In Camp With A Tin Soldier

Which is unfortunate.

For when this ambiguity
Has seized upon his prize,
Whate'er man tries, to do it he
Will find when he is through it, he
Had best done otherwise.

And hence it is this animal,
Of which I sing my song,
This creature reprehensible,
Is held by persons sensible
Responsible for wrong.

So if a friend or foe you see
Departing from his aim,
Be full, I pray, of charity —
He may have met the Quandary,
And so is not to blame."

"That is very pretty," said Jimmieboy, as the major finished; "but, do you know, major, I don't understand one word of it."

Much to Jimmieboy's surprise the major was pleased at this remark.

"Thank you, Jimmieboy," he said. "That proves that I am a true poet. I think there's some meaning in those lines, but it's so long since I wrote them that I have forgotten exactly what I did mean, and it's that very thing that makes a poem out of the verses. Poetry is nothing but riddles in rhyme. You have to guess what is meant by the lines, and the harder that is, the greater the poem."

"But I don't see much use of it," said Jimmieboy. "Riddles are fun sometimes, but poetry isn't."

"That's very true," said the major. "But poetry has its uses. If it wasn't for poetry, the poets couldn't make a living, or if they did, they'd have to go into some other business, and most other businesses are crowded as it is."

"Do people ever make a living writing poetry?" Jimmieboy asked.

"Once in a while. I knew a man once who did. He called himself the Grocer-Poet, because he was a grocer in the day-time and a poet at night. He sold every poem he wrote, too," said the major.

"To a newspaper?" asked Jimmieboy.

"Oh, no," said the major. "He bought 'em from himself. When he'd wake up in the morning as a grocer he'd read what he had written the night before as a poet, and then he'd buy the verses from himself and throw them into the fire. But to return to the Quandary. He has awfully bad manners. He stares you right in the face whenever he meets you, and no matter what you want to do he tries to force you to do the other thing. The only way to escape him is not to do anything, but go back where you started from, and begin all over again."

"Where did you meet him?" asked Jimmieboy.

"Where? Why, where he's always met, of course, at a fork in the road. That's where he gets in his fine work," said the major. "Suppose, for instance, you were out for a stroll, and you thought you'd like to go – well, say to Calcutta. You stroll along, and you stroll along, and you stroll along. Then you come to a place where the road splits, one half going to the right and one to the left, or, if you don't like right and left, we'll say one going to Calcutta by way of Cape Horn, and the other going to Calcutta by way of Greenland's icy mountains."

"It's a long walk either way," said Jimmieboy.

"Yes. It's a walk that isn't often taken," assented the major, with a knowing shake of the head. "But at the fork of this road the Quandary attacks you. He stops you and says, 'Which way are you going to Calcutta?' and you say, 'Well, as it is a warm day, I think I'll go by way of Greenland's icy mountains.' 'No,' says the Quandary, 'you won't do any such thing, because it may snow. You'd better go the other way.' 'Very well,' say you, 'I'll go the other way, then.' 'Why do you do that?' queries the Quandary. 'If it should grow very warm you'd be roasted to death.' 'Then I don't know what to do,' say you. 'What is the matter with going both ways?' says the Quandary, to which you reply, 'How can I do that?' 'Try it and see,' he answers. Then," continued the major, his voice sinking to a whisper – "then you do try it and you do see, unless you are a wise, sagacious, sapient, perspicacious, astute, canny, penetrating, needle-witted, learned man of wisdom like myself who knows a thing or two. In that case you don't try, for you can see without trying that any man with two legs who tries to walk along two roads leading in different directions at once is just going to split into at least two halves before he has gone twenty miles, and that is just what the Quandary wants you to do, for it's over such horrible spectacles as a man divided against himself that he gloats, and when he is through gloating he swallows what's left."

"And what does the wise, sagacious, sappy, perspiring man of wisdom like yourself who knows a thing or two do?" asked Jimmieboy.

"I didn't say sappy or perspiring," retorted the major. "I said sapient and perspicacious."

"Well, anyhow, what does he do?" asked Jimmieboy.

"He gives up going to Calcutta," observed the major.

"Oh, I see. To gain a victory over the Quandary you turn and run away?" asked Jimmieboy.

"Yes, that's it. That's what saved me. I cried for help, turned about, and ran back here, and I can tell you it takes a brave man to turn his back on an enemy," said the major.

"And why didn't the soldiers do it too?" queried Jimmieboy.

"There wasn't anybody to order a retreat, so when the Quandary attacked them they marched right on, single file, and every one of 'em split in two, fell in a heap, and died."

"But I should think you would have ordered them to halt," insisted Jimmieboy.

"I had no power to do so," the major replied. "If I had only had the power, I might have saved their lives by ordering them to march two by two instead of single file, and then when they met the Quandary they could have gone right ahead, the left-hand men taking the left-hand road, the right-hand men the right, but of course I only had orders to tell them to come back here, and a soldier can only obey his orders. It was awful the way those noble lives were sacrifi – "

Here Jimmieboy started to his feet with a cry of alarm. There were unmistakable sounds of approaching footsteps.

"Somebody or something is coming," he cried.

"Oh, no, I guess not," said the major, getting red in the face, for he recognized, as Jimmieboy did not, the firm, steady tread of the returning soldiers whom he had told Jimmieboy the Quandary had annihilated. "It's only the drum of your ear you hear," he added. "You know you have a drum in your ear, and every once in a while it begins its rub-a-dub-dub just like any other drum. Oh, no, you don't hear anybody coming. Let's take a walk into the forest here and see if we can't find a few pipe plants. I think I'd like to have a smoke."

"Why, you naughty major!" cried Jimmieboy, shaking his arm, which his companion had taken, free from the major's grasp. "You've been telling me a great big fib, because there are the soldiers coming back again."

"What!" ejaculated the major, in well-affected surprise. "Well, I declare! So they are. Dear me! Why, do you know, general, that is the most marvelous cure I ever saw in my life. To think that all those men whom I saw not an hour ago lying dead on the field of battle, all ready for the Quandary's luncheon, should have been resusitated in so short a time, as – "

"Halt!" roared Jimmieboy, interrupting the major in a most unceremonious fashion, for the soldiers by this time had reached a point in the road directly opposite where he was sitting.

The soldiers halted.

"Break ranks!" cried Jimmieboy, after the corporal had told him the proper order to give next.

The soldiers broke ranks, and in sheer weariness threw themselves down on the soft turf at the side of the road – all except the corporal, who at Jimmieboy's request came and sat down at the general's side to make his report.

"This is fine weather we are having, corporal," said the major, winking at the subordinate officer, and trying to make him understand that the less he said about the major the better it would be for all concerned.

"Yes," returned the corporal. "Better for sleeping than for military duty, eh, major?"

Here the major grew pale, but had the presence of mind to remark that he thought it might rain in time for tea.

"There's something behind all this," thought Jimmieboy; "and I'm going to know what it all means."

Then he said aloud, "You have had a very speedy recovery, corporal."

Here the major cleared his throat more loudly than usual, blushed rosy red, and winked twice as violently at the corporal as before.

"Did you ever hear my poem on the 'Cold Tea River in China'?" he asked.

"No," said the corporal, "I never did, and I never want to."