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Sophie May’s Complete Works
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=LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS BOSTON=
[Illustration: “He looked again and beheld his little sister.”
_Page 12._]
LITTLE PRUDY’S CHILDREN
JIMMY BOY
BY
SOPHIE MAY
AUTHOR OF “WEE LUCY” “LITTLE PRUDY STORIES” “DOTTY DIMPLE
STORIES” “LITTLE PRUDY’S FLYAWAY SERIES” “FLAXIE
FRIZZLE SERIES” “THE QUINNEBASSET SERIES” ETC.
LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS
10 MILK STREET
BOSTON
COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY LEE AND SHEPARD
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_All Rights Reserved_
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JIMMY BOY
ELECTROTYPED BY C. J. PETERS & SON
——————
PRINTED BY S. J. PARKHILL & CO. BOSTON
TO
MASTER EDMOND H. MORSE
OF
BALTIMORE
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. WASHINGTON-PIE 9
II. SEVEN PEPPERMINTS 22
III. FOURTH OF JULY 35
IV. WAS IT JUDY? 50
V. MRS. BIDDY CHICK 63
VI. JIMMY’S BUTTER 77
VII. THE BOY FROM NEW YORK 90
VIII. THE MISSING CAKE 100
IX. THE INDIAN BASKET 113
X. A GREAT SECRET 129
XI. A WEE WEDDING 142
JIMMY-BOY
I
WASHINGTON-PIE
THE pepper-tree in the backyard nodded its long, sweeping branches as
if it were inviting the little white burro to come and stand in its
shade.
The burro was coming, with Jimmy-boy on his back and the dog Punch at
his heels.
“Selim is always glad to get home,” said John, the coachman, as he
helped Jimmy-boy down, and fastened the burro to the pepper-tree.
“Yes; he likes to switch flies,” said Jimmy, patting Selim on the
shoulder.
Jimmy was a fine, straight boy, with frank brown eyes and a pleasant
smile. People called him “a noble little fellow;” and so he was on the
whole, but he admired himself rather too much. It was hard for him to
own that Jimmy Sanford Dunlee ever did anything wrong. You will see
this for yourself as we go on with our story.
Jimmy-boy and Punch ran along to the garden at the left of the house.
Here was a little pond with a stone wall around it. It had been made
there just to look pretty; and water went into it from a long pipe that
lay under the ground.
Jimmy paused to converse with a horned toad sitting half hidden under a
black calla. There were three or four horned toads near the pond, all
brought there by Jimmy-boy; but this was the youngest, and his especial
pet. Jimmy had more than once saved the gentle creature from being
pounced upon by Judy, the cat.
“I won’t let Judy get you if I can help it, Jacky Horner. But if she
comes, you must hook her with your little horns, Jacky. Now mind what I
say!”
Jacky’s black eyes glistened like two round beads. He did not try to
run away or hide; for he had learned that this small boy who fed flies
to him was his friend.
As Jimmy went toward the front veranda, he heard a pleasant child-voice
singing from somewhere up in the air,—
“My bonnie sweet Jamie is all my joy.”
The voice was wee Lucy’s, and she was singing a Scotch song which had
been taught her by her sister Kyzie. But where was Lucy? Jimmy looked
up to the tower windows, but could see nothing of her.
“Where are you, Lucy?”
“Up here,” she answered.
“Up where?”
“Up in the sky.”
He looked again, and beheld his little sister sitting high on the limb
of a tall cypress-tree. How had she got there? Jimmy was startled; for
it was all of a quarter of a minute before he saw Mr. Henry Sanford,
who had hidden, laughing, behind the tree. The young man had raised
Lucy to her lofty seat, and was now standing guard over her.
“You never knew your little sister had wings, did you, Jimmy-boy?” said
he.
“I’ll have ’em when I go up to heaven,” cried Lucy, “and I’ll fly this
way!” spreading out her little skirts, and waving her arms above her
head.
It was well that Mr. Sanford was there to catch her before she fell.
“There! I wanted to get down awf’ly!” she cried, as she landed on the
grass. “I _fink_ that pie is done.”
“The Washington-pie,” explained Jimmy to Mr. Sanford. “It’s just a
cake with jelly in. I don’t know why folks call it a pie. Vendla is
making it for George Washington; it’s his birthday to-morrow.”
“Aren’t you a little mistaken there, Jimmy? To-morrow will be Fourth of
July, not Washington’s Birthday.”
“Oh, wasn’t he born to-morrow? I thought papa said so,” said Jimmy,
slowly following Lucy, who had gone in search of the pie.
She had already bounded in at the back door, and, finding no one in
the kitchen, had danced along to the pantry. There it was on the shelf
by the window. Not a pie,—a lovely, plump brown cake. Some people were
coming visiting to-morrow, perhaps a good many people, and Washington
with them. That was the reason the cake was so very large, Lucy thought.
Was it cooling properly? The child hopped about, making little
exclamations, and thinking Washington would like his cake, it was so
large and brown, and so slippery smooth.
“Tastes like choc-lid drops, I s’pose. No; like candy-mels. Wish I knew
how it does taste.” She gazed and gazed. “Would mamma care if I should
touch it with my finger,—so,—my littlest finger, just to see ’f it’s
hard? _I_ wouldn’t hurt it any! Why, it’s just as soft!”
Delightful discovery! And, being soft, a scrap of it adhered to that
littlest finger. Only a _tiny_ scrap. And pray, what could Lucy do but
put it in her mouth?
“_’Tis_ like choc-lid drops. No; I don’t know—maybe it’s like
candy-mels. Can’t tell ’thout I have a bigger piece.”
The first hole had been no deeper than the dimple in Lucy’s cheek; the
next hole went farther in. She was ready for the third nibble when her
brother entered the pantry.
“Lucy Lyman Dunlee!” he exclaimed; “that’s a Fourth o’ July
Washington-pie! Made for company! Now you’ll catch it!”
“I wasn’t hurting Wash’ton’s Fourthy July pie; ’course I wasn’t,”
returned the little mischief very innocently.
“I never saw such a girl. You’re as bad as the captain’s monkey,” said
Jimmy severely. But he was not looking at Lucy; he was looking at the
pie. “Go right away and let it alone! I suppose you don’t mean to go,
though. Why, how you _have_ dented it up!” Here Jimmy seized a knife,
and made a neat little dash at the frosting. “There, _that_ doesn’t
leave any mark.”
A large bit was left on the knife, a much larger one than Lucy had been
able to secure. She opened her mouth expectantly; but, strange to say,
the dainty morsel went straight into Jimmy’s own mouth, not hers!
“Hello! that’s good,” said he. “I don’t like frosting after it’s all
dried up.”
“Nor me, either! Give _me_ some!” pleaded the little sister.
“There, take that; I’m only smoothing it off. You were a naughty
girl to touch it in the first place. Maybe when you get as old as I
am you’ll have some sense. You see,” he added, as he went on making
repairs, “I _have_ to smooth it off, or mamma’ll know what you’ve done,
and you’ll get a snipping.”
It was very interesting business “smoothing it off;” it gave the
children so many chances to find out just how the frosting tasted.
But alas! Jimmy’s knife made worse havoc than Lucy’s finger had done.
Though he tried his best, it would leave deep tracks like a wagon-wheel
in the mud. Or you might have fancied a dozen mischievous brownies had
been driving over that beautiful cake pell-mell on their bicycles.
Jimmy, amazed and alarmed, gave it up at last.
“No use,” said he. “For shame, Lucy Dunlee!” and hid the “Fourth
o’ July Washington-pie” behind a pan, there to dry in all its ugly
roughness.
Vendla descried it that afternoon, and showed it to her mistress.
Vendla was the new girl, a Swede, who had come after Molly was married.
Mrs. Dunlee summoned Jimmy-boy into the pantry, and pointed out to him
something which looked like a huge mud-ball baked in the sun. It was
the ruins of the Washington-pie. Jimmy was deeply mortified, but tried
to defend himself.
“’Twas Lucy began it, mamma. True’s the world, ’twas Lucy! _Boys_ don’t
do such things. She pitched right in and spoiled it, or I wouldn’t ever
’a’ touched it.”
“James!” said his mother sternly.
“I only tried to smooth it off, mamma, so folks wouldn’t know folks had
touched it. If Lucy”—
“So because Lucy had picked off some of the frosting, you must meddle
with it too. And now you throw all the blame on your little sister! How
shabby of you! Isn’t my boy any more manly than this?”
Jimmy hung his head. It was dreadful not to be a manly boy. He scowled
at the cracks in the floor, and thoroughly despised himself.
“I don’t see,” moaned he, laying his hand with a gesture of despair on
his chest, “I don’t see how such mean things get into my”—he paused,
unable to think of the right word—“into my—stomach.”
He meant his _heart_.
“I’m older’n Lucy is, and I’m a boy. She’s only a girl! I think I was
mean, awful mean, mamma!”
It was a great thing for Jimmy to own this.
“Well said, my son! I like that. But you know you are apt to forget.
You forgot twice last week to be manly toward Lucy. Is there any way to
make you remember?”
Jimmy’s hand, which had been pressed upon his heart, dropped suddenly.
He hoped his mother would not think it necessary to punish him very
much.
“If—if you don’t let me eat any of that Fourth o’ July Washington-pie,
mamma”—
“Certainly I shall forbid the pie at any rate, because you meddled with
it. But now for being a coward, and saying, ‘’Twas Lucy;’ what ought we
to do about _that_?”
“O mamma, mamma!” cried Jimmy in alarm, “you wouldn’t take away my
fire-crackers and pin-wheels and things?—you wouldn’t do it, mamma?”
“My precious boy! I couldn’t bear to deprive you of the beautiful
rockets and Roman candles which Mr. Sanford and your papa have given
you for the Fourth! There must be some easier punishment; let us think.”
Jimmy looked relieved.
“Didn’t Aunt Vi give you some money to spend for candy?”
“Yes, mamma; two bits,” (twenty-five cents). “But I want it! Gilly
Irwin is coming in the morning to go to the candy stores with me. O
mamma, please!”
“But, my dear, if I should pass by your faults you would forget them,
and then you wouldn’t improve. I really think you ought to go without
your Fourth of July candy.”
“Oh—Oh—Oh!”
“I shall not take away the money, however. You may simply drop it in
your bank.”
Jimmy twisted his neck and twirled his fingers, but said not a word.
Two people in this world were always right, he thought,—mamma and
papa. Always right, and never changed their minds; so it wasn’t of the
slightest use to tease.
But Fourth of July, and not a speck of candy! Oh, dear!
II
SEVEN PEPPERMINTS
GILBERT IRWIN appeared at Mr. Dunlee’s next morning, holding in his
hand a tiny lizard-skin purse, containing a dime and a nickel.
“Come, Jimmy,” said he; “let’s go get our candy.”
Before Jimmy could answer, the Chinese vegetable man, Quon Wo, drove up
to the back door, calling out in a high, squealing tone.—
“Platoes, _sleet_ corn, cabbagee, spinny-gee!”
“What’s a spinny-gee? Give us a spinny-gee!” laughed both the boys,
running up to Quon Wo, whom they knew very well.
“Go ’way! Too much, talkee, talkee!” replied the Chinaman, grinning,
and showing nearly all his white teeth. At the same time, being ready
for a frolic, he pelted both the boys with a handful of spinach.
Vendla stood in the doorway with a basket and a pan. She bought
potatoes and celery. These went into her basket, and then she held out
the pan for something else.
Quon Wo knew what she wanted. He had promised her some nice fresh
ducks’ eggs; and there they were, under the seat of the cart in a
pretty tea-chest.
“Duckee! Duckee!” said Quon Wo. “Duckee heap good!” and counted out the
eggs into her pan, twelve of them, and then drove away.
The boys would have run after him, but Jimmy happened to remember why
the ducks’ eggs had been spoken for. John wanted to put them under a
hen, to be hatched into ducklings. And here came John, carrying in his
arms a white hen, squawking angrily.
“Oh, yes, you must, Polly White; yes, you must!” said John. “You’ve
been wanting to for a good while, and now we’re ready for you. Come,
Vendla, bring on your ducks’ eggs.”
Vendla went to the stable with the pan; the little boys, the dog Punch
and his friend Toby, Mrs. Porter’s dog, close at her heels. After the
eggs had been put in a nice nest of straw, John placed Mrs. White over
them, covering her up with a basket.
“Now stay there,” said John, “and see how you like it.”
Polly was very young, and had never sat on any eggs before. She had
thought it would be good fun; but when the basket was put over her, she
felt as if she should fly. It was not pleasant to be shut up in the
dark.
“How long will she have to stay?” asked Gilbert.
“Four weeks. ’Twill be easy keeping count; four weeks from Fourth of
July.”
The words “Fourth of July” reminded Gilbert that he must buy his candy.
“Come, Jimmy,” said he, shaking his purse up and down. He liked to hear
the coins jingle. “Where’s your purse, Jimmy?”
Jimmy drew out of his pocket a small, very pretty mother-of-pearl
portemonnaie, and sighed as he opened it. It held a nickel and a
one-cent stamp.
“I can’t buy any candy to-day; but you can buy yours all the same.”
“Why can’t you?”
“’Cause I can’t.”
“Oh, ho! been a bad boy?”
“Not much; not very; no!”
Then, as Gilly jingled his money again, Jimmy added rather tartly,—
“Not half so bad as you are, Gilly Irwin!”
“Me? Who said I’s bad?”
“Well, you are; but your mamma doesn’t know it, and that’s why you
don’t be punished.”
Gilly whistled. Perhaps he felt that there was some truth in this.
“Your mamma punishes _you_ more’n you are naughty,” he said.
“Now you stop!” cried Jimmy. “My mamma always finds out things. She
isn’t talking all the time with ladies in the parlor, the way your
mamma is.”
“Pshaw! You think you have the best mamma and best papa and best
everything!” exclaimed Gilly.
“So I have!” said Jimmy confidently.
This was more than even the mild-tempered Gilly could bear.
“_What_ you mean? My papa is a major, and yours isn’t!”
“H’m! My papa doesn’t want to be a major, and that’s why! Some people
_perfers_ to be ministers!” Jimmy’s eyes were growing fiery. “Don’t
you know,” he went on, “ministers are the nicest men there is in this
world?”
But Gilly refused to be crushed.
“Has your papa got a coat with gold cushions on the shoulders, Jimmy
Dunlee? Does he go march, marching, when they beat the drum?”
“No; he just despises to go march, marching! He stays in his pulpit, I
s’pose you know!”
The foolish dispute might have gone on much longer if Gilbert had not
changed the subject by saying,—
“I want some cocoanut taffy.”
But Gilly’s “candy-man” was away that morning. He had just started with
his wife and children for a picnic.
Jimmy did not care very much.
“See the folks, lots and lots of ’em, going to Fourth o’ July,” said
he. “You can’t get any candy to-day, Gil Irwin.”
“Yes, I can. I know where I can get some, better’n _you_ ever saw.
There are some new ladies in that yellow house by the corner that sell
it. I went there the other day with mamma, and got some.”
“Let’s go there, then,” said Jimmy.
They turned into a quiet street, and walked three or four blocks, till
they came to a pretty buff cottage half covered with roses.
The “new ladies,”—really quite old ones,—had lately bought it to live
in; and of course it was not a shop, and they kept nothing to sell.
Only, as it happened, they had given Gilly a cake of maple-sugar the
Thursday before, when he called there with his mamma.
“It doesn’t look a bit like a shop,” said Jimmy, as they walked up
to the front door of this quiet house, and Gilly pounded on the
screen-door. There was an electric bell at the side. Jimmy did not
think candy-shops generally had electric bells. It was too late,
however, to turn back.
A sweet old lady came into the hall, looking rather surprised. She
naturally thought that only rude children would pound in this way for
admission; yet these boys did not look rude nor disrespectful.
“How do you do, my dears? Oh, this is Gilbert Irwin, I think. But whom
have you brought with you, Master Gilly?”
“My name is James Sanford Dunlee,” replied Jimmy, bowing low, hat in
hand.
“Ah, yes, the minister’s son. I’m glad to see you both. Please walk in.”
Gilbert entered, followed slowly by Jimmy.
“Can you sell us some candy, ma’am?” asked Gilly in a low voice. It was
dawning upon him that he had made some mistake.
“Candy? Did you think I kept it to sell?”
Mrs. Alvord smiled as she asked the question. She was a gentle,
graceful lady, all in black. She had been putting on her bonnet when
the children knocked, and had not finished tying the strings.
“I don’t keep candy to sell. You’ve come to the wrong place, my dears.”
“Oh!” said Jimmy.
“Oh!” echoed Gilly, gazing regretfully at his portemonnaie. He had kept
it all the while in his hand.
“Have you been trying to buy candy?”
“Yes, ma’am,” answered Gilly; “but the candy-men ’most all have gone
off to Fourth o’ July.”
“What a pity!” said Mrs. Alvord. “I wish I had some candy for you.”
“Come, Gilly,” whispered Jimmy, plucking his companion by the sleeve.
“Come, Gilly; let’s go.”
“Wait a minute,” said Mrs. Alvord. “My sister, Mrs. Lewis, keeps
peppermints sometimes in a box on her bureau. Now, if peppermints will
only do?”
She had turned to go up the staircase. Jimmy felt that it was not
polite to give the kind lady all this trouble; but before he could
think exactly what to say, or indeed whether he ought to say anything
at all, she was gone.
She soon returned, bearing in her hand a pretty gilt-edged plate, on
which were several peppermints, pink and white.
“Just fourteen. I’m so glad there were any left!” said she, smiling.
“Mrs. Lewis wishes she had a boxful. Now hold out your hands, little
boys, and I’ll divide. Seven for you, Master Gilly, and seven for you,
Master Jamie.”
Gilbert had opened his lizard-skin wallet by this time, and was
offering Mrs. Alvord first the nickel, and then the dime.
“No; oh, no; keep your money, child! I _give_ you the peppermints.”
And she put half of them in his hand. He dropped purse and coins on the
hall carpet, and for a minute forgot to say “Thank you.”
“And here are yours, Master James.”
But James did not hold out his hand.
“Don’t you like peppermints?”
“Yes, I thank you.”
“Then why not take them? Gilbert has had his share.”
Jimmy dropped his eyes to the black ruffles on the lady’s skirt, then
turned shyly away. Must folks _always_ answer folks’ questions? Yes; he
had been taught that they must. So, in a low voice, but, as I think,
very bravely, he replied,—
“Mamma told me not to buy any candy to-day.”
“He’s been a naughty boy,” struck in Gilbert, who certainly might have
kept quiet.
Mrs. Alvord looked from one boy to the other, her glance resting at
last very kindly on Jimmy.
“But, my dear, you are not _buying_ this candy; it is given you.”
Still Jimmy did not reach forth his hand.
“Ah! you really think you ought not to take it? Then don’t do it by any
means. You are a noble, manly, little boy, James Dunlee.”
Jimmy blushed for pleasure, but could not raise his eyes. Oh, wasn’t it
grand to be called a manly boy!
“You may have been naughty once, but you are good now, and I shall tell
your mamma so. I’m going to your house to dinner.”
Jimmy’s little face was radiant. Mamma would know he was manly after
all!
“And now shall I give the rest of the peppermints to Gilbert?” asked
Mrs. Alvord.
Gilbert took them eagerly, wondering why Jimmy had refused them, and
suspecting that Jimmy did not care much for peppermints.
“That’s the ‘Jimmy-boy’ the blind Mrs. Pope talks so much about. He
is a boy to be proud of,” said Mrs. Alvord, as she finished tying her
bonnet-strings before the glass in her sister’s room.
“Dear little fellow!” returned Mrs. Lewis. “I am so glad I shall see
him to-day.”
III
FOURTH OF JULY
ALL this while wee Lucy was growing impatient.
“I fink Jimmy might come back,” said she.
For she had a small tricycle, and he was teaching her to ride.
“When will he come, Vendla?”
Vendla did not know. She thought he might come by ten o’clock.
“Well, what’s _now_ o’clock?”
“It’s half-past nine o’clock now.”
Lucy ran to the back parlor, and climbed a chair that stood by the
mantel. The pretty marble clock was ticking its best; but she thought
it did not tick fast enough. She opened the door of the clock, and
moved the black hands round.
“Now maybe ’twill strike,” she thought; “and then he’ll come.”
It did strike, again and again, and yet again, till the sweet cathedral
chimes filled all the air, and mamma came hurrying down-stairs to see
what had happened.
“Lucy, Lucy,” said she in a tone of displeasure, “have you been
touching the clock?”
“I _had_ to make it strike, mamma, so my Jimmy would come,” replied the
little rogue, scrambling down from the chair. “Are you _in earnest_,
mamma? Oh, I don’t want you to be in earnest with your little girl!”
She looked in her mother’s face anxiously as she spoke; and Mrs. Dunlee
promised to forgive her if she would never meddle with the clock again.
“No, I won’t ever, mamma, ever any more.”
At that very moment Jimmy appeared. Lucy ran up to him, laughing and
crying; laughing because she had brought him home by making time go
faster; crying because mamma was “in earnest” with her little girl.
“I’m all ready, and my dolly’s been all ready for ever ’n’ ever. ’Most
got the friz out of her hair,” said Lucy reproachfully.
The brother and sister had a long ride, each on a little tricycle; and
Punch, who was in attendance, could not have been prouder of his little
master and mistress if they had owned the whole State of California and
part of Mexico.
Jimmy usually reproved Lucy for “doddlin’ round and wiggling so;” but
was very patient to-day, and said, “You do _pretty_ well—for a girl!
Sometimes you do go so awful slow that it tires me all out to keep up
with you. Now see _me_!”
And away he spun alone on his little wheel, his sister gazing after
him in wonder, admiration, and despair.
They had both planned to give the baby a “Fourthy July” ride in his own
private carriage, to the tune of,—
“Yankee Doodle came to town
On a Kentish pony;
Stuck a feather in his hat,
And called it Maccaroni.”
But objections were made to this. Eddy was young and tender, and could
not stand the jolting.
“H’m! _boys_ can stand ’most anything,” said Jimmy. “You’d think he was
a girl, to hear ’em talk!”
“Glad he isn’t,” returned Lucy, patting baby’s cheek. “I want him for
a little brother. What do I want of a little sister? _I’m_ a little
sister _myse’f_!”
It was time now for dinner. There were two guests in the parlor, Mrs.
Alvord and Mrs. Lewis. As Mrs. Alvord took Jimmy-boy’s hand, she said,—
“May I kiss you on your cheek, Master James? You don’t know how I
wanted to kiss you this morning!”
Jimmy offered both cheeks with a blush and a smile. He was proud and
happy to be admired by this sweet lady; and he was sure, too, that she
had told, or was going to tell, his mamma all about his call at “the
yellow house by the corner” with Gilly Irwin.
“I am glad to know you too, Master Jimmy-boy,” said Mrs. Lewis, a tall
lady with tiny white curls about her face. “Mrs. Alvord and I love
little children; but we have none at our house, and your mamma has
five. I’m going to ask her if she can’t spare _us_ one,—you or Lucy or
the baby. Which do you think she would give away?”
Jimmy knew very well by the twinkle in the lady’s eye that this was
only said in sport. He reflected a moment, then replied,—
“It’s polite to give away the largest pieces and things; so I think
mamma ought to give _me_!”
Both the ladies laughed, and thought this a bright answer. Jimmy felt
rather proud of it himself, and looked around to see if mamma had heard
it. But Mrs. Dunlee was not in the parlor.
She had stolen into her husband’s study just for a moment, to tell him
Mrs. Alvord’s story of Jimmy-boy.
“A small thing, to be sure,” said she; “he only gave up seven
peppermints!”
“_Not_ a small thing, my love,” returned Mr. Dunlee. “It shows that the
boy has _character_. I am as happy about it as you.”
Jimmy thought it a remarkably pleasant dinner-party. There was
maccaroni soup, which reminded Lucy at once of the singular sort of
feather which “that Yankee Doodle boy” had stuck in his cap.
“This is Yankee Doodle soup!” said she in a loud whisper to her
brother, who nearly choked from trying not to laugh.
Sister Kyzie scowled darkly. When would Lucy learn not to whisper at
table? How often must she be told to move her spoon away from, and not
towards, herself in taking soup?
When the dessert came on, strange to say, it was that same
“Fourth-of-July-Washington-pie,” no longer brown and ragged, but
shining as white as the far-off mountains at Christmastide. What had
Vendla done to it? And why did mamma smile every moment? Was she
thinking how much fairer the great cake looked now in this creamy
covering? Jimmy knew she was not thinking of the cake!
After dinner he entertained Aunt Vi and Mr. Sanford on the veranda by
firing off a round of crackers.
“Jimmy, Jimmy!” pleaded his aunt at last. “If you’ll only be quiet a
moment, I’d like to show you something.”
She opened an old book, and he and Lucy drew near to look at the
picture of a man in a military coat and cocked hat.
“I know who that is!” exclaimed Jimmy; “that’s George Washington!”
“Right,” said Mr. Sanford; “the very man you said Vendla made the pie
for. And who was he? What did he do?”
“What did he do?” repeated Jimmy. “Why, I know that just as easy!”
Then, after a long pause,—
“Well, anyway he had a hatchet. No, no,” seeing an amused look on Mr.
Sanford’s face; “’twas when he was little that he had the hatchet! But
afterwards he was—was he the president?”
“Yes; our first president.”
Then Mr. Sanford told as simply as possible what the good man did for
us more than a hundred years ago to make us a free nation.
Jimmy listened carefully, and understood a little of it. He was glad to
learn that we are free.
“I like to be free,” said he, swinging his arms and throwing out his
chest. “I like to have a president ruling over me! Not a queen, you
know, away off in England! That would be awful! Why, we should have
to sail to England in a ship every time we wanted to ask the queen a
question!”
“But here is little Lucy,” said Mr. Sanford, “who looks as if she cares
very little about kings and queens. Perhaps she would like to hear the
story of the hatchet.”
Then he took her on his knee, and told her how the little George
Washington long, long ago had the present of a hatchet, and enjoyed
swinging it so well that he cut down a small cherry-tree before he
stopped to think.
Lucy was very indignant. She loved trees, and often stood and gazed up
at them with awe and delight. She was always angry when she saw a man
cut off the tops of eucalyptus trees, even though she knew it was done
to make the trees grow broader and handsomer.
“Georgie was a naughty boy,” she said. “I don’t like Georgie!”
“But,” said Mr. Sanford, “I told you how sorry he was. Don’t you think
children should be forgiven when they are sorry?”
“I do,” returned Jimmy; “’specially when they ‘_can’t tell a lie_!’”
Still Lucy was pitiless.
“They won’t have any more cherries at that boy’s house—_ever_!”
And slipping down from Mr. Sanford’s knee she strode into the house
without looking back.
Mr. Sanford was sorry he had told her the story.
“She doesn’t care much if George Washington _couldn’t_ tell a lie,”
said Jimmy. “All she cares about is the cherries.”
“Perhaps she thinks,” remarked Aunt Vi,—
“‘If all the trees were cherry-trees,
And every little boy
Should have, like young George Washington,
A hatchet for his toy,
And use it in a way unwise,
What should we do for cherry-pies?’”
After tea the whole family, with the guests, Mrs. Alvord and Mrs.
Lewis, met on the veranda to watch the glorious sunset.
“In a few minutes we shall see the fireworks shooting up from the
city,” said Mr. Sanford; “and then we’ll light up our own fireworks,
Jimmy-boy, in honor of this free country.”
So saying, he made a deep bow to the American flags that hung in
clusters all about the veranda.
Jimmy’s eyes shone. He had lived in this free country for five years
and a half, and had never known till to-day that it was free! He
thought of a bird let out of a cage, of a poor wild gopher let out of a
trap. What a splendid thing it is to fly or run, just as one chooses!
He looked at his treasures of fireworks lying beside him on the floor,
and smiled. Ever so many boys were coming to see him send up these
beautiful flaming pictures into the air. He should tell the boys,—maybe
they didn’t know,—he should tell them he did it because this country is
free!
Wee Lucy sat on a stool with a book in her hand. She cared very little
about freedom or fireworks or “Fourthy July.” She was scowling at a
picture in the twilight.
“That’s Georgie; that’s the hatchet-man!” said she wrathfully, and
would have picked out both his eyes with a pin if Aunt Vi had not
stopped her.
“Well, he’s awful! Bad man! Bad man! Is he alive, Auntie?”
“No, dear; the good Washington died long, long ago.”
Lucy clapped her hands in glee.
“Oh, I’m so glad, so glad!”
“What! Glad the good Washington is dead?”
“Yes; ’cause now he can’t come here. I was afraid he’d come to my house
with his hatchet, and cut down some o’ my trees!”
She seemed so relieved that they all laughed; how could they help it?
But no one undertook to correct her opinion of the “father of his
country.”
“No use talking to her, she’s such a little goose,” thought Jimmy-boy.
“Wait till she’s as old as I am, and she’ll know all about it.”
But now the sun had fairly dropped behind the wrinkled mountains; the
city fireworks had begun to play, and Jimmy’s fingers were tingling to
be at work on his rockets.
What a grand affair! How the neighbors, large and small, were flocking
to that veranda, and with them half the dogs in town! Which rose higher
and jollier, the human or the canine voices, it would have been hard to
tell.
But there were silent guests too. Three horned toads sat near by,
fastened by strings to three stakes. Jimmy had tied them before tea, to
make sure they would have a good time “seeing the sights.” They did see
the sights, and their beady eyes blinked in the light; but if they had
a good time they kept it all to themselves.
Whiz! Fizz! Up soared Jimmy’s fireworks, the finest ever had in town.
First pin-wheels. But that was nothing; after that began the real
business, the grand display.
Each firework was a picture all by itself; and such shouting and
clapping you never heard. But last and best of all was a picture, in
gold and silver fire, of a large, grand man in a soldier’s uniform and
cocked hat.
“’Rah! ’Rah! George Washington!” shouted Jimmy. “Take off your hats!
He’s the father of his country.”
Then every hat came off, and every handkerchief was waved, till the
noble figure of Washington faded into a shower of gold-dust, and made a
path of glory along the evening sky.
IV
WAS IT JUDY?
FOR a week or two after Polly White had begun to sit on the ducks’
eggs, Lucy asked every day,—
“Where’s my little duckies?”
And then she forgot all about them.
But Polly White was still sitting. It takes only three weeks to hatch
chickens; but it takes four weeks to hatch ducklings, and poor Polly
did not understand it, and was growing very tired. To keep up her
spirits John and Vendla gave her all sorts of nice things to eat.
At last one day the ducklings began to peck out of the shell. And when
they fairly came out how funny they looked! Very large and yellow,
with round bills and yellow, flat feet; and when they tried to walk
they waddled.
Polly looked surprised. Were they all lame? Had they all sprained their
ankles? She had never seen any ducklings before; but she clucked just
as proudly for all that.
“See my children! Aren’t they beauties? That’s a new style of walking.
Isn’t it sweet?”
Kyzie and Edith and Jimmy and Lucy came out to see the funny brood.
Vendla set a pan of corn-meal dough near the back door. Polly was very
hungry; but she would not touch one mouthful till she had called her
little ones to breakfast. There were nine of them, and they dipped in
their round bills like spoons.
“That’s a new style of eating,” clucked Polly. “Don’t you admire it?”
“Do you suppose Polly White thinks those creatures are chickens?” asked
Edith.
“Yes,” said John, who was looking on; “of course she does, and very
cute chickens too. You see, they belong to her.”
After their breakfast they rolled up their eyes, and John said,—
“Now guess what they’re thinking about.”
No one could guess, and John had to answer his own question.
“They’re thinking they want to swim.”
“Do you believe it?” said Kyzie. “What do they know about swimming?
They never saw any water.”
There was a monstrous clay jar on the back veranda in which water was
always kept cooling; it was called an _olla_ (pronounced _oya_.) But
the ducklings could not have peeped into that. Kyzie was right when she
said “they never saw any water.”
Still these yellow fuzz-balls had made up their minds that there was
water somewhere in the world, and they meant to waddle, waddle, till
they found it. Nobody had ever told them there was a pond in the
garden; but they ran that way as fast as their web-feet could carry
them. Their stepmother, Mrs. White, ran after, anxious to stop them;
but the moment they saw the water they tried to go in. They could not
climb up the wall. John took them in his hands, one by one, and dropped
them into the pond.
Then they were happy. This was the very thing they had been dreaming
about as they lay asleep in their egg-shell cribs!
But poor Polly! How frightened she was! How she flapped her wings and
squawked! She thought her children had gone crazy; she was sure they
would drown.
No, not they! They struck out their little feet like paddles, held up
their heads, and rowed that pond as if they were giving lessons in
swimming. The children all clapped their hands at the gay sight, and
Jimmy cried,—
“Cheer, boys, cheer!”
After a little, Mrs. Polly grew calmer, and began to chuck again,—
“Those are my chickens; they’re all in the swim! See their new style of
feet!”
Still she did not feel quite easy.
Just then Quon Wo, the Chinaman, drove along, calling out, “_Sleet_
corn, cabbagee, spinney-gee.”
When he found what was going on, he shook his head till his long black
cue danced over his shoulders.
“No so!” he cried. “No _so_! Lil duckee no slim-ee!” (Little ducks
mustn’t swim.)
“Why not?” said John. “See how easy they go.”
But Quon Wo still shook his cue. He thought they ought not to swim yet
without a mother-duck who would know how to oil their feathers for
them. The stepmother hen could not do this. “Wait till they are a
month old before they swim,” was the advice of Quon Wo.
“Well, if you’re going to be so fussy about it, Quon Wo, I’ll take ’em
out,” said John.
And he did. So the fun was all spoiled; at least for this time.
John, Vendla, and the children went into the house. Vendla put on her
sweeping-cap, and began to sweep the chambers, while Jimmy and Lucy
strayed off to the kitchen.
On the long table against the kitchen wall stood an elegant china
fruit-dish which Vendla had brought out from the parlor to wash.
“Pretty dish,” said Lucy, fingering the edges lovingly.
“Let that alone, or you’ll break it,” said Jimmy, in the tone of
command he often used when speaking to his little sister.
Lucy did not obey at once.
“You’re the naughtiest child, Lucy Lyman Dunlee! You’ll go and break
that, and then they’ll go and blame _me_! I _always_ get punished for
_you_!”
Jimmy pitied himself as he heard his own words.
“Yes, Lucy Lyman Dunlee, you’re the awfulest acting-est child!
“If you don’t stop picking cake, and spoiling things, and breaking
things, I’ll—I’ll—why, they’ll think it’s _me_! and I’ll grow up to be
despised!”
Lucy sprang away from the table in alarm. What it was to “grow up to be
despised” she had no idea. Something bad, if it made Jimmy look like
this!
“There comes Judy! What has she got in her mouth?” cried Jimmy,
forgetting his fear of being “despised.” “It can’t be one of Polly’s
chickens?”
With that, he and Lucy began to chase the cat about the room. Judy
thought it hardly fair to have two children after her at once, and
jumped into a chair, and from the chair to the table.
[Illustration: “Who did that?” cried Jimmy.
_Page 57._]
“She’s smelling the china dish with her nose. Come down; come down!”
said Lucy.
Judy did not come, but continued to sniff at the dish.
“Stop that!” said Jimmy. “Come down, or I’ll pull you down!”
In a frolicsome mood he caught her by the tail, not roughly or
unkindly. He had been taught gentleness to animals; but somehow in
dragging her backward the fruit-dish got in the way. Perhaps Judy’s paw
touched it, perhaps Jimmy’s elbow. Yes, it was probably Jimmy’s elbow.
At any rate, the dish was overturned; and as it fell to the floor it
broke in half a dozen pieces.
“Who did that?” cried Jimmy in dismay. He had not been aware of
touching the dish. It was certainly an accident; still he was old
enough to know that he was to blame for the accident. He should not
have played with the cat while her nose was in the fruit-dish.
Yet he was the good boy who had just been scolding his little sister
for nothing at all! The good boy who never did wrong!
“Oh, that beau’-ful dish!” sighed Lucy. “Poor mamma’ll feel _so_ bad!”
“Well, ’twas the cat did it,” said Jimmy quickly.
His forehead was full of wrinkles; his eyes were full of tears. Lucy
always made ready to cry when he cried, and now she turned up the
corner of her apron; and for half a minute the room was so still that
you could almost have heard a fly walking on the roller-towel.
Jimmy stood on one foot and thought: “I’ll go tell mamma I didn’t mean
to. No; I’ll tell her Judy did it. Judy did, I _think_.”
The fly on the towel gazed at Jimmy; Jimmy gazed at the fly.
“Mamma’s pretty dish,” said Lucy, breaking the silence. Jimmy was not
crying, so she dropped the corner of her apron.
“Judy broke it,” declared Jimmy again.
“Yes,” assented the little sister; “Judy broked it.”
“Well—go tell mamma so. I hear her in the parlor.”
Lucy turned to go.
“No, don’t; I don’t want you to. Needn’t tell mamma anything.”
“No; needn’t tell her anyfing,” said Lucy, whirling about, and looking
at her brother.
She and the little fly both looked at him. Lucy did not know any more
than the fly what was going on in Jimmy’s mind. Neither of them dreamed
it was a battle between right and wrong.
“If I run out to the garden, won’t that be the best way? Then Vendla’ll
come in, and she’ll think the cat broke it. I’ll shut the cat in here
all alone,” thought this little soldier, who was fighting a battle
between right and wrong. “It will not be same as a lie,—I _think_ not.”
Jimmy moved towards the back door, and there he stood quite still.
Why did Lucy stare at him so, as if she were watching to see him make
up his mind?
“Lucy Lyman Dunlee, what makes you look so awful sober? Just as if
papa was dead, and mamma had been hooked by a cow? Why don’t you go
out-doors and see—see where Polly White is?”
Lucy was gone in a twinkling, glad to get away from Jimmy, who was
scowling now “as fierce as ten furies.”
He looked at the door, then at the cat. “Wish I was little like Lucy;
_then_ it wouldn’t be wrong. No matter what you do when you’re little
like Lucy.”
Jimmy sighed.
“Babies like her! _They_ don’t have to be gentlemen. But when you’re a
boy, and getting so big—
“Did George Washington ever shut up a cat? George Washington wouldn’t
do it. ‘_I can’t tell a lie_,’ says George Washington. No, _sir_!”
This seemed to settle the question for Jimmy. The ‘_No, sir!_’ sounded
as loud as a cannon-ball, though even the cat did not hear. The words
were spoken only in Jimmy’s heart.
“No, sir,” said he again, and ran for the parlor as if a mountain-lion
were chasing him. He dared not walk, lest he might not go at all.
How he hated to go! That fruit-dish was a new one only last Christmas.
Mamma would almost cry to know it was broken.
He ran every step of the way. Mamma almost cried, it is true; but it
was just for joy!
“My blessed, blessed Jimmy-boy! I can forgive you for carelessness;
but, oh, if you _had_ shut Judy into the kitchen, and deceived your
mother!”
“But I didn’t do it, mamma!”
“No, no, no; God kept you from that meanness, the good God.”
“Mamma, your beautiful fruit-dish is broken!” exclaimed Edy, bursting
into the parlor. “Isn’t it too bad?”
“Never mind, daughter; I’m too happy to care for such trifles,”
returned Mrs. Dunlee, with a sunny glance at Jimmy that warmed him to
the very depths of his heart.
V
MRS. BIDDY CHICK
WHEN Quon Wo decided that the ducklings were old enough, they were
allowed to swim. But Polly never let them go to the pond alone. She
went with them, and stood on dry land, watching their graceful motions.
She seemed to feel ashamed not to swim herself; but she knew there was
something the matter with her feet, so she never tried to learn.
“I don’t want Judy to catch any of those ducklings,” said Jimmy;
“Judy’s horrid sometimes.”
“Will Punch catch any, do you think?” asked Mr. Sanford.
“Punch!” cried Jimmy indignantly. “Punch isn’t horrid; he’s good.”
“He’s a nice shepherd dog,” said Mr. Sanford, patting the animal’s
head. “But he’s young yet. Let me see, how long have you had Punch?”
“Don’t you remember, Mr. Sanford? I should think you’d remember. ’Twas
that time I had the toothache, and Aunt Vi made some walnut creams. It
ached and ached. Mamma said I must go to the dentist. I didn’t like to;
I was afraid. But Aunt Vi said, ‘Now you go with me, Jimmy, and I’ll
write and tell Mr. Sanford.’ ’Twas when you were gone. Where were you
gone, Mr. Sanford?”
“I was at Los Angeles.”
“Well, so I went to the dentist with Auntie. She said I was brave. Boys
don’t cry, you know; not much. The thing the dentist pulled with was
as sharp as the head of a pin,—no, the _point_ of a pin. But when the
tooth came out it never ached any more after that.
“And then Aunt Vi wrote to you; don’t you know? And you said you’d send
me a present in a bag, and it would come that day to the post-office,
and we must go right off and get it. I never guessed what it was;
nobody could guess.
“How I laughed! how papa laughed! It was a great, strong bag. There,
turn your head round, Punch! He had a blue ribbon round his neck then.
Who would have thought he came in that bag? But he did. Didn’t you,
Punch?
“He wasn’t half as big then as he is now. He never died at all. No,
Punch, you breathed all the time just the same. And when we took you
out of the bag you were as alive as could be, and wanted some bread and
milk.”
Punch wagged his tail at this story as if he remembered it all.
“That was last March, if I’m not mistaken,” said Mr. Sanford. “And
Punch was then six months old. That would make him a year old now.
“Well, he’s not very handsome, but he is a knowing dog. I think you did
a good thing when you had that tooth out, Jimmy.”
Jimmy’s head rose a little higher.
“Well, and I told mamma I was willing to go to the dentist again, for
it didn’t hurt much. But mamma said I needn’t go again; ’twas no use to
pull out my teeth when they didn’t ache. And, besides, I don’t want any
more dogs, you know. What do I want of more dogs when I have Punch?
“Punch, come here! When you lick my hand so, and tickle me, I have
to laugh. But he doesn’t look as if he came in a bag, does he, Mr.
Sanford?”
Punch pricked up his ears, and began to bark. His big friend Toby
across the way, Mrs. Porter’s dog, was barking, and little Punch never
let Toby make more noise than he did if he could help it. Toby had
espied a wagon coming up the hill. Very soon Punch saw it too through
the trees, and then he knew what he had been barking about.
Dear, merry Mrs. Chick was in the wagon. She had come to town to buy
her a dress, she said. And where was her little Lucy?
Lucy soon appeared on her tricycle, to the great delight of Mrs. Chick.
“I like to see the ducklings swim,” she said; “but it isn’t half so
pretty a sight as my little girl dancing along on that fizzy-me-jig
wheel with all sails flying.”
Mrs. Chick wanted to take two of the children home with her to stay all
night, and Edith and Jimmy were only too glad to be allowed to go.
“This time I may churn butter, mayn’t I, Mrs. Chick?” said Jimmy. “You
always said I might churn butter some time in that pretty green churn.”
“So you shall, if you get up early enough, my boy; so you shall,” said
the good-natured woman cheerily. “The cream will be all ready in the
morning by five o’clock. Do you like to get up at five o’clock?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I do, if you’ll call me, Mrs. Chick.”
Mrs. Chick lived several miles away, on a ranch or farm. If her ranch
had been all paid for she would have been a rich woman. She had
lemon-trees, and a little lemon-house to dry the lemons in; she had
orange and fig and olive trees, and so many different kinds of roses
that she couldn’t remember all their names to save her life. The
palm-trees had trunks that looked like enormous pine-apples. One queer
tree with rough bark was called a “monkey-tree.” Mrs. Chick said she
didn’t know why, unless it was because a monkey couldn’t climb it!
“No,” said Edy; “the needles and thorns on it would prick and scratch
him awfully. I’d like to see the captain’s monkey try to climb it. How
he would cry!”
The young Dunlees never failed to have a good time at Mrs. Chick’s. She
lived alone, and had a funny way of talking to herself, and asking,—
“Do you hear what I say, Biddy Chick?”
Her first name was Bridget.
Then, too, she kept numerous pet animals, which she caressed and talked
to almost like children. Somebody had just given her three bits of
motherless tortoise-shell kittens; and it was interesting to see her
feed them. She had a bottle of milk with a quill in it; and, taking one
kitty on her lap at a time, she said, “Now, my pretty baby,” and put
the quill in its mouth. When the “pretty baby” had sucked all the milk
that it ought to have, she put it down and took up another baby.
The beautiful little creatures were just beginning to see; and what
they thought of their large, fat mother and the bottle with a quill in
it I cannot say. But they always ate heartily, and afterwards rolled
themselves up in little balls close together on a cushion, and went to
sleep in the sun, looking perfectly happy.
There was another pet, a playful young kid with a brass collar on
his neck, who trotted about on his little black feet, following his
mistress everywhere, even into the parlor. He, too, had been brought up
on a bottle, and his name was Trot.
Mrs. Chick had two cows, a horse, and many hens and turkeys. She
sometimes took the turkeys with her when she went visiting. Then there
was a two years’ old baby over the way, who was always dancing in
and out, and making a good deal of trouble; so Mrs. Chick was seldom
lonely.
The children kept thinking what a lovely time they were having; but
after tea they both felt tired, and at seven o’clock Mrs. Chick sent
Jimmy to bed. The chamber was unfinished, and had no paper or plaster,
and in some places the ceiling was so low that even little Jimmy could
hardly stand upright. There was a live-oak tree close to the window,
and he had seen a bird’s nest in the branches of the tree.
“I’ll hear the birds singing before I wake up,” thought Jimmy drowsily.
“And I’ll go straight to sleep, for I’m going to churn that butter in
the morning.”
But Jimmy did not go straight to sleep, nor did he waken early; and I
will tell you why.
After he had gone up-stairs Mrs. Chick lighted a lamp and sat down in
the kitchen to mend stockings, while Edith sat near her, looking over a
picture-book. Presently Mrs. Chick said,—
“Dear me! I forgot to bring down that maple-sirup. I meant to have it
for the waffles in the morning. But no matter now; I won’t stop to go
after it.”
“Is it up-stairs?” asked Edith, who thought that it would be quite too
bad to eat waffles without sirup.