Half-Hours with Jimmieboy Read online

  X.

  JIMMIEBOY'S PHOTOGRAPH.

  Jimmieboy had been taken to the photographer's and had posed severaltimes for the man who made pictures of little boys. One picture showedhow he looked leaning against a picket fence with a tiger skin rug underhis feet. Another showed him in the act of putting his hands into hispockets, while a third was a miserable attempt to show how he lookedwhen he couldn't stand still. The last pleased Jimmieboy very much. Itmade him laugh and Jimmieboy liked laughing better than anything,perhaps, excepting custard, which was his idea of real solid bliss. Whyit made him laugh, I do not know, unless it was because in the picturehe was very much blurred and looked something like a mixture of a cloudand a pin-wheel.

  "I like that one," Jimmieboy said to his mother, when the proof camehome. "Won't you let me have it?"

  "Yes," said his mother. "You can have it. I don't think any one elsewants it."

  So the proof became Jimmieboy's property, and he put it away in hiscollection of treasures, which already contained many valuable things,such as the whistle of a rubber ball, a piece of elastic, and a worn-outtennis racket. These treasures the boy used to have out two or threetimes a day, and the last time he had them out something queer happened.The blurred little figure in the picture spoke to him and told himsomething he didn't forget in a hurry.

  "You think I'm a funny-looking thing don't you?" said the blurredpicture of himself.

  "Yes, I do," said Jimmieboy, "that's why I laugh at you whenever I seeyou."

  "Well, I laugh when I see you, too," retorted the picture. "You are justas funny to look at sometimes as I am."

  "I'm not either," said Jimmieboy. "I don't look like a cloud or apin-wheel, and you do."

  "I'm a picture of you, just the same," returned the proof, "and if youhad stood still when the man was taking you, I'd have been all right.It's awful mean the way little boys have of not standing still whenthey are having their pictures taken, and then laughing at the thingthey're responsible for afterward."

  "I didn't mean to be mean," said Jimmieboy.

  "Perhaps not," retorted the picture, "but if it hadn't been for you I'dhave been a lovely picture, and your mamma would have had a nice littlesilver frame put around me, and maybe I'd have been standing on yourpapa's desk with the inkstand and the mucilage instead of having to liveall my life with a broken whistle and a tennis bat that nobody but youhas any use for."

  Here the picture sighed, and Jimmieboy felt very sorry for it.

  "Boys don't know what a terrible lot of horrid things happen becausethey don't stand still sometimes," continued the picture. "I know oflots of cases where untold misery has come from movey boys."

  "From what?" queried Jimmieboy.

  "Movey boys," replied the picture. "By that I mean boys that don't standstill when they ought to. Why, I knew of a boy once who wouldn't standstill and he shook a whole town to pieces."

  "Ho!" jeered Jimmieboy. "I don't believe it."

  "Well, it's so, whether you believe it or not," said the picture. "Theboy's name was Bob, and he lived somewhere, I don't remember where. Hismother told him to stand still and he wouldn't; he just jumped up anddown, and up and down all the time."

  "That may be, but I don't see how he could shake a whole town topieces," said Jimmieboy, "unless he was a very heavy boy."

  "He didn't weigh a bit more than you do," answered the picture. "He washeavy enough when he jumped to shake his nursery though, and the nurserywas heavy enough to shake the house, and the house was heavy enough toshake the lot, and the lot was heavy enough to shake the street, and thestreet shook the whole town, and when the town shook, everybody thoughtthere was an earthquake, and they all moved away, and took the name ofthe town with them, which is why I don't know where it was."

  Jimmieboy was silent. He never knew before that not standing still couldresult in such an awful happening.

  "I know another boy, too, who lived in--well, I won't say where, but helived there. He broke a fine big mirror in his father's parlor by notstanding still when he was told to."

  "Did he shake it down?" asked Jimmieboy.

  "No, indeed, he didn't," returned the picture. "He just stood in frontof it and got so movey that the mirror couldn't keep up with him, but ittried to do it so hard that it shook itself to pieces. But that wasn'tanything like as bad as what happened to Jumping Sam. He was the worst Iever knew. He never would keep still, and it all happened and he nevercould unhappen it, so that it's still so to this very day."

  "But you haven't told me what happened yet," said Jimmieboy, very muchinterested in Jumping Sam.

  "Well, I will tell you," said the picture, gravely. "And this is it. Thestory is a poem, Jimmieboy, and it's called:

  "THE HORRID FATE OF JUMPING SAM.

  "Small Sammy was as fine a lad As ever you did see; But one bad habit Sammy had, A Jumper bold was he. And, oh! his fate was very sad, As it was told to me.

  "He never, never, would stand still In school or on the street; He'd squirm if he were well or ill, If on his back or feet. He'd wriggle on the window-sill, He'd waggle in his seat.

  "And so it happened one fine day, When all alone was he, He got to jumping in a way That was a sight to see. He leaped two feet at first, they say, And then he made it three.

  "Then four, and five, the long day through, Until he could not stop. Each jump he jumped much longer grew, Until he gave a hop Up in the air a mile or two, A-twirling like a top.

  "He turned about and tried to jump Back to his father's door, But landed by the village pump, Some twenty miles or more Beyond it, and an awful bump He'd got when it was o'er.

  "And still his jumps increased in size, Until they got so great, He landed on the railway ties In some far distant state; And then he knew 'twould have been wise, His jumping to abate.

  "But as the years passed slowly by, His jumping still went on, Until he leaped from Italy, As far as Washington. And he confessed, with heavy eye, It wasn't any fun.

  "And when, in 1883, I met him up in Perth, He wept and said 'good-by' to me, And jumped around the earth. And I was saddened much to see That he knew naught of mirth.

  "Last year in far Allahabad, Late in the month of June, I met again this jumping lad-- 'Twas in the afternoon-- As he with visage pale and sad Was jumping to the moon.

  "So all his days, leap after leap, He takes from morn to night. He cannot eat, he cannot sleep, But flies just like a kite, And all because he would not keep From jumping when he might.

  "And I believe the moral's true-- Though shown with little skill-- That whatsoever you may do, Be it of good or ill, Once in a while it may pay you To practice keeping still."

  A long silence followed the completion of the blurred picture's poem.For some reason or other it had made Jimmieboy think, and while he wasthinking, wonderful to say, he was keeping very quiet, so that it wasquite evident that the fate of Jumping Sam had had some effect uponhim. Finally, however, the spell was broken, and he began to wiggle justas he wiggled while his picture was being taken, and then he said:

  "I don't know whether to believe that story or not. I can't see yourface very plainly here. Come over into the light and tell me the poemall over again, and I can tell by looking in your eye whether it is trueor not."

  The picture made no reply, and Jimmieboy, grasping it firmly in hishand, went to the window and gazed steadily at it for a minute, but itwas useless. The picture not only refused to speak, but, as the rays ofthe setting sun fell full upon it, faded slowly from sight.

  Nevertheless, true story or not, Jimmieboy has practiced standing stillvery often since the affair happened, which is a good thing for littleboys to do, so that perhaps the brief life and long poem of the rejectedpicture were not wasted after all.