_JIMMIEBOY'S FIREWORKS_
It was a very great misfortune indeed that Jimmieboy should make the
acquaintance of the bumblebee at that particular time--that is to say,
everybody thought it was. The bumblebee, as a rule, was one of the
jolliest bees in the hive, and passed most of his days humming away as
if he were the happiest of mortals; but at the particular moment when
Jimmieboy, who wasn't looking where he was going, ran into him, the bee
was mad about something, and he settled down on Jimmieboy's cheek and
stung him. He was a very thorough bee, too, unhappily, and he never did
anything by halves, which is why it was that the sting was about as bad
a one and as painful as any bee ever stang. I use the word "stang" here
to please Jimmieboy, by the way. It is one of his favorites in
describing the incident.
Now, it is bad enough, I have found, to be stung by a bee at any time,
but when it happens on the night of July Fourth, and is so painful that
the person stung has to go to bed with a poultice over his cheek and
eye, and so cannot see the fireworks he has been looking forward to for
weeks and weeks, it is about the worst affliction that a small boy can
have overtake him--at least it seems so at the time--and that was
exactly poor Jimmieboy's case. He had thought and thought and thought
about those fireworks for days and days and days, and here, on Fourth of
July night, he found himself lying in bed in his room, with one side of
his face covered with a bandage, and his poor little other blue eye
gazing at the ceiling, while his ears listened to the sizzling of the
rockets and pin wheels and the thunderous booming of the bombs.
"Mean old bee!" he said, drowsily, as his other blue eye tried to peer
out of the window in the hope of seeing at least one rocket burst into
stars. "I didn't mean to upset him."
"I know you didn't," sobbed a little voice at his side. "And I didn't
mean to sting you, only I didn't know it was you, and I was mad because
somebody's picked a rose I'd had my eye on for a week, and you ran into
me and spilled all the honey I'd gug--gathered, and then I--I was so
irritated I stuck my stingers out and stang you. Can't you forgive me?"
Jimmieboy withdrew his other blue eye from the window in wonderment. He
was used to queer things, but this seemed the queerest yet. The idea of
a bumblebee coming to apologize to a boy for stinging him made him
smile in spite of his disappointment and his pain.
"Who are you?" he said, looking toward the foot of the bed, whence the
voice had come.
"I used to be a bumblebee," sobbed the little voice, "but I've changed
my first letter from 'b' to 'h.' I'm only an humble-bee now, and all
because I've treated you so badly. I really didn't mean to, and I've
come to help you have a good time to-night, so that you won't miss the
fireworks because of my misbehavior."
"Don't mention it," said Jimmieboy, kindly. "It was my fault, after all.
I hadn't ought to have run into you."
"Yes, you had ought to have, too," moaned the little bee. "You were just
right in running into me. I hadn't ought to have got in your way."
"Well, anyhow, it's all right," said Jimmieboy. "You're
forgiven--though you did hurt me like everything."
"I know it," sobbed the bee. "I almost wish you'd get a pin and stick it
into me once, so as to sort of just even things up. It would hurt me, I
know, but then I'd feel better after I got well."
"Indeed I won't," said Jimmieboy, with a determined shake of his head.
"That won't do any good, and what's the use anyhow, as long as you
didn't mean it?"
"I'm sure I don't know," the bee answered. "I'm only a bug, after all,
you know, and so I don't understand things that human beings which has
got brains can understand. I've noticed, though, that sometimes when a
boy gets hurt it sort of makes him feel better if he hurts back."
"I wouldn't mind a bit if I could see the fireworks," said Jimmieboy.
"That's what hurts the most."
"Well, I'll tell you what you do," said the bee; "if that's all you feel
bad about, we can fix it up in a jiffy. Do you know what a jiffy is?"
"No, I don't," said Jimmieboy.
"Well, I'll tell you," said the bee, "but don't you ever tell:
"Sixty seconds make a minute,
Sixty minutes make an hour;
But a second has within it
Sixty jiffies full of power.
"In other words, a jiffy is just the same thing to a second as the second
is to the minute or the minute to the hour; and, dear me, what billions
of things can happen in a jiffy! Why, they're simply enormous."
"They must be," said Jimmieboy, "if, as you say, you can fix me up in
regard to the fireworks in a jiffy."
"There isn't any if about it," returned the bee. "Just turn over and put
your face into the pillow, and see what you can see."
"I can't see anything with both eyes in my pillow, much less with one,"
said Jimmieboy.
"Well--try it," said the bee. "I know what I'm buzzing about."
So Jimmieboy, just to oblige his strange little friend, turned over and
buried his face in the pillow. At first, as far as he could see, there
was nothing going on in the pillow to make it worth while; but all of a
sudden, just as he was about to withdraw his face, a great golden pin
wheel began to whizz and whirr right in front of him, only instead of
putting forth fire it spouted jewels and flowers, and finally right out
of the middle of it there popped a tiny bit of a creature all dressed in
spangles, looking for all the world like a Brownie. He bowed to
Jimmieboy politely and requested him to open his mouth as wide as he
could.
"What for?" asked Jimmieboy, naturally a little curious to know the
meaning of this strange proceeding.
"I am going to set off the sugar-plum bomb," the little creature
replied. "But of course if you don't want the sugar-plums you can keep
your mouth closed."
"Can't I catch 'em in my hands?" said Jimmieboy.
"You can if you want to, but they won't be of any use if you do,"
returned the little creature. "You see, this bomb shoots out candy
instead of sparks, but the candy is so delicate that, like the sparks in
fire fireworks, it goes out just as soon as it comes down. If you catch
'em in your hands you won't be able to see how good they taste, don't
you see?"
"Yeh," said Jimmieboy, opening his mouth as wide as he could, and so
speaking with difficulty. "Hire ahay!"--by which I presume he meant fire
away, only he couldn't say it plainly with his mouth open.
And then the little creature set off the sugar-plum bomb, and the
candies it put forth were marvelous in number and sweetness, and,
strange to say, there wasn't one of them that, in falling, came down
anywhere but in the mouth of the small boy who had been "stang."
"Got any cannon crackers?" asked Jimmieboy, delighted with what he had
already seen, as soon as the sweet taste from the sugar-plums died away.
"I'm fond of noise, too."
"Well," said the little creature, "we have great big crackers, only they
don't break the silence in just the way you mean. They make a noise, but
it isn't just a plain ordinary crash such as your cannon crackers make.
We call 'em our Grand Opera Crackers. I'll set one off and let you see
what I mean."
So the little creature opened a big chest that in some way happened to
come up out of the ground beside him, and with difficulty hauled from
it a huge thing that looked like the ordinary giant crackers that
Jimmieboy was used to seeing. It was twice as big as the little
creature, but he got it out nevertheless.
"My!" cried Jimmieboy. "That's fine. That ought to make lots of noise."
"It will," returned the little creature, touching a match to the fuse.
"Just listen now."
The fuse burned slowly along, and then, with a great puff of smoke, the
cracker burst, but not into a mere crash as the little creature had
hinted, but into a most entrancing military march, that was inspiring
enough to set even the four legs of the heaviest dinner-table to
strutting about the room. Jimmieboy could hardly keep his own feet still
as the music went on, but he did not dare draw his face away from the
pillow so that he might march about the room, for fear that by so doing
he would lose what might remain of this wonderful exhibition, whose like
he had never even dreamed of before, and alongside of which he felt that
the display he had missed by having to go to bed must be as
insignificant as a pin compared to Cleopatra's great stone needle.
"That was fine!" he cried, ecstatically, as the last echoes of the
musical cracker died away. "I wouldn't mind having a hundred packs of
those. Have you got any music torpedoes?"
"No," returned the little creature. "But we've got picture torpedoes.
Look at this." The little creature here took a small paper ball from the
chest, and, slamming it on the ground with all his might, it exploded,
and the spot whereon it fell was covered with a gorgeous little picture
of Jimmieboy himself, all dressed in sailor's clothes and dancing a
hornpipe.
"That's a very good picture of you," said the little creature, looking
at the dancing figure. "It's so full of motion, like you. Here's another
one," he added, as the picture from the first torpedo faded away. "This
shows how you'd look if you were a fairy."
The second torpedo was slammed down upon the ground just as the first
had been, and Jimmieboy had the pleasure of seeing himself in another
picture, only this time he had gossamer wings and a little wand, and he
was flying about a great field of poppies and laughing with a lot of
other fairies, among whom he recognized his little brothers and a few of
his playmates. He could have looked at this all night and not grown
weary of it, but, like a great many other good things, the picture could
not last forever, and just at the most interesting point, when he saw
himself about to fly a race across the poppy-field with a robin, the
picture faded away, and the little creature called out: "Now for the
finest of the lot. Here goes the Fairy-Book Rocket!"
With a tremendous whizz, up soared the most magnificent rocket you ever
saw. It left behind it a trail of golden fire that was dazzling, and
then, when it reached its highest point in the sky, it burst as all
other rockets do, but, instead of putting forth stars, all the people in
Jimmieboy's favorite fairy tales jumped out into the heavens. There was
a glittering Jack chasing a dozen silver giants around about the moon;
there was a dainty little Cinderella, with her gorgeous coach and four,
driving up and down the Milky Way; Puss-in-Boots was hopping about from
one cloud to another, as easily as if he were an ordinary cat jumping
from an ordinary footstool on to an ordinary sofa. They were all there
cutting up the finest pranks imaginable, when suddenly Jack of the
beanstalk fame appeared at the side of the little creature who had set
the rocket off, and planted a bean at his feet, and from it there
immediately sprang forth a huge stalk covered with leaves of gold and
silver, dropping showers of rubies and pearls and diamonds to the
ground, as it grew rapidly upwards to where the fairy-land folk were
disporting themselves in the skies. These, when the stalk had reached
its full growth, rushed toward it, and in a moment were clambering back
to earth again, and then, when they were all safely down, they ranged
themselves in a row, sang a beautiful good-night song to the boy with
his face in the pillow, and disappeared into the darkness.
"There!" said the little voice back of Jimmieboy. "That's what one
jiffy will do."
Jimmieboy turned about and smiled happily at the bee--for it was the bee
who had spoken.
"Sometime we'll have another," the bee added. "But now I must go--I've
got to get ready for to-morrow, which will be bright and sunshiny, and
in every way a great day for honey. Good-by!"
And Jimmieboy, as the bee flew out of the window, was pleased to notice
that the pain in his cheek was all gone. With a contented smile on his
face he turned over and went to sleep, and when his papa came in to look
at him as he lay there in his little bed, noticing the smile, he turned
to his mamma and said, "Well, he doesn't look as if he'd missed the
fireworks very much, after all, does he?"
"No," said his mamma. "He seems to be just the same happy little fellow
he always was."
And between us, I think they were both right, for we know that he didn't
miss the fireworks, and as for being happy, he was just as much so as
are most boys who know what it is to be contented, and who, when trials
come upon them, endeavor to make the best of them, anyhow.