably settled inthe suburban star I have mentioned," continued the sprite. "As weexpected, my father grew very, very rich. He was referred to in the moonnewspapers as 'The Soda-water King,' and once an article about him saidthat he owned the finest suspender-button mine in the universe, whichwas more or less true, but which, as it turned out, was unfortunate inits results. Some moon people hearing of his ownership of theTwinkleville Button Mines came to him and tried to persuade him thatthey ought to be worked. Father said he didn't see any use of it,because the common people didn't wear suspenders, and so didn't need thebuttons.

  "'True,' said they, 'but we can compel them to need them, by making alaw requiring that everybody over sixteen shall wear suspenders.'

  "'That's a good idea,' said my father, and he tried to have it made alaw that every one should wear suspenders, high or low, and as a resulthe got everybody mad at him. The best people were angry, because up tothat time the wearing of suspenders had been regarded as a sign of noblebirth, and if everybody, including the common people, were to have themthey would cease to be so. The common people themselves were angry,because to have to buy suspenders would simply be an addition to thecost of living, and they hadn't any money to spare. In consequence wewere cut off by the best people of the moon. Nobody ever came to see usexcept the very commonest kind of common people, and they came at night,and then only to drop pailfuls of cod-liver oil, squills, ipecac, andother unpopular things into our soda-water wells, so that in a veryshort time my poor father's soda-water business was utterly ruined.People don't like to order ten quarts of vanilla cream soda-water forSunday dinner, and find it flavored with cod-liver oil, you know."

  "Yes, I do know," said Jimmieboy, screwing his face up in an endeavor togive the major and the sprite some idea of how little he liked the tasteof cod-liver oil. "I think cod-liver oil is worse than measles ormumps, because you can't have measles or mumps more than once, and thereisn't any end to the times you can have cod-liver oil."

  "I'm with you there," said the major, emphasizing his remark by slappingJimmieboy on the back. "In fact, sir, on page 29 of my book called'Musings on Medicines' you will find--if it is ever published--theselines:

  "The oils of cod! The oils of cod! They make me feel tremendous odd, Nor hesitate I here to state I wildly hate the oils of cod."

  "Bravo!" cried the sprite. "When I start my autograph album I want youto write those lines on the first page."

  "With pleasure," returned the major. "When shall you start the album?"

  "Never, I hope," replied the sprite, with a chuckle. "And now supposeyou don't interrupt my story again."

  Clouds began to gather on the major's face again. The sprite's rebukehad evidently made him very angry.

  "Sir," said he, as soon as his feelings permitted him to speak. "If youmake any more such remarks as that, another duel may be necessary afterthis one is fought--which I should very much regret, for duels of thissort consume a great deal of time, and unless I am much mistaken it willshortly rain cats and dogs."

  "It looks that way," said the sprite, "and it is for that very reasonthat I do not wish to be interrupted again. Of course ruin stared fatherin the face."

  "How rude of ruin!" whispered the major to Jimmieboy, who immediatelysilenced him.

  "Trade having fallen away," continued the sprite, "we had to draw uponour savings for our bread and butter, and finally, when the last pennywas spent, we made up our m
inds to leave the moon district entirely andtry life on the dog-star, where, we were informed, people only had oneeye apiece, and every man had so much to do that it took all of his oneeye's time looking after his own business so that there wasn't any leftfor him to spend on other people's business. It seemed to my father thatin a place like this there was a splendid opening for him."

  "In what line?" queried the major.

  "Renting out his extra eye to blind men," roared the sprite.

  Jimmieboy fell off the rock with laughter, and the major, angry at beingso neatly caught, rose up and walked away but immediately returned.

  "If this wasn't a duel I wouldn't stay here another minute," he said."But you can't put me to flight that way. Go on and finish."

  "The question now came up as to how we should get to the dog-star,"resumed the sprite. "Our money was all gone. Nobody would lend us any.Nobody would help us at all."

  "I should think they'd have been so glad you were leaving they'd havepaid your fare," said the major, but the sprite paid no attention.

  "There was no regular stage line between the moon and the dog-star,"said he, "and we had only two chances of really getting there, and theywere both so slim you could count their ribs. One was by getting aboardthe first comet that was going that way, and the other was by jumping.The trouble with the first chance was that as far as any one knew therewasn't a comet expected to go in the direction of the dog-star for eightmillion years--which was rather a long time for a starving family towait, and besides we had read of so many accidents in the moon papersabout people being injured while trying to board comets in motion thatwe were a little timid about it. My father and I could have managedvery well; but mother might not have--ladies can't even get on horsecars in motion without getting hurt, you know.

  "Then the other scheme was equally dangerous. It's a pretty big jumpfrom the moon to the dog-star, and if you don't aim yourself right youare apt to miss it, and either fall into space or land somewhere elsewhere you don't want to go. For instance, a cousin of minewho lived on Mars wanted to visit us when we lived at Twinkleville, buthe was too mean to pay his fare, thinking he could jump it cheaper.Well, he jumped and where do you suppose he landed?"

  "In the sun!" cried the major, in horror.

  "No. Nowhere!" returned the sprite. "He's jumping yet. He didn't comeanywhere near Twinkleville, although he supposed that he was aimed inthe right direction."

  "Will you tell me how you know he's falling yet?" asked the major, whodidn't seem to believe this part of the sprite's story.

  "Certainly. I saw him yesterday through a telescope," replied thesprite.

  The major began to whistle.

  "And he looked very tired, too," said the sprite. "Though as a matter offact he doesn't have to exert himself any. All he has to do is fall,and, once you get started, falling is the easiest thing in the world.But of course with the remembrance of my cousin's mistake in our minds,we didn't care so much about making the jump, and we kept putting it offand putting it off until finally some wretched people had a law madeabolishing us from the moon entirely, which meant that we had to leaveinside of twenty-four hours; so we packed up our trunks with the fewpossessions we had left and threw them off toward the dog-star; thenmother and father took hold of hands and jumped and I was to come alongafter them with some of the baggage that we hadn't got ready in time.

  "According to my father's instructions I watched him carefully as hesped through space to see whether he had started right, and to my greatjoy I observed that he had--that very shortly both he and mother wouldarrive safely on the dog-star--but alas! My joy was soon turned togrief, for a terrible thing happened. Our great heavy family trunk thathad been dispatched first, and with truest aim, landed on the head ofthe King of the dog-star, stove his crown in and nearly killed him.Hardly had the king risen up from the ground when he was again knockeddown by my poor father, who, utterly powerless to slow up or switchhimself to one side, landed precisely as the trunk had landed on themonarch's head, doing quite as much more damage as the trunk had done inthe beginning. When added to these mishaps a shower of hat-boxes andhand-bags, marked with our family name, fell upon the Lord ChiefJustice, the Prime Minister and the Heir Apparent, my parents werearrested and thrown into prison and I decided that the dog-star was noplace for me. Wild with grief, and without looking to see where I wasgoing, nor in fact caring much, I gave a running leap out into space andfinally through some good fortune landed here on this earth which I havefound quite good enough for me ever since."

  Here the sprite paused and looked at Jimmieboy as much as to say, "Howis that for a tale of adventure?"

  "Is that all?" queried Jimmieboy.

  "Mercy!" cried the major, "Isn't it enough?"

  "No," said Jimmieboy. "Not quite. I don't see how he could have jumpedso many years before the world was made and yet land on the world."

  "I was five thousand years on the jump," explained the sprite.

  "It was leap-year when you started, wasn't it?" asked the major, with asarcastic smile.

  "And your parents? What finally became of them?" asked Jimmieboy,signaling the major to be quiet.

  "I hadn't the heart to inquire. I am afraid they got into serioustrouble. It's a very serious thing to knock a king down with a trunk andland on his head yourself the minute he gets up again," sighed thesprite.

  "But didn't you tell me your parents were unfairies?" put in Jimmieboy,eying the sprite distrustfully.

  "Yes; but they were only my adopted parents," explained the sprite."They were a very rich old couple with lots of money and no children, soI adopted them not knowing that they were unfairies. When they died theyleft me all their bad habits, and their money went to found a storeroomfor worn out lawn-mowers. That was a sample of their meanness."

  "Well that's a pretty good story," said Jimmieboy.

  "Yes," said the sprite, with a pleased smile. "And the best part of itis it's all true."

  "Tut!" ejaculated the major, scornfully. "Wait until you hear mine."