Bikey the Skicycle and Other Tales of JimmieboyBangs, John Kendrick
General
Bikey the Skicycle and Other Tales of Jimmieboy
Bangs, John Kendrick
Boys -- Juvenile fiction; Children's stories, American; Fantasy literature; Short stories, American
It was a warm, summer afternoon--just the sort of an afternoon for a
drowse, and when the weather was just right for it Jimmieboy was a great
drowser. In fact, a little golden-haired fairy with a silver wand had
just whispered to a butterfly that when it came to drowsing in an
interesting way there was nobody in the world who could excel Jimmieboy
in that accomplishment. Jimmieboy had overheard this much himself, but
he had never told anybody about it, because he found drowsing so very
easy, and the pleasures of it so great, that he was a little afraid
somebody else might try it and make him divide up his fun with him. It
was somewhat selfish of him to behave this way, perhaps, but then no
one ever pretended that Jimmieboy was absolutely perfect, not even the
boy himself.
It so happened, that upon this particular afternoon, Jimmieboy was
swinging idly in the hammock under the trees. On one side of him babbled
a little mountain stream, while on the other lay a garden full of
beautiful flowers, where the bees hummed the whole day through, and
whence when day was done and the night shadows were coming over all even
the sun's rays seemed sorry to go. In the house, a hundred feet away,
Jimmieboy's mamma was playing softly on a zithern, and the music,
floating out through the flower-scented air, set the boy to thinking,
which with him is always the preliminary to a doze. His right eye
struggled hard to keep awake, long after the left eye had given up the
fight, and it was due possibly to this that Jimmieboy was wide enough
awake at the time to hear a quaint little voice up in the tree calling
to the tiger lilies over near the house.
"Say, Tige," the little voice cried, "what time is it?"
"I can't see the clock," returned the lily. "But," it added, dropping
into verse:
"I judge from sundry tinkles
Of the bell upon the cow
That if it isn't later,
It is pretty nearly now."
"Thank you," said the voice up the tree, "I was afraid I'd miss my
train."
"So! You are going away?" said another voice, which, if his ears did not
deceive Jimmieboy, came this time from the rose bush.
"Yes," said the voice up in the tree. "Yes, I'm going away. I don't know
where exactly, because I haven't bought my ticket yet. I may be going to
the North Pole, or I may only be coming here. In fact, if my ticket
turns out to be a return ticket, it will amount to that, which makes me
wonder what's the use of going any way."
"But when does your train go?" asked the voice in the rose bush.
"A week from next Thursday," said the tree voice. "I didn't know but
that it was then now. You see I always get mixed up as to what time it
is or what day it is. This isn't a date tree, and I haven't any
calendar."
"I guess you've got plenty of time," chuckled the tiger lily, nodding
its head gleefully at the holly-hock. "It won't be a week from next
Thursday for several days yet."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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