Bangs John Kendrick - Half-Hours with Jimmieboy

John Kendrick Bangs Half-Hours with Jimmieboy

I. CHRISTMAS EVE AT JIMMIEBOY'S

"I think it's just too bad," said Jimmieboy, as he climbed into bed an hour later. "Just because those chimneys are small, I can't have a philocipede, and I've been gooder than ever for two weeks, just to get it."

Then, as his nurse extinguished the lamp and went into the adjoining room to sew, Jimmieboy threw himself back upon his pillow and shed a tear. The tear crept slowly down over his cheek, and was about to disappear between his lips and go back again to where it had started from, when a voice was heard over by the fire-place.

"Can you get it down?" it said.

Jimmieboy sat up and peered over toward the spot whence the voice came, but could see nothing.

"No. The hind wheels won't go through the chimney-pot, and even if they would, it wouldn't do any good. The front wheel is twice as big as the hind ones," said another voice, this one apparently belonging to some one on the roof. "Can't you get it in through the front door?"

"What do you take me for an expressman?" cried the voice at the fire-place. "I can't leave things that way. It wouldn't be the proper thing. Can't you get a smaller size through?"

"Yes; but will it fit the boy?" said the voice on the roof.

"Lower your lantern down here and we'll see. He's asleep over here in a brass bedstead," replied the other.

And then Jimmieboy saw a great red lantern appear in the fire-place, and by its light he noticed a short, ruddy-faced, merry-eyed old gentleman, with a snowy beard and a smile, tip-toeing across the room toward him. To his delight he recognized him at once as Santa Claus; but he didn't know whether Santa Claus would like to have him see him or not, so he closed his eyes as tightly as he could, and pretended to be asleep.

"Humph!" ejaculated Santa Claus, as he leaned over Jimmieboy's bed, and tried to get his measure by a glance. "He's almost a man must be five years old by this time. Pretty big for a small velocipede; still, I don't know." Here he scratched his beard and sang:

"Well, what's the result?" queried the voice on the roof.

"'Nothing,' as the boy said when he was asked what two plus one minus three amounted to. I can't decide. It will or it won't, and that's all there is about it."

"Can't we try it on him?" asked the voice up the chimney.

"No," returned Santa Claus. "That wouldn't prove anything; but we might try him on it. Shall I send him up?"

"Yes," came the voice from above, much to Jimmieboy's delight, for he was quite curious to see what was going on up on the roof, and who it was that owned the other voice.

In a moment Jimmieboy found himself in Santa Claus's arms, cuddled up to the warm fur coat the dear old gentleman wore, in which position he was carried up through the chimney flue to the roof. Then Jimmieboy peeped out between his half-opened eyelids, and saw, much to his surprise, that instead of there being only one Santa Claus, there were two of them.

"Oh dear!" he said in astonishment; "I didn't know there were two of you."

Both the Santas jumped as if some one had let off a cannon cracker under their very noses.

"Well, I declare!" said the one that had carried Jimmieboy up through the chimney. "We're discovered. Here I've been in this business whole centuries, and I've never been discovered before."

"That's so," assented the other. "We know now how America must have felt when Columbus came sailing in. What'll we do about it?"

"We'll have to take him into partnership, I guess," rejoined the first. "It'll never do in this world not to. Would you like to be one of our concern, Jimmieboy?"

"Oh, indeed I would," said Jimmieboy.

"Well, I say we let him help us

this time anyhow," said the roof Santa Claus. "You're so fat, I'm afraid you can't get down some of these small chimneys, and Jimmieboy is just about the right size."

"Good scheme," said the other; "but he isn't dressed for it, you know."

"He can get a nice black soot down in the factory chimney," said the roof Santa Claus, with a wink.

"That's so; and as the factory fires are always going, it will be a nice warm soot. What do you say, Jimmieboy?" said the other.

"It's lovely," replied the boy. "But how did there come to be two of you?"

"There had to be," said the first Santa Claus Jimmieboy had seen. "The world is growing so fast that my work has nearly doubled in the last twenty years, so I had to get an assistant, and he did so well, I took him into partnership. He's my brother."

"And is his name Santa Claus, too?" asked Jimmieboy.

"Oh no, indeed. His name is Marmaduke. We call him Marmy for short, and I can tell you what it is, Jimmieboy,

"That's a fact," said Santa, jumping into the sleigh and grasping the reins. "Just help Jimmieboy in here, Marmy, and we'll be off. We can leave his things here on our way back."