Bangs John Kendrick - Half-Hours with Jimmieboy стр 13.

After this bit of luncheon the boys invited him out to coast, and he went along with them to the top of a high hill without any snow upon it, and for hours he and they slid from summit to base in great red-wheeled wagons. It took his breath away the first time he went down, but when he got used to it he found the sport delightful. He was glad, however, when a voice from the little white house called to the children to return.

"Come in now, boys," it said. "It is getting too warm for you to stay out."

The boys were obedient to the word and they all a dozen of them at least trooped back into the house where Jimmieboy was welcomed by his friend the snowman again. The snowman looked a little anxious, Jimmieboy thought, but he supposed this was because the littlest snowboy had overheated himself at his play and had come in minus two fingers and an ear. It was not this, however, that bothered him, as Jimmieboy found out in a few minutes, for the snowman simply restored the missing fingers and the ear by making a new lot for the little fellow out of a handful of snow he got in the garden. Anything so easily replaced was not worth worrying over. The real cause of his anxiety came out when the father of this happy little family of snow boys called Jimmieboy to one side.

"You must go home right away," he said. "I'm sorry, but we have got to fly just as hard as we can or we are lost."

"But " said Jimmieboy.

"Don't ask for reasons," returned the snowman, gathering his little snowboys together and rushing off with them in tow. "I haven't time to give them. Just read that and you'll see. Farewell."

Then he made off down the garden path, and as he fled with his babies Jimmieboy picked up the thing the snowman had told him to read, and wandered back into the house, holding it in his hand. It was only a newspaper, but at the top of the first column was an announcement in huge letters:

The garden?

Not a bit of it.

Into Jimmieboy's nursery itself, and when the door closed upon him after he had stepped through it into the nursery and Jimmieboy turned to look at it, lo, and behold it wasn't there!

Nor was the snowman to be found the next morning. It was quite evident that he had got away from the warm wave that appeared on the scene the night before, for there wasn't even a sign of the shoe-button eyes or the battered hat, as there certainly would have been had he melted instead of run away.

VII. THE BICYCLOPÆDIA BIRD

And Jimmieboy of course was startled. So startled was he that, according to his own statement, he jumped ninety-seven feet, though for my own part I don't believe he really jumped

more than thirty-three. He was too sleepy to count straight anyhow. He had been lolling under his canvas tent down near the tennis-court all the afternoon, getting lazier and lazier every minute, and finally he had turned over square on his back, put his head on a small cushion his mamma had made for him, closed his eyes, and then came the "Boo!"

"I wonder " he said, as he gazed about him, seeing no sign of any creature that could by any possibility say "Boo!" however.

"Of course you do. That's why I've come," interrupted a voice from the bushes. "More children of your age suffer from the wonders than from measles, mumps, or canthaves."

"What are canthaves?" asked Jimmieboy.

"Canthaves are things you can't have. Don't you ever suffer because you can't have things?" queried the voice.

"Oh, yes, indeed!" returned Jimmieboy. "Lots and lots of times."

"And didn't you ever have the wonders so badly that you got cross and wouldn't eat anything but sweet things for dinner?" the voice asked.

"I don't know exactly what you mean by the wonders," replied Jimmieboy.

"Why, wonders is a disease that attacks boys who want to know why things are and can't find out," said the voice.

"Oh, my, yes I've had that lots of times," laughed Jimmieboy. "Why, only this morning I asked my papa why there weren't any dandelionesses, and he wouldn't tell me because he said he had to catch a train, and I've been wondering why ever since."

"I thought you'd had it; all boys do get it sooner or later, and it's a thing you can have any number of times unless you have me around," said the voice.

"What are you anyhow?" asked Jimmieboy.

"I'm what they call the Encyclopædia Bird. I'm a regular owl for wisdom. I know everything just like the Cyclopædia; and I have two wheels instead of legs, which is why they call me the Bicyclopædia Bird. I can't let you see me, because these are not my office hours. I can only be seen between ten and two on the thirty-second of March every seventeenth year. You can get a fair idea of what I look like from my photograph, though."

As the voice said this, sure enough a photograph did actually pop out of the bush, and land at Jimmieboy's feet. He sprang forward eagerly, stooped, and picking it up, gazed earnestly at it. And a singular creature the Bicyclopædia Bird must have been if the photograph did him justice. He had the head of an owl, but his body was oblong in shape, just like a book, and, as the voice had said, in place of legs were two wheels precisely like those of a bicycle. The effect was rather pleasing, but so funny that Jimmieboy really wanted to laugh. He did not laugh, however, for fear of hurting the Bird's feelings, which the Bird noticed and appreciated.