Half-Hours with Jimmieboy Page 14

  XIV.

  IN WHICH JIMMIEBOY AND THE GAS STOVE MAKE A START.

  "Now jump into the sleigh just as quickly as you can, Jimmieboy," saidthe Stove, as they issued forth into the cold night air. "Put on thatfur cap and the overcoat, shoes, and gloves, and I'll light 'em up."

  "They won't burn, for sure?" queried Jimmieboy, nervously, for the ideaof wearing clothes heated by gas was a little bit terrifying.

  "Not a bit," said the Stove in reply. "I wouldn't give 'em to you ifthey would. Thanks," he added, turning and throwing a ten-cent piece toa gas boy, who handed him the reins by which the horses were controlled."We'll be back about sunrise."

  "Very well," said the boy. "Do you want me turned on all night, sir?"

  "No," answered the Stove. "Gas is expensive these days. You can turnyourself out right away. Have you fed the horses?"

  "Yes, sir," said the boy. "They've each had four thousand feet by themeter for supper."

  "Fuel or illuminating?" queried the Stove.

  "Illuminating," replied the boy.

  "Good," said the Stove. "That ought to make them bright. Good-by. Getup!"

  With this the horses made a spring forward--fiery steeds in very truth,their outlines in jets, each burning a small flame, standing out likelines of stars in the sky.

  "THIS IS PRETTY FINE, EH?" SAID THE GAS-STOVE.]

  "This is pretty fine, eh?" said the Gas Stove, with a smile, which, hadany one looked, must have been visible for miles, so light and cheerfulwas it.

  "Lovely!" cried Jimmieboy, almost gasping in ecstasy. "I'm just as warmand comfortable as can be. I didn't know you had a team like this."

  "Ah, my boy," returned the Stove, "there's lots you don't know. Forinstance:

  "You don't know why a fire will burn On hot days merrily; And when the cold days come, will turn As cold as I-C-E!

  "You don't know why the puppies bark, Or why snap-turtles snap; Or why a horse runs round the park, Because you say, 'git-ap.'

  "You don't know why a peach has fuzz Upon its pinky cheek; Or what the poor Dumb-Crambo does When he desires to speak.

  "Do you?"

  "No, I don't," said Jimmieboy. "But I should like to very much."

  "So should I," said the Stove. "We're very much alike in a great manyrespects, and particularly in those in which we resemble each other."

  The truth of this was so evident that Jimmieboy could think of nothingto say in answer to it, so he merely observed: "I'm awful hungry."

  This was a favorite remark of his, particularly between meals.

  "So am I," said the Stove. "Let's see what we've got here. Just hold thereins while I dive down into the lunch basket."

  Jimmieboy took the reins with some fear at first, but when he saw thatthey were high up in the air where there was really nothing but a staror two to run into, and realized that even they were millions of milesaway, he soon got used to it, and was sorry when the Stove resumedcontrol.

  "There, Jimmieboy," said the Stove, as he drew his hand out of thebasket. "There's a nice hot ginger-snap for you. I think I'll take asnack of this fuel gas myself."

  "You don't eat gas, do you?" asked the small passenger.

  "I guess I do," ejaculated the Stove, with a smack of his lips. "As ourGas Poet Laureate said:

  "Oh, kerosene Is good, I ween, And so is apple sass; But bring for me, Oh, chickadee, A bowl of fuel gas!

  "Some persons like The red beefstike, The cow just dotes on grass-- But to my mind No one can find More toothsome things than gas.

  "And so I say, Bring me no hay; No roasted deep-sea bass. Bring me no pease, Or fricassees, If, haply, you have gas."

  "It's easy to eat, too," added the Stove. "In fact, I heard your papa saywe consumed too much of it one day when he'd got his bill from the gasbutcher."

  "Do you chew it?" asked Jimmieboy.

  "No, indeed. We take it in through a pipe. It isn't like soup or meat,though I sometimes think if people could take soup out of a pipe insteadof from a spoon they'd look handsomer while they were eating. But thegreat thing about it is it's always ready, and if it comes cold, all youhave to do is to touch a match to it, and it gets as hot as you couldwant."

  "I should think you'd get tired of it," said Jimmieboy.

  "Not at all. There's a great variety in gases. There's fuel gas,illuminating gas, laughing gas, attagas----"

  "What's that last?" queried Jimmieboy.

  "Attagas? Why, when we want a game dinner, we have attagas. If you willlook it up in the dictionary you will find that it's a sort ofpartridge. It's mighty good, too, with a sauce of stewed gasberries, anda mug or two of gasparillo to wash it down."

  Here Jimmieboy smacked his lips. Gasparillo truly sounded as if it mightbe very delightful, though I don't myself believe it is any less bitterto the taste than some other barks of trees, such as quinine, forinstance.

  "Howdy do?" said the Stove, with a familiar nod to the east of them.

  "Howdy do!" replied Jimmieboy.

  "I wasn't speaking to you," said the Stove, with a laugh. "I was onlynodding to an old friend of mine; he's got a fine place up in the skythere. His name is Sirius. They call him the dog-star, and all he has todo is twinkle. You can't see him all the time from your house, but whenyou get up as high as this he stands right out and twinkles at you.Pretty good fellow, Sirius is. I might have had his place, but somehowor other I prefer to work in-doors and rest nights. Sirius is out allthe time, and has to keep awake all night. But we've got to get down tothe earth again. Here's where we take to the skates."

  Jimmieboy looked over the edge of the sleigh as the horses turned inresponse to a movement of the reins, and started down to earth. He saw agreat white river below him, flowing silently along a narrow windingchannel, everything on the border of which seemed bathed in silverexcept the middle of the river itself, a strip of forty or fifty feet inwidth, which was not frozen over.

  "That's Frostland," whispered the Gas Stove. "We can't get over to theother side with this team because they are very skittish, and if thesleigh were overturned and our ammunition lost we should be lostourselves. We've got to land directly below where we are now, skate tothe edge of the ice on this bank, row over to the other, and then skateagain directly to the palace. We mustn't let anybody know who we reallyare, either, or we may have trouble, and we want to avoid that; for youknow, Jimmieboy,

  "The man who gets along without A care or bit of strife, Is certain sure, beyond all doubt, To lead a happy life."

  "But I can't skate," said Jimmieboy.

  "You can slide, can't you?" asked the Stove.

  "Yes, both ways. Standing up and sitting down."

  "Well, my patent steam skates, operated by gas, will attend to all therest if you will only stand up straight," returned the Stove, and thesleigh dropped lightly down to the earth, and the two crusaders againstJack Frost alighted.

  "Isn't it beautiful here?" said Jimmieboy, as he looked about him andsaw superb tall trees, their leaves white and glistening in themoonlight, bound in an icy covering that kept them always as he saw themthen. "And look at the flowers," he added, joyously, as he caught sightof a bed of rose-bushes, only the flowers were lustrous as silver and ofthe same dazzling whiteness.

  "Yes," said the Gas Stove, sadly. "Every time Jack Frost withers aflower or a plant he brings it here, and it remains forever as you seethem now; he has had the choice of the most beautiful things in theworld. But come, we must hurry. Put on these skates."

  Jimmieboy did as he was told, and then the Stove lit a row of small jetsof gas along the steel runners of the skates, and they grew warm toJimmieboy's feet, and in a moment little puffs of steam issued forthfrom them, and Jimmieboy began to move, slowly at first, and then moreand more quickly, until he was racing at breakneck speed.

  "Hi, Stovey!" he cried, very much alarmed to find himself speeding offthrough this strange country all alone. "Hurry up and catch me, o
r I'llbe out of sight."

  "Keep on," hallooed the Stove in return. "Don't bother about me. I'vegot four feet to your two, and I can go twice as fast as you do. Keep onstraight ahead, and I'll be up with you in a minute--just as soon as Ican get the ammunition and my hose out."

  "I wonder what he's going to do with the hose?" Jimmieboy asked himself.The Stove was too far behind him for the little skater to ask him.

  "HALT!" CRIED A VOICE IN FRONT.]

  "Halt!" cried a voice in front of Jimmieboy.

  "I can't," gasped the little fellow, very much frightened, for as hegazed through the darkness to see who it was that addressed him, heperceived a huge snow man standing directly in his path.

  "You must," cried the Snow Man, opening his mouth and breathing forth anicy blast that nearly froze the water in Jimmieboy's eyes. "You shall!"he added, opening his arms wide, so that before he knew it Jimmieboy wasprecipitated into them.

  "See?" said the Snow Man. "I can compel y--"

  THE SNOW MAN.]

  The Snow Man never got any further with this remark, for in a momentJimmieboy passed straight through him. The heat of Jimmieboy's clotheshad melted a hole through the Snow Man, and as the small skater turnedto look at his adversary he saw him standing there, his head, his sides,and legs still intact, but from his waist down all the middle part ofhim had disappeared.

  "Dear me! How sad," Jimmieboy said.

  "Not at all," responded a voice beside him. "It serves him right; he'sthe meanest Snow Man that ever lived. If you hadn't melted him he'd haveturned himself into an avalanche, and then you'd have been buried sodeep in snow and ice you'd never have got out."

  "Who are you?" queried Jimmieboy, with a startled glance in thedirection whence the voice seemed to come.

  "Only what you hear," replied the voice. "I am a voice. Jack Frost frozethe rest of me and carted it away, and left me here for the rest of mylife."

  "What were you?"

  "I cannot remember," said the voice. "I may have been anything you canthink of. You could stand there and call me all the names you chose, andI couldn't deny that I was any of them.

  "Sometimes I think I may have been A piece of apple pie; Perhaps a great and haughty queen, Perhaps a gaily dressed marine, In former days was I.

  "I may have been a calendar, To tell some man the date; I may have been a railway car, A rocket or a shooting star, Or e'en a roller skate.

  "I may have been a jar of jam, Perhaps a watch and chain; I may have been a boy named Sam, An oyster or a toothsome clam, Perhaps a weather vane.

  "I may have been a pot of ink, A sloop or schooner yacht; I may have been the missing link, But _what_ I was I cannot think-- For I have quite forgot.

  "All I know is that I was something once; that Jack Frost came along andcaught me and added me to his collection of curiosities, where I havebeen ever since. They call me the invisible chatter-box, and tellvisitors that I escaped from the National Vocabulary at Washington."

  "I am very sorry for you," said Jimmieboy, sympathetically.

  "You needn't be," said the voice. "I'm happy! I'm the only curiosityhere that can be impudent to King Jack. I can say what I please, youknow, and there's no way of punishing me; I'm like a newspaper in thatrespect. I can go into any home, high or low, say what I please, andthere you are. Nobody can hurt me at all. Oh, it's just immense. I playall sorts of tricks on Jack, too. I get right up in front of his mouthand talk ridiculous nonsense, and people think he says it. Why, only theother night a Snow Man I don't like went in to see Jack, and Jack likedhim tremendously, too, and was really glad to see him; but before theKing had a chance to say a word I hallooed out: 'Get out of here, youdonkey. Go make snow-balls of your head and throw them at yourself;' andthe Snow Man thought Jack said it, and, do you know, he went outside anddid it. He's been laid up ever since."

  "I think that was a very mean thing to do," said Jimmieboy.

  "I'd agree with you if I had any conscience, but alas! they've deprivedme of that too," sighed the voice. "But look out," it added, hastily."Throw yourself into that snow-bank or you'll fall into the river."

  Without waiting to think why, Jimmieboy obeyed the voice and threwhimself headlong into a huge snow bank at his side, and glancedanxiously about him.

  He was indeed, as the voice had said, on the very edge of the ice, andanother yard's advance would have landed him head over heels in therushing water.

  "That would have been awful, wouldn't it?" he said to the Stove, as hislittle friend came up.

  "Yes, it would," returned the Stove. "It would have put out the lightsin your clothes, and that would have been very awful, for I find we havecome away without any matches. Jump into the boat, now, and row asstraight for the other side as you can."

  Jimmieboy looked about him for a boat, but couldn't see one.

  "There is no boat," he said.

  "Yes, there is--jump!" cried the Stove.

  And Jimmieboy jumped, and, strange to relate, found himself in aninstant seated amidships in an exquisitely light row-boat made entirelyof ice.

  "Row fast, now," said the Stove. "If you don't the boat will melt beforewe can get across."