In Camp With A Tin Soldier Page 2

  CHAPTER II.

  JIMMIEBOY RECEIVES HIS ORDERS.

  For a few moments Jimmieboy was so overcome by the extreme novelty ofhis position that he could do nothing but wander in and out among thetrees, wondering if he really was himself, and whether the soldiers bywhom he was surrounded were tin or creatures of flesh and blood. Theycertainly looked and acted like human beings, and they talked in amanner entirely different from what Jimmieboy was accustomed to expectfrom the little pieces of painted tin he had so often played with on thenursery floor, but he very soon learned that they were tin, and not madeup, like himself, of bone and sinew.

  The manner of his discovery was this: One of the soldiers, in a veryrash and fool-hardy fashion, tried to pick up a stone from the road tothrow at a poor little zinc robin that was whistling in the trees abovehis head, and in bending over after the stone and then straighteninghimself up to take aim, he snapped himself into two distinct pieces--asindeed would any other tin soldier, however strong and well made, and ofcourse Jimmieboy was then able to see that the band with whom he had forthe moment cast his fortunes were nothing more nor less than bits ofbrittle tin, to whom in some mysterious way had come life. The boy waspained to note the destruction of the little man who had tried to throwthe stone at the robin, because he was always sorry for everybody uponwhom trouble had come, but he was not, on the whole, surprised at thesoldier's plight, for the simple reason that he had been taught thatboys who threw stones at the harmless little birds in the trees werenaughty and worthy of punishment, and he could not see why a tin soldiershould not be punished for doing what a small boy of right feelingswould disdain to do.

  After he had made up his mind that his companions were really of tin, hebecame a bit fearful as to his own make-up, and the question that he nowasked himself was, "Am I tin, too, or what?" He was not long inanswering this question to his own satisfaction, for after bending hislittle fingers to and fro a dozen or more times, he was relieved todiscover that he had not changed. The fingers did not snap off, as hehad feared they might, and he was glad.

  Barely had Jimmieboy satisfied himself on this point when a handsomelydressed soldier, on a blue lead horse, came galloping up, and cried outso loud that his voice echoed through the tall trees of the forest:

  "Is General Jimmieboy here?"

  "Jimmieboy is here," answered the little fellow. "I'm Jimmieboy, but Iam no general."

  "But you have on a general's uniform," said the soldier.

  "Have I?" queried Jimmieboy, with a glance at his clothes. "Well, if Ihave, it's because they are the only soldier clothes I own."

  "Well, I am very sorry," said the soldier on horseback, "but if you wearthose clothes you've got to be general. It's a hard position to occupy,and of course you'd rather be a high-private or a member of the band,but as it is, there is no way out of it. If the clothes would fit anyone else here, you might exchange with him; but they won't, I can tellthat by looking at the yellow stripes on your trousers. The stripesalone are wider than any of our legs."

  "Oh!" responded Jimmieboy, "I don't mind being general. I'd just as liefbe a general as not; I know how to wave a sword and march ahead of theprocession."

  At this there was a roar of laughter from the soldiers.

  "How queer!" said one.

  "What an absurd idea!" cried another.

  "Where did he ever get such notions as that?" said a third.

  And then they all laughed again.

  "I am afraid," said the soldier on horseback, with a kindly smile whichwon Jimmieboy's heart, "that you do not understand what the duties of ageneral are in this country. We aren't bound down by the notions of younursery people, who seem to think that all a general is good for is tobe stood up in front of a cannon loaded with beans, and knocked overhalf a dozen times in the course of a battle. Have you ever read thoselines of High-private Tinsel in his little book, 'Poems in Pewter,' inwhich he tells of the trials of a general of the tin soldiers?"

  "Of course I haven't," said Jimmieboy. "I can't read."

  "Just the man for a general, if he can't read," said one of thesoldiers. "He'll never know what the newspapers say of him."

  "Well, I'll tell you the story," said the horseman, dismounting, andstanding on a stump by the road-side to give better effect to the poem,which he recited as follows:

  "THE TIN SOLDIER GENERAL.

  I walked one day Along the way That leads from camp to city; And I espied At the road-side The hero of my ditty.

  His massive feet, In slippers neat, Were crossed in desperation; And from his eyes Salt tears did rise In awful exudation."

  "In what?" asked Jimmieboy, who was not quite used to grown-up wordslike exudation.

  "Quarts," replied the soldier, with a frown. "Don't interrupt. This poemisn't good for much unless it goes right through without a stop--like anexpress train."

  And then he resumed:

  "It filled my soul With horrid dole To see this wailing creature; How tears did sweep, And furrow deep, Along his nasal feature!

  My eyes grew dim To look at him, To see his tear-drops soiling His necktie bold, His trimmings gold, And all his rich clothes spoiling;

  And so I stopped, Beside him dropped, And quoth, 'Wilt tell me, mortal, Wherefore you sighed?' And he replied: 'Wilt I? Well, I shouldst chortle.'"

  "I don't know what chortle means," said Jimmieboy.

  "Neither do I," said the soldier. "But I guess the man who wrote thepoem did, so it's all right, and we may safely go on to the next verse,which isn't very different in its verbiology--"

  "Its wha-a-at?" cried a dozen tin soldiers at once.

  "Gentlemen," said the declaiming soldier, severely, "there are somewords in our language which no creature should be asked to utter morethan once in a life-time, and that is one of them. I shall not endangermy oratorical welfare by speaking it again. Suffice it for me to saythat if you want to use that word yourselves, you will find it in thedictionary somewhere under F, or Z, or Ph, or some other letter which Icannot at this moment recall. But the poem goes on to say:

  "Then as we sat The road-side at-- His tears a moment quelling-- In accents pale He told the tale Which I am also telling."

  "Dear me!" said a little green corporal at Jimmieboy's side. "Hasn't hebegun the story yet?"

  "Yes, stupid," said a high-private. "Of course he has; but it's one ofthose stories that take a long time to begin, and never finish until thevery end."

  "Oh yes, I know," said another. "It's a story like one I heard of theother day. You can lay it down whenever you want to, and be glad to havethe chance."

  "That's it," said the high-private.

  "I wish you fellows would keep still," said the soldier who wasreciting. "I ought to have been a quarter of the way through the firsthalf of that poem by this time, and instead of that I'm only a sixteenthof the way through the first eighth."

  "You can't expect to go more than eight miles an hour," said thecorporal, "even in poetry like that. It can't be done."

  "But what happened?" asked Jimmieboy, who was quite interested to hearthe rest of the poem.

  "I'll have to tell you some other time, general," replied the soldier."These tin warriors here haven't any manners. Some day, when you havetime to spare, I'll tell you the rest of it, because I know you'll beglad to hear it."

  "Yes, general," put in the corporal, with a laugh. "Some day when youhave a year to spare get him to tell you the first twenty-seventh of thenext ninety-sixth of it. It won't take him more than eleven months andthirty-two days to do it."

  "Bah!" said the poetic soldier, mounting his horse and riding off withan angry flush on his cheek. "Some day, when I get promoted to theranks, I'll get even with you."

  "Who is he, anyhow?" asked Jimmieboy, as the soldier rode off.<
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  "He's Major Blueface, and he has to look after the luggage," replied thecorporal. "And as for that poem of his, Jimmieboy, I want to warn you.He has a printed copy of it that takes seven trunks to carry. He says itwas written by High-private Tinsel, but that's all nonsense. He wrote ithimself."

  "Then I like it all the better," said Jimmieboy. "I always like whatpeople I like write."

  "There's no accounting for tastes," returned the corporal. "We don't anyof us like the major. That's why we made him major. Looking afterluggage is such awfully hard work, we didn't want to make any one elsedo it, and so we elected him."

  "Why don't you like him?" asked Jimmieboy. "He seems to me to be a verynice soldier."

  "That's just it," returned the corporal. "He's just the kind of soldierto please little boys like you, and he'd look perfectly splendid in awhite and gold parlor like your mamma's, but in camp he's a terror.Keeps his boots shined up like a looking-glass; wears his Sunday uniformall the time; in fact, he has seven Sunday uniforms--one for each day ofthe week; and altogether he makes the rest of us feel so mean and cheapthat we can't like him. He offered a prize once to the soldier who'dlike him the best, and who do you think won it?"

  "I don't know," said Jimmieboy. "Who?"

  "He won it himself," retorted the corporal. "Nobody else tried. Butyou'd better go over to the colonel's quarters right away, Jimmieboy.You know he wants you."

  "He hasn't sent for me, has he?" asked the boy.

  "Of course he has. That's what the major came to tell you," answered thecorporal.

  "But he didn't say so," returned Jimmieboy.

  "No, he never does what he is sent to do," explained the corporal."That's how we know. If he had told you the colonel wanted you, we'd allknow the colonel didn't want you. He's a queer bird, that major. He's soanxious to read his poem to somebody that he always forgets his orders,and when he does half remember what he is sent to do, we can tell whatthe orders are by what he doesn't say."

  "I shouldn't think he'd be a good man to look after the luggage if heforgets everything that way," said Jimmieboy.

  "That's just where he's great," returned the corporal. "For, don't yousee, every man in the regiment wants to carry about three times as muchluggage as he ought to, and the major makes it all right by forgettingtwo-thirds of it. Oh, there's no denying that he's one of the greatestluggage men there ever was; but you run along now, or the colonel maylose his temper, and that always delays things."

  "I'm not afraid of the colonel," said Jimmieboy, bravely.

  "Neither are we," said the corporal, in reply to this, "but we don'tlike to have our campaign delayed, and when the colonel loses his temperwe have to wait and wait until he finds it again. Sometimes it takes hima whole week."

  So Jimmieboy, wondering more and more at the singular habits of the tinsoldiers, ran off in search of the colonel, whom he found sitting by thebrook-side fishing, and surrounded by his staff.

  "Hello!" said Jimmieboy, as he caught sight of the colonel. "Having anyluck?"

  "Lots," said the colonel. "Been here only five minutes, and I've caughtthree hickory twigs, a piece of wire, and one of the finest colds in myhead I ever had."

  "Good," said Jimmieboy, with a laugh. "But aren't there any fish there?"

  "Plenty of 'em," answered the colonel. "But they're all so small I'dhave to throw 'em back if I caught 'em. They know that well enough, andso save me trouble by not biting. But I say, I suppose you know we can'tstart this expedition without ammunition?"

  "What's that?" queried Jimmieboy, to whom the word ammunition wasentirely new.

  "Ammunition? Why, that's stuff to load our guns with," returned thecolonel. "You must be a great general not to know that."

  "You must excuse me," said Jimmieboy, with a blush. "There is a greatdeal that I don't know. I'm only five years old, and papa hasn't hadtime to tell me everything yet."

  "Well, it's all right, anyhow," replied the colonel. "You'll learn agreat deal in the next hundred years, so we won't criticise; but ofcourse, you know, we can't go off without ammunition any more than a guncan. Now, as general of the forces, it is your duty to look about youand lay in the necessary supplies. For the guns we shall need aboutfourteen thousand rounds of preserved cherries, seventeen thousandrounds of pickled peaches for the cannon, and a hundred and sixty-twodozen cans of strawberry jam for me."

  Jimmieboy's eyes grew so round and large as he listened to these wordsthat the major turned pale.

  "Then," continued the colonel, "we have to have powder and shell, ofcourse. Perhaps four hundred and sixteen pounds of powdered sugar andninety-seven barrels of shells with almonds in 'em would do for ourpurposes."

  "But--but what are we to do with all these things, and where am I toget them?" gasped Jimmieboy, beginning to be very sorry that he hadaccepted so important a position as that of general.

  "Do with 'em?" cried the colonel. "What'll we do with 'em? Why, capturethe Parallelopipedon, of course. What did you suppose we'd do with'em--throw them at canary-birds?"

  "You don't load guns with preserved cherries, do you?" asked the boy.

  "We don't, eh? Well, I just guess we do," returned the colonel. "And weload the cannon with pickled peaches, and to keep me from deserting andgoing over to the enemy, they keep me loaded to the muzzle withstrawberry jam from the time I start until we get back."

  "You can't kill a Parawelopipedon with cherries and peaches, can you?"asked Jimmieboy.

  "Not quite, but nearly," said the colonel. "We never hit him with enoughof them to kill him, but just try to coax him with 'em, don't you see?We don't do as you do in your country. We don't shoot the enemy withlead bullets, and try to kill him and make him unhappy. We try to coaxhim back by shooting sweetmeats at him, and if he won't be coaxed, webombard him with pickled peaches until they make him sick, and then hehas to surrender."

  "It must be pretty fine to be an enemy," said Jimmieboy, smacking hislips as he thought of being bombarded with sweetmeats.

  "It is," exclaimed the colonel, with enthusiasm. "It's so nice, thatthey have to do the right thing by me in the matter of jam to keep mefrom being an enemy myself."

  "But what do I get?" returned Jimmieboy, who couldn't see why it wouldnot be pleasant for him to be an enemy, and get all these delightfulthings.

  "You? Why, you get the almonds and the powdered sugar and all themince-pie you can eat--what more do you want?" said the colonel.

  "Nothing," gasped Jimmieboy, overcome by the prospect. "I wouldn't mindbeing a general for a million years at that rate."

  With which noble sentiment the little fellow touched his cap to thecolonel, and set off, accompanied by a dozen soldiers, to find thecherries, the peaches, the almonds, and the powdered sugar.