Bikey the Skicycle and Other Tales of 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.

HIGH JINKS IN THE BARN

It was unquestionably a hot day; so hot, indeed, that John, the hired man, said the thermometer had had to climb a tree to get high enough to record the degree of the heat. Jimmieboy had been playing out under the apple-trees for two or three hours, and now, "just for greens," as the saying went, he had climbed into the old barouche in the barn, where it was tolerably cool and there was a soft cushion to lie off on. He closed his eyes for a moment, and then a strange thing happened.

The Wheelbarrow over by the barn door unmistakably spoke. "Say," it said to the Farm Wagon, "there's one thing I like about you."

"What's that?" said the Wagon.

"You have such a long tongue, and yet you never say an unkind word about anybody," replied the Barrow, with a creak of its wheel that sounded very much like a laugh.

"That may be so," said the big gray Horse that was used with the fat old bay to pull the farm wagon. "It may be just as you say, but that tongue has come between me and one of my best friends many a time, I tell you."

"I couldn't help that," retorted the Wagon. "The hired man made me do it; besides, I have a grudge against you."

"What's the grudge?" queried the Horse.

"You kicked me and my friend the Whiffletree that day you ran away down in the hay field," replied the Wagon. "I was dreadfully upset that day."

"I should say you were," put in the Rake. "And when you were upset you fell on me and knocked out five of my teeth. I never had such a time."

"You needed to have something done to those teeth, anyhow," said the Sickle. "They were nearly all gone when that happened."

"Oh, were they?" retorted the Rake. "And why were they nearly all gone? Do you know that?"

"I do not. I suppose you had been trying to crack chestnuts with them. Was that it?"

"No, it wasn't," retorted the Rake. "They were worn out cleaning up the lawns after you pretended to have finished them off."

"You think you're bright, don't you?" replied the Sickle, with a sneer.

"Well, if I was as dull as you are," returned the Rake, angrily, "I'd visit the Grindstone and get him to put a little more edge on me."

"Come, come; don't be so quarrelsome," said the Hose. "If you don't stop, I'll drown the whole lot of you."

"Tut!" retorted the Rake. "You look for all the world like a snake."

"He is a snake," put in the Curry-comb. "He's a water-snake. Aren't you, Hosey?"

"I'd show you whether I am or not if the faucet hadn't run dry."

"Dear me!" laughed the Sled. "Hear Hosey talk! The idea of a faucet running! It hasn't moved an inch since it came here. Why, I've got two runners that'll beat it out of sight on the side of a hill."

"Yes, the down side," said the Pony. "Anything can run down hill. Even a stupid old millstone can do that. But when it comes to running up hill, I'm ahead of you all. Why, the biggest river or avalanche in the world couldn't run up hill beside me."

"That's so," put in the Riding-Whip. "And you and I know who makes you do it – eh?"

"I didn't say anything about that," said the Pony. "But I'll tell you one thing: if you'll come down here where I can reach you with one of my hind legs, I'll show you what nice shoes I wear."

"Much obliged," said the Whip. "I don't wear shoes myself, and am not interested in the subject. But if any man who is interested in bugs wants to know how to make a horse fly, I can show him."

"You are a whipper-snapper," said the Pony angrily.

"Ho! ho!" jeered the Whip.

"Anybody call me?" queried the Hoe, from the corner where he had been asleep while all this conversation was going on.

Then they all burst out laughing, and peace was restored.

"They say the Fence is worn out," put in the Sickle.

"I should think it would be," replied the Rake. "It's been running all around this place night and day without ever stopping for the last twenty years."

"How many miles is that?" queried the Wagon.

"Well, once around is half a mile, but if it has gone around every night and every day for twenty years," said the Grindstone, "that's one mile every twenty-four hours – 365 miles a year – 3,650 miles in ten years, and 7,300 miles in twenty years. Quite a record, eh?"

"That's a good way for a Picket-fence to go," said the Wheelbarrow. "It would kill me to go half that distance."

"Well, if you live until you do go half that distance," put in the Hose, "you'll never die."

"Ho! ho!" jeered the Barrow.

"Somebody did call me that time!" cried the Hoe, waking up again. "I'm sure I heard my name."

"Yes, you did," said the Rake. "We waked you up to tell you that breakfast would be ready in about a month, and to say that if you wanted any you'd do well to go down to the river and see if you can't buy its mouth, because if you don't, nobody knows how you can eat it."

Here the loud and prolonged laugh caused Jimmieboy once more to open his eyes, and as his papa was standing by the side of the carriage holding out his hands to help him down and take him into the house to supper, the little fellow left the quarrelsome tools and horses and other things to themselves.

JIMMIEBOY'S VALENTINE

Jimmieboy had been watching for the postman all day and he was getting just a little tired of it. It was Valentine's Day, and he was very naturally expecting that some of his many friends would remember that fact and send him a valentine. Still the postman, strange to say, didn't come.

"He'll be later than usual," said Jimmieboy's mamma. "The postman always is late on Valentine's Day. He has so many valentines to leave at people's houses."

"Well, I wish he'd hurry," said Jimmieboy, "because I want to see what my valentimes look like."

Jimmieboy always called valentines valentimes, so nobody paid any attention to that mistake – and then the front door bell rang.

"I guess, maybe, perhaps that's the postman – though I didn't hear his whistle," said Jimmieboy, rushing to the head of the stairs and listening intently, but no one went to the door and Jimmieboy became so impatient that he fairly tumbled down the stairs to open it himself.

"Howdy do," he said, as he opened the door, and then he stopped short in amazement. There was no one there and yet his salutation was returned.

"Howdy do!" something said. "I'm glad you came to the door, because I mightn't have got in if the maid had opened it. People who don't understand queer things don't understand me, and I rather think if the girl had opened that door and had been spoken to by something she couldn't see she'd have started to run and hide, shrieking Lawk, meanwhile."

"I've half a mind to shriek Lawk, myself," said Jimmieboy, a little fearfully, for he wasn't quite easy about this invisible something he was talking to. "Who are you, anyhow?"

"I'm not a who, I'm a what," said the queer thing. "I'm not a person, I'm a thing – just a plain, homely, queer thing. I couldn't hurt a fly, so there's no reason why you should cry Lawk."

"Well, what kind of a queer thing are you?" asked Jimmieboy. "Are you the kind of a queer thing I can invite into the house or would it be better for me to shut the door and make you stay outside."

"I don't like to say," said the queer thing, with a pathetic little sigh. "I think I'm very nice and that anybody ought to be glad to have me in the house, but that's only my opinion of myself. Somebody else might think differently. In fact somebody else has thought differently. You know rhinoceroses and crocodiles think themselves very handsome, and that's why they sit and gaze at themselves in the water all the time. Everybody else though knows that they are very ugly. Now that's the way with me. As I have said, I'm sure in my own mind that I am perfectly splendid, and yet your Uncle Periwinkle, who thought of me, wouldn't write me and send me to you."

"You must be very wise if you know what you mean," said Jimmieboy. "I don't."

"Oh, no – I'm not so wise – I'm only splendid, that's all," said the other. "You see I'm a valentine, only I never was made. I was only thought of. Your Uncle Periwinkle thought of me and was going to send me to you and then he changed his mind and thought you'd rather have a box of candy; so he didn't write me and sent you a box of chocolate creams instead. The postman's got 'em and if he doesn't find out what they are and eat 'm all up you'll receive them this afternoon. Won't you let me come in and tell you about myself and see if you don't like me? I want to be liked – oh ever so much, and I was awfully disappointed when your uncle decided not to send me. I cried for eight minutes and then resolved to come here myself and see if after all he wasn't wrong. Let me come in and if you don't like me I'll go right out again and never come back."

"I like you already, without knowing what kind of a valentime you are," said Jimmieboy, kindly. "Of course you can come in, and you can stay as long as you want to. I don't believe you'll be in anybody's way."

"Thank you very much," said the valentine, gratefully, as it moved into the house, and, to judge from where its voice next came, settled down on the big sofa cushion. "I hoped you'd say that."

"What kind of a valentime are you?" asked Jimmieboy in a moment. "Are you a funny one or a solemn one, with paper frills all over it in a box and a little cupid peeping out from behind a tree?"

"I am almost afraid to tell you," said the valentine, timidly. "I am so afraid you won't like me."

"Oh, yes I will," said Jimmieboy, hastily. "I like all kinds of valentimes."

"Well, that's a relief," said the other. "I'm comic."

"Hooray!" cried Jimmieboy, "I just love comic valentimes with red and blue pictures in 'em and funny verses."

"Do you really?" returned the valentine, cheerfully. "Then I can say hooray, too, because that's what I was to be. I was to be a picture of a boy with red trousers on, sitting crosswise on a great yellow broomstick, galloping through a blue sky, toward a pink moon. How do you like that?"

"It is splendid, just as you said," returned Jimmieboy, with a broad smile. "Those are my favorite colors."

"You like those colors better than you do chocolate cream color?" asked the valentine.

"Oh, my yes," said Jimmieboy. "Probably you wouldn't be so good to eat as a chocolate cream, but for a valentime, you're much better. I don't want to eat valentimes, I want to keep 'em."

"You don't know how glad you make me," said the pathetic little valentine, its voice trembling with happiness. "Now, if you like my verses as well as you do my picture, I will be perfectly content."

"I guess I'll like 'em," said Jimmieboy. "Can you recite yourself to me?"

"I'm not written – didn't I tell you?" returned the valentine. "That's the good part of it. I can tell you what I might have been and you can take your choice."

"That's good," said Jimmieboy. "Then I'm sure to be satisfied."

"Just so," said the valentine. "Now let me think what I might have been! Hum! Well, what do you think of this:

"If I had a cat with a bright red tail,And a parrot whose voice was soft and lowI'd put 'em away in a water pail,And send 'em to where the glowworm's glow."And then I would sit on an old whisk broomAnd sail through the great, soft starlit sky,To where the bright moonbeams gaily froomTheir songs to the parboiled Gemini."And I'd say to the frooming moonbeams that,I'd come from the home of the sweet woodbine,Deserting my parrot and red-tailed cat,To ask if they'd be my valentine."

"I guess that's good," said Jimmieboy. "Only I don't know what frooming is."

"Neither do I," said the valentine, "but that needn't make any difference. You see, it's a nonsense rhyme any how, and I couldn't remember any word that rhymed with broom. Froom isn't a bad word, and inasmuch as it's new to us we can make it mean anything we want to."

"That's true," said Jimmieboy. "But why do you send the cat and the parrot off?"

"They aren't in the picture," said the valentine, "and so of course we have to get rid of them before we have the boy start off on the broomstick. It would be very awkward to go sailing off through the sky on a broomstick with a parrot and cat in tow. Then to show the moonbeams how much the boy thinks of them you have to have him leave something behind that he thinks a great deal of, and that something might just as well be a parrot and a cat as anything else."

"And what does it all mean?" asked Jimmieboy. "Is the boy supposed to be me?"

"No," explained the valentine. "The boy is supposed to be Uncle Periwinkle, and you are the moonbeams. In putting the poem the way I've told you it's just another and nonsense way of saying that he'll be your valentine and will take a great deal of trouble and make sacrifices to do it if necessary."

"I see," said Jimmieboy. "And I think it very nice indeed – though I might like some other verse better."

"Of course you might," said the valentine. "That's the way with everything. No matter how fine a thing may be, there may be something else that might be better, and the thing to do always is to look about and try to find that better thing. How's this:

"'The broom went around to Jimmieboy's,And cried, 'Oh, Jimmieboy B.,Come forth in the night, desert your toys,And take a fine ride with me."I'll take you off through the starlit sky,We'll visit the moon so fine,If you will come with alacrity,And be my valentine.'"

"That isn't so bad, either," said Jimmieboy. "I sort of wish a broomstick would come after me that way and take me sailing off to the moon. I'd be its valentime in a minute if it would do that. I'd like to take a trip through all the stars and see why they twinkle and – "

"Why they twinkle?" interrupted the valentine. "Why they twinkle? Hoh! Why, I can tell you that – for as a secret just between you and me, I know a broomstick that has been up to the stars and he told me all about them. The stars twinkle because from where they are, they are so high up, they can see all that is going on in the world, and they see so many amusing things that it keeps 'em laughing all the time and they have to twinkle just as your eyes do when they see anything funny."

"That's it, is it?" said Jimmieboy.

"Yes, sir!" said the valentine, "and it's fine, too, to watch 'em when you are feeling sad. You know how it is when you're feeling sort of unhappy and somebody comes along who feels just the other way, who laughs and sings, how you get to feel better yourself right off? Well, remember the stars when you don't feel good. How they're always twinkling – watch 'em, and by and by you'll begin to twinkle yourself. You can't help it – and further, Jimmieboy," added this altogether strange valentine, "when anybody tries to make you think that this world has got more bad things than good things in it, look at the stars again. They wouldn't twinkle if that was so and until the stars stop twinkling and begin to frown, don't you ever think badly of the world."

"I won't," said Jimmieboy. "I always did like the world. As long as I've been in it I've thought it was a pretty fine place."

"It is," said the valentine. "Nobody can spoil it either – unless you do it yourself – but, I say, if you'd like to have me I'll introduce you to my broomstick friend sometime and maybe some day he'll give you that ride."

"Will you?" cried Jimmieboy with delight. "That will be fine. You are the dearest old valentime that ever was."

Saying which, forgetting in his happiness that the valentine was not to be seen and so could not be touched, Jimmieboy leaned over to hug him affectionately as he sat on the sofa cushion.

Which may account for the fact that when Jimmieboy's papa came home he found Jimmieboy clasping the sofa cushion in his arms, asleep and unconscious of the fact that the postman had come and gone, leaving behind him six comic valentines, four "solemn ones," and a package of chocolate creams from Uncle Periwinkle.

When he waked he was rejoiced to find them, but he has often told me since that the finest valentine he ever got was the one Uncle Periwinkle thought he wouldn't like as well as the candy; and I believe he still has hopes that the invisible valentine may turn up again some day, bringing with him his friend the broomstick who will take Jimmieboy off for a visit to the twinkling stars.

THE MAGIC SLED

When Jimmieboy waked up the other morning the ground was white with snow and his heart was rejoiced. Like many another small youth Jimmieboy has very little use for green winters. He likes them white. Somehow or other they do not seem like winters if they haven't plenty of snow and he had been much afraid that the season was going to pass away without bringing to him an opportunity to use the beautiful sled Santa Claus had brought him at Christmas.