Kitabı oku: «Half-Hours with Jimmieboy», sayfa 8
XV.
IN THE HEART OF FROSTLAND
"We're afloat!
We're afloat!
In our trim ice-boat;
And we row —
Yeave ho!
"I guess I won't sing any more," said the Gas Stove. "It's a hard song to sing, that is, particularly when you've never heard it before, and can't think of another rhyme for boat."
"That's easy enough to find," returned Jimmieboy, pulling at the oars. "Coat rhymes with boat, and so do note and moat and goat and – "
"Very true," assented the Stove, "but it wouldn't do to use coat because we take our coats off when we row. Note is good enough but you don't have time to write one when you are singing a sea-song. Moat isn't any good, because nobody'd know whether you meant the moat of a castle, a sun-moat, or the one in your eye. As for goats, goats don't go well in poetry. So I guess it's just as well to stop singing right here."
"How fast we go!" said Jimmieboy.
"What did you expect?" asked the Stove. "The bottom of this boat is as slippery as can be, and, of course, going up the river against the current we get over the water faster than if we were going the other way because we – er – because we – well because we do."
"Seems to me," said Jimmieboy, "I'd better turn out some of the gas in my coat. I'm melting right through the seat here."
"So am I," returned the Stove, with an anxious glance at the icy craft. "It won't be more than a minute before I melt my end of the boat all to pieces. I'm afraid we'll have to take to our arctics after all. I brought a pair of your father's along, and it's a good thing for us that he has big feet, for you'll have to get in one and I in the other."
Just then the stern of the boat melted away, and the Stove, springing up from his seat and throwing himself into one of the arctics, with his ammunition and rubber hose, floated off. Jimmieboy had barely time to get into the other arctic when his end of the ice-boat also gave way, and a cross-current in the stream catching the arctic whirled it about and carried it and its little passenger far away from the Stove who shortly disappeared around a turn in the river, so that Jimmieboy was left entirely alone in utter ignorance as to where he really was or what he should do next. Generally Jimmieboy was a very brave little boy, but he found his present circumstances rather trying. To be floating down a strange river in a large overshoe, with absolutely no knowledge of the way home, and a very dim notion only as to how he had managed to get where he was, was terrifying, and when he realized his position, great tears fell from Jimmieboy's eyes, freezing into little pearls of ice before they landed in the bottom of the golosh, where they piled up so rapidly that the strange craft sank further and further into the water and would certainty have sunk with their weight had not the voice Jimmieboy had encountered a little while before come to his rescue.
"Golosh, ahoy!" cried the voice. "Captain! Captain! Lean over the side and cry in the river or you'll sink your boat."
The sound of the voice was a great relief to the little sailor who at once tried to obey the order he had received but found it unnecessary since his tears immediately dried up.
"Come out here in the boat with me!" cried Jimmieboy. "I'm awful lonesome and I don't know what to do."
"Then there is only one thing you can do," said the voice from a point directly over the buckle of the arctic. "And that is to sit still and let time show you. It's a great thing, Jimmieboy, when you don't know what to do and can't find any one to tell you, to sit down and do nothing, because if you did something you'd be likely to find out afterwards that it was the wrong thing. When I was young, in the days when I was what I used to be, I once read a poem that has lingered with me ever since. It was called 'Wait and See' and this is the way it went:
"When you are puzzled what to do,
And no one's nigh to help you out;
You'll find it for the best that you
Should wait until Time gives the clew.
And then your business go about —
Of this there is no doubt.
"Just see the cow! She never knows
What's going to happen next, so she
Contented 'mongst the daises goes,
In clover from her head to toes,
From care and trouble ever free —
She simply waits, you see!
"The horse, unlike the cow, in fear
Jumps to and fro at maddest rate,
Tears down the street, doth snort and rear,
And knocks the wagon out of gear —
And just because he does not wait,
His woes accumulate.
"D. Crockett, famous in the past,
The same sage thought hath briefly wed
To words that must forever last,
Wherever haply they be cast:
'Be sure you're right, then go ahead,'
"That's what D. Crockett said.
"Lots in that. If you don't know what to do," continued the voice, "don't do it."
"I won't," said Jimmieboy. "But do you know where we are?"
"Yes," said the voice. "I am here and you are there, and I think if we stay just as we are forever there is not likely to be any change, so why repine? We are happy."
Just then the golosh passed into a huge cavern, whose sides glistened like silver, and from the roof of which hung millions of beautiful and at times fantastically shaped icicles.
"This," said the voice, "is the gateway to the Kingdom of Frostland. At the far end you will see a troop of ice soldiers standing guard. I doubt very much if you can get by them, unless you have retained a great deal of that heat you had. How is it? Are you still lit?"
"I am," said Jimmieboy. "Just put your hand on my chest and see how hot it is."
"Can't do it," returned the voice, "for two reasons. First, I haven't a hand to do it with, and secondly, if I had, I couldn't see with it. People don't see with their hands any more than they sing with their toes; but say, Jimmieboy, wouldn't it be funny if we could do all those things – eh? What a fine poem this would be if it were only sensible:
"A singular song having greeted my toes,
I stared till I weakened the sight of my nose
To see what it was, and observed a sweet voice
Come forth from the ears of Lucinda, so choice.
"I cast a cough-drop in the lovely one's eyes,
Who opened her hands in a tone of surprise,
And remarked, in a way that startled my wife,
'I never was treated so ill in my life.'
"Then tears in a torrent coursed over her arms,
And the blush on her teeth much heightened her charms.
As, tossing the cough-drop straight back, with a sneeze,
She smashed the green goggles I wear on my knees."
Jimmieboy laughed so long and so loudly at this poetical effusion that he attracted the attention of the guards, who immediately loaded their guns and began to pepper the invaders with snow-balls.
"Throw yourself down on your stomach in the toe of the golosh," whispered the voice, "and they'll never know you are there. Keep perfectly quiet, and when any questions are asked, even if you are discovered, let me answer them. I can disguise myself so that they won't recognize me, and they'll think I'm your voice. In this way I think I can get you through in safety."
So Jimmieboy threw himself down in the golosh, and the voice began to sing.
"No, no, my dear,
I do not fear
The devastating snow-ball;
When it strikes me,
I shriek with glee,
And eat it like a dough-ball."
"Halt!" cried the ice-guards. "Who are you?"
"I am a haunted overshoe," replied the voice. "I am on the foot of a phantom which only appears at uncertain hours, and is consequently now invisible to you.
"And, so I say,
Oh, fire away,
I fear ye not, icicles;
Howe'er ye shoot,
I can't but hoot,
Your act so greatly tickles."
"Shall we let it through?" asked the Captain of the guards.
"I move we do," said one High Private.
"I move we don't," said another.
"All in favor of doing one thing or the other say aye," cried the Captain.
"Aye!" roared the company.
"Contrary-minded, no," added the Captain.
"No!" roared the company.
"Both motions are carried," said the Captain. "We will now adjourn for luncheon."
The overshoe, meanwhile, had floated on down through the gates and was now out of the guards' sight and Jimmieboy sprang to his feet and looked about him once more, and what he saw was so beautiful that he sat speechless with delight. He was now in the heart of Frostland, and before him loomed the Palace, a marvelously massive pile of richly carven ice-blocks transparent as glass; and within, seated upon a throne of surpassing brilliance and beauty, sat King Jack surrounded by his courtiers, who were singing songs the like of which Jimmieboy never before had heard.
"Now remember, Jimmieboy," said the voice, as the overshoe with its passengers floated softly up to the huge snow-pier that ran out into the river at this point where they disembarked – "remember I am to do all the talking. Otherwise you might get into trouble."
"All right, Voicy," began Jimmieboy, and then there came a terrific shout from within.
"Who comes here?" cried King Jack, rising from his throne and pointing his finger at Jimmieboy.
"I am a traveling minstrel," Jimmieboy seemed to reply though in reality it was the kind-hearted voice that said it. "And I have come a thousand and six miles, eight blocks, fourteen feet, six inches to recite to your Majesty a poem I have written in honor of your approaching Jubilee."
"Have I a Jubilee approaching?" roared Jack, turning to his Secretary of State, who was so startled that his right arm melted.
"Y – yes, your Majesty," stammered the Secretary, with a low bow. "It is coming along at the rate of sixty seconds a minute."
"Why have I not been informed of this before?" roared Jack, casting a glance at the cowering Secretary that withered the nose straight off his face. "Don't you know that Jubilees are useful to a man only because other people give him presents in honor of the event? And here you've kept me in ignorance of the fact all this time, and the chances are I won't get a thing; – for I've neglected my relatives dreadfully."
"Sire," pleaded the Secretary, "all that you say is true, but I have attended to all that. I have informed your friends that the Jubilee is coming, and they are all preparing pleasant little surprises for you. We are going to give your Majesty a surprise party, which is the finest kind of a party, because you don't have to go home after it is over, and the guests bring their own fried oysters, and pay all the bills."
"Ah!" said Jack, melting a little. "You are a good man, after all. I will raise your salary, and send your children a skating-pond on Christmas day; but when is this Jubilee to take place?"
"In eight hundred and forty-seven years," returned the voice, who did not like the Secretary of State, and wanted to get him in trouble. "On the eighty-second day of July."
"What – a – at?" roared the King, glaring at the Secretary.
"I didn't say a word, sire," cried the unfortunate Secretary.
"No?" sneered Jack. "I suppose it was I that answered my own question, eh? That settles you. The idea of my waiting eight hundred and forty-seven years for a Jubilee that is to take place on an impossible date! Executioner, take the Secretary of State out to the furnace-room, and compel him to sit before the fire until there's only enough of him left to make one snow-ball. Then take that and throw it at the most decrepit hack-driver in my domain. The humiliation of this delayer of Jubilees must be complete."
The Secretary of State was then led weeping away, and Jack, turning to the awed Jimmieboy, shouted out:
"Now for the minstrel. If the poem pleaseth our Royal Coolness, the singer shall have the position made vacant by that unfortunate snow-drift I have just degraded. Step right up, young fellow, and turn on the poem."
"Step up to the foot of the throne and make a bow, and leave the rest to me," whispered the voice to Jimmieboy. "All you've got to do is to move your lips and wave your arms. I'll do the talking."
Jimmieboy did as he was bade. He took up his stand before the throne, bowed, and the voice began to declaim as Jimmieboy's lips moved, and his arms began to shoot out, first to the left and then to the right.
"This poem," said the voice, "is in the language of the Snortuguese, and has been prepared at great expense for this occasion, fourteen gallons of ink having been consumed on the first stanza alone, which runs as follows:
"Jack Frigidos,
Jack Frigidos,
Oh, what a trope you are!
How you do shine
And ghibeline,
And conjugate afar!"
"It begins very well, oh, minstrel!" said Jack, with an approving nod. "The ink was well expended. Mount thee yon table, and from thence deliver thyself of the remnant of thy rhyme."
"Thanks," returned the voice; "I will."
"Get up on the table, Jimmieboy," the voice added, "and we'll finish 'em off there. Be a little slow about it, for I've got to have time to compose the rest of the poem."
So Jimmieboy clambered up the leg of the table, and in a few moments was ready for the voice to begin, which the voice proceeded to do.
"I will repeat the first verse, your Majesty, for the sake of completeness. And here goes:
"Jack Frigidos,
Jack Frigidos,
Oh, what a trope you are!
How you do shine,
And ghibeline,
And conjugate afar!
"How debonair
Is thy back hair;
Thy smile how contraband!
Would I could ape
Thy shapely shape,
And arrogate thy hand!
"That nose of thine,
How superfine!
How pertinent thy chin.
How manifest
The palimpsest
And contour of thy shin!
"How ormolu
Thy revenue!
How dusk thy silhouette!
How myrtilly
Thy pedigree
Doth grace thine amulet!
"What man is there,
Ay, anywhere,
What mortal chanticleer,
Can fail to find
Unto his mind
Thy buxom bandolier!
"Ah, Frigidos!
Jack Frigidos,
In parcel or in keg,
Another like
Thee none can strike
From Dan to Winnipeg."
Here the voice paused.
"Is that all?" queried Jack Frost.
"It is all I have written up to this moment," the voice answered. "Of course there are seventy or eighty more miles of it, because, as your Majesty is well aware, it would take many a league of poetry fitly to commemorate your virtues."
"Your answer is pleasing unto me," replied the monarch of Frostland, when the voice had thus spoken. "The office of the Secretary of State is yours. The salary is not large, but the duties are. They are to consist mainly of – "
Here the King was interrupted by a tremendous noise without. Evidently some one was creating a disturbance, and as Jimmieboy turned to see what it was, he saw the great ice mountain looming up over the far-distant horizon melt slowly away and dwindle out of sight; and then messengers, breathless with haste, rushed in and cried out to the King:
"We are attacked! we are attacked! A tribe from a far country, commanded by the Gas Stove, is even now within our boundaries, armed with a devastating hose, breathing forth fire, by which already has been destroyed the whole western frontier."
"What is to be done?" cried Jack, in alarm, and springing to his feet. "Can we not send a regiment of cold winds out against them, and freeze them to their very marrows and blow out the gas?"
"We cannot, sire," returned the messenger, "for the heat is so deadly that the winds themselves thaw into balmy zephyrs before they reach the enemy."
"Not so!" cried the voice from Jimmieboy's lips. "For I will save you if you will place the matter in my hands."
"Noble creature!" sobbed Jack, grasping Jimmieboy by the hand. "Save my kingdom from destruction, and all that you ask of me in the future is yours."
And Jimmieboy, promising to help Jack, started out, clad with all the authority of his high office, to meet the Gas Stove.
XVI.
THE END OF THE STORY
AS Jimmieboy proceeded along the icy road he observed that everything was beginning to thaw, and then, peering as far into the distance as he could, he saw a great flame burning fiercely and scorching everything with which it came in contact. It was quite evident that the Gas Stove had brought with him the most effective ammunition possible for his purposes.
"I don't see exactly how he does it," said the newly appointed Secretary of State, as he ran hurriedly toward the devastating fire.
"Easy enough," returned the voice. "He has brought along a large quantity of gas and a garden hose, and he has turned on the gas just as you would turn on water, lit it, and there you are. There is absolutely no withstanding him, and unless he can be induced to stop very shortly, he'll destroy this whole kingdom, and we'll have nothing but a desert ocean; and I can tell you, Jimmieboy, a desert ocean where there is nothing but water is worse than a desert desert where there is nothing but sand."
"It seems almost a pity to destroy such a beautiful place as this," said Jimmieboy, looking about him, taking note of the great tall ice-covered trees and the frost flowers and grasses at the road-side. "But, you know, Jack Frost bit my little brother, which was very cowardly of him, and that's why the Gas Stove and I have come here to fight."
"I think you are wrong there," said the voice. "I don't believe Jack any more than kissed him; but if he did bite him, it was because he loved him."
Jimmieboy had never thought of it in that light before. All he knew was that whatever Jack Frost had done, it had brought tears to little Russ's eyes and woe to his heart.
"It's rather a funny way to show love to bite a person," said Jimmieboy.
"Just let me ask you a few questions," said the voice. "Do you like cherries and peaches?"
"Oh, don't I!" cried Jimmieboy, smacking his lips. "I just dote on 'em!"
"Then," said the voice,
"Why do you bite the cherry sweet?
Why in the peach do your teeth meet?"
"Never thought of it that way," said Jimmieboy.
"I suppose not," returned the voice. "Are you fond of apples and gingerbread?"
"Well, rather!" ejaculated Jimmieboy.
"Then tell me this," asked the voice:
"Why do you gnaw the apple red?
Why do you chew your gingerbread?"
"Because I like 'em," returned Jimmieboy.
"Why do you crunch your taffy brown?
Why do you nibble your jumble down?
Why do you munch your candy ball?
Why do you chew at all – at all?"
continued the voice.
"To make things last longer. 'Tain't proper to gulp 'em all down at once," answered Jimmieboy.
"And that's why Jack Frost bit little Russ," asserted the voice. "In the first place, he loved him. Little Russ was to him as sweet as a cherry is to you. In the second place, he took a little wee bite, because it wasn't proper to gulp him all down. To-morrow that bite spot will be well, and little Russ will be none the worst for it. Now I don't see why you should want to ruin all this beautiful country just for that. It isn't a crime to love babies or to eat cherries."
"That's so," said Jimmieboy. "But Jack Frost has done other things. He killed a lot of mamma's flowers."
"No, he didn't," returned the voice. "Your mamma left 'em out-doors all night, and Jack came along and did just what the bees do. He took all the sweetness he could find out of 'em, and brought them here, where he planted them and made them appear like flowers of silver. You see what the heat down there is doing?"
Jimmieboy looked, and saw the icy covering melting off the flowers and trees, and as the silver coating fell away they would wave softly in the balmy air for a moment, and then wither and crumble away.
"Isn't that too bad?" he said.
"It is, indeed," replied the voice. "Those flowers and trees would have stood and lived on forever in their ice coats – ever fresh, ever happy. The warmth from the invader's fire gives them one glad mad moment of ecstasy, and then they wither away, and are lost forever. Is that worth while, my boy?"
The voice quivered a little as it uttered these words, and Jimmieboy felt tears rising in his own eyes too. Jack Frost was not so bad a fellow, after all, as he had been made out.
"But he made our hired man's back ache when he went to dig some holes for the fence posts," said Jimmieboy, who now felt that he should have some excuse for his presence in Frostland, and on a mission of destruction. "Was that right of him?"
"Even if it was his fault, it was right," said the voice. "I don't believe it was his fault, though. Hired men have a way of having back-ache when there's lots to do. But supposing Jack did give it to him. That hired man was taking a spade and scarring Mother Earth with its sharp edge. Jack Frost gets all that he has from Mother Earth. She has given him work to do – work that has made him what he is – and it was his duty to protect her."
"Well, I don't know what to do," said Jimmieboy, beginning to sob. "I came here for revenge, and I don't think – "
"There is only one thing for you to do, be true to those who trust you," said the voice. "Now who trusts you? Your nurse doesn't – she wouldn't let you out of her sight. Your papa believes in you, but he never would have intrusted such a mission as this to your hands; nor would your mamma or little Russ. On the other hand, Jack Frost has made you Secretary of State, and you promised to help him in this dreadful trial —he trusts you. As the poem says,
"E'en though it's sure to take and bust you,
Be ever true to them that trust you."
"I'll save them," said Jimmieboy. And then he started off on a run down the road, and ere long stood face to face with the Gas Stove. The latter immediately threw down his hose, turned off the gas, and clasped Jimmieboy to his heart.
"Saved! Saved!" he cried. "I have found you at last. Dear me, how anxious I have been about you!" And then he burst out in song:
"But now, O joy?
My averdupoy
Will steadily increase;
For, now you're back,
My woes will pack
Their clothes in their valise,
"And fly afar,
To the uttermost star
That shines up in the skies,
While you and I
Will warble high
The gleesomest of cries.
"We'll sing and sing,
And warble and sing,
And warble, and sing, and sing,
And warble and sing,
And sing, sing, sing,
And warble and sing, sing, sing,"
"Come off!" ejaculated the voice. "That's mighty poor poetry for a Stove that's as glad as you are."
"Why, Jimmieboy, you pain me," said the Gas Stove, who thought that it was his little friend that had spoken. "I didn't think you would criticize my song of happiness that way."
"I never said a word," said Jimmieboy. "It was my friend the voice, who helped me when I was in trouble, and – "
"And by whose efforts," interrupted the voice, "our Jimmieboy here is now the Right Honorable Jamesboy. Secretary of State to his Majesty the Emperor of Frostland, Prince of Iceberg, Marquis Thawberry, and Chief Ice-cream Freezer to all the crowned heads of Europe, Asia, Africa, Austrilia and New Jersey. I'd advise you to take off your hat, Mr. Stove, for you are in the presence of a great man."
"No, no," cried Jimmieboy, as the Gas Stove doffed his iron lid; "don't take off your hat to me, Stovey. I am all that he says, but I am still Jimmieboy, and your friend."
"But what becomes of your war?" queried the Gas Stove, ruefully. "I can't fight against you, and you are a part of the government."
"That's a very sensible conclusion," said the voice. "Only I wouldn't let King Jack know that, or he wouldn't ever let Jimmieboy go away from here. What you want to do is to make terms that will be satisfactory to both parties, get Jack Frost to agree to 'em, and there you are. If he won't agree, the Gas Stove will have to go on with the war until he does agree."
"That's the thing to do, I suppose," said the Stove. "What shall I insist upon, Mr. Secretary?"
"Well, I think Jack ought to quit biting babies, no matter if he does love 'em," said Jimmieboy.
"I insist upon it," said the Gas Stove, firmly.
"I think, too," said Jimmieboy, "that he ought not to run off with so many flowers."
"If you do not agree to that, Mr. Secretary," returned the Stove, "I shall turn on my canned devastation again."
"I shall endeavor to secure the King's consent," replied Jimmieboy. "And, furthermore, he must keep away from the water-pipes in my papa's house. He froze 'em all up last winter."
"That is my ultimatum," said the Stove.
"Your what?" queried Jimmieboy.
"My last word," explained the Stove.
"It's long enough to have been a half-dozen of your last words," laughed the voice. "But is that all you're to agree upon?"
"I don't know of anything more," said Jimmieboy.
"Nor I," said the Stove.
"You're a mean couple," ejaculated the voice, angrily. "If I had my way, you'd do something for one who has served you when you were in trouble," he added, addressing Jimmieboy. "Where would you have been if it hadn't been for – for – well, for a friend of mine?"
"I don't know who you mean," said Jimmieboy.
"He wants something for himself," whispered the Gas Stove, "and he is right."
"Oh, you don't know who I mean, eh?" sneered the voice. And then he added:
"Who saved you from the icy sea.
And brought you through S-A-F-E?
Why, ME!
"Who thought about that jubilee,
And filled Jack Frost chock up with glee?
Why, ME!
"Who all your goings did o'ersee,
And got this lofty place for thee?
Why, ME!
"That's who. Now what are you going to do about it?"
"He's going back to Jack Frost," said the Gas Stove, "and he is going to demand that you shall be made Secretary of State in his place, and he is going to tell Jack that if he ever removes you from that position I shall return and destroy the country."
"You are very moderate in your demands," said the voice. "I think King Jack will be very foolish if he refuses to accede to them, particularly that one having reference to myself. I do not care for the office, of course, but since there seems to be a demand for me, I shall accept."
So Jimmieboy, followed by the Gas Stove and the voice, returned to the palace, and the demands of the Stove were laid before the monarch.
"I'll agree to 'em all gladly," said he, "save that which forces me to deprive myself of your valuable services. Was he quite firm about that?"
"He was!" shouted the voice, before Jimmieboy could speak.
Here somebody else in the distance seemed to call: "Jimmieboy! Hi! Jimmieboy!"
"Shall I accede or stand by you?" asked Jack, taking Jimmieboy by the hand.
"You'd better accede," said Jimmieboy, looking around to see who was calling him, "for I have just heard some one calling me – my papa, I think – and I guess it's time for me to get up."
What Jack's response to this curious remark would have been no one knows, for just then a most strange thing took place. Jack Frost and his palace in an instant faded completely from view, and Jimmieboy in surprise closed his eyes, rubbed them with both his fists, and then opened them again, to find himself in his little cot in the nursery, the gas-stove burning merrily and winking at him from the fire-place, and the friendly voice, as usual, nowhere to be seen, and now not even to be heard.
No sole remnant of the frozen country remained, save a few beautiful frost pictures on the windows, which, it seemed to Jimmieboy, Jack had left there in remembrance of the services Jimmieboy had done him; and as for the frost kiss on little Russ's chin, it had become as invisible as that far sweeter kiss that mamma had placed upon that very same spot when she first discovered what Jack had done.
