Half-Hours with Jimmieboy Page 4

  IV.

  A SUBTERRANEAN MUTINY.

  It seemed rather strange that it should have been left there, and yetJimmieboy was glad that in grading his papa's tennis-court the men hadleft that bit of flat rock to show up on the surface of the lawn. It hadafforded him no end of pleasure since he had first discovered it. As amake-believe island in a raging sea of grass, he had often used it to becast away upon, but chiefly had he employed it as a vantage ground fromwhich to watch his father and his father's friends at their games oftennis. The rock was just about large enough for the boy to sit upon andpretend that he was umpire, or, as his father said, mascot for hisfather's opponents, and it rarely happened that a game of tennis wasplayed upon the court that was not witnessed by Jimmieboy seated uponhis rocky coigne.

  The strangest experience that Jimmieboy ever had with this bit ofstone, however, was one warm afternoon last summer. It was at the drowsyperiod of the day. The tennis players were indulging in a game, which,to the little onlooker, was unusually dull, and he was on the point ofstarting off in pursuit of something, it mattered not what, so long asit was interesting enough to keep him awake, when he observed a mostpeculiar thing about the flat stone. It had unquestionably becometransparent! Jimmieboy could see through it, and what he saw was of mostunexpected quality.

  "Dear me!" he ejaculated, "how very queer. This rock is made of glass."

  Then he peered down through it, and saw a beautiful marble staircaserunning down into the earth, at the foot of which was a great door thatlooked as though it was made of silver, and the key was of gold. At thesides of the staircase, hanging upon the walls, were pictures of strangelittle men and women, but unlike the men and women in other pictures,they moved about, and talked, and romped, and seemed to enjoy themselveshugely. Great pictures were they indeed to Jimmieboy's mind, becausethey were constantly changing, like the designs in his kaleidoscope.

  "I must get down there," he said, softly, to himself. "But how?"

  As he spoke the door at the foot of the steps opened, and a smallcreature, for all the world like the goblin in Jimmieboy's fairy book,poked his head out. The goblin looked all about him, and then turninghis eyes upward until they met those of the boy, he cried out:

  "Hullo! Are you the toy peddler?"

  "No," replied Jimmieboy.

  "Then you are the milk broker, or the potato merchant, and we don't wantany milk or any potatoes."

  The goblin slammed the door when he had said this, and with such a bangthat all the little people in the pictures ran to the edge of the frameand peered out to see what was the matter. One poor little fellow, whohad been tending sheep in a picture half-way up the stairs, leaned outso far that he lost his balance and tumbled out head over heels. Thesheep scampered over the hill and disappeared in the background of thepainting.

  "Poor little shepherd boy!" said Jimmieboy. "I hope you are not hurt!"

  The shepherd boy looked up gratefully at the speaker, and said hewasn't, except in his feelings.

  "Is there any way for me to get in there?" asked Jimmieboy.

  "No, sir," said the shepherd boy. "That is, not all of you. Part of youcan come in."

  "Ho!" said Jimmieboy. "I can't divide myself up."

  "Yes, you can," returned the shepherd boy. "It's easy enough, when youknow how, but I suppose you don't know how, not having studiedarithmetic. You can't even add, much less divide."

  "Maybe you can tell me how," said Jimmieboy.

  "Certainly, I can," said the shepherd boy. "The part of you that cancome in is your eye, and your ear, and your voice. All the rest of youmust stay out."

  "But how do I get 'em in?" asked Jimmieboy.

  "They are in now," said the other. "You can see me, you can hear me, andI can hear you."

  "But I can't see what's beyond that door."

  "Oh, we'll fix that," said the little shepherd. "I'll knock on the door,and when it is opened you can tell the goblin that you want to see whathe's got, and he'll show it all to you if you tell him that your fatheris the man who didn't blast the rock out."

  The shepherd boy then went softly down the stairs, knocked on the door,and before it was opened had flown back to his duties in the picture.Then, as he had intimated, the goblin opened the door again, and pokinghis head out as before, cried:

  "Is that you, milk broker?"

  "No," answered Jimmieboy. "I am the son of the man who didn't blast awaythe flat rock, and my eye and my ear and my voice want to come in."

  "Why, certainly," said the goblin, throwing the door wide open. "Ididn't know you were you. Let 'em walk right in."

  Jimmieboy was about to say that he didn't know how his eye or his ear orhis voice could walk anywhere, but he was prevented from so doing by thesudden disappearance of the staircase, and the substitution therefor ofa huge room, the splendor of which was so great that it for a momentdazzled his eyes.

  "Who comes here?" said a voice in the corner of the room.

  "The eye and the ear and the voice of the son of the man who did notblast the flat stone," observed the goblin, and then Jimmieboyperceived, seated upon a lustrous golden throne, a shriveled-up dwarf,who looked as if he might be a thousand years old, but who, to judgefrom the crown he wore upon his head, was a king.

  The dwarf was clad in garments of the richest texture, and his personwas luminous with jewels of the rarest sort. As the goblin announced thevisitor the king rose up, and descending from the throne, made a courtlybow to Jimmieboy.

  "Thrice welcome, O son of the man who did not blast the flat rock," hesaid. "It is only fitting that one who owes so much to the father shouldwelcome the eye and the ear and the voice of the son, for know, O boy,that I am the lord of the Undergroundies whose kingdom would have beenshattered but for your father's kindly act in sparing it."

  "I suppose that blasting the rock would have spoiled all this," saidJimmieboy's voice, as his eye took in the royal magnificence of theplace, while to his ears came strains of soft and sweet music. "It wouldhave been dreadful!"

  "Much more dreadful than you imagine," replied the little king. "Itwould have worked damage that a life-time could not have repaired."

  Then the king turned to a tall, pale creature in black who sat writingat a mahogany table in one corner of the throne room, and commanded himto recite into Jimmieboy's ear how dreadful it would have been.

  "Compose, O laureate," he said to the tall, pale creature, "compose asong in which the dire effects of such a blast are fully set forth."

  The laureate rose from his seat, and bowing low before the king andJimmieboy's eye, began his song, which ran in this wise:

  "A half a pound of dynamite Set in that smooth, flat stone. Our palace would quite out of sight Most certainly have blown.

  "It would have blown our window-panes To high Gibraltar's ledge, And all our streets and country lanes It would have set on edge.

  "It would have knocked our royal king As far up as the moon; Beyond the reach of anything-- Beyond the best balloon.

  "It would have taken all our pears, Our candy and our toys, And hurled them where the polar bears Indulge in horrid noise.

  "It would have spoiled the music-box, And ruined all our books-- Knocked holes in all our woolen socks, And ruined thus their looks.

  "'T would have destroyed our chandeliers, To dough turned all our pie; And, worst of all, my little dears, It would have injured I."

  "Is that dreadful enough?" asked the laureate, turning to the king.

  "It suits me," said the king. "But perhaps our friend Jimmieboy wouldlike to have it made a little more dreadful."

  "In that case," said the laureate, "I can compose a few more verses inwhich the blast makes the tennis-court over us cave in and bury all thecake and jam we have in the larder, or if he thinks that too much tosacrifice, and would like a little pleasure mixed in with theterribleness, the cod-liver oil bottle might be destroyed."

  "I wouldn't spoil the cake and jam," said
Jimmieboy's voice, in reply tothis. "But the cod-liver oil might go."

  "Very well," said the laureate, and then he bowed low again and sang:

  "But there is balm for our annoy, For next the blast doth spoil Six hundred quarts--O joy! O joy!-- Of vile cod-liver oil."

  "I should think you would have liked that," said Jimmieboy's voice.

  "I would have," said the king, "because you know the law of this countryrequires the king to consume a bottle of cod-liver oil every day, and ifthe bottles were all broken, perhaps the law, too, would have beencrushed out of existence. But, after all, I'd rather be king withcod-liver oil than have my kingdom ruined and do without it. How wouldyou like to see our gardens?"

  "Very much," said Jimmieboy. "I'm fond of flowers."

  The king laughed.

  "What a droll idea," he said, turning to the laureate. "The idea offlowers growing in gardens! Write me a rhyme on the drollness of theidea."

  The laureate sighed. It was evident that he was getting tired ofcomposing verses to order.

  "I hear and obey," he replied, shortly, and then he recited as follows:

  "To think of wasting: any time In raising flowers, I think, Is worse than writing nonsense-rhyme, Or frying purple ink.

  "It's queerer really than the act Of painting sword-fish green; Or sailing down a cataract To please a magazine.

  "Indeed, it really seems to me, Who now am very old, The drollest bit of drollery That ever has been drolled."

  "But what do you raise in your gardens?" asked Jimmieboy, as thelaureate completed his composition.

  "Nothing, of course," said the king. "What's a garden for, anyhow?Pleasure, isn't it?"

  "Yes," said Jimmieboy's voice, "but----"

  "There isn't any but about it," said the king. "If a garden is forpleasure it must not be worked in. Business and pleasure are two verydifferent things, and you cannot raise flowers without working."

  "But how do you get pleasure out of a garden when you don't raiseanything in it?"

  "Aren't you dull!" ejaculated the king. "Write me a quatrain on hisdullness, O laureate."

  "Confound his dullness!" muttered the laureate. "I'm rapidly wearingout, poetizing about this boy." Then he added, aloud: "Certainly, yourmajesty. Here it is:

  "He is the very dullest lad I've seen in all my life; For dullness he is quite as bad As any oyster-knife."

  "Is that all?" asked the king, with a frown.

  "I'm afraid four lines is as many as I can squeeze into a quatrain,"said the laureate, returning the frown with interest.

  "Then tell this young man's ear, sirrah, how it comes that we getpleasure out of a garden in which nothing grows."

  "If I must--I suppose I must," growled the laureate; and then herecited:

  "The plan is thus, O little wit, You'll see it in a minute; We get our pleasures out of it, Because there's none within it."

  "That is very poor poetry, Laury!" snapped the king.

  "If you don't like it, don't take it," retorted the laureate. "I'm tiredof this business, anyhow."

  "And what, pray," cried the king, striding angrily forward to themutinous poet, "what are you going to do about it?"

  "I'm going to get up a revolution," retorted the laureate, shaking hisquill pen fiercely at the king. "If I go to the people to-morrow, andpromise not to write any more poetry, they'll all be so grateful they'llmake me king, and set you to work wheeling coal in the mines for themortals."

  The king's face grew so dark with anger as the laureate spoke thatJimmieboy's eye could hardly see two inches before itself, and in hastethe little fellow withdrew it from the scene. What happened next henever knew, but that missiles were thrown by the quarreling king andpoet he was certain, for there was a tremendous shout, and somethingjust tipped the end of his ear and went whizzing by, and rubbing hiseyes, the boy looked about him, and discovered that he was still lyingface downward upon the flat rock, but it was no longer transparent.

  Off in the bushes directly back of him was his father, looking for atennis ball. This, some people say, is the object that whizzed pastJimmieboy's ear, but to this day the little fellow believes that it wasnothing less than the king's crown, which that worthy monarch had hurledat the laureate, that did this.

  For my part I take sides with neither, for, as a matter of fact, I knownothing about it.