Half-Hours with Jimmieboy Page 2

  II

  THE DWARF AND THE DUDE GIANT.

  The day had not yet dawned, but Jimmieboy was awake--wide awake. So wideawake was he, indeed, that the small bed in which he had passed thenight was not broad enough by some ten or twelve feet to accommodate thebreadth of his wakefulness, and he had in consequence crawled over intohis father's bed, seated himself as nearly upon his father's neck as waspossible, and was vociferously demanding a story.

  "Oh, wait a little while, Jimmieboy," said his father, wearily. "I'msound asleep--can't you see?"

  "Tell a story," said Jimmieboy, poking his thumbs into his father's halfclosed eyes.

  The answer was a snore--not a real one, but one of those imitationsnores that fathers of boys like Jimmieboy make use of on occasions ofthis sort, prompted no doubt by the maker's desire to convince apersistent enemy to sleep that his cause is hopeless, and of which theenemy is never to be convinced.

  "Tell a story about a Giant," insisted Jimmieboy, a suggestion of tearsin his voice.

  "Oh, well," returned the sleepy father, sitting up and, rubbing his eyesvigorously in a vain effort to get all the sleepiness out of them. "Ifyou must have it, you must have it, so here goes. Let's see--a story ofa Giant or of a Dwarf?"

  "Both," said Jimmieboy, placidly.

  "Dear me!" cried his father. "I wish I'd kept quiet about the Dwarf.Well, once upon a time there was a Giant."

  "And a Dwarf, too," put in Jimmieboy, who did not intend to be cheatedout of a half of the story.

  "Yes. And a Dwarf, too," said the other with a nod. "The Giant was aDude Giant, who cared more for his hats than he did for anything else inthe world. It was quite natural, too, that he should, for he had a finerchance to show them off than most people have, because he had no lessthan four heads, which is very remarkable for a Dude Giant, becausedudes who are not giants very rarely have even one head worthmentioning. Hats were about the only things the Dude Giant cared for atall. He used to buy every style of head-gear he could find, and it tookalmost all of the salary he received at the Museum where he was onexhibition to pay for them; but he was particularly fond of silk hats.Of these he had twenty-eight; four for each day of the week, those forSunday being especially handsome and costly.

  "Now it happened that in the same exhibition with the Dude Giant therewas a Dwarf named Tiny W. Littlejohn--W standing for Wee, which was hismiddle name. He was a very good-natured fellow, Tiny was, and as far ashe knew he hadn't an enemy in the world. He was so very nice thateverybody who came to the exhibition brought him cream cakes, andpicture books, and roller skates, and other beautiful things, and nobodyever thought of going away without buying his photograph, paying himtwenty-five cents extra for the ones with his autograph on, which hismother wrote for him. In this way the Dwarf soon grew to be amillionaire, while the Dude Giant squandered all he had on riotous hats,and so remained as poor as when he started. For a long time everythingwent smoothly at the Exhibition. There were no jealousies or quarrels ofany sort, except between the Glass Eater and the man who made GlassSteamboats, and that was smoothed over in a very short time by the GlassEater saying that the Glass-blower made the finest crystal pies he hadever tasted. But contentment and peace could not last forever in anestablishment where one attraction was growing richer and richer everyday as the Dwarf was, while another, the Dude Giant, was no better offthan the day he joined the show, and when finally the Dwarf began tocome every morning in a cab of his own, drawn by a magnificent grayhorse with a banged tail, and to dress better even than the proprietorof the Museum himself, the Dude Giant became very envious, and when theDude Giant gets envious he is a very disagreeable person. For instance,when no one was looking he would make horrible faces at Tiny, contortinghis four mouths and noses and eight cheeks all at once in a veryterrifying manner, and when he'd look cross-eyed at the Dwarf with alleight of his eyes poor Tiny would get so nervous that he would try toeat the roller skates and picture books, instead of the cream cakespeople brought him, and on one occasion he broke two of his prettiestteeth doing it, which marred his personal appearance very much.

  "Tiny stood it as long as he could, and then he complained to hisfriend, the Whirlwind, about it, and the Whirlwind, who was a verysensible sort of a fellow, advised him not to mind it. It was onlyjealousy, he said, that led the Dude Giant to behave that way, and ifTiny had not been more successful than Forepate--as the Dude Giant wascalled--Forepate wouldn't have been jealous, so that his very jealousywas an acknowledgment of inferiority. So Tiny made up his mind hewouldn't pay any attention to the Dude Giant at all, but would go rightahead minding his own business and making all the money he could.

  "This made Forepate all the more angry, and finally he resolved to geteven with the Dwarf in some other way than by making grimaces at him.Now, it happened that Forepate's place was over by a window directlyopposite to where the Dwarf sat, and so, to get near enough to Tiny toput his scheme against him into execution, he complained to the managerthat there was a terrible draft from the window, and added that unlesshe could sit on the other side of the room he was certain he'd catchcold in three of his heads anyhow, if not in all of them.

  "'Very well,' said the manager. 'Where do you wish to sit?'

  "'You might put me next to Littlejohn, over there,' said the head withred hair.

  "'But,' said the manager, 'what shall we do with that stuffed owl withthe unicorn's horns?'

  "'Put him by the window,' said another of the Dude Giant's heads.

  "'Yes,' said the third head. 'No draft in all the world could give astuffed owl a cold.'

  "'That's so,' replied the manager. 'We'll make the change right off.'

  "And then the change was made, though Tiny did not like it very much.

  "To disarm all suspicion, the Dude Giant was very affable to the Dwarffor a whole week, and to see him talking to Tiny no one would havesuspected that he hated him so, which shows how horribly crafty he was.Finally the hour for his revenge arrived. It was Monday morning, andForepate and Tiny had taken their places as usual, when, observing thatno one was looking, Forepate took his biggest beaver hat and put it overTiny, completely hiding him from view. Poor Tiny was speechless withrage, and so could not cry out. Forepate kept him under his hat allday, and whenever any one asked where Littlejohn was, one of his headswould say, 'Alas! Poor Tiny, he has mysteriously disappeared!' Andanother head would shake itself and say 'Somebody must have left thedoor open and the wind must have whisked the dear little fellow out intothe cold, cold world.' Then the other two heads would blubber, at whichthe Dude Giant would take out his handkerchiefs and wipe his eight eyesand shake all over as if he were inconsolable, and Tiny, overhearing itall, grew more and more speechless with indignation.

  "That night, of course, Forepate had to release him, and Tiny hurriedaway fairly howling with anger. When he arrived at home he told hismother how he had been treated and how he had been done out of a wholeday's cream cakes and picture books and roller skates, and she advisedhim to go at once to the Whirlwind and confide his woe to him, which hedid.

  "'Forepate ought to be ashamed of himself,' said the Whirlwind, whenTiny had told his story.

  "'But he never does what he ought to do unless somebody makes him,' saidTiny, ruefully. 'Can't we do something to make him ashamed of himself?'

  "'Well, I'll see,' said the Whirlwind, with a shake of his head thatmeant that he intended to do something. 'What does the Dude Giant dowith himself on Sundays?'

  "'Shows off his best hats on Fifth avenue," returned the Dwarf.

  "'Very well then, I have it,' said the Whirlwind. 'Next Sunday, Tiny,we'll have our revenge on Forepate. You stand on one of the stoops atthe corner of Fifth avenue and Thirty-fourth street at midday, andyou'll see a sight that will make you happy for the rest of your days.'

  "So, on the following Sunday the Dwarf climbed up on one of the frontstoops on Fifth avenue, near Thirty-fourth street, and waited. He hadn'tbeen there long when he saw Forepate striding down the avenue dressed
inhis best clothes, and wearing upon his heads four truly magnificentbeavers, which he had just received from London, and of which he wasjustly proud.

  "'I wonder where the Whirlwind is,' thought the Dwarf, looking anxiouslyup and down the avenue for his avenger. 'I do hope he won't fail.'

  "Hardly were the words out of his mouth when Forepate reached thecrossing of Thirty-fourth street, and just as he stepped from the walkinto the street, bzoo! along came the Whirlwind, and off went Forepate'streasured hats. One hat flew madly up Fifth avenue. A second rolledswiftly down Fifth avenue. A third tripped merrily along EastThirty-fourth street, while the fourth sailed joyously into the air,struck a lamp-post, and then plunged along West Thirty-fourth street.And then! Dear me! What a terrible thing happened! It was perfectlyawful--simply dreadful!"

  "Hurry up and tell it," said Jimmieboy, jumping up and down with anxietyto hear what happened next.

  "Then," said his papa, "when the Dude Giant saw his beloved hats flyingin every direction he howled aloud with every one of his four voices,and craned each of his necks in the direction in which it's hat hadflown.

  "Then the head with the auburn hair demanded that the Giant shouldimmediately run up Fifth avenue to recover its lost beaver, and thegiant started, but hardly had he gone a step when the head with theblack hair cried out:

  "'No! Down Fifth avenue after my hat.'

  "'Not at all!' shrieked the head without any hair. 'Go east after mine.'

  "'Well, I guess not!' roared the head that had curly hair. 'He's goingwest after mine.'

  "Meanwhile the Giant had come to a stand-still. He couldn't run in anydirection until his heads had agreed as to which way he should go, andall this time the beautiful hats were getting farther and farther away,and the heads more frantic than ever. For five full minutes theyquarreled thus among themselves, turning now and then to peer weepinglyafter their beloved silk hats, and finally, with a supreme effort, eachendeavored to force the Giant in the direction it wished him to go, withthe result that poor Forepate was torn to pieces, and fell dead in themiddle of the street."

  Here papa paused and closed his eyes for a minute.

  "Is that all?" queried Jimmieboy.

  "Yes--I believe that's all. The Dude Giant was dead and the Dwarf wasavenged."

  "And what became of Tiny?" asked Jimmieboy.

  "Oh, Tiny," said his father, "Tiny--he--he laughed so heartily at theDude Giant's mishap that he loosened the impediment to his growth,--"

  "The what?" asked Jimmieboy, to whom words like impediment were ratherstrange.

  "Why, the bone that kept him from growing," explained the story teller."He loosened that and began to grow again, and inside of two weeks hewas as handsome a six-footer as you ever saw, and as he had made amillion and a half of dollars he resigned from the Exhibition andsettled down in Europe for a number of years, had himself made a GrandDuke, and then came back to New York and got married, and lived happyever after."

  And then, as the getting-up bell rang down stairs, Jimmieboy thanked hisfather for the story and went into the nursery to dress for breakfast.