Half-Hours with Jimmieboy

And it so happened; and although he could not tell exactly why, Jimmieboy felt happier after leaving the cars at the little sick boy's house than he ever thought he could be.

"Now, Jimmieboy," said Santa, as Marmy took the reins and they drove off again, "while Marmy and I are attending to the hotels and flat-houses, we want you to take that brown bag and go down the chimney of the orphan asylum, and leave one toy for each little child there. There are about a hundred little orphans to be provided for."

"What's orphans?" asked Jimmieboy.

"Orphans? Why, they are poor little boys and girls without any papas and mammas, and they all have to live together in one big house. You'll see 'em fast asleep in their little white cots when you get down the chimney, and you must be very careful not to wake them up."

"I'll try not to," said Jimmieboy, softly, a lump growing up in his throat as he thought of the poor children who had no parents. "And I'll make sure they all get something, too."

"That's right," said Marmy. "And here's where they live. You take the bag now, and we'll let you down easy, and when we get through, we'll come back for you."

So Jimmieboy shouldered the bag full of toys, and was lowered through the chimney into the room where the orphans were sleeping. He was surprised to find how light the bag was, and he was almost afraid there would not be enough toys to go around; but there were, as he found out in a moment. There were more than enough by at least a dozen of the most beautiful toys he had ever seen – just the very things he would most have liked to have himself.

"I just guess I'll give 'em one of these things apiece, and keep the extra ones, and maybe perhaps they'll be for me," he said.

So he arranged the toys quietly under the stockings that hung at the foot of the little white beds, stuffing the stockings themselves with candies and apples and raisins and other delicious things to eat, and then sat down by the fire-place to await the return of Santa Claus and Santa's brother Marmy. As he sat there he looked around the dimly lighted room, and saw the poor thin white faces of the little sleeping orphans, and his heart stirred with pity for their sad condition. Then he looked at the bag again, and saw the extra dozen toys that were so pleasing to him, and he wondered if it would make the orphans happier next morning if they should wake and find them there, too. At first he wasn't sure but that the orphans had enough; and then he thought of his own hamper full of dolls, and dogs, and tin soldiers, and cars, and blocks, at home, and he tried to imagine how much fun he could get out of a single toy, and he couldn't quite bring himself to believe that he could get much.

"One toy is great fun for an hour," he said to himself, "but for a year, dear me! I guess I won't keep them, after all. I'll just put them in the middle of the room, so that they'll find them in the morning, and maybe perhaps – Hello!" he added, as he took the extra toys out of the bag; "they were for me, after all. They've got my name on 'em. Oh, dear! isn't it love – I don't know, though. Seems to me I'd better leave them here, even if they are for me. I can get along without them because I have a papa to play with, and he's more fun than any toy I ever had; and mamma's better'n any doll baby or choo-choo car I ever saw. Yes, I will leave them."

And the little fellow was true to his purpose. He emptied the bag to the very last toy, and then, hearing the tinkling bells of Santa's sleigh on the roof again, he ran to the chimney, and was hauled up by his two new friends to the roof.

"Why, you've left everything except the bag!" cried Marmy, as Jimmieboy climbed into the sleigh.

"Yes," said Jimmieboy, with a little sigh; "everything."

"But the bag had all your things in it, and we haven't a toy or a sugar-plum left for you," said Santa.

"Never mind," said Jimmieboy. "I don't care much. I've had this ride with you, and – al – together I'm – pret – ty well – satis – fi – "

Here the little assistant to the Claus brothers, lulled by the jingling of the bells, fell asleep.

It was morning when he waked again – Christmas morning – and as he opened his eyes he found himself back in his little crib, pondering over the mysterious experiences of the night. His heart was strangely light and happy even for him, especially when he thought of the little orphan children, and tried to imagine their happiness on waking and finding the extra toys – his toys – in addition to their own; and as he thought about it, his eyes wandered to the chimney-place, and an unexpected sight met his gaze, for there stood the much-wished-for velocipede, and grouped around it on the floor were a beautiful set of choo-choo cars exactly like those he had left with the sick boy, and a duplicate of every one of the extra toys he had left at the asylum for the orphans.

"They must have been playing a joke on me," he cried, in delighted tones, as he sprang out of bed and rushed over to where the toys lay. "I do believe they left them here while I was in the asylum. The – dear – old – things!"

And then Jimmieboy was able to measure the delight of the orphan children and the little sufferer by comparing it with his own; and when he went to bed that night, he whispered in his mamma's ear that he didn't know for sure, but he thought that if the orphans only had a papa and a mamma like his, they would certainly be the happiest little children in all the world.

II

THE DWARF AND THE DUDE GIANT

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Both," said Jimmieboy, placidly.

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

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

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

"Now it happened that in the same exhibition with the Dude Giant there was a Dwarf named Tiny W. Littlejohn – W standing for Wee, which was his middle name. He was a very good-natured fellow, Tiny was, and as far as he knew he hadn't an enemy in the world. He was so very nice that everybody who came to the exhibition brought him cream cakes, and picture books, and roller skates, and other beautiful things, and nobody ever thought of going away without buying his photograph, paying him twenty-five cents extra for the ones with his autograph on, which his mother wrote for him. In this way the Dwarf soon grew to be a millionaire, while the Dude Giant squandered all he had on riotous hats, and so remained as poor as when he started. For a long time everything went smoothly at the Exhibition. There were no jealousies or quarrels of any sort, except between the Glass Eater and the man who made Glass Steamboats, and that was smoothed over in a very short time by the Glass Eater saying that the Glass-blower made the finest crystal pies he had ever tasted. But contentment and peace could not last forever in an establishment where one attraction was growing richer and richer every day as the Dwarf was, while another, the Dude Giant, was no better off than the day he joined the show, and when finally the Dwarf began to come every morning in a cab of his own, drawn by a magnificent gray horse with a banged tail, and to dress better even than the proprietor of the Museum himself, the Dude Giant became very envious, and when the Dude Giant gets envious he is a very disagreeable person. For instance, when no one was looking he would make horrible faces at Tiny, contorting his four mouths and noses and eight cheeks all at once in a very terrifying manner, and when he'd look cross-eyed at the Dwarf with all eight of his eyes poor Tiny would get so nervous that he would try to eat the roller skates and picture books, instead of the cream cakes people brought him, and on one occasion he broke two of his prettiest teeth doing it, which marred his personal appearance very much.

"Tiny stood it as long as he could, and then he complained to his friend, the Whirlwind, about it, and the Whirlwind, who was a very sensible sort of a fellow, advised him not to mind it. It was only jealousy, he said, that led the Dude Giant to behave that way, and if Tiny had not been more successful than Forepate – as the Dude Giant was called – Forepate wouldn't have been jealous, so that his very jealousy was an acknowledgment of inferiority. So Tiny made up his mind he wouldn't pay any attention to the Dude Giant at all, but would go right ahead minding his own business and making all the money he could.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"That night, of course, Forepate had to release him, and Tiny hurried away fairly howling with anger. When he arrived at home he told his mother how he had been treated and how he had been done out of a whole day's cream cakes and picture books and roller skates, and she advised him to go at once to the Whirlwind and confide his woe to him, which he did.

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

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

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

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

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

"So, on the following Sunday the Dwarf climbed up on one of the front stoops on Fifth avenue, near Thirty-fourth street, and waited. He hadn't been there long when he saw Forepate striding down the avenue dressed in his best clothes, and wearing upon his heads four truly magnificent beavers, which he had just received from London, and of which he was justly proud.

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