AN ACCOUNT OF THE JIMMYJOHNS’ LITTLE AFFAIR WITH THE GULLS.
IN this story will be given a true and exact account of the
Jimmyjohns’ affair with the gulls; also of the manner in which Jimmy
was turned out of the little red house at the sea-shore. The account
will begin at the time of their leaving home. It will explain the
reason of their going, and will, in fact, tell every thing that
happened to them just exactly as it happened.
Mr. Plummer, their father, had bought some salt hay at a place called
Stony Point, near the sea-shore. One day he sent Ellis Payne with the
ox-cart to finish making the hay and bring it home. Mr. Plummer told
Ellis Payne that he himself should be riding that way about noontime,
and would carry him a warm dinner. He started just after eating his
own dinner. Ellis Payne’s was put up in a six-quart tin pail. It
being Saturday, Mr. Plummer took the Jimmyjohns along. Their mother
said they might play at Stony Point till Ellis Payne came home, and
then ride back on the hay. Mr. Plummer was going to the mill.
Now, the road turned off to the mill a short distance before reaching
Stony Point; and Mr. Plummer, to save time, told the Jimmyjohns they
might jump out there, and carry the pail to Ellis Payne, and he would
keep on to the mill, and then he could take in the funny man. The
funny man was just turning up that same road. He stopped to have a
little fun with the twins; jumped them out of the wagon; tried to
guess which was which, and, when told, turned them round and round,
to _mix them up_; then tried to guess again, and would have tossed up
a cent, and said, “Heads, this is Jimmy,—tails, this is Johnny,” as
he sometimes did, only that the horse seemed in somewhat of a hurry.
Mr. Plummer showed the little boys a scraggy tree which grew on the
edge of a bank, near the shore; and told them they would see the oxen
as soon as they turned the corner where that tree grew. One took hold
on one side of the pail, and the other on the other; and in that way
they walked along the shore, keeping pretty close to the bank. It
took them only about five or ten minutes to reach that tree; and,
when the corner was turned, they saw the oxen plainly, but could not
see Ellis Payne. They kept on, walking more slowly, the way being
more stony, and at last came to the oxen. Ellis Payne was not there.
The reason of his not having been there is as follows: Two fields
away from the shore stood a small red house all alone by itself, in
which lived an old woman with her young grandson. The young grandson
fell from a chamber-window, and broke his collar-bone bone; and the
old woman ran to the shore, screaming for help; and Ellis Payne left
his work, and went to find out what was the matter.
The Jimmyjohns, seeing some oxen farther along the shore, thought
perhaps those first oxen were not the right ones, and so kept on to
those other ones. They turned down, and walked quite near the water,
picking up pretty pebbles as they went along, and now and then a
cockle-shell, or a scallop, or purple muscle. Some of the shells were
single; others in pairs, which could be opened like crackers. They
had a reason for picking up the scallops and muscles, which there is
no time to mention here; though, after all, perhaps it may as well
be told. Annetta Plummer was going to have a party, and she had not
enough scalloped shells to bake her cakes in. The cockles were for
Effie to put in her _arm-basket_. The Jimmyjohns picked up enough of
all kinds to fill their pockets; then took off their hats, and filled
those. By that time they had come to the spot where the oxen had
stood. But no oxen were there then, and no man: so there was nothing
better to do than to play in the sand, and sail clam-shell boats in
the little pools. It was a warm day; the water looked cool; and the
little Jimmies, as they beheld the rippling waves, felt just like
wading in. So it was off with shoes, and off with stockings, roll
up trousers-legs, and away and away, with a run, and a shout, and a
dash, and a splash, and a spatter. A little distance out from the
shore there was a high rock, not so very, very high,—just the right
height to give them a good seat; and they sat down there, feet in
the water, heads together, looking down into the water, watching the
fries darting swiftly hither and thither.
It is just here that the gull part of the story comes in. Gulls
are large sea-birds. They live upon fish, and they are their own
fishermen. Some may call this the funny part of the story, though
those who are ever in such a story may not call it the funny part.
The white-winged gulls were flying about. It is a common thing,
at sea-side places, to see gulls flying about, and skimming over
the water. Sometimes they dip in their bills and take a fish. The
Jimmyjohns sat looking down, keeping very still, so as not to scare
the fries away. Just what the gulls thought of them no one knows,
and it can never be known; for there is no way of finding out gulls’
thoughts, which is a pity: it would be so curious to know just what
they do think about, and how they think it! Perhaps those that belong
to this story thought the two Jimmyjohns were two great fishes,
exactly alike; or perhaps they thought hair would be good to line
nests with. But, whatever they thought, this is what they did: They
flew down swift and sudden upon the boys’ heads, flapped their great
wings in their faces, clawed their hair, beat them with their beaks.
The little fellows screamed, jumped, fell down, scrambled up, ran,
fell down, then up again; got to the shore some way; ran over the
sand, over the pebbles, over the stones, over the rocks, across wet
grass, up a bank, through a field, screaming all the time as if the
gulls were chasing them every step of the way. But no doubt the gulls
had been just as much frightened as the boys; for they had flown
away faster than they came, out of sight, far over the sea. The
Jimmies sat down on the grass, in the warm sunshine, and rubbed their
bruises, and counted the cuts in their feet. Johnny’s left knee was
lame, and the heel of the other foot had been badly cut by a piece of
clam-shell.
By this time it was quite late in the afternoon. The boys began to
feel hungry, and talked of going to get the pail, and eating some
of the dinner. One _guessed_ it would be stealing to do that, and
the other _guessed_ it would not be stealing. At last they agreed
to go and get their hats and shoes and stockings and the pail, and
find Ellis Payne, and ask him to give them a little piece of his
gingerbread.
It was pretty hard work going back over those sharp stones, and
that coarse, stubbed grass, barefoot. To be sure, they came that
way; but they were frightened then, and only thought of the gulls.
That grass—why, its edges were so sharp, it seemed as if little
knives were cutting into their feet! They walked on their heels, on
their toes, on the sides of their feet, almost on the tops of them
sometimes, and so hobbled along slowly,—rather too slowly; for, by
the time they reached the shore, somebody had been there before them,
and taken all their things. What body? Why, a body you have heard of
before; a body that has done great mischief; a body that had carried
off bigger things than six-quart tin pails; a body that is said to
get furious at times, and to do then the most terrible things. Have
you never heard of a body of water called the mighty ocean? That was
it. The mighty ocean rushed up that pebbly shore, and swallowed up
hats, shoes, stockings, dinner-pail, dinner, and all. To speak in
plain words, the tide had risen, and covered them.
The Jimmies never thought of that until a man came along—a man with a
horse-cart—and told them. “Why,” said he, “no use looking: the tide
has carried them off.”
When the man had gone, the boys went up from the water to look for
Ellis Payne. Johnny’s heel was in such a state, he could only use
the toes of that foot; and, in going over the sharp stones, he cut
the ball of the same foot, so that he could not step with it at all;
and, when they came to the stubbed grass that cut like little knives,
he held up one foot, and hopped on the other; and, getting tired of
that, he walked on his knees. Jimmy laughed at him, but, in the midst
of his laughing, cried out, “Ou, ou!” and was glad enough to come
down upon his own knees. And so they went on a while; but finding
knee-walking hard to do, and apt to make knee-walkers roll over, they
tried hand-walking and knee-walking both, which is all the same as
crawling.
And now comes that part of the story where Jimmy was turned out of a
house.
While those boys had been picking up shells, and playing in the
sand, and wading, and watching the fries, and running away from
gulls, and drying their clothes in the sun, and counting their cuts,
and hobbling up and down the shore, the sun had been sinking lower
and lower and lower; and Ellis Payne had finished making the hay,
and gone home with it. It is sad to think how hungry Ellis Payne
must have been! The boys were hungry too; and that may have been
the reason why they went toward the little red house. It stood two
fields away from the shore, as has already been stated. When they
reached the last field, Johnny lay down in the grass, close by a row
of wild-plum bushes, and cried. He said he could not walk any more.
Jimmy said he would go into that house; and, if any woman gave him
any thing, he would bring Johnny some. But when he reached the house
he was too bashful to open the door, and staid in the wood-shed quite
a long time, till he saw a woman go in.
After Jimmy had been gone a few moments, Johnny heard a noise of some
one walking near; and soon an old woman came out from behind the
bushes, with some leaves in her hand. She went close to Johnny, and
asked him what he was lying there for, bareheaded. Johnny told her he
had a lame knee and a sore heel, and he couldn’t walk.
“Don’t tell me that!” said she. “Didn’t I just see you running across
the field?”
“No—ma’am—’twasn’t—I,” sobbed Johnny.
“Don’t tell _me_! don’t tell _me_!” cried the old woman; and she
walked off, picking now and then a leaf as she went. The leaves were
plantain-leaves for the bruises of her little grandson, who had
fallen out of the chamber-window. The boy she saw running across the
field was Jimmy.
When that old woman had finished picking leaves, she went back into
the house; and hardly had she spread the leaves out on the table,
when Jimmy put his head in at the door slowly, then his shoulders,
then the rest of himself.
[Illustration: THE JIMMYJOHNS AND THE GULLS.]
“What do you want here?” cried the old woman. “Didn’t you tell me you
couldn’t walk?”
“No—ma’am,” Jimmy answered, frightened almost out of his breath.
“Oh! oh! oh! what a big story-teller you are!” cried the woman. “Off
with you!—quick too! I don’t want such a boy as _you_ are in _my_
house with _my_ little Sammy.”
By the time she had got as far as “_my_ little Sammy,” Jimmy was out
of the house and at the first pair of bars; and, being in a terrible
fright, he ran back to Johnny as fast as he could go.
Johnny was sitting there, hugging somebody. What body? Not a body of
water is meant this time, but a lively, loving, frisking, barking
little body, named Rover. And close behind came Mr. Plummer. When
Ellis Payne came home without the Jimmyjohns, Mr. Plummer put the
horse into the light wagon, and took Rover, and went to look after
them.