CHAPTER I. A MORNING WITH THE JIMMYJOHNS.

APRETTY brown cottage, so small that the vines have no need to hurry themselves in climbing over it, but take plenty of time to creep along the eaves, to peep in at the windows, and even to stop and weave bowers over the doorways. Two “Baldwin” trees shade one end of the cottage, a silver-oak the other. In its rather narrow front-yard grow damask rose-bushes, sweet syringas, and a snowball-tree. In one corner of this front-yard a running-rose, called a “pink prairie-rose,” climbs to the cottage-roof, where it has delightful times with the honeysuckle and woodbine. On either side, and round about and far away, lie broad green meadows, apple-orchards, fields of waving corn, and many a sloping, sunny hill-side, on which the earliest wild flowers bloom. Ah! it must be a pleasant thing to live where one can watch the fields grow yellow with dandelions and buttercups, or white with daisies, or pink with clover; where sweet-scented honeysuckles peep in at one window, roses at another, and apple-blossoms at another; where birds sing night and morning, and sometimes all the day.
 
 
Between the hours of seven and eight, one lovely morning in June, there might have been seen, turning the corner of Prairie-rose Cottage, two travellers on horseback, each of whom carried a huckleberry-basket on his arm. These two travellers were of just the same age,—four years and ten months. The horses they rode were of the kind called saw-horses, or, as some call them, wood-horses. Both names are correct, because they are made of wood, and wood is placed upon them to be sawed.
 
Our young travellers were twin-brothers, and were named—the one, Jimmy Plummer; the other, Johnny Plummer. They were dressed exactly alike, and they looked exactly alike. Both had chubby cheeks, twinkling eyes, small noses, and dark, curly hair. Both wore gray frocks belted round with leather belts, and both belts were clasped with shining buckles. Their collars were white as snow. Their trousers were short, leaving off at the knee, where they were fastened with three gilt buttons. Their stockings were striped, pink and gray; the gray stripe being much wider than the pink. Their boots were button-boots. Their hats were of speckled straw; and in the hat-band of each was stuck a long, narrow, greenish feather, which looked exactly like a rooster’s feather. Their whip-handles were light blue, wound round with strips of silver tinsel; and at the end of each lash was a snapper. Their bridles were pieces of clothes-line.
 
The travellers were bound to Boston, so they said, to buy oranges. It was hard work to make those horses of theirs go over the ground. There isn’t very much go in that kind of horse: they are sure-footed, but not[Pg 13] swift. But there was a great deal of make go in the two travellers. They jerked that span of horses, they pushed them, they pulled them, they made them rear up, they tumbled off behind, they tumbled off the sides, they pitched headforemost, but still did not give up; and at last came to Boston, which was, so they made believe, on the outside cellar-door.
 
And, as they were playing on the cellar-door, the funny man came along, and began to feel in his pockets to see what he could find.
 
“Halloo, Jimmyjohns!” he cried. “Don’t you want something?”
 
Jimmy and Johnny Plummer were best known in the neighborhood as “the Jimmyjohns.” And it seemed very proper their being called by one name; for they looked, if not just like one boy, like the same boy twice over, so that some members of their own family could hardly tell them apart. They were always together: what one did the other did, and what one had the other had. If one asked for pudding four times, the other asked for pudding four times; and when one would have another spoonful of sauce, so would the other. And it was quite wonderful, everybody said, that, in playing together, they were never known to quarrel. People often tried to guess which was Jimmy, and which was Johnny; but very few guessed rightly.
 
The funny man felt in every one of his pockets, and found—a piece of chalk. The Jimmyjohns laughed. They had seen him feel in every one of his pockets before, and knew that nothing better than chalk, or buttons, or tack-nails, would come out of them.
 
“Now,” said the funny man, “I’m going to guess[Pg 14] which is Jimmy, and which is Johnny. No, I can’t guess. But I’ll tell you what I will do. I’ll turn up a cent. There it goes. See here: if it turns up head, this sitting-down boy’s Jimmy; tail, he’s Johnny. Now then. Pick it up out of the grass. Head? Yes, head. Then this sitting-down boy’s Jimmy. Right? Are you sitting-down boy Jimmy?”
 
“No, sir. Johnny.”
 
“Johnny? How do you know you are Johnny?”
 
Johnny laughed, looked down, turned up the corner of his frock, and showed there a bit of red flannel, about the size of a red peppermint, stitched on the wrong side. Mrs. Plummer, it seems, had put red flannel peppermints on Johnny’s clothes, and blue flannel peppermints on Jimmy’s, so that each could tell his own.
 
The funny man passed on, but had hardly gone ten steps before he turned, and said to the Jimmyjohns, “Why don’t you go a-rowing?” They answered, because they had no boat. He told them Dan took a tub for a boat. Then they said they had no water. The funny man was just at that moment stepping over the fence; but he answered back, speaking very loud, “Dan plays grass is water.”
 
The Jimmyjohns looked at each other.
 
“Ask him what oars Dan takes,” said Johnny.
 
“You ask him too,” said Jimmy.
 
So they called out both together, “What oars does Dan take?” And then, the funny man being by that time far along the road, they scampered to the fence, scrambled up, leaned over the top-rail, and shouted loud as they could, “What oars does Dan take?”
 
[Pg 15]
 
The funny man turned, held one hand to one ear to catch the sounds, and shouted back, speaking one word at a time, “Can’t—hear—what—you—say!”
 
“What—oars—does—DAN—T-A-K-E?” bawled the Jimmyjohns, holding on to the last word as long as their breath lasted.
 
“Takes—brooms! Dan—takes—BROOMS!” the funny man bawled back; then walked away quite fast.
 
“Cluck, cluck, cluck! Cluck, cluck, cluck! Cluckerty cluck!”
 
That was what it sounded like; but in reality it was pretty Banty White saying to her chickens, “Hurry back! Danger! Boys! Dreadful danger!”
 
Madam Banty White kept house under a tub at the back of the house; and it was her tub which was going to be the boat.
 
“Over she goes!” cried Jimmy, giving it a knock.
 
“Cluck, cluck, cluck! Cluck, cluck, cluck! Cluckerty cluck!” clucked Madam Banty. “Run for your lives! For your lives!”
 
“Sister, sister, sister!” shouted the Jimmyjohns.
 
Annetta Plummer, six years old and almost seven, was often called “Sister,” and sometimes “Sissy Plummer.” Hearing the shouts, sister ran to the window, calling out, “What do you want, you little Jimmies?”
 
Then curly-headed, three-years-old Effie trotted to the window, stood on her tiptoes, and shouted with her cunning voice, “What oo want, oo ittle Dimmeys?”
 
“Throw down two brooms. Quick’s you can!”
 
“Little boys must say ‘Please,’” said Annetta.
 
[Pg 16]
 
“Ittel—boys—say—‘Pease,’” repeated Effie.
 
“Please, please, please, please!” shouted the Jimmies. Then, “Oh, dear! Oh! ma! Oh, dear! Ma! ma! Oh! Oh, dear! oh, dear!” in quite a different tone.
 
All the people came running to the window. “Who’s hurt? What’s the matter? Oh, they’ve tumbled down! they’ve tumbled down!”
 
The flour-barrel was at the bottom of it all. In their hurry to get the brooms, the Jimmies climbed on a flour-barrel which lay upon its side. It rolled over, and they rolled over with it. It is plain, therefore, that the flour-barrel was at the bottom of it all.
 
The poor Jimmyjohns cried bitterly, and the tears ran streaming down. Still they were not hurt badly, and the crying changed to kissing much sooner than usual. To explain what this means, it must be told, that when the Jimmies were little toddling things, just beginning to walk, they were constantly tumbling down, tipping over in their cradle, or bumping heads together; and Mrs. Plummer found that the best way to stop the crying at such times was to turn it into kissing. The reason of this is very plain. In crying, the mouth flies open; in kissing, it shuts. Mrs. Plummer was a wonderful woman. She found out that shutting the mouth would stop its crying, and to shut the mouth she contrived that pretty kissing plan, and at the first sound of a bump would catch up the little toddlers, put their arms round each other’s necks, and say, “Kiss Johnny, Jimmy; kiss Jimmy, Johnny.” And that was the way the habit began. They had not quite outgrown it; and it was enough to make anybody laugh to see them,[Pg 17] in the midst of a crying spell, run toward each other, their cheeks still wet with tears, and to see their poor little twisted, crying mouths trying to shut up into a kiss.
 
But now must be told the sad fate of Banty White’s tub. Alas for poor Banty! Nevermore will she gather chicks under its roof.
 
Mrs. Plummer, it seems, allowed the Jimmies to take her third-best broom and the barn broom to row with.
 
“Let’s go way over there, where there’s some good grass,” said Jimmy.
 
“So I say,” said Johnny. “How shall we get her over?”
 
“Take the reins,” said Jimmy.
 
“Oh, yes! so I say,” said Johnny.
 
The reins were then taken from the horses, and tied to one tub-handle. The brooms were tied to the other tub-handle, and so dragged behind. The Jimmies hoisted the tub over the fence into the field of “good grass,” squeezed themselves inside, put the broom-handles through the tub-handles, and began to row.
 
After rowing a while, and finding “she didn’t go any,” they thought they would try to find Dan, and ask him how he “made her go.” So the tub was hoisted over the fence again, and the brooms tied on for another pull. Both took hold of the reins; and then away they ran along the road, up hills and down hills, to find Dan.
 
“How easy she goes!” cried Johnny at last as they were rounding a corner.
 
Both turned to look, and, oh! what did they see? Alas! what did they see?—two hoops, pieces of wood[Pg 18] scattered along the road, and the brooms far behind. The tub had fallen apart, and the hoops that bound it were rolling away.
 
The brothers Plummer stood still and gazed. It was all they could do.
 
“And now won’t it be a tub any more?” Johnny asked at last very soberly.
 
“I—don’t—I guess so,” said Jimmy. “Maybe pa can tub it up again.”
 
Each boy took an armful of the pieces (leaving one that neither of them saw), hung a hoop over his shoulder, and in this manner turned to go home, dragging the brooms behind.
 
But, finding themselves quite near aunt Emily’s, they went that way, and made a call at the house. And very good reasons they had for doing so. One reason was a puppy; one reason was a gold-fish; but the sweetest reason of all was aunt Emily’s gingerbread.
CHAPTER II. THE SAD FATE OF “POLLY COLOGNE.”

HIGH times at Prairie-rose Cottage,—high times indeed! For there is cousin Floy Plummer on her tiptoes; and there is little Effie Plummer hurrying with might and main to climb to the top of the bureau; and there are the twins, the Jimmyjohn Plummers, scrambling both at once into the baby’s dining-chair, tumbling over the back like one boy, then dividing at[Pg 19] the bottom and going up again like two boys: and all these trying to pinch Annetta Plummer’s ears, and to pinch them seven times too; for Annetta Plummer is seven years old this very day.
 
Ever since morning, a little girl may have been seen holding two hands to two ears, scampering up stairs and down stairs, dodging into dark corners, behind doors, behind curtains, behind people, racing through the garden, hiding among the currant-bushes, among the grass, among the waving corn, in the barn, in the hen-house, up the apple-tree, up the ladder; and always have gone some of the pinchers after her, with seven pinches apiece in their thumbs and fingers. And now, will climbing that table save Miss Seven-year-old?
 
Hark! Rover is barking outside! O Rover! don’t you know any better than to bark at the party,—Annetta’s birthday-party? Look at old Bose, and learn how to behave. Old Bose never barks at company; and he is six times bigger than you are, you little, noisy, capering, frisky, frolicsome Rover! Now the Jimmyjohns run to call off their dog. “Here, Rover! Here, ere, ere, ere! Rove, Rove, Rove!”
 
And now the company have come in, and have taken off their things, and have told Mrs. Plummer how their mothers do, and have sat down quietly in a row of chairs. Seven of them,—seven bright faces so rosy and sweet! seven heads of hair so smooth or so curly! seven pairs of tidy boots, best ones, perhaps,—who knows but brand-new? The Jimmyjohns, too, have on their new, slippery, smooth-bottomed button-boots; and that was the reason of their falling down while they stood almost still, or rather more than half still, watching the seven little girls sitting in a row.
 
[Pg 20]
 
Ten minutes later. All out on the green spot, where it is shady, playing “Little Sally Waters sitting in the sun.” Josephus the baby (called Josephus while waiting for his real name) stays in his baby-carriage, hearing them sing, watching the ring go round, laughing, crowing, patting cakes by the dozen. When the Jimmies choose the one that they love best before they close their eyes to rest, Rover rushes into the middle, barking, leaping high, as if he, too, were going to kiss the one that he loved best.
 
Fifteen minutes later. They are playing “Pretty fair maid.” Dear, dear! what a charming singsong goes with this play! What a lively, chirruping tune! “Pretty fair maid, will you come up, will you come up, will you come up, to join us in our dances.” “And now we’ve got the Queen of May, the Queen of May, the Queen of May, to join us in our dances.” And then the last part, “Green grow the rushes O! Never mind the blushes O!” Ah! who would not be a little girl at a party, singing “Pretty fair maid” on the green spot?
 
Half an hour later. All out in the orchard, playing “keep house.” They divide themselves into “families.” There is one very large flat rock in the orchard, also several hollow places where rocks have been dug out. Two of the “families” take each a hollow to live in; a third “keeps house” on the rock, a fourth under a haycock. Oh, what good times! Only two families can have “fathers,” because there are only two boys. The other “fathers,” cousin Floy says, have gone to Boston. Cousin Floy manages this play. She is ten years old, and knows how. Cousin Floy[Pg 21] goes in to coax Mrs. Plummer for some things in which to dress up the “fathers” and “mothers.” She says it will do if the heads look like fathers’ and mothers’ heads, and no matter about the clothes. Mrs. Plummer lends two head-dresses, also ribbons and laces. Grandmother Plummer lends a cap and black ribbon. Who’ll be the “grandmother,” I wonder. Minnie Lowe, the little girl with the flossy curls. Oh, what a cunning grandmother!—Down, Rover, down! What! barking at your grandmother, you saucy little puppy?
 
“Ha, ha! He, he! Ha, ha! He, he! Ho, ho!” And who wouldn’t laugh at seeing Jimmy Plummer in a high dicky, black whiskers, and tall hat? The hat touches his shoulders behind. Ah! that is better. Cousin Floy has taken off the hat, and put on a great deal of black hair pulled from an old cushion; yes, a great deal,—as much as a quarter of a peck. It rises high on his head, and—What ails Rover? Ha, ha! Pretty good! Rover doesn’t know Jimmy!
 
Well, well, well! Grandfather forever! They are going to have Johnny a grandfather! Cousin Floy is covering his head with cotton-wool for white hair. Now she gives him a cane. Now go on the spectacles. Now she is—doing—something—I cannot—see—what. Oh, yes, yes, yes! putting a hump under his frock, between his shoulders, to give him a stoop. Bark away, Rover! Who wouldn’t bark at a cotton-wool grandfather?
 
Annetta has been in to the house, and is bringing out all her rag-babies. To be sure; for now there can be a baby in every family. One of these is very large, and has a face as big round as a pint porringer; but the[Pg 22] others are quite small. The large one is named Joey Moonbeam. This is a true picture of Joey Moonbeam, copied from her likeness now hanging in Annetta Plummer’s baby-house. The largest of the small rag-babies is named Dorothy Beeswax. She is a little taller than a knitting-needle. This is a true picture of Dorothy Beeswax. The next largest is Betsey Ginger. The next is Jenny Popover. The next is Eudora N. Posy. The “N.” stands for Nightingale. The next is Susan Sugarspoon. This is a true picture of Betsey Ginger. Susan Sugarspoon, and Jenny Popover, and Eudora N. Posy, have not had their pictures taken yet. The smallest of all is Polly Cologne,—the smallest, the prettiest, and the cunningest. Her cheeks are painted pink, and she wears a locket. Her hair is of flax-colored floss-silk, while the hair of all the others is stocking-ravellings. She is the baby of the baby-house, and this is her true and exact picture. Polly Cologne has feet; but the others stand on their stiff petticoats.
 
[Pg 23]
 
Now comes Mrs. Plummer, with seed-cakes for the housekeepers to play supper with; and behind her comes cousin Floy, bringing cinnamon-water, and dishes from the baby-house. The cinnamon-water is in four phials. Each phial has in it sugar, and also rose-leaves.
 
What are the children laughing and whispering about? and why do they look at little Fanny Brimmer in such a way? Mrs. Plummer has called Annetta aside with one or two others, and is asking why they do so.
 
“Because,” whispers little Lulu, “Fanny picked out—the biggest—seed-cakes—that had the most—sugar-plums—on the tops.”
 
Mrs. Plummer tells them, speaking very low, that perhaps Fanny did not know it was selfish to do so; that her mother might never have told her. “Selfish girls,” says Mrs. Plummer, “should be pitied, not laughed at; and besides, perhaps every one of you may be selfish in some other way.”
 
Half-past four o’clock. What is going on now? Oh! I see. The “family” at the rock are having a party, and to this party have come the “families” from the hollows and the haycock.—No, Rover, you were not invited. Down, sir!—down!
 
The supper is laid out on the rock. The cinnamon-water is poured into the cups, each cup holding half a thimbleful. Grandfather Johnny and grandmother Minnie sit at the head, and father Jimmy at the foot; while the mothers with their little girls fill the room between. The mothers wear head-dresses. The little girls wear dandelion-curls, and curls of shavings. Only one of the babies is allowed to come to the table, and that is Polly Cologne. The others sit on the floor, and[Pg 24] play with their playthings. Joey Moonbeam can come to table, because she is big enough. They call Joey Moonbeam a little girl three years old, that cannot walk, because she has had a fever. Polly Cologne seems to be a pet among all these mothers and little girls. They all want to hold her. Why, by their talk, one might suppose she was a live baby. Hear them. “O little darling!” “Just as cunning!” “Dear ’ittle baby!” “Did zee want some payzings?” “Tum to oor mozzer, oo darling!” “Do let me hold her!” “No, let me, let me!” “Me!” And so she is passed from one to another, and kissed and stroked and patted, and talked to. Really the birthday-party is having a good time. Ah! who would not be a little girl playing supper on a rock, out among the apple-trees, and sipping cinnamon-water?
 
But, dear, dear! what is the matter? Why do they all jump down in a hurry, and scream and shout, and run after Rover? What! Polly Cologne? Rover gone off with Polly Cologne in his mouth? Yes, Rover has. There he goes, scampering away, and all the children after him, calling, “Here, here, ere, ere, ere! Back, sir! back!” The Jimmyjohns slip with their smooth-bottomed boots, and down they go; and off go wigs, whiskers, and all! Now they’re up again, shouting to Rover, “Here, Rover!—here, Rover! drop it, drop it! Rove, Rove! Come back!”
 
But Rove won’t hear, and won’t come back. He’s out of the orchard, across the meadow, over the brook; and now—and now he has gone into the woods! Oh, dear, dear!
 
Four days later. Orchard, wood, brook, and meadow[Pg 25] have been searched; but the lost is not yet found. Annetta is quite sad. She has put away Polly Cologne’s every-day locket and every-day clothes, and blue silk sun-bonnet, because it made her feel badly to see them.
 
Dear little Polly Cologne, where are you now? Lost in the woods? And are the Robin Redbreasts covering you over with leaves? Perhaps naughty Rover buried you up like a meat-bone in the cold, damp ground, or dropped you in the brook,—and, alas! you could never swim ashore. Did those bright-spotted trout eat you? or did you float away to the sea? Perhaps you did float away to the sea. Perhaps you are now far out on the mighty ocean, where the wild winds blow, and there, all alone, toss up and down, up and down, on the rolling waves; or perhaps the waves and the winds are at rest, and the sea is smooth like a sea of glass, and you lie quietly there, with your pink cheeks turned up to the sky. Or the mermaids may take you down into their sea-caverns all lined with rose-colored shells, and sing you sweet songs till your hair turns green. Or who knows but you may float away to Northland, and be picked up on shore by the little funny, furry Esquimaux children? Oh, if you should be frozen solid in an iceberg there! But it may be you have drifted down to the sunny islands of the South, where the people have few clothes, no houses, no schools; and then some little, half-naked, dusky child may pick you up from among the coral and sea-shells, and show you to its mother, and say, “Mother, where do this kind of folks live?” And its mother, not having studied geography, may say, “Oh! in a wonderful country close by the moon.”
 
[Pg 26]
 
Yes, let us hope that Polly Cologne has been wafted to those sunny summer-lands of the South, where oranges grow, and prunes, and bananas; where the palm-tree waves, and geraniums grow wild; where the air is balmy; where snow never comes, nor ice, nor frost; where bright-winged birds warble in the groves; where trees are forever green, and flowers bloom through all the year.
CHAPTER III. AN ACCOUNT OF THE JIMMYJOHNS’ LITTLE AFFAIR WITH THE GULLS.

IN this story will be given a true and exact account of the Jimmyjohns’ affair with the gulls; also of the manner in which Jimmy was turned out of the little red house at the sea-shore. The account will begin at the time of their leaving home. It will explain the reason of their going, and will, in fact, tell every thing that happened to them just exactly as it happened.
 
Mr. Plummer, their father, had bought some salt hay at a place called Stony Point, near the sea-shore. One day he sent Ellis Payne with the ox-cart to finish making the hay and bring it home. Mr. Plummer told Ellis Payne that he himself should be riding that way about noontime, and would carry him a warm dinner. He started just after eating his own dinner. Ellis Payne’s was put up in a six-quart tin pail. It being Saturday, Mr. Plummer took the Jimmyjohns along.[Pg 27] Their mother said they might play at Stony Point till Ellis Payne came home, and then ride back on the hay. Mr. Plummer was going to the mill.
 
Now, the road turned off to the mill a short distance before reaching Stony Point; and Mr. Plummer, to save time, told the Jimmyjohns they might jump out there, and carry the pail to Ellis Payne, and he would keep on to the mill, and then he could take in the funny man. The funny man was just turning up that same road. He stopped to have a little fun with the twins; jumped them out of the wagon; tried to guess which was which, and, when told, turned them round and round, to mix them up; then tried to guess again, and would have tossed up a cent, and said, “Heads, this is Jimmy,—tails, this is Johnny,” as he sometimes did, only that the horse seemed in somewhat of a hurry.
 
Mr. Plummer showed the little boys a scraggy tree which grew on the edge of a bank, near the shore; and told them they would see the oxen as soon as they turned the corner where that tree grew. One took hold on one side of the pail, and the other on the other; and in that way they walked along the shore, keeping pretty close to the bank. It took them only about five or ten minutes to reach that tree; and, when the corner was turned, they saw the oxen plainly, but could not see Ellis Payne. They kept on, walking more slowly, the way being more stony, and at last came to the oxen. Ellis Payne was not there. The reason of his not having been there is as follows: Two fields away from the shore stood a small red house all alone by itself, in which lived an old woman with her[Pg 28] young grandson. The young grandson fell from a chamber-window, and broke his collar-bone bone; and the old woman ran to the shore, screaming for help; and Ellis Payne left his work, and went to find out what was the matter.
 
The Jimmyjohns, seeing some oxen farther along the shore, thought perhaps those first oxen were not the right ones, and so kept on to those other ones. They turned down, and walked quite near the water, picking up pretty pebbles as they went along, and now and then a cockle-shell, or a scallop, or purple muscle. Some of the shells were single; others in pairs, which could be opened like crackers. They had a reason for picking up the scallops and muscles, which there is no time to mention here; though, after all, perhaps it may as well be told. Annetta Plummer was going to have a party, and she had not enough scalloped shells to bake her cakes in. The cockles were for Effie to put in her arm-basket. The Jimmyjohns picked up enough of all kinds to fill their pockets; then took off their hats, and filled those. By that time they had come to the spot where the oxen had stood. But no oxen were there then, and no man: so there was nothing better to do than to play in the sand, and sail clam-shell boats in the little pools. It was a warm day; the water looked cool; and the little Jimmies, as they beheld the rippling waves, felt just like wading in. So it was off with shoes, and off with stockings, roll up trousers-legs, and away and away, with a run, and a shout, and a dash, and a splash, and a spatter. A little distance out from the shore there was a high rock, not so very, very high,—just the right height to give them[Pg 29] a good seat; and they sat down there, feet in the water, heads together, looking down into the water, watching the fries darting swiftly hither and thither.
 
It is just here that the gull part of the story comes in. Gulls are large sea-birds. They live upon fish, and they are their own fishermen. Some may call this the funny part of the story, though those who are ever in such a story may not call it the funny part.
 
The white-winged gulls were flying about. It is a common thing, at sea-side places, to see gulls flying about, and skimming over the water. Sometimes they dip in their bills and take a fish. The Jimmyjohns sat looking down, keeping very still, so as not to scare the fries away. Just what the gulls thought of them no one knows, and it can never be known; for there is no way of finding out gulls’ thoughts, which is a pity: it would be so curious to know just what they do think about, and how they think it! Perhaps those that belong to this story thought the two Jimmyjohns were two great fishes, exactly alike; or perhaps they thought hair would be good to line nests with. But, whatever they thought, this is what they did: They flew down swift and sudden upon the boys’ heads, flapped their great wings in their faces, clawed their hair, beat them with their beaks. The little fellows screamed, jumped, fell down, scrambled up, ran, fell down, then up again; got to the shore some way; ran over the sand, over the pebbles, over the stones, over the rocks, across wet grass, up a bank, through a field, screaming all the time as if the gulls were chasing them every step of the way. But no doubt the gulls had been just as much frightened as the boys; for they had flown away[Pg 30] faster than they came, out of sight, far over the sea. The Jimmies sat down on the grass, in the warm sunshine, and rubbed their bruises, and counted the cuts in their feet. Johnny’s left knee was lame, and the heel of the other foot had been badly cut by a piece of clam-shell.
 
By this time it was quite late in the afternoon. The boys began to feel hungry, and talked of going to get the pail, and eating some of the dinner. One guessed it would be stealing to do that, and the other guessed it would not be stealing. At last they agreed to go and get their hats and shoes and stockings and the pail, and find Ellis Payne, and ask him to give them a little piece of his gingerbread.
 
It was pretty hard work going back over those sharp stones, and that coarse, stubbed grass, barefoot. To be sure, they came that way; but they were frightened then, and only thought of the gulls. That grass—why, its edges were so sharp, it seemed as if little knives were cutting into their feet! They walked on their heels, on their toes, on the sides of their feet, almost on the tops of them sometimes, and so hobbled along slowly,—rather too slowly; for, by the time they reached the shore, somebody had been there before them, and taken all their things. What body? Why, a body you have heard of before; a body that has done great mischief; a body that had carried off bigger things than six-quart tin pails; a body that is said to get furious at times, and to do then the most terrible things. Have you never heard of a body of water called the mighty ocean? That was it. The mighty ocean rushed up that pebbly shore, and swallowed[Pg 31] up hats, shoes, stockings, dinner-pail, dinner, and all. To speak in plain words, the tide had risen, and covered them.
 
The Jimmies never thought of that until a man came along—a man with a horse-cart—and told them. “Why,” said he, “no use looking: the tide has carried them off.”
 
When the man had gone, the boys went up from the water to look for Ellis Payne. Johnny’s heel was in such a state, he could only use the toes of that foot; and, in going over the sharp stones, he cut the ball of the same foot, so that he could not step with it at all; and, when they came to the stubbed grass that cut like little knives, he held up one foot, and hopped on the other; and, getting tired of that, he walked on his knees. Jimmy laughed at him, but, in the midst of his laughing, cried out, “Ou, ou!” and was glad enough to come down upon his own knees. And so they went on a while; but finding knee-walking hard to do, and apt to make knee-walkers roll over, they tried hand-walking and knee-walking both, which is all the same as crawling.
 
And now comes that part of the story where Jimmy was turned out of a house.
 
While those boys had been picking up shells, and playing in the sand, and wading, and watching the fries, and running away from gulls, and drying their clothes in the sun, and counting their cuts, and hobbling up and down the shore, the sun had been sinking lower and lower and lower; and Ellis Payne had finished making the hay, and gone home with it. It is sad to think how hungry Ellis Payne must have[Pg 32] been! The boys were hungry too; and that may have been the reason why they went toward the little red house. It stood two fields away from the shore, as has already been stated. When they reached the last field, Johnny lay down in the grass, close by a row of wild-plum bushes, and cried. He said he could not walk any more. Jimmy said he would go into that house; and, if any woman gave him any thing, he would bring Johnny some. But when he reached the house he was too bashful to open the door, and staid in the wood-shed quite a long time, till he saw a woman go in.
 
After Jimmy had been gone a few moments, Johnny heard a noise of some one walking near; and soon an old woman came out from behind the bushes, with some leaves in her hand. She went close to Johnny, and asked him what he was lying there for, bareheaded. Johnny told her he had a lame knee and a sore heel, and he couldn’t walk.
 
“Don’t tell me that!” said she. “Didn’t I just see you running across the field?”
 
“No—ma’am—’twasn’t—I,” sobbed Johnny.
 
“Don’t tell me! don’t tell me!” cried the old woman; and she walked off, picking now and then a leaf as she went. The leaves were plantain-leaves for the bruises of her little grandson, who had fallen out of the chamber-window. The boy she saw running across the field was Jimmy.
 
When that old woman had finished picking leaves, she went back into the house; and hardly had she spread the leaves out on the table, when Jimmy put his head in at the door slowly, then his shoulders, then the rest of himself.
 
“What do you want here?” cried the old woman. “Didn’t you tell me you couldn’t walk?”
 
“No—ma’am,” Jimmy answered, frightened almost out of his breath.
 
“Oh! oh! oh! what a big story-teller you are!” cried the woman. “Off with you!—quick too! I don’t want such a boy as you are in my house with my little Sammy.”
 
By the time she had got as far as “my little Sammy,” Jimmy was out of the house and at the first pair of bars; and, being in a terrible fright, he ran back to Johnny as fast as he could go.
 
Johnny was sitting there, hugging somebody. What body? Not a body of water is meant this time, but a lively, loving, frisking, barking little body, named Rover. And close behind came Mr. Plummer. When Ellis Payne came home without the Jimmyjohns, Mr. Plummer put the horse into the light wagon, and took Rover, and went to look after them.
CHAPTER IV. THE JIMMYJOHNS’ SAILOR-SUITS.

THIS chapter will tell why Mrs. Plummer had to sew very odd-looking patches on the Jimmyjohns’ sailor-suits. It will also tell what boy cut holes in those sailor-suits, and why he cut them, and when; and will show, that, at the time it was done, the three boys were in great danger.
 
[Pg 36]
 
It was on a Monday morning that people first took notice that the Jimmies’ trousers were patched in a curious manner. Johnny was carrying the new dog, and Jimmy was taking hold of Johnny’s hand. After Rover was lost, the twins had a new dog given them, named Snip. He was the smallest dog they ever saw: but he was a dog; he was not a puppy. Mr. Plummer brought him home in his pocket one day, two weeks after Rover went away. It was Rover, you know, that ran off with poor little Polly Cologne. People talked so much to him about this piece of mischief, that at last he began to feel ashamed of himself; and, as soon as Polly Cologne’s name was mentioned, he would slink into a corner, and hide his head. One day Annetta showed him an apron that poor little Polly used to wear,—it was a bib-apron,—and said to him, “St’boy! Go find her! Don’t come back till you find her!”
 
The bib-apron was about three inches long. Rover caught it in his mouth, and away he went, and—did not come back. They looked for him far and near; they put his name in the newspapers; but all in vain. The apron was found sticking to a bramble-bush, about a mile from home; but nothing could be seen or heard of Rover. There was a circus in town that day, and he might have gone off with that. Perhaps he was ashamed to come back. Little Mr. Tompkins, the lobster-seller, thinks the dog understood what Annetta said, and that he may be, even now, scouring the woods, or else sniffing along the streets, peeping into back-yards, down cellar-ways, up staircases, in search of poor Polly Cologne.
 
[Pg 37]
 
Mr. Tompkins was among the very first to notice the sailor-suits. He met the twins that morning as he was wheeling along his lobsters, and quickly dropped his wheelbarrow, and sat down on one of the side-boards. Being a small, slim man, he could sit there as well as not without tipping the wheelbarrow over.
 
Mr. Tompkins wore short-legged pantaloons and a long-waisted coat. The reason of this was, that he had short legs and (for his size) a long waist. His coat was buttoned up to his chin. His cap had a stiff visor, which stood out like the awning of a shop. He had a thin face, a small nose, small eyes, and a wide mouth; and he wore a blue apron with shoulder-straps.
 
“What’s happened to your trousers, eh?” asked little Mr. Tompkins. His way of speaking was as sharp and quick as Snip’s way of barking. “Say, what’s happened to your trousers?”
 
The trousers were patched in this way: Jimmy’s had a long strip on the left leg: Johnny’s had a round patch above each knee, one being much farther up than the other.
 
“Oh, yes! I see,—I see how it is,” said Mr. Tompkins. “Your mother did that so as to tell you apart. Oh, yes! Yes, yes! Very good! Johnny Shortpatch, Jimmy Longpatch; or Jimmy Shortpatch, Johnny Longpatch,—which is it?”
 
“She didn’t do so for that,” said Johnny, and then Jimmy after him. Johnny was commonly the first to speak.
 
“She didn’t?” cried Mr. Tompkins: “then what did she do so for?”
 
“Perhaps to tell which is good, and which is naughty,” said a lady who had stopped to look on.
 
[Pg 38]
 
Then the butcher’s boy stepped up, and he wanted to know about the trousers. Then a woman looked out of the window, and she wanted to know about the trousers. Then a great black dog came up, and he smelt of the trousers, which made Snip snap his teeth. Then came a flock of school-children, and they had something to say. “Halloo!” “What’s up?” “What’s the matter with all your trousers?” “Hoo, hoo!” “How d’ye do, Mr. Patcherboys?”
 
Now, the truth was, that Amos Dyke cut holes in those trousers with his jack-knife. It happened in this way: The Jimmies, the Saturday before that Monday, started from home to spend a cent at Mr. Juniper’s store. They had, in the first place, two cents; but one was lost. They got those two cents by having a show in the barn. The price for going in to see the show was four pins. The Jimmies sold the pins to the funny man. He gave a cent for sixteen straight ones, but would take no crooked ones at any price. Sometimes the Jimmies tried to pound the crooked ones straight on a stone. Their pins, that Saturday, came to nearly a cent and three-quarters; and the funny man made it up to two. Jimmy let his fall on the barn-floor; and Johnny, in helping him find it, hit it accidentally with his toe, and knocked it through a crack. Then Mrs. Plummer said they would have to divide between them what was bought with the other cent.
 
The little boys left home to go to Mr. Juniper’s store at half-past two o’clock in the afternoon, taking Snip with them. Probably, if they had not taken him with them, all would have been well.
 
In passing a garden, they looked through the pickets,[Pg 39] and saw a kitten racing along the paths. Snip was after her in a moment.
 
“Now, you stay and take care of Snip,” said Johnny to Jimmy, “and I’ll go spend the cent, and bring your half here.” And just so they did. Jimmy found Snip, and then went along to a shady place under a tree; and there he climbed to the top rail of a fence, and sat down to wait.
 
Johnny went round to Mr. Juniper’s store, and asked for a cent roll of checkerberry lozenges. Mr. Juniper had no cent rolls of lozenges; but he had striped candy, and some quite large peaches, which he was willing, for reasons known to himself, to sell for a cent apiece. Johnny felt so thirsty, that he longed to bite of a peach: so he bought one, and turned back towards the garden. Having no knife to cut it with, he ate off his half going along; and this tasted so good, that he could hardly help eating Jimmy’s half. But he only nibbled the edges to make them even.
 
Turning a corner, he spied Jimmy, and jumped over into a field, so as to run across by a short cut. In the field he met Amos Dyke. Amos Dyke is a large boy, and a cruel boy. He likes to hurt small children who cannot hurt him.
 
Amos Dyke knocked Johnny’s elbow with a basket he was carrying, and made him drop the half-peach in the grass. Then Johnny began to cry.
 
“Now, if you don’t stop crying, I’ll eat it,” said Amos, taking up the half-peach, and setting his teeth in it.
 
“Oh! don’t you! don’t! give it to me! it’s Jimmy’s half!” cried Johnny. Amos took two bites,[Pg 40] and then threw away the stone. The stone was all there was left after the two bites were taken. Johnny cried louder than before.
 
“Here! stop that! stop that!” some one called out from the road. It was Mr. Tompkins the lobster-seller. “Stop!” cried Mr. Tompkins. “Let that little chap alone! Why don’t you take one of your own size?”
 
The fact is, that Amos Dyke never does take one of his own size. He always takes some little fellow who can’t defend himself.
 
Just about this time the funny man came along with his umbrellas under his arm. The funny man is an umbrella-mender. Then Amos Dyke, seeing that two men were looking at him, whispered to Johnny, “Hush up! Quick! Don’t tell! Come down to the shore, and I’ll let you go graping with me in a boat. I’ll run ahead and get the oars, and you go get Jimmy.”
 
The boat was a row-boat. Johnny sat at one end, and Jimmy at the other. Amos Dyke sat in the middle, and rowed. Before starting, he fastened a tall stick at the stern of the boat, and tied his handkerchief to it, and called that the flag.
 
They rowed along-shore, then off beyond the rocks, then in-shore again, and farther along, for nearly a mile, to a place called “High Pines,” and there landed. The grapes grew in the woods, on the top of a steep, sandy cliff as high as a high house. Twice, in climbing this cliff, did the little Jimmies slide down, down, down; twice was poor Snip buried alive; and many times were all three pelted by the rolling, rattling stones.
 
They reached the top at last, and found Amos[Pg 41] already picking grapes. He told them, that, if they would pick for him, he would give them two great bunches. The grapes were of a kind called sugar-grapes, light-colored, fragrant, and as sweet as honey. Amos told the little boys not to eat while they were picking. When he had filled his basket, he borrowed the Jimmies’ pocket-handkerchiefs, and tied some up in those. They were their “lion” pocket-handkerchiefs: each had in its centre a lion, with a b c’s all around the lion. Amos gave the Jimmies two great bunches apiece. He then hid the basket and two small bundles behind a bush, and they all three went to find a thick spot. When they found the thick spot, Amos, not having any thing else to pick in, took off his jacket, and filled both sleeves. Then he borrowed the Jimmyjohns’ jackets, and filled the four sleeves. Then he filled his own hat and the Jimmyjohns’ hats.
 
As it grew later, the wind breezed up, and the Jimmies began to feel cold. Amos had long pantaloons and a vest; but the Jimmies’ little fat legs were bare, and they had no vests: they only had thin waists, and their trousers were rolled up.
 
It began to sprinkle, and Amos said it was time to go. They went back for the basket and two small bundles, but were a long time in finding the bush, on account of the bushes there looking so much alike. They did find it, though; or rather Snip found it. The Jimmies took one apiece of the bundles, and wanted to take more; but Amos was afraid they might lose some of the grapes. Perhaps he knew pretty well how they would reach the foot of the cliff; perhaps he knew pretty well that they would begin slowly, and that[Pg 42] the sliding sands would take them along so fast they couldn’t stop themselves, and would land them at the bottom in two small heaps.
 
Now about the row home. Such a time as they had! There was no rain to speak of; but the wind blew hard, and this made the sea very rough,—so rough that the boat pitched up and down, and sometimes took in water. Amos told the Jimmies to hold on by the sides. They were seated at the ends, as before, and, by stretching their arms apart, could take hold of each side, and did so. Amos put on his own hat, and let them have theirs, but said it wouldn’t do to stop to empty the jacket-sleeves. The grapes from the hats were emptied into the bottom of the boat. Snip was in the bottom of the boat too. As there was no one to hold him, he lay down on the Jimmyjohns’ jackets.
 
And there he did mischief. The boat, it seems, was an old, leaky boat, and the leaks were not well stopped. Snip pulled out with his teeth, and chewed up, what had been stuffed into the cracks; and, before they knew what he was about, the water had begun to come in, and was wetting their feet and all the things in the bottom. The wind took their hats off, and blew the flag away. They caught their hats, and held them between their knees. Amos began to look sober. The little boys, half crying, held fast by the sides of the boat, saying over and over, “Oh, I want to go home!” “I want to see mother!”
 
This was the time when the trousers were cut. “I must cut pieces out of your trousers,” said Amos, “and stop the leaks, or we shall be drowned. Mine are too thick cloth.”
 
He took out his jack-knife as quick as ever he could, and cut pieces from their trousers, and stuffed the pieces into the cracks. Even this did not wholly keep the water from coming in: so, just as soon as they got past the rocks, Amos steered the boat to the land; and there he pulled her up, the Jimmyjohns pushing behind.
 
By this time it was after sunset. Amos emptied all the grapes, except those in his basket, out upon the ground behind a log, and covered them with dry seaweed. He let the Jimmies have a part of what were in their handkerchiefs. They all started then to walk along the sands. As the jackets were too wet to be worn, each boy carried his own on his arm. The Jimmies took turns in carrying Snip. In this manner they walked for nearly a quarter of a mile to the place they started from. There were two men coming down toward the water. As soon as Amos saw those two men, he ran away; for one was Mr. Plummer, and the other was the umbrella-man. The umbrella-man, it seems, had told Mr. Plummer that he saw his little boys in the field with Amos Dyke, and had come to help him find them.
 
Mrs. Plummer sat up very late that Saturday night.
 
CHAPTER V. A LEAF FROM A LITTLE GIRL’S DIARY.

IAM going to put some things about Effie in my diary; and this is the reason why I am going to put them in: My mother says, when Effie is a great girl she will like to read some of the things she did and said when she was three years old. And so will the Jimmyjohns when they grow up; and so I shall put in some of their things, too, when I have done putting in some of Effie’s things. The Jimmyjohns are my little brothers, both of them twins, just alike.
 
One time, Effie wanted to be dressed up in her best clothes to go up in the tree and see the sun-birds. She thinks that the tops of the trees are close up to the place where the sun is, and that makes her call birds sun-birds. And she thinks the birds light up the stars every night. My mother asked her, “What makes you think the birds light up the stars every night?” and Effie said, “Because they have some wings to fly high up.”
 
My father brought me home a pudding-pan to make little puddings in. It doesn’t hold very much: it holds most a cupful. And Joey Moonbeam is going to have a party; and, when she does, my mother is going to show me how to make a pudding in it. Joey Moonbeam is my very great rag-baby. She has got a new hat. I made it. Cousin Hiram says he is going to draw a picture of it on Joey Moonbeam’s head in my[Pg 47] diary before she wears it all out. Betsey Ginger is going to have some new clothes to wear to Joey Moonbeam’s party; and Dorothy Beeswax is going to have one new arm sewed on. Susan Sugarspoon, and Eudora N. Posy, and Jenny Popover, are not careful of their clothes, and so they cannot have some new ones. N. stands for Nightingale. Dear little Polly Cologne was the very smallest one of them all. She was the baby rag-baby. She was just as cunning, and she had hair that wasn’t ravellings. It was hair; and all the others have ravellings. Her cheeks were painted pink. She had four bib-aprons, and she had feet. We don’t know where she is. Rover—that little dog that we used to have—carried her off in his mouth, and now she is lost. Rover went away to find her when I told him to, and he did not come back. We don’t know where Rover is. We think somebody stole him, or else he would be heard of. We feel very sorry. He was a good little dog. My father says he was only playing when he carried her off.
 
 
I love all my rag-babies. I love Snip, but not so much as I do Rover. I love dear little baby-brother. I love the Jimmies, both of them. I love Effie, and[Pg 48] I love my mother, and my father, and grandma Plummer. I don’t love aunt Bethiah. Aunt Bethiah does not love little girls. When little girls have a pudding-pan, aunt Bethiah says it is all nonsense for them to have them. My mother said I might have raisins in my pudding. I like to pick over raisins. Sometimes my mother lets me eat six when I pick them over, and sometimes she lets me eat eight. Then I shut up my eyes, and pick all the rest over with them shut up, because then I cannot see how good they look. Grandma Plummer told me this way to do. Effie is not big enough. She would put them in her arm-basket. She puts every thing in her arm-basket. She carries it on her arm all the time, and carries it to the table, and up to bed. My mother hangs it on the post of her crib. When she sits up to the table, she hangs it on her chair.
 
One time, when the Jimmies were very little boys, they picked up two apples that did not belong to them under Mr. Spencer’s apple-tree, and ate a part. Then, when they were eating them, a woman came to the door, and said, “Didn’t you know that you mustn’t pick up apples that are not your own?” After she went in, the Jimmies carried them back, and put them down under the tree in the same place again.
 
I am going to tell what Effie puts in her arm-basket. Two curtain-rings, one steel pen she found, some spools, some strings, one bottle (it used to be a smelling-bottle), my father’s letter when he was gone away, a little basket that Hiram made of a nutshell, a head of one little china doll, Betsey Beeswax sometimes, and sometimes one of the other ones, a peach-stone to plant, a glass eye of a bird that was not a live[Pg 49] one, and a pill-box, and a piece of red glass, and pink calico, and an inkstand, and her beads, and a foot of a doll. One time it got tipped over when we played “Siren.” Mr. Tompkins was in here when we played “Siren.” He looked funny with the things on. Cousin Floy told us how to play it. The one that is the siren has to put on a woman’s bonnet and a shawl, and then go under the table, and then sing under there, and catch the ones that come close up when they run by. I caught Hiram’s foot. Hiram was so tall, he could not get all under. Cousin Floy stood up in a chair to put the bonnet on him. My father did not sing a good tune: it was not any tune, but a noise. My mother did, and cousin Floy did too. Mr. Tompkins squealed. Mr. Tompkins could get way under. The one that is caught has to be the siren. Soon as the siren begins to sing, then the others go that way to listen, and go by as fast as they can. The siren jumps out and catches them. My father got caught. He did not want to put on the bonnet; but he did. He did not sing a bad tune like Hiram’s, but a pretty bad one. He made it up himself. My mother told Hiram that sirens did not howl. When Johnny was caught, Jimmy went under there too, and had another bonnet; and they both jumped out together to catch. The tune the Jimmies sung was,—
 
“Toodle-doo was a dandy cock-robin:
He tied up his tail with a piece of blue bobbin.”
Effie was afraid to go under. Her arm-basket got upset, and made her cry. Snip flew at Hiram when Hiram caught Johnny. He went under, too, when they went[Pg 50] under, and barked most all the time. I was the one that got caught the most times, and so then I had to be judged; and I chose cousin Floy for my judge, and she judged me to tell a story.
 
We are going to have pumpkin for dinner. Joey Moonbeam’s party is going to be a soap-bubble party. When Clarence was the siren, he sang,—
 
“Hop, hop, hop!
Go, and never stop.”
Sometimes Clarence stops to play with us when he comes here. My mother says he is a very good boy. His father is dead: his mother is sick; so is his little brother. He has got two little brothers and two little sisters. They do not have enough to eat. He comes here to get the cold victuals my mother has done using.
 
CHAPTER VI. A LITTLE GIRL’S STORY.

MRS. PLUMMER holding “Josephus,” and Mr. Plummer, and grandma Plummer, and Hiram, take seats in the row, and play they are little children like the rest, waiting to hear the story. Hiram, sometimes called “the growler,” sits on a cricket, his long legs reaching across a breadth and a half of the carpet. Annetta seats herself in front of the row.
 
“Shall I make it up true, or ‘fictisher’?” she asks.
 
Annetta’s true stories tell of things which have really[Pg 51] happened. The “fictishers” are usually one solid mass of giants. In fact, her hearers have had so many and so very monstrous giants lately, that they can’t stand any more, and ask that Annetta shall “make it up true” this time; though, of course, what is true can’t be made up.
 
“Well, if I make it up true,” says Annetta, “I shall make it about the Jimmyjohns.” (The Jimmies, who are seated together in the row, look very smiling at this.) “All be very quiet,” Annetta goes on, “and keep in the row. Mr. Growly must not interrupt so much as he does most every time, because it’s every word true.
 
“Once there were two little twinnies named the Jimmyjohns, just as big as each other, and just as old, and just alike. And one day, when Joey Moonbeam was going to have a soap-bubble party, Annetta (me; but I mustn’t say me, you know)—Annetta wanted to make a pudding in her little pudding-pan, and her mother said she might. And her mother gave her some grease, so it needn’t stick on, and told how many teaspoonfuls of sugar to take, and milk and cracker, and twenty currants (because currants are smaller than raisins are). And one egg was too many for such a little one, and she couldn’t think what to tell about that: and Mr. Growly said humming-birds’ eggs would be the right size for such a little one; and he asked the Jimmyjohns if they would chase some humming-birds home and get their eggs, and they said ‘Yes.’ But he was only funning with them. And he took a little red box with white on top of it, that used to be a pill-box, out of Effie’s basket—she let him—for them to put the eggs[Pg 52] in when they found any, and put two white sugar-lumps in the box; and their mother said, when they found the eggs, they could eat the sugar-lumps up, and put the eggs in there.
 
“And first they went behind the syringa-bush; and, when one came, they said, ‘Sh!’ and began to crawl out. But Johnny tried to stop a sneeze’s coming; and so that sneeze made a funny noise in his nose, and scared it away.
 
“And first it went to the sweet-peas; and then it flew to some wild rose-bushes over the fence, and then to some other places. And they chased it everywhere it went. And then it flew across a field where there was a swamp; and, when they came to the swamp, they couldn’t find it anywhere. And they saw a boy there, and that boy told them maybe it flew over the hills. Then they went over the hills, and it took them a great while. And pretty soon there came along a little girl, and her name was Minnie Gray; and she came to pick flowers in a basket for another girl that was sick, and couldn’t go out doors to smell the sweet flowers. And she asked them where they were going; and they said to find humming-birds’ eggs for Annetta to put in her pudding, because Joey Moonbeam was going to have a soap-bubble party. And they asked her if she knew where humming-birds laid their eggs, and she said she guessed in a lily; and they asked her where any lilies grew, and she said in her mother’s front-yard; and they asked her if they might go into her mother’s front-yard and look, and she said they might. Then they went over to Minnie Gray’s house, and went into her mother’s front-yard, and looked in every one of the[Pg 53] lilies, but couldn’t find one. And pretty soon they saw the funny man, that mends umbrellas, coming out of a house with some umbrellas that he had to mend; and he asked them where they were going, and they said to find some humming-birds’ eggs for Annetta to put in her pudding that she was going to make in her pudding-pan, because Joey Moonbeam was going to have a soap-bubble party. And they asked him if he knew where to look for them, and he said they’d better climb up in a tree and look. Then he went into another house; and then they climbed up into Mr. Bumpus’s apple-tree and looked, and couldn’t find any; and Mr. Bumpus’s shaggy dog came out and barked, and Mr. Bumpus’s boy drove him away; and a limb broke with Johnny, and so he fell down, and it hurt him, and made him cry.
 
“And Mr. Bumpus called the dog, and told them to never climb up there and break his limbs off any more. And then they went along; and pretty soon the funny man came out of another house, and asked them if they had found any humming-birds’ eggs, and they said ‘No.’ Then he told them butterflies laid theirs on the backs of leaves: so they’d better go and look on the backs of leaves, and see if humming-birds did so. So they went into a woman’s flower-garden, and turned some of the leaves over, and looked on the backs of them; and a cross woman came out and told them to be off, and not be stepping on her flower-roots. And the funny man was coming out of a house way long the road; and, when they came up to him, he asked them if they’d found any, and they said ‘No.’ Then he laughed; and he told them that mosquitoes stuck their eggs together,[Pg 54] and let them float on the water in a bunch together, and they’d better go over to the pond and look there. So they went over to the pond, and he sat down to wait; and they went and looked, and came right back again, and said they didn’t see any. Then he told them water-spiders laid theirs in water-bubbles under the water, and he said they’d better go back and look again. So they went back and paddled in the water, and couldn’t see any eggs in any of the bubbles, and got their shoes and stockings very muddy with wet mud. And, when they went back, there was another man talking with the funny man; and that other man told them that ostriches laid eggs in the ground for the sun to hatch them out, and they’d better go dig in the ground. The funny man and that other man laughed very much; and they went away after that. And then the Jimmies got over a fence into a garden, because the ground was very soft there, and began to dig in the ground; and, when they had dug a great hole, a man came up to them, and scolded at them for digging that hole in his garden, and he made them dig it back again. And I’ve forgot where they went then. Oh, I know now!”
 
“Up on the hill!” cry the Jimmies both together.
 
“Oh, yes! I know now. Then they went up on the hill; and there was a boy up there, and that boy told them maybe humming-birds had nests in the grass, just like ground-sparrows. But they could not find one; and, when they were tired of looking, they sat down on the top of the hill. And by and by Mr. Bumpus came along, and his wife (that’s Mrs. Bumpus); and she asked them if they had seen Dan (that’s Dan Bumpus), and they said ‘No.’ Then she said she and Mr.[Pg 55] Bumpus were going to a picnic, and Dan was going. And she said they were going by the new roadway; and she asked them if they would wait there till Dan came, and tell Dan to go by the new roadway. And they promised to wait, and tell Dan. So they waited there a very long time, and didn’t want to stay there any longer; but they did, so as to tell Dan what they said they would. And then it was most noon; and Johnny said he was hungry, and Jimmy said he was too. The funny man saw them sitting up on top of the hill; and he went up softly and got behind some bushes when they didn’t see him, and looked through. And one of them wanted to go home; and the other one said, ‘’Twon’t do, ’cause we must tell Dan what we said we would.’ So they waited ever so long. And the one that had the red box took it out and opened it; and both of ’em looked in, and one of ’em asked the other one if he s’posed their mother would care if they ate up the sugar; and the other said mother told them they might eat the sugar-lumps when they found the eggs: so they didn’t know what to do. And, while they were looking at it, they heard a great humming noise in among the bushes. Then they crawled along toward the bushes, softly as they could, to see what was humming there. And they didn’t see any thing at first: so they crawled along and peeped round on the other side, and there they saw something very strange. They saw an old broken umbrella all spread open, and a green bush hanging down from it, and they saw the feet of a man under the bush; and the humming came from behind that umbrella. The funny man was behind there humming, but they didn’t know it; and he[Pg 56] was looking through a hole. And, when they crawled up a little bit nearer to see what made that humming noise, he turned round with the umbrella, so they could not see behind that umbrella; and, every time they crawled another way, he turned round so they could not see behind that umbrella; and when they began to cry, because they felt scared, he took down the umbrella, and that made them laugh.
 
“The baker was coming along the new road; and the funny man stopped him, and bought two seed-cakes of him for the Jimmies. And he told them they needn’t wait any longer for Dan, for Dan had gone by another way, riding in a cart. Then he came home with the Jimmyjohns; and, when they got most to the barn, they saw me—no, I mean saw a little girl named Annetta (but it was myself, you know); and the funny man put up his old umbrella, and began to hum; and he told her to hark, and hear a great humming-bird hum; and that made me—no, made the little girl laugh. And she wanted him to keep humming; and she went in and told the folks to all come out and see a great big humming-bird. So the folks came out, and he kept moving the old umbrella so they couldn’t see who was humming behind there. And when they tried to get behind him, so as to see who was humming there, he went backward up against the barn; but one of them went in the barn and poked a stick through a crack and tickled his neck, and that made him jump away. Then Annetta’s father said he knew where there was a humming-bird’s nest. Then they all went across a field to some high bushes; and Mr. Plummer lifted up the little children so we could look in; and there we saw two very, very tiny,[Pg 57] tiny white eggs, about as big as little white beans. The Jimmies wanted Annetta to take them to put in her pudding; but the funny man said they’d better not. He said he had read in a story-book, that, if you ate humming-birds’ eggs, you would have to hum all your life forever after. And so,” said Annetta, looking at the row from one end to the other, “the pudding never got made in the pudding-pan for Joey Moonbeam’s soap-bubble party.”
CHAPTER VII. THE BAD LUCK OF BUBBY CRYAWAY.

THE Jimmyjohns are never happy when their faces are being washed. Perhaps it is no more than right to tell the whole truth of the matter, and confess that they cry aloud at such times, and also drop tears into the wash-basin; which is a foolish thing to do, seeing there is then water enough already in it.
 
One morning, as little Mr. Tompkins, the lobsterman, came wheeling his wheelbarrow of lobsters up to the back-door of the cottage, he met the Jimmyjohns scampering off quite fast. After them ran Annetta, calling out, “Come back, come back, you little Jimmyjohn Plummers!” Effie, standing in the doorway, shouted, “Turn back, turn back, oo ittle Dimmydon Pummers!” Mrs. Plummer, from the open window, cried, “Boys, boys, come and be washed before you go!” Hiram said nothing; but, by taking a few steps with those long legs of his, he got in front of the runaways,[Pg 58] and turned them back, making motions with his hands as if he had been driving two little chickens. Mr. Tompkins took one under each arm, and presented them to Mrs. Plummer. Mrs. Plummer led them into another room. Strange sounds were heard from that room; but, when the ones who made those sounds were led back again, their rosy cheeks were beautiful to see.
 
Mr. Tompkins sat with a broad smile on his face. He seemed not to be noticing the two little boys, but to be smiling at his own thoughts: and, the while he sat thinking, the smile upon his face grow broader, his eyes twinkled at the corners, his lips parted, his shoulders shook; there came a chuckle, chuckle, chuckle, in his throat; and then he burst out laughing.
 
“I was thinking,” said he, “of a boy who—thinking of a boy I used to know a long time ago, down in Jersey, who—who tried to get rid of a small wetting, and got a big one. I shall have to tell you about that smart chap: I knew him very well. He was afraid to have his face washed, even when he had grown to be quite a large boy; and also afraid to have his hair cut. Sometimes in the morning, when his mother forgot to shut the windows before she began, people would burst into the house, asking, ‘What’s the matter? Anybody tumbled down stairs, or out the chamber-window, or got scalded, or broken any bones?”
 
“Why, did he cry as loud as that?” asked Annetta.
 
“Oh, yes! and pulled back, and twisted his shoulders, and turned his head the wrong way. I can tell you it was hard work getting him ready to go out in the morning. The boys called him ‘Bubby Cryaway.’ They were always watching for chances to wet him.[Pg 59] If he passed near a puddle, splash would come a great stone into the water! When he staid out after sunset, they would begin to shout, ‘Better go in, Bubby: the dew’s a-falling!’ Sometimes they called him ‘Dry-Goods.’
 
“But this is what I was laughing about. One morning he thought he would start out early, before his sisters said any thing about washing his face, or cutting his hair. They had then been coaxing him for a long, long time to have his hair cut. So he crept down the back-stairs, and across the back-yard, and through a back-alley, which took him into the worst-looking street in town. Here he met a fellow named Davy Bangs. Davy Bangs’s mother kept a little shop in that street: I’ve bought fish-hooks of her many’s the time. Davy Bangs asked him if he were going to the circus. He said ‘No:’ he hadn’t any money. Davy Bangs asked him why he didn’t catch frogs, and sell them to the circus-riders. He asked Davy if the circus-riders would buy them.
 
“‘Yes, and be glad to,’ said Davy. ‘They eat the hind-quarters: that’s what makes ’em jump so high. And if you’ll go over to Dutch Meadows,’ said Davy, ‘to that little swamp they call Duck Swamp, you can dip up frogs with a dip-net; and, if you want a dip-net, I’ll lend you our old one.’
 
“He went and got Davy Bangs’s old dip-net, and was hurrying along the streets with it, when a ragged country-boy—who had come in to the circus, I suppose—cried out,—
 
“‘Halloo, little fisherman! The man that keeps the furniture-store wants you.’
 
[Pg 60]
 
“Bubby turned back and found the furniture-store, and went in; and there he stood, waiting, waiting, waiting, till at last a workman ordered him off. As he was walking away, he saw the country-boy grinning at him from around a corner, and shouted,—
 
“‘The man didn’t want me! Now, what did you say that for?’
 
“‘I thought he’d want your hair to stuff cushions with!’ cried the boy, and then ran off.”
 
“Now, I think that was mean enough!” said Annetta.
 
“Pray, Mr. Tompkins, go on,” said Mrs. Plummer. “I want to hear what happened to the little fisherman.”
 
“Plenty of things happened to him,” said Mr. Tompkins. “He had to run so fast, to make up for waiting, that he stumbled over cellar-doors, and tumbled down half a dozen times, besides bumping against everybody he met. When he came to Dutch Meadows, he turned down a lane, thinking there might be a short cut that way to Duck Swamp. This lane took him past the house of a Mr. Spleigelspruch.” Here the chuckling sound came into Mr. Tompkins’s throat again; and presently he burst into a hearty laugh.
 
“Now, do please tell us; then we can laugh; but now we can’t,” said Annetta.
 
“I will,” said he. “I’ll tell—I’ll tell—he, he, he, he, he!—I’ll tell right away. That Mr. Spleigelspruch was a Dutchman,—a short, fat, near-sighted, cross old Dutchman. His wife took in washing. His wife’s sister, and his wife’s sister’s sister-in-law Winfreda, lived in another part of the same house, and they took in washing too. Winfreda was poor, and the other[Pg 61] woman made her do all the hardest jobs of work. Mr. Spleigelspruch got his living by selling eggs, poultry, and garden-stuff, and by raising the uncommon kinds of fowls,—fowls which brought high prices. He was troubled a good deal by boys coming around there, chasing his hens and stealing his eggs, and trampling on the clean clothes spread out on the grass. I suppose that was what made him so cross.”
 
“And did that old cross man touch that boy?” asked Johnny Plummer.
 
“I should think he did touch that boy!” said Mr. Tompkins. “Yes, yes, yes!—he, he, he, he!—I’ll tell you how it was. Just as the boy got to Mr. Spleigelspruch’s, a dozen or more people came running down the lane, screaming, ‘Elephant, elephant!—the elephant’s a-coming!’ There wasn’t a word of truth in this story. A few boys in town had shouted, ‘The elephant’s coming!’ meaning he was coming with the circus: and some folks who heard them thought the elephant had got away from his keeper; and they shouted and ran, and this made others shout and run, and this made others, and this made others; so that there was great confusion. Carriages were upset, windows smashed in, children jostled about; and some of the people were so scared, they ran out of town away past Mr. Spleigelspruch’s.
 
“Now, on this very day,” continued Mr. Tompkins, looking more and more smiling, “Mr. Spleigelspruch had received from his cousin in Germany, Mr. Lockken, a pair of very rare fowls called the ‘eagle-billed robin-fowl.’ They were very uncommon fowls indeed. The rooster was different from common roosters in three[Pg 62] ways,—in the tone of its voice, in the hang of its tail-feathers, and in the shape of its bill. Its bill was shaped very much like an eagle’s bill. Mr. Lockken had taken great pains to improve the tone of voice. This kind of thing is something which nobody else ever did; at least, nobody that I ever heard of.
 
“‘If I can only cause to be sweet the voices of the crowers,’ Mr. Lockken in Germany wrote to his cousin, Mr. Spleigelspruch, ‘it will be then like to having so many monster robins about our door-yards. Then shall I make my fortune.’
 
“Mr. Lockken began on a kind of fowl called ‘the eagle-billed fowl,’ and tried experiments upon those for a number of years; keeping almost every thing that he did a secret, of course. It was said that he shut up the chicks, as soon as they were hatched, in a large cage of singing-birds. He tried a good many kinds of food, oils especially, mixed in a good many ways; and at last—so he wrote his cousin, Mr. Spleigelspruch—he did get a new kind of crowers. Their voices were not quite as musical as robins’ voices, he said; but they were remarkably fine-toned. He called them the ‘eagle-billed robin-fowl.’ Mr. Spleigelspruch bought the first pair of these fowls which were for sale, and paid fifty dollars for them; and there was the expense of getting them over here besides. They arrived, as I said just now, on the very day I have been speaking of; and, as the place where they were to stay was not quite ready, they were put, for a short time, in a barrel near a board fence, quite a little way from the back-yard. Mr. Lockken said in his letter, that, for the first year, it would be better for them to be kept as far out of[Pg 63] hearing of the common kinds of crowers as was possible.
 
“Now, that chap with his dip-net, when those people yelled so about the elephant, jumped over the board fence in a hurry, and happened to jump right down upon that barrel, and knocked it over. He hit another barrel at the same time, and let out a duck,—some curious kind of South-sea duck, I think; but that wasn’t so much matter. When he came down, why, over went the barrel, and over went he, right into the duck-pond;[Pg 64] and out flew the eagle-billed robin-fowls. Mr. Spleigelspruch was busy, some ways off, getting their place ready. The first that he knew of the matter, a woman who lived in the next house screamed to him that somebody was stealing his fowls. He saw a boy running, and gave chase. He didn’t know then that his fowls had got away. The boy tried to get out of sight, and ran so fast he didn’t mind where he was going, and so ran over some clean clothes spread out on the grass. Mr. Spleigelspruch’s wife and his wife’s sister, and his wife’s sister’s sister-in-law Winfreda, came out with their brooms in a terrible rage. The wife’s sister caught hold of him, and the wife held him fast. There was a tub near by, which had some rinsing-water in it; and they dropped him into that, and held him down with their brooms, and sent Winfreda to the pump for more water. They said they would souse him. Mr. Spleigelspruch came up, bawling,—
 
“‘Stop thief! Police! Hold him! Rub him! Give it to him! Drub him! Scrub him!’
 
“He caught up Winfreda’s broom, but didn’t use it long; for in a minute that same woman ran into the yard, screaming, ‘They’ve got away!—your new fowls have got away!’ Then they all left the boy, and ran to catch the fowls. When Winfreda came back with the water, she behaved kindly to the boy. Winfreda had lived a hard life, and that made her know how to pity other folks. Bringing the water along, she thought to herself (so she told the boy afterward),—
 
“‘Suppose I had married in my young days, and suppose I had now a little grandson, and suppose he were treated like that boy,—oh, how badly I should feel!’
 
[Pg 65]
 
“She took him out of the water; she made him go up stairs and get between the blankets of her own bed; she fed him with broth; she hung his clothes on the bushes to dry; she borrowed another suit for him; and she let him out into the street through a place where there was a board loose in the fence. Next day his father took the clothes back, and changed them. The fowls had just been found in a swamp. It was thought that some country-people coming in to circus caught them the day before and carried them off, and that the fowls afterwards got away. They probably staid in the swamp all night, and that might have been the means of their death; though it might have been the sea-voyage, or change of air, or home-sickness: we can’t tell. They didn’t live very long after that.”
 
“And didn’t he get some more?” Annetta asked.
 
“No. The cousin in Germany died; and his fowls were not attended to; and a disease got among them, and carried them off. Mr. Spleigelspruch told me the whole story after I grew up.”
 
“What a pity,” said Hiram, “that those musical fowl couldn’t have spread over the country! ’Twould be a fine affair to have all the roosters singing in the morning, instead of making the kind of noises they do make. ’Twould be like an oratorio.”
 
“To be sure,” said Mrs. Plummer. “And I wish, for my part, that boy had staid at home. I suppose he has grown up by this time. It is to be hoped that he washes his face, and also that he doesn’t forget poor Winfreda.”
 
“Oh, no!” said Mr. Tompkins, stepping out, and[Pg 66] taking up the arms of his wheelbarrow,—“oh, no! I don’t forget Winfreda. I send her lobsters every spring.”
 
“You, you! what do you send her lobsters for?” asked Mrs. Plummer and Hiram, both speaking at once.
 
Mr. Tompkins trundled his wheelbarrow along pretty fast, laughing away to himself; and, when he got beyond the yard, he looked over his shoulder at them as they stood in the doorway, and called out, “I was the boy!”
CHAPTER VIII. WHAT MADE MR. TOMPKINS LAUGH.

ONE afternoon, when the Jimmyjohns were playing in the back-yard, Mr. Doty, the funny man as we sometimes call him, came jogging along. When he saw the little boys, he stopped, and began to push his hat up on one side, and to scratch his head, and to twinkle the corners of his eyes. Then he began:—
 
“Oh! you’re out here, so you are. What are you doing?”
 
“Making a flow,” they answered, looking up from the mud and water in which they stood.
 
“Hem! well, why don’t you go somewhere?”
 
“Ma won’t let us.”
 
“Won’t she? Oh, no, she won’t! will she? Well, hem! Why don’t you have a party?”
 
“’Tisn’t our birthday yet!” cried Johnny, hopping up and down with the pump-handle.
 
[Pg 67]
 
“Well, why not have a cocoanut-party?”
 
“We haven’t got any cocoanut.”
 
“Oh! I’ll find a cocoanut” (holding up one). “See here! Where are you going so fast?”
 
“To ask ma!” they shouted, running in doors.
 
The funny man’s eyes twinkled, and up went his hand to scratch his head again. Presently they popped their heads out, and asked,—
 
“When shall we have it?”
 
“Have it now,” said Mr. Doty.
 
“Have it now,” they told their mother.
 
“Where?” asked Mrs. Plummer.
 
“She says, ‘Where?’” shouted the Jimmies.
 
“Out here on the grass,” said Mr. Doty.
 
“Out here on the grass,” the Jimmies repeated.
 
“Who’s to be invited?” asked Mrs. Plummer.
 
“Who’s to be invited?” asked the Jimmies.
 
“Well—hem! Invite—anybody,” said Mr. Doty. “I’ll come: that makes one.”
 
“And I’ll make two,” cried Annetta, looking out of the window.
 
“What is it?—a party?” asked Hiram, stepping down from a high wood-pile with his long legs. “Oh, I’ll come! I’ll make three and a half. What kind of a party is it?—a birthday-party?”
 
“Oh, no, indeed!” said Mr. Doty. “Nothing of that sort. ’Tis a cocoanut-party.”
 
Just then little Effie came trotting along with her arm-basket.
 
“Can you come to our party?” asked Mr. Doty.
 
“No, I tan’t tum,” said Effie very soberly.
 
“What! not come to a cocoanut-party?” cried Hiram.
 
[Pg 68]
 
“No, I tan’t, tause my tittens’ eyes haven’t tum opened ’et,” said Effie.
 
“Ask the Jimmyjohns to wait till your kittens’ eyes come open,” said Hiram.
 
Little Effie went close to the Jimmies, looked up in their faces, and said, “Dimmydons, will oo wait till my tittens’ eyes tum opened?”
 
The Jimmies laughed; and so did another little fellow who was then coming out of the house. This was Clarence,—a poor boy who came every day with his basket to get what food was to be given away. Some people called him “the little gentleman,” because he had very good manners.
 
“Do you want to stay to the party?” Mr. Doty asked Clarence.
 
“If the Jimmyjohns will let me,” he said.
 
“Yes, yes, you may come!” they shouted.
 
“Can’t cousin Floy be invited?” asked Annetta. “She’s here playing with me.”
 
“By all means,” said Hiram. “And there’s Mr. Tompkins: maybe he’ll come to the party.”
 
Mr. Tompkins, the lobster man, had dropped his wheelbarrow, and come to look over the fence.
 
“Mr. Tompkins can’t leave his lobsters,” said Mr. Doty.
 
“Party?—yes, yes; always go to parties; boy’ll mind wheelbarrow,” said Mr. Tompkins in his short, quick way. “When is it going to begin?”
 
“Right off,” said Mr. Doty.
 
“What do you do first?” asked Hiram.
 
“Set the table,” said Mr. Doty.
 
“The girls must set the table,” said Hiram.
 
[Pg 69]
 
“Where is it?” asked cousin Floy.
 
“There it is: don’t you see it?” Hiram was pointing to a wagon-body which lay there without its wheels. He turned it upside down. “There’s your table,” said he.
 
After the pieces of cocoanut were placed on the table, Mr. Doty told the Jimmyjohns to ask their ma if she didn’t want to come to their party.
 
“I am longing to come,” cried Mrs. Plummer, appearing at the door. “I have thought of nothing else ever since it was first mentioned. Would baby disturb the party, do you think?”
 
“Not at all,” said Hiram. “Pray invite Josephus.”
 
“I wish some of you would be kind enough to bring him out,” said Mrs. Plummer. “He is fastened in his straw chair.”
 
“I will,” said Hiram.
 
Hiram brought out Josephus, then a rocking-chair, and then some common chairs for Mr. Doty and Mr. Tompkins. The children ran in for crickets. Snip capered after the Jimmies every step they took, and came near being trodden on.
 
There were seventeen sat down to table,—twelve that were in plain sight, and five that could not be seen very plainly. The twelve who were in plain sight were Mr. Doty, Mr. Tompkins, Mrs. Plummer, Josephus, Hiram, cousin Floy, Annetta, Effie, Clarence, Jimmy, Johnny, and Snip. The five who could not be seen very plainly were the cat and her four kittens. These were invited on Effie’s account, and came in their own private box.
 
Just as the cocoanut was being passed round, Mr.[Pg 70] Plummer appeared from the orchard, and asked what was going on.
 
“A party!” shouted the children.
 
“Well,” said Mr. Plummer, “I must say that it is rather strange that I have not been invited!”
 
“Won’t you come? Oh, do come!” the children called out.
 
“In my own yard too!—very strange indeed!” said Mr. Plummer.
 
“But won’t you come?”
 
“I haven’t had any invitation.”
 
“Take one; do come!” they shouted.
 
Mr. Plummer laughed, and went and sat down on a roller-cart close by Josephus.
 
“Will the party be done right away after supper?” asked Hiram as they all nibbled cocoanut.
 
“Oh, not so soon!” cried Annetta.
 
“It hasn’t lasted five minutes,” said Mrs. Plummer.
 
“Play charades; do, please do!” cried Floy. “I went to a real party last night, and they played charades. One charade was ‘Mother Goose.’”
 
“How do you play it?” asked Annetta.
 
“Oh, easy enough! Somebody has to be ‘mother;’ and then somebody has to be ‘goose;’ and then somebody has to be ‘Mother Goose,’ and say, ‘Sing song a sixpence, pocketful of rye.’”
 
“I speak not to be the ‘goose!’” cried Hiram.
 
“Who’ll be ‘mother’?” asked cousin Floy.
 
“You be ‘mother,’” said Annetta.
 
“Well, I’ll be ‘mother,’” said cousin Floy. “Who’ll be my little girl? There must be a little girl to keep coming in, and saying ‘Mother,’ and asking me for things.”
 
[Pg 71]
 
“I’ll be little girl,” said Hiram.
 
“Hoo, hoo! he, he! you don’t know how! you’re too tall!” shouted the children.
 
“Oh, yes! I know how. Come, Floy, let’s get ready.” And away they went into the house.
 
In about five minutes cousin Floy came out, dressed in Mrs. Plummer’s things,—shawl, bonnet, and skirt,—and with a serious face took her seat in a chair which had been placed upon the wagon. Then came Hiram, with Floy’s hat on, the elastic under his chin. For a sack he had turned his coat, which was lined with red, wrong side out; and he had pinned a shawl around his waist in a way which made it look like a dress-skirt.
 
Floy told him he must keep coming in to ask her something, and must call her “mother” every time. He did just as she had told him. He trotted out of the house and back, taking little short steps, asking a question each time, and imitating the voice of a small child.
 
“Mother, may I have a cent?” “Mother, may I go out to play?” “Mother, may I wear my new shoes?” “Mother, may I make corn-balls?” “Mother, may I have a doughnut?”
 
At each question the “mother” would shake her head very soberly, and say, “No, my daughter;” or, “Not at present, my daughter.”
 
“Good!” cried Mr. Tompkins,—“very good for ‘mother’! Now who’s going to be ‘goose’?”
 
“I will,” said Clarence.
 
“Come, then,” said Floy. “If cousin Hiram will help me, I’ll dress you up for ‘goose’ in the way they dressed up their ‘goose’ last night.”
 
[Pg 72]
 
Hiram and Floy took Clarence into the house, and got an old light-colored calico dress of Mrs. Plummer’s, and held it bottom up, and told Clarence to step in, and put his legs through the sleeves. Next they gathered the bottom of the skirt around his neck, keeping his arms inside. Then they tied a thin pocket-handkerchief over his head, covering face and all. Then they fastened a tin tunnel to the front side of his head, and called that the “bill of the goose;” and then pinned on two feather fans for wings, and hung a feather duster on behind for a tail. Floy told him he must stoop far over, and go waddling around, pecking with his bill like a goose.
 
The instant the “goose” appeared, all the people began to laugh: and when they saw it waddling around in the grass, pecking with its bill as if it were pecking at little bugs, they fairly shouted; some crying out, “Oh, what a goose!—oh, what a goose!” Josephus shouted too, and made his feet fly and his hands fly, and patted cakes enough for his supper. Snip barked, and ran this way and that way; keeping away from the “goose,” though.
 
The next thing was to put the two words together, and act “Mother Goose.”
 
“Mr. Tompkins,” said Mr. Doty, “why don’t you be ‘Mother Goose’?”
 
“I don’t believe Mr. Tompkins could keep from laughing,” said Hiram.
 
“Oh, yes, I could! I could keep from laughing,” said Mr. Tompkins; “but my nose is too short.”
 
“That Mother Goose’s nose last night,” said Floy, “had wax on it to make it long.”
 
[Pg 73]
 
“Nice way that,” said Hiram. “But, Mr. Tompkins, are you sure you can keep from laughing?”
 
Hiram had a reason for asking this question.
 
“Oh, yes! perfectly, perfectly sure,” said Mr. Tompkins. “Make me laugh, I’ll pay forfeit.”
 
Mr. Tompkins was so eager to show that he could keep from laughing, that he agreed to pay any kind of forfeit, and to dress in any kind of way.
 
Hiram took him into the house, and dressed him. First he lengthened out his nose with a piece of warm wax; then he tied a handkerchief over his head for a cap (for a cap-border he pinned on some strips of newspaper); and then he put a large round cape over his shoulders. A black shawl served for a skirt. When all this was done, he told Mr. Tompkins that he might sit down in the house and wait a few moments. He had a reason for telling him that.
 
Cousin Floy, a little while before, when the “goose” was being dressed, told Hiram of a way by which one of the actors was made to laugh at the “real party” she went to; and Hiram thought it would be fun to try it with Mr. Tompkins.
 
So, while Mr. Tompkins was sitting down to wait a few moments, they went into another room, and got a pillow, and dressed it up to look like an old woman. First they tied a string around the pillow, near one end, to make a head. On one side of this head they marked eyes, nose, and mouth with a piece of charcoal. Then they took a waterproof, stuffed out the sleeves for arms, and put that on the pillow-woman. Then they went up into grandma Plummer’s room, and borrowed an old cap, black bonnet, and spectacles, and put those on.
 
[Pg 74]
 
When the pillow-woman was ready, Floy ran and told them all to be sure and not laugh loudly when they saw what was coming, for fear Mr. Tompkins might hear them. The pillow-woman was then taken out by Hiram, and seated in a chair among the other people. He introduced her to them as “Mrs. Mulligachunk.” He pinned together the wrists of her stuffed arms, and let them drop in her lap, and placed a bundle on them to cover the place where there should have been hands. The bundle was tied up in a handkerchief. Then he placed a pair of shoes just where they would seem to be her feet, stood an umbrella by her side, and tipped her head back just a little; so that, when Mr. Tompkins should be standing on the wagon, she would appear to be looking him in the face.
 
“Come, Mother Goose!” cried Hiram; and Mr. Tompkins, in his funny rig, walked from the house, took his stand upon the wagon, and with a very sober face began:—
 
“Sing a song a sixpence, pocketful of rye;
Four and twenty blackbirds baked into a pie:
When the pie was opened, the birds be”—
At that moment his eye fell upon “Mrs. Mulligachunk.” She sat there in a row with the others, and seemed to be listening just the same as anybody. The people, who were all on the watch, burst out laughing; and Mr. Tompkins had to laugh too, in spite of all he could do.
 
Hiram sprang up. “Mother Goose,” cried he, “let me introduce you to Mrs. Mulligachunk.”
 
Mother Goose replied by taking off her things, and throwing them at Mrs. Mulligachunk.
 
[Pg 75]
 
Then Hiram asked the Jimmies if they didn’t want to take Mrs. Mulligachunk to ride.
 
“Yes, yes! yes, yes!” they shouted.
 
Hiram then put Mrs. Mulligachunk into the roller-cart,—bundle, umbrella, and all. The Jimmies caught hold of the handle, and away they ran like two smart little ponies, Snip barking behind with all his might.
 
Mr. Tompkins was about to follow; when Annetta and cousin Floy suddenly called out, “Forfeit, forfeit! You’ll have to be judged!”
 
Mr. Tompkins gave his penknife for a forfeit.
 
“Then judge me quick!” said he; “for I must be going.”
 
“To dance a jig!” cried Hiram.
 
“To tell a story!” cried cousin Floy.
 
“Yes, yes! that’s it!” cried Annetta.
 
“Oh, no! no, no! take too long,” said Mr. Tompkins.
 
But Mr. Plummer and Mrs. Plummer, and all the rest, kept shouting, “Story, story, story!”
 
“Well, well, story ’tis,” said Mr. Tompkins; “a small one, though.”
 
And then Mr. Tompkins began to tell a small story about a hen named Teedla Toodlum, who lived in a far-away country,—the name of which country was so strange, that not one of the people could remember it five minutes afterward. In the next chapter you shall have Mr. Tompkins’s story.
 
CHAPTER IX. MR. TOMPKINS’S SMALL STORY.

“IT must be a small one,” said Mr. Tompkins.
 
“Oh, yes! we’ve agreed to that,” said Mr. Plummer.
 
Mr. Tompkins then asked if they were willing it should be merely a hen-story.
 
“We’ll take the vote on that,” cried Hiram. Then, turning to the company, he said,—
 
“Ladies and gentlemen, it is known to you that our friend Mr. Tompkins has paid his forfeit, and that he has been judged to redeem it by telling a story. It was no more than right for him to pay a forfeit; for he laughed at a quiet old lady who never did him any harm, and treated her in an unkind manner. Mr. Tompkins now wishes to know if his small story may be merely a hen-story. All who are willing that Mr. Tompkins’s small story shall be merely a hen-story please to say ‘Ay.’”
 
“Ay, ay, ay, ay!” was shouted many times by young and old; and, what with the shouting and the laughing and the hand-clapping, there was such a racket as set Snip a-barking at the top of his voice. Josephus crowed, and made his feet fly, and patted cakes, and tossed them up so high, that he nearly threw himself over backward. The cat hopped out of her private box, her tail standing straight in the air: and it is more than likely that the kittens’ eyes came open with wonder;[Pg 77] which would have been a very great wonder indeed, seeing that the nine days were not much more than half over.
 
Mr. Tompkins then told the following short and simple story, which was written down upon the spot by the only person present who had a lead-pencil:—
 
There was once a hen who talked about another hen in a not very good way, and in a not at all friendly way. The hen she talked about was named Phe-endy Alome. Her own name was Teedla Toodlum. They both belonged to a flock of white hens which lived in the far-away country of Chickskumeatyourkornio.
 
Now, the one that was named Teedla Toodlum went around among the other hens, making fun of Phe-endy Alome on account of her having a speckled feather in her wing. She told them not to go with Phe-endy Alome, or scratch up worms with her, or any thing, because Phe-endy had that speckled feather in her wing.
 
One of the hens that Teedla Toodlum talked to in this way was deaf, and therefore could not hear very well. She had become deaf in consequence of not minding her mother. It happened in this way: A tall Shanghai roost-cock crowed close to her ear when she was quite small; when, in fact, she was just hatched out of her shell. She had a number of brothers and sisters who came out at almost the same time. The Shanghai stood very near, and in such a way that his throat came close to the nest, and he crowed there. The chicks wanted to put their heads out from under their mother, and see who was making such a noise. Their mother said,—
 
[Pg 78]
 
“No, no, no! Keep under! You might be made deaf: I’ve heard of such a thing happening.”
 
But one chick did put her head out, and close to the Shanghai’s wide-open throat too, and when he was crowing terribly.
 
Then her mother said,—
 
“Now I shall punish you: I shall prick you with my pin-feathers.”
 
And the chick was pricked, and she became deaf besides; so that, when she grew up, she hardly could hear herself cackle. And this was the reason she could not understand very well when the hen named Teedla Toodlum was telling the others that the hen named Phe-endy Alome had a speckled feather in her wing.
 
One day, the hen named Teedla Toodlum scratched a hole in the sand beneath a bramble-bush, and sat down there, where it was cool; and, while she was sitting there, a cow came along at the other side of the bramble-bush, with a load of “passengers” on her back. The cows in the country of Chickskumeatyourkornio permit the hens to ride on their backs; and, when a great many are on, they step carefully, so as not to shake them off. In frosty weather they allow them to get up there to warm their feet. Sometimes hens who have cold feet fly up and push off the others who have been there long enough.
 
The cow passed along at the other side of the bush, and by slipping one foot into a deep hole which was hidden with grass, and therefore could not be seen, upset the whole load of passengers. She then walked on; but the passengers staid there, and had a little talk together,—after their own fashion, of course.[Pg 79] The deaf one happened to be among them; and, seeing that the others were having great sport, she wanted to know what it was all about. Upon this the others—those of them who could stop laughing—raised their voices; and all began at once to try to make her understand. And this is what they said:—
 
“Think of that goose of a hen, Teedla Toodlum, telling us not to go with Phe-endy Alome because Phe-endy Alome has a speckled feather in her wing, when at the same time Teedla Toodlum has two speckled feathers in her own wing, but doesn’t know it!
 
Teedla Toodlum was listening, and heard rather more than was pleasant to hear. She looked through the bramble-bush, and saw them. Some had their heads thrown back, laughing; some were holding on to their sides, each with one claw; and some were stretching their necks forward, trying to make the deaf one understand, while the deaf one held her claw to her ear in order to hear the better.
 
“Ah, I feel ashamed!” said Teedla Toodlum to herself. “I see now that one should never speak of the speckled feathers one sees in others, since one can never be sure that one has not speckled feathers one’s self.”
 
“Why, that’s the way our cow does!” cried the Jimmyjohns as soon as Mr. Tompkins had finished.
 
“What! talks about speckled feathers?” asked cousin Floy.
 
“No: lets hens stay on her back.”
 
“Her parents, or grandparents, or great-grandparents, then,” said Mr. Tompkins, “probably came from Chickskumeatyourkornio.”