Bikey the Skicycle and Other Tales of Jimmieboy Part 19

"Yes, indeed," returned the voice. "It was splendid. I've never had any honey, but I'm told it's fine. It's very sticky, isn't it?"

"Very," said the rose bush. "I guess honey is about as sticky as anything can be."

"And very useful for that reason," said the voice up in the tree, kindly. "Very useful. I suppose, really, if it wasn't for honey, people couldn't make postage stamps stay on letters. You ought to be very happy to think that one of your thoughts has given people the idea of mucilage. Do they ever use honey for anything else but its stickiness?"

"Hoh!" jeered the rose bush. "Don't you know anything?"

"Not much," said the tree voice. "I know you, and me, and several other things, but that's not much, is it? It's really queer how little I know.

Why, would you believe it, a sparrow asked me the other day what was the difference between a robin's egg and a red blackberry, and I didn't know."

"What did you tell him?" asked the holly-hock.

"I told him I couldn't tell until I had eaten them."

"And what did he say?" put in the tiger lily, with a grin.

"He said that wasn't the answer; that one was blue and the other was green, but how a red blackberry can be green I can't see," replied the voice up in the tree.

Jimmieboy smiled quietly at this, and the voice up the tree continued:

"Then he asked me what color blueberries were, and I told him they were blue; then he said he'd bet a mosquito I couldn't tell him what color huckleberries were, and when I said they were of a delicate huckle he laughed, and said I owed him a mosquito. I may owe him a mosquito, but I haven't an idea what he was laughing at."

"That's easy," said the holly-hock. "He was laughing because there isn't any such color as huckle."

"I don't think that's funny, though," said the voice in the tree.

"Indeed, I think it's sad, because it seems to me that a very pretty color could be made out of huckle. Why do you suppose there isn't any such color?"

The lily and the rose and holly-hock bushes were silent for a moment, and then they said they didn't know.

"I'm glad you don't," said the tree voice. "I'm glad to find that there are some things you don't know. Just think how dreadful it would be if you knew everything. Why, if you knew everything, n.o.body could tell you anything, and then there'd never be any news in the world, and when you heard a joke you couldn't ever laugh because you'd have known it before."

Here Jimmieboy, impressed by the real good sense of this remark, leaned out of the hammock and peered up into the tree to see if possible who or what it was that was speaking.

"Don't," cried the voice. "Don't try to see me, Jimmieboy, I haven't got my company clothes on, and you make me nervous."

"But I want to see who you are," said Jimmieboy.

"Well you needn't want that any more," said the voice. "I'll tell you why. n.o.body knows what I am. I don't even know myself."

"But what do you look like?" asked Jimmieboy.

"I don't know that, either. I never saw myself," replied the voice. "I'm something, of course, but just what I don't know. It may be that I am a horse and wagon, only I don't think I am, because horses, and wagons don't get up in trees. I saw a horse sitting on a whiffletree once, but that was down on the ground and not up here, so, of course, you see the chances are that I'm not that."

"What do you think you are?" asked Jimmieboy.

"I haven't thought much about it. But I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll tell you what, perhaps, I am, and maybe that will help you to find out, and if you do find out I beg that you will tell me, because I've some curiosity on the subject myself."

"Go ahead," said Jimmieboy. "You give me the perhapses and I'll try to guess."

"Well," began the voice, slowly, as if, whatever it was, the thing was trying to think. Let me see.

"Perhaps I am a house and lot, Perhaps I am a p.u.s.s.y cat, Perhaps I am a schooner yacht, Or possibly an inky spot, Perhaps a beaver hat."

"I've never seen any of those up a tree," said Jimmieboy. "I guess you aren't any of those."

"Very likely not," said the voice, "but I can try a few more.

"Perhaps I am a picture book, It maybe I'm a candy box, Perhaps I am a trolling-hook, A tennis bat, or fancy cook, Perhaps a pair of socks.

"Perchance I am a pair of shears, Perhaps a piece of kindling-wood, Perhaps I am a herd of deers, Perhaps two crystal chandeliers, Or some old lady's hood.

"No man can say I'm not a pad On which a poet scribbles verse, It may be I'm a nice fresh shad, Or something else not quite as bad, Or maybe something worse."

"But none of these things ever go up trees," protested Jimmieboy. "Can't you tell me some of the things that perhaps you are that are found up in trees?"

"No," said the voice, sadly. "I can't. I don't know what kind of things go up trees--unless it's pollywogs or Noah's arks."

"They don't go up trees," said Jimmieboy, scornfully.

"Well I was afraid they didn't, and that's why I didn't mention them before. But you see," the voice added with a mournful little tremor, "you see how useless it is to try to guess what I am. Why, if you really guessed, I wouldn't know if you'd guessed right--so what's the use?"

"I guess there isn't any use," said Jimmieboy. "If I could only see you once, though, maybe I could tell."

Here he leaned far out of the hammock, in a vain effort to see the creature he was talking to. He leaned so far out, in fact, that he lost his balance and fell head over heels on to the soft green turf.

The mountain brook seemed to laugh at this mishap, and went babbling on to the great river that bore its waters to the sea, while Jimmieboy, somewhat dazed by his afternoon's experience, walked wonderingly back to the house to make ready for supper. He was filled with regret that he had not been able to catch a glimpse of the strange little being in the tree, for he very much wished to know what manner of creature it was, so stupid and yet so kindly--as, indeed, would I, for really I haven't any more idea as to who or what it was than he. What do _you_ think it was?

JIMMIEBOY'S FIREWORKS

_JIMMIEBOY'S FIREWORKS_

It was a very great misfortune indeed that Jimmieboy should make the acquaintance of the b.u.mblebee at that particular time--that is to say, everybody thought it was. The b.u.mblebee, as a rule, was one of the jolliest bees in the hive, and pa.s.sed most of his days humming away as if he were the happiest of mortals; but at the particular moment when Jimmieboy, who wasn't looking where he was going, ran into him, the bee was mad about something, and he settled down on Jimmieboy's cheek and stung him. He was a very thorough bee, too, unhappily, and he never did anything by halves, which is why it was that the sting was about as bad a one and as painful as any bee ever stang. I use the word "stang" here to please Jimmieboy, by the way. It is one of his favorites in describing the incident.

Now, it is bad enough, I have found, to be stung by a bee at any time, but when it happens on the night of July Fourth, and is so painful that the person stung has to go to bed with a poultice over his cheek and eye, and so cannot see the fireworks he has been looking forward to for weeks and weeks, it is about the worst affliction that a small boy can have overtake him--at least it seems so at the time--and that was exactly poor Jimmieboy's case. He had thought and thought and thought about those fireworks for days and days and days, and here, on Fourth of July night, he found himself lying in bed in his room, with one side of his face covered with a bandage, and his poor little other blue eye gazing at the ceiling, while his ears listened to the sizzling of the rockets and pin wheels and the thunderous booming of the bombs.

"Mean old bee!" he said, drowsily, as his other blue eye tried to peer out of the window in the hope of seeing at least one rocket burst into stars. "I didn't mean to upset him."

"I know you didn't," sobbed a little voice at his side. "And I didn't mean to sting you, only I didn't know it was you, and I was mad because somebody's picked a rose I'd had my eye on for a week, and you ran into me and spilled all the honey I'd gug--gathered, and then I--I was so irritated I stuck my stingers out and stang you. Can't you forgive me?"

Jimmieboy withdrew his other blue eye from the window in wonderment. He was used to queer things, but this seemed the queerest yet. The idea of a b.u.mblebee coming to apologize to a boy for stinging him made him smile in spite of his disappointment and his pain.