Kitabı oku: «In Camp With A Tin Soldier», sayfa 4
"When Tom heard this he was frightened to death almost, and rather than spend all that time shut up in a small cage with the kings of the beasts, he threw off the coat of invisibility and shrieked, and then – "
"Yes – then what?" cried Jimmieboy, breathlessly, so excited that he could not help interrupting the corporal, despite the story-teller's warning.
"The bull-dog said he thought it might,
But pussy she said 'Nay,'
At which the unicorn took fright,
And stole a bale of hay,"
snored the corporal with a yawn.
"That can't be it! that can't be it!" cried Jimmieboy, so excited to hear what happened to little Tom in the lions' cage that he began to shake the corporal almost fiercely.
"What can't be what?" asked the corporal, sitting up and opening his eyes. "What are you trying to talk about, general?"
"Tom – and the circus – what happened to him in the lions' cage when he took off his coat?" cried Jimmieboy.
"Tom? And the circus? I don't know anything about any Tom or any circus," replied the corporal, with a sleepy nod.
"But you've just been snoring to me about it," remonstrated Jimmieboy.
"Don't remember it at all," said the corporal. "I must have been asleep and dreamed it, or else you did, or maybe both of us did; but tell me, general, in confidence now, and don't ever tell anybody I asked you, have you such a thing as a – as a gum-drop in your pocket?"
And Jimmieboy was so put out with the corporal for waking up just at the wrong time that he wouldn't answer him, but turned on his heel, and walked away very much concerned in his mind as to the possible fate of poor little Tom.
CHAPTER VII.
A DISAGREEABLE PERSONAGE
IT cannot be said that Jimmieboy was entirely happy after his falling out with the corporal. Of course it was very inconsiderate of the corporal to wake up at the most exciting period of his fairy story, and leave his commanding officer in a state of uncertainty as to the fate of little Tom; but as he walked along the road, and thought the matter all over, Jimmieboy reflected that after all he was himself as much to blame as the corporal. In the first place, he had interrupted him in his story at the point where it became most interesting, though warned in advance not to do so, and in the second, he had not fallen back upon his undoubted right as a general to command the corporal to go to sleep again, and to stay so until his little romance was finished to the satisfaction of his superior officer. The latter was without question the thing he should have done, and at first he thought he would go back and tell the corporal he was very sorry he hadn't done so. Indeed, he would have gone back had he not met, as he rounded the turn, a singular-looking little fellow, who, sitting high in an oak-tree at the side of the road, attracted his attention by winking at him. Ordinarily Jimmieboy would not have noticed anybody who winked at him, because his papa had told him that people who would wink would smoke a pipe, which was very wrong, particularly in people who were as small as this droll person in the tree. But the singular-looking little fellow winked aloud, and Jimmieboy could not help noticing him. Like most small boys Jimmieboy delighted in noises, especially noises that went off like pop-guns, which was just the kind of noise the tree dwarf made when he winked.
"Hello, you!" said Jimmieboy, as the sounds first attracted his attention. "What are you doing up there?"
"Sitting on a limb and counting the stars in the sky," answered the dwarf.
Jimmieboy laughed. This seemed such a curious thing to do.
"How many are there?" he asked.
"Seventeen," replied the dwarf.
"Ho!" jeered Jimmieboy.
"There are, really," said the dwarf. "I counted 'em myself."
"There's more than that," said Jimmieboy. "I've had stories told me of twenty-seven or twenty-eight."
"That doesn't prove anything," returned the dwarf, "that is, nothing but what I said. If there are twenty-eight there must be seventeen, so you can't catch me up on that."
"Come down," said Jimmieboy. "I want to see you."
"I can't come now," returned the dwarf. "I'm too busy counting the eighteenth star, but I'll drop my telescope and let you see me through that."
"I'll help you count the stars if you come," put in Jimmieboy. "How many stars can you count a day?"
"Oh, about one and a half," said the dwarf. "I could count more than that, only I'm cross-eyed and see double, so that after I've got through counting, I have to divide the whole number by two to get the proper figures, and I never was good at dividing. I've always hated division – particularly division of apples and peaches. There is no meaner sum in any arithmetic in the world than that I used to have to do every time I got an apple when I was your age."
"What was the sum?" asked Jimmieboy.
"It was to divide one apple by three boys," returned the queer little man. "Most generally that would be regarded as a case of three into one, but in this instance it was one into three; and, worse than all, while it pretended to be division, and was as hard as division, as far as I was concerned it was subtraction too, and I was always the leftest part of the remainder."
"But I don't see why you had to divide your apples every time you got any," said Jimmieboy.
"That's easy enough to explain," said the dwarf. "If I didn't divide, and did eat the whole apple, I'd have a fearful pain in my heart; whereas if I gave my little brothers each a third, it would often happen that they would get the pain and not I. After one or two experiments I fixed it so that I never got the pain part any more – for you know every apple has an ache in it – and they did, so, you see, I kept myself well as could be, and at the same time built up quite a reputation for generosity."
"How did you fix it so as to give them the pain part always?" queried Jimmieboy.
"Why, I located the part of the apple that held the pain. I did not divide one apple I got, but ate the whole thing myself, part by part. I studied each part carefully, and discovered that apples are divided by Nature into three parts, anyhow. Pleasure was one part, pain was another part, and the third part was just nothing – neither pleasure nor pain. The core is where the ache is, the crisp is where the pleasure is, and the skin represents the part which isn't anything. When I found that out I said, 'Here! What is a good enough plan for Nature is a good enough plan for me. I'll divide my apples on Nature's plan.' Which I did. To one brother I gave the core; to the other the skin; the rest I ate myself."
"It was very mean of you to make your brothers suffer the pain," said Jimmieboy.
"Well, they had their days off. One time one brother'd have the core; another time the other brother'd have it. They took turns," said the dwarf.
"It was mean, anyhow!" cried Jimmieboy, who was so fond of his own little brother that he would gladly have borne all his pains for him if it could have been arranged.
"Well, meanness is my business," said the dwarf.
"Your business?" echoed Jimmieboy, opening his eyes wide with astonishment, meanness seemed such a strange business.
"Certainly," returned the dwarf. "Don't you know what I am? I am an unfairy."
"What's that?" asked Jimmieboy.
"You know what a fairy is, don't you?" said the dwarf.
"Yes. It's a dear lovely creature with wings, that goes about doing good."
"That's right. An unfairy is just the opposite," explained the dwarf. "I go about doing unfair things. I am the fairy that makes things go wrong. When your hat blows off in the street the chances are that I have paid the bellows man, who works up all these big winds we have, to do it. If I see people having a good time on a picnic, I fly up to the sky and push a rain cloud over where they are and drench them, having first of course either hidden or punched great holes in their umbrellas. Oh, I can tell you, I am the meanest creature that ever was. Why, do you know what I did once in a country school?"
"No, I don't," said Jimmieboy, in tones of disgust. "I don't know anything about mean things."
"Well, you ought to know about this," returned the dwarf, "because it was just the meanest thing anybody ever did. There was a boy who'd studied awfully hard in hopes that he would lead his class when the holidays came, and there was another boy in the school who was equal to him in everything but arithmetic, and who would have been beaten on that one point, so that the other boy would have stood where he wanted to, only I helped the second boy by rubbing out all the correct answers of the first boy and putting others on the slate instead, so that the first boy lost first place and had to take second. Wasn't that mean?"
"It was horrid," said Jimmieboy, "and it's a good thing you didn't come down here when I asked you to, for if you had, I think I should now be slapping you just as hard as I could."
"Another time," said the unfairy, ignoring Jimmieboy's remark, "I turned myself into a horse-fly and bothered a lame horse; then I changed into a bull-dog and barked all night under the window of a man who wanted to go to sleep, but my regular trick is going around to hat stores and taking the brushes and brushing all the beaver hats the wrong way. Sometimes when people get lost here in the woods and want to go to Tiddledywinkland, I give them the wrong directions, so that they bring up on the other side of the country, where they don't want to be; and once last winter I put rust on the runners of a little boy's sled so that he couldn't use it, and then when he'd spent three days getting them polished up, I pushed a warm rain cloud over the hill where the snow was and melted it all away. I hide toys I know children will be sure to want; I tear the most exciting pages out of books; I spill salt in the sugar-bowls and plant weeds in the gardens; I upset the ink on love-letters; when I find a man with only one collar I fray it at the edges; I roll collar buttons under bureaus; I – "
"Don't you dare tell me another thing!" cried Jimmieboy, angrily. "I don't like you, and I won't listen to you any more."
"Oh, yes, you will," replied the unfairy. "I am just mean enough to make you, and I'll tell you why. I am very tired of my business, and I think if I tell you all the horrid things I do, maybe you'll tell me how I can keep from doing them. I have known you for a long time, only you didn't know it."
"I don't believe it," said Jimmieboy.
"Well, I have, just the same," returned the dwarf. "And I can prove it. Do you remember, one day you went out walking, how you walked two miles and only met one mud-puddle, and fell into that?"
"Yes, I do," said Jimmieboy, sadly. "I spoiled my new suit when I fell, and I never knew how I came to do it."
"I made you do that!" said the unfairy, triumphantly. "I grabbed hold of your foot, and upset you right into it. I waited two hours to do it, too."
"You did, eh?" said Jimmieboy. "Well, I wish I had an axe. I'd chop that tree down, and catch you and make you sorry for it."
"I am sorry for it," said the dwarf. "Real sorry. I've never ceased to regret it."
"Oh, well, I forgive you," said Jimmieboy, "if you are really sorry."
"Yes, I am," said the dwarf; "I'm awfully sorry, because I didn't do it right. You only ruined your suit and not that beautiful red necktie you had on. Next time I'll be more careful and spoil everything. But let me give you more proof that I've known you. Who do you suppose it was bent your railway tracks at Christmas so they wouldn't work?"
"You!" ejaculated Jimmieboy.
"Yes, sirree!" roared the dwarf. "I did, and, what is more, it was I who chewed up your best shoes and bit your plush dog's head off; it was I who ate up your luncheon one day last March; it was I who pawed up all the geraniums in your flower-bed; and it was I who nipped your friend the postman in the leg on St. Valentine's day so that he lost your valentine."
"I've caught you there," said Jimmieboy. "It wasn't you that did those things at all. It was a horrid little brown dog that used to play around our house did all that."
"You think you are smart," laughed the dwarf. "But you aren't. I was the little brown dog."
"I don't see how you can have any friends if that is the way you behave," said Jimmieboy, after a minute or two of silence. "You don't deserve any."
"No," said the dwarf, his voice trembling a little – for as Jimmieboy peered up into the tree at him he could see that he was crying just a bit – "I haven't any, and I never had. I never had anybody to set me a good example. My father and my mother were unfairies before me, and I just grew to be one like them. I didn't want to be one, but I had to be; and really it wasn't until I saw you pat a hand-organ monkey on the head, instead of giving him a piece of cake with red pepper on it, as I would have done, that I ever even dreamed that there were kind people in the world. After I'd watched you for a while and had seen how happy you were, and how many friends you had, I began to see how it was that I was so miserable. I was miserable because I was mean, but nobody has ever told me how not to be mean, and I'm just real upset over it."
"Poor fellow!" said Jimmieboy, sympathetically. "I am really very, very sorry for you."
"So am I," sobbed the dwarf. "I wish you could help me."
"Perhaps I can," said Jimmieboy.
"Well, wait a minute," said the dwarf, drying his eyes and peering intently down the road. "Wait a minute. There is a sheep down the road there tangled up in the brambles. Wait until I change myself into a big black dog and scare her half to death."
"But that will be mean," returned Jimmieboy; "and if you want to change, and be good, and kind, why don't you begin now and help the sheep out?"
"H'm!" said the dwarf. "Now that is an idea, isn't it! Do you know, I'd never have thought of that if you hadn't suggested it to me. I think I will. I'll change myself into a good-hearted shepherd's boy, and free that poor animal at once!"
The dwarf was as good as his word, and in a moment he came back, smiling as happily as though he had made a great fortune.
"Why, it's lovely to do a thing like that. Beautiful!" he said. "Do you know, Jimmieboy, I've half a mind to turn mean again for just a minute, and go back and frighten that sheep back into the bushes just for the bliss of helping her out once more."
"I wouldn't do that," said Jimmieboy, with a shake of his head. "I'd just change myself into a good fairy if I were you, and go about doing kind things. When you see people having a picnic, push the rain cloud away from them instead of over them. Do just the opposite from what you've been doing all along, and pretty soon you'll have heaps and heaps of friends."
"You are a wonderful boy," said the dwarf. "Why, you've hit without thinking a minute the plan I've been searching for for years and years and years, and I'll do just what you say. Watch!"
The dwarf pronounced one or two queer words the like of which Jimmieboy had never heard before, and, presto change! quick as a wink the unfairy had disappeared, and there stood at the small general's side the handsomest, sweetest little sprite he had ever even dreamed or read about. The sprite threw his arms about Jimmieboy's neck and kissed him affectionately, wiped a tear of joy from his eye, and then said:
"I am so glad I met you. You have taught me how to be happy, and I am sure I have lost eighteen hundred and seven tons in weight, I feel so light and gay; and – joy! oh, joy! I no longer see double! My eyes must be straight."
"They are," said Jimmieboy. "Straight as – straight as – well, as straight as your hair is curly."
And that was as good an illustration as he could have found, for the sprite's hair was just as curly as it could be.
CHAPTER VIII.
ARRANGEMENTS FOR A DUEL
"WHERE are you going, Jimmieboy?" asked the sprite, after they had walked along in silence for a few minutes.
"I haven't the slightest idea," said Jimmieboy, with a short laugh. "I started out to provision the forces before pursuing the Parawelopipedon, but I seem to have fallen out with everybody who could show me where to go, and I am all at sea."
"Well, you haven't fallen out with me," said the sprite. "In fact, you've fallen in with me, so that you are on dry land again. I'll show you where to go, if you want me to."
"Then you know where I can find the candied cherries and other things that soldiers eat?" asked Jimmieboy.
"No, I don't know where you can find anything of the sort," returned the sprite. "But I do know that all things come to him who waits, so I'd advise you to wait until the candied cherries and so forth come to you."
"But what'll I do while I am waiting?" asked Jimmieboy, who had no wish to be idle in this new and strange country.
"Follow me, of course," said the sprite, "and I'll show you the most wonderful things you ever saw. I'll take you up to see old Fortyforefoot, the biggest giant in all the world; after that we'll stop in at Alltart's bakery and have lunch. It's a great bakery, Alltart's is. You just wish for any kind of cake in the world, and you have it in your mouth."
"Let's go there first, I'm afraid of giants," said Jimmieboy. "They eat little boys like me."
"Well, I don't blame them for that," said the sprite. "A little boy as sweet as you are is almost too good not to eat; but I'll take care of you. Fortyforefoot I haven't a doubt would like to eat both of us, but I have a way of getting the best of fellows of that sort, so if you'll come along you needn't have the slightest fear for your safety."
"All right," said Jimmieboy, after thinking it all over. "Go ahead. I'll follow you."
At this moment the galloping step of a horse was heard approaching, and in a minute Major Blueface rode up.
"Why, how do you do, general?" he cried, his face beaming with pleasure as he reined in his steed and dismounted. "I haven't seen you in – my! – why, not in years, sir. How have you been?"
"Quite well," said Jimmieboy, with a smile, for the major amused him very much. "It doesn't seem more than five minutes since I saw you last," he added, with a sly wink at the sprite.
"Oh, it must be longer than that," said the major, gravely. "It must be at least ten, but they have seemed years to me – a seeming, sir, that is well summed up in that lovely poem a friend of mine wrote some time ago:
"'When I have quarreled with a dear
Old friend, a minute seems a year;
And you'll remember without doubt
That when we parted we fell out.'"
"Very pretty," said the sprite. "Very pretty, indeed. Reminds me of the poems of Major Blueface. You've heard of him, I suppose?"
"Yes," said the major, frowning at the sprite, whom he had never met before. "I have heard of Major Blueface, and not only have I heard of him, but I am also one of his warmest friends and admirers."
"Really?" said the sprite, not noticing apparently that Jimmieboy was nearly exploding with mirth. "How charming! What sort of a person is the major, sir?"
"Superb!" returned the major, his chest swelling with pride. "Brave as a lobster, witty as a porcupine, and handsome as a full-blown rose. In short, he is a wonder. Many a time have I been with him on the field of battle, where a man most truly shows what he is, and there it was, sir, that I learned to love and admire Major Blueface. Why, once I saw that man hit square in the back by the full charge of a brass cannon loaded to the muzzle with dried pease. The force of the blow was tremendous – forcible enough, sir, in fact, to knock the major off his feet, but he never quailed. He rose with dignity, and walked back to where the enemy was standing, and dared him to do it again, and when the enemy did it again, the major did not forget, as some soldiers would have done under the circumstances, that he was a gentleman, but he rose up a second time and thanked the enemy for his courtesy, which so won the enemy's heart that he surrendered at once."
"What a hero!" said the sprite.
"Hero is no name for it, sir. He is a whole history full of heroes. On another occasion which I recall," cried the major, with enthusiasm, "on another occasion he was pursued by a lion around a circular path – he is a magnificent runner, the major is – and he ran so much faster than the lion that he soon caught up with his pursuer from the rear, and with one blow of his sword severed the raging beast's tail from his body. Then he sat down and waited until the lion got around to him again, his appetite increased so by the exercise he had taken that he would have eaten anything, and then what do you suppose that brave soldier did?"
"What?" asked Jimmieboy, who had stopped laughing to listen.
"He gave the hungry creature his own tail to eat, and then went home," returned the major.
"Is that a true story?" asked the sprite.
"Do you think I would tell an untrue story?" asked the major, angrily.
"Not at all," said the sprite; "but if the major told it to you, it may have grown just a little bit every time you told it."
"No, sir. That could not be, for I am Major Blueface himself," interrupted the major.
"Then you are a brave man," said the sprite, "and I am proud to meet you."
"Thank you," said the major, his frown disappearing and his pleasant smile returning. "I have heard that remark before; but it is always pleasant to hear. But what are you doing now, general?" he added, turning and addressing Jimmieboy.
"I am still searching for the provisions, major," returned Jimmieboy. "The soldiers were so tired I hadn't the heart to command them to get them for me, as you said, so I am as badly off as ever."
"I think you need a rest," said the major, gravely; "and while it is extremely important that the forces should be provided with all the canned goods necessary to prolong their lives, the health of the commanding officer is also a most precious consideration. As commander-in-chief why don't you grant yourself a ten years' vacation on full pay, and at the end of that time return to the laborious work you have undertaken, refreshed?"
"But what becomes of the war?" asked Jimmieboy. "If I go off, there won't be any war."
"No, but what of it?" replied the major. "That'll spite the enemy just as much as it will our side; and maybe he'll get so tired waiting for us to begin that he'll lie down and die or else give himself up."
"Well, I don't know what to do," said Jimmieboy, very much perplexed. "What would you do?" he continued, addressing the sprite.
"I'd hire some one else to take my place if I were you, and let him do the fighting and provisioning until you are all ready," said the sprite.
"Yes, but whom can I hire?" asked the boy.
"The Giant Fortyforefoot," returned the sprite. "He'd be just the man. He's a great warrior in the first place and a great magician in the second. He can do the most wonderful tricks you ever saw in all your life. For instance,
"He'll take two ordinary balls,
He'll toss 'em to the sky,
And each when to the earth it falls
Will be a satin tie.
He'll take a tricycle in hand,
He'll give the thing a heave,
He'll mutter some queer sentence, and
'Twill go right up his sleeve.
He'll ask you what your name may be,
And if you answer 'Jim!'
He'll turn a handspring – one, two, three!
Your name will then be Tim.
He'll take a fifty-dollar bill,
He'll tie it to a chain,
He'll cry out 'Presto!' and you will
Not see your bill again."
"I'd like to see him," said Jimmieboy. "But I can't say I want to be eaten up, you know, and I'd like to have you tell me before we go how you are going to prevent his eating me."
"Very proper," said Major Blueface. "You suffer under the great disadvantage of being a very toothsome, tender morsel, and in all probability Fortyforefoot would order you stewed in cream or made over into a tart. My!" added the major, smacking his lips so suggestively that Jimmieboy drew away from him, slightly alarmed. "Why, it makes my mouth water to think of a pudding made of you, with a touch of cinnamon and a dash of maple syrup, and a shake of sawdust and a hard sauce. Tlah!"
This last word of the major's was a sort of ecstatic cluck such as boys often make after having tasted something they are particularly fond of.
"What's the use of scaring the boy, Blueface?" said the sprite, angrily, as he noted Jimmieboy's alarm. "I won't have anymore of that. You can be as brave and terrible as you please in the presence of your enemies, but in the presence of my friends you've got to behave yourself."
The major laughed heartily.
"Jimmieboy afraid of me?" he said. "Nonsense! Why, he could rout me with a frown. His little finger could, unaided, put me to flight if it felt so disposed. I was complimenting him – not trying to frighten him.
"When I went into ecstasies
O'er pudding made of him,
'Twas just because I wished to please
The honorable Jim;
And now, in spite of your rebuff,
The statement I repeat:
I think he's really good enough
For any one to eat."
"Well, that's different," said the sprite, accepting the major's statement. "I quite agree with you there; but when you go clucking around here like a hen who has just tasted the sweetest grain of corn she ever had, or like a boy after eating a plate of ice-cream, you're just a bit terrifying – particularly to the appetizing morsel that has given rise to those clucks. It's enough to make the stoutest heart quail."
"Nonsense!" retorted the major, with a wink at Jimmieboy. "Neither my manner nor the manner of any other being could make a stout hart quail, because stout harts are deer and quails are birds!"
This more or less feeble joke served to put the three travelers in good humor again. Jimmieboy smiled over it; the sprite snickered, and the major threw himself down on the grass in a perfect paroxysm of laughter. When he had finished he got up again and said:
"Well, what are we going to do about it? I propose we attack Fortyforefoot unawares and tie his hands behind his back. Then Jimmieboy will be safe."
"You are a wonderfully wise person," retorted the sprite. "How on earth is Fortyforefoot to show his tricks if we tie his hands?"
"By means of his tricks," returned the major. "If he is any kind of a magician he'll get his hands free in less than a minute."
"Then why tie them at all?" asked the sprite. "I'm not good at conundrums," said the major. "Why?"
"I'm sure I don't know," returned the sprite, impatiently.
"Then why waste time asking riddles to which you don't know the answer?" roared the major. "You'll have me mad in a minute, and when I'm mad woe be unto him which I'm angry at."
"Don't quarrel," said Jimmieboy, stepping between his two friends, with whom it seemed to be impossible to keep peace for any length of time. "If you quarrel I shall leave you both and go back to my company."
"Very well," returned the major. "I accept the sprite's apology. But he mustn't do it again. Now as you have chosen to reject my plan of attacking Fortyforefoot and tying his hands, suppose you suggest something better, Mr. Sprite."
"I think the safe thing would be for Jimmieboy to wear this invisible coat of mine when in the giant's presence. If Fortyforefoot can't see him he is safe," said the sprite.
"I don't see any invisible coat anywhere," said the major. "Where is it?"
"Nobody can see it, of course," said the sprite, scornfully. "Do you know what invisible means?"
"Yes, I do," retorted the major. "I only pretended I didn't so that I could make you ask the question, which enables me to say that something invisible is something you can't see, like your jokes."
"I can make a better joke than you can with my hands tied behind my back," snapped the sprite.
"I can't make jokes with your hands tied behind your back, but I can make one with my own hands tied behind my back that Jimmieboy here can see with his eyes shut," said the major, scornfully.
"What is it? I like jokes," said Jimmieboy.
"Why – er – let me see; why – er – when is a sunbeam sharp?" asked the major, who did not expect to be taken up so quickly.
"I don't know; when?" asked Jimmieboy.
"When it's a ray, sir. See? Ray, sir – razor. Ha! ha! Pretty good, eh?" laughed the major.
"Bad as can be," said the sprite, his nose turned up until it interfered with his eyesight. "Now hear mine, Jimmieboy. When is a joke not a joke?"
"Haven't the slightest idea," observed Jimmieboy, after scratching his head and trying to think for a minute or two.
"When it's one of the major's," roared the sprite, whereat the woods rang with his laughter.
The major first turned pale and then grew red in the face.
"That settles it," he said, throwing off his coat. "That is a deadly insult, and there is now no possible way to avoid a duel."
"I am ready for you at any time," said the sprite, calmly. "Only as the challenged party I have the choice of weapons, and inasmuch as this is a hot day, I choose the jawbone."
"Not a talking match, I hope?" said the major, with a gesture of impatience.
"Not at all," replied the sprite. "A story-telling contest. We will withdraw to that moss-covered rock underneath the trees in there, gather enough huckleberries and birch bark for our luncheon, and catch a mess of trout from the brook to go with them, and then we can fight our duel all the rest of the afternoon."
"But how's that going to satisfy my wounded honor?" asked the major.
"I'll tell one story," said the sprite, "and you'll tell another, and when we are through, the one that Jimmieboy says has told the best story will be the victor. That is better than trying to hurt each other, I think."
"I think so too," put in Jimmieboy. "I'm ready for it."
"Well, it isn't a bad scheme," agreed the major. "Particularly the luncheon part of it; so you may count on me. I've got a story that will lift your hair right off your head."
So Jimmieboy and his two strange friends retired into the wood, gathered the huckleberries and birch bark, caught, cooked, and ate the trout, and then sat down together on the moss-covered rock to fight the duel. The two fighters drew lots to find out which should tell the first story, and as the sprite was the winner, he began.
