Bangs John Kendrick - Half-Hours with Jimmieboy стр 11.

"Particularly after you had told him what those other things were," said Jimmieboy.

"Yes; but I got even with him. He came to me one day to find out what an episode was, and I told him it was a poem in hysterical hexameters, with a refrain repeated every eighteenth line, to be sung to slow music."

"And what happened?" asked Jimmieboy.

"He told his teacher that, and he was kept in for two months, and made to subtract two apples from one lunch every recess."

"Oh, my, how awful!" cried Jimmieboy.

"But it served him right. Don't you think so?" said the Dictionary.

"Yes, I do," said Jimmieboy. "But tell me. What'll I tell papa that he doesn't know?"

"Tell him that a sasspipedon is a barrel with four sides, and is open at both ends, and is a much better place for cigar ashes than his lap, because they pass through it to the floor, and so do not soil his clothes."

"Good!" said Jimmieboy, peering across the room to where his father still sat smoking. "I think I'll tell him now. Say, papa," he cried sitting up, "what is a sasspipedon?"

"I don't know. What?" answered Jimmieboy's father, laying his paper down, and coming over to where the little boy sat.

"It's a it's a it's an ash-barrel," said the little fellow, trying to remember what the Dictionary had said.

"Who said so?" asked papa.

"The Dictionary," answered Jimmieboy.

And when Jimmieboy's father

came to examine the Dictionary on the subject, the disagreeable old book hadn't a thing to say about the sasspipedon, and Jimmieboy went up to bed wondering what on earth it all meant, anyhow.

VI. JIMMIEBOY'S SNOWMAN

After the snowman was finished Jimmieboy romped about him and shouted in great glee for an hour or more, and then, growing a little weary of the sport, he ran up into his nursery to rest for a little while. He had not been there very long however when he became, for some unknown reason, uneasy about the funny looking creature he had left behind him. Running to the window he looked out to see if the snowman was all right, and he was much surprised to discover that he wasn't there at all. He couldn't have melted, that was certain, for the air was colder than it had been when the snowman was put up. No one could have stolen him because he was too big, and so, well, it certainly was a strange conclusion, but none the less the only one, he must have walked off himself.

"It's mighty queer!" thought Jimmieboy. "He was there ten minutes ago."

Then he ran down stairs and peered out of the window. At the front of the house no snowman was in sight. Then he went to a side window and looked out. Still no snowman. And then the door-bell rang, and Jimmieboy went to the door and opened it, and, dear me! how he laughed when he saw who it was that had rung the bell, as would also have you, for, honestly, it was no one else than the snowman himself.

"What do you want?" asked Jimmieboy. The snowman made a low bow to Jimmieboy, and replied:

The snowman stared at Jimmieboy with all the power of the shoe-buttons. He was evidently surprised. In a moment or two, however, he recovered and said:

"Always, except when I speak in prose," said the snowman. "But perhaps you don't like rhyme?"

"Yes, I do like rhyme very much," said Jimmieboy.

"Then you like me," said the snowman, "because I'm mostly rime myself. But say, don't stand there with the door open letting all the heat out into the world. If you want to talk to me come outside where we can be comfortable."

"Very well," said Jimmieboy. "I'll come, if you'll wait until I bundle up a little so as to keep warm."

"All right, I'll wait," the snowman answered, "only don't you get too warm. I'll take you up to where I live and introduce you to my boys if you like only hurry. If a thaw should set in we might have trouble.

Jimmieboy, pondering deeply over his curious experience, quickly donned his overcoat and rubber boots, and in less time than it takes to tell it was out of doors again with the snowman. The huge white creature smiled happily as Jimmieboy came out, and taking him by the hand they went off up the road together.

"I'm glad you weren't offended with me because I wouldn't go in and sit down in your house," said the snowman, after they had walked a little way. "I had a very narrow escape thirty winters ago when I was young and didn't know any better than to accept an invitation of that sort. I lived in Russia then, and a small boy very much like you asked me to go into his house with him and see some funny picture-books he had. I said all right, and in I went, never thinking that the house was hot and that I'd be in danger of melting away. The boy got out his picture-books and we sat down before a blazing log fire. Suddenly the boy turned white as I was, and cried out: