"Who are you?" he said, looking toward the foot of the bed, whence the voice had come.
"I used to be a b.u.mblebee," sobbed the little voice, "but I"ve changed my first letter from "b" to "h." I"m only an humble-bee now, and all because I"ve treated you so badly. I really didn"t mean to, and I"ve come to help you have a good time to-night, so that you won"t miss the fireworks because of my misbehavior."
"Don"t mention it," said Jimmieboy, kindly. "It was my fault, after all.
I hadn"t ought to have run into you."
"Yes, you had ought to have, too," moaned the little bee. "You were just right in running into me. I hadn"t ought to have got in your way."
"Well, anyhow, it"s all right," said Jimmieboy. "You"re forgiven--though you did hurt me like everything."
"I know it," sobbed the bee. "I almost wish you"d get a pin and stick it into me once, so as to sort of just even things up. It would hurt me, I know, but then I"d feel better after I got well."
"Indeed I won"t," said Jimmieboy, with a determined shake of his head.
"That won"t do any good, and what"s the use anyhow, as long as you didn"t mean it?"
"I"m sure I don"t know," the bee answered. "I"m only a bug, after all, you know, and so I don"t understand things that human beings which has got brains can understand. I"ve noticed, though, that sometimes when a boy gets hurt it sort of makes him feel better if he hurts back."
"I wouldn"t mind a bit if I could see the fireworks," said Jimmieboy.
"That"s what hurts the most."
"Well, I"ll tell you what you do," said the bee; "if that"s all you feel bad about, we can fix it up in a jiffy. Do you know what a jiffy is?"
"No, I don"t," said Jimmieboy.
"Well, I"ll tell you," said the bee, "but don"t you ever tell:
"Sixty seconds make a minute, Sixty minutes make an hour; But a second has within it Sixty jiffies full of power.
"In other words, a jiffy is just the same thing to a second as the second is to the minute or the minute to the hour; and, dear me, what billions of things can happen in a jiffy! Why, they"re simply enormous."
"They must be," said Jimmieboy, "if, as you say, you can fix me up in regard to the fireworks in a jiffy."
"There isn"t any if about it," returned the bee. "Just turn over and put your face into the pillow, and see what you can see."
"I can"t see anything with both eyes in my pillow, much less with one,"
said Jimmieboy.
"Well--try it," said the bee. "I know what I"m buzzing about."
So Jimmieboy, just to oblige his strange little friend, turned over and buried his face in the pillow. At first, as far as he could see, there was nothing going on in the pillow to make it worth while; but all of a sudden, just as he was about to withdraw his face, a great golden pin wheel began to whizz and whirr right in front of him, only instead of putting forth fire it spouted jewels and flowers, and finally right out of the middle of it there popped a tiny bit of a creature all dressed in spangles, looking for all the world like a Brownie. He bowed to Jimmieboy politely and requested him to open his mouth as wide as he could.
"What for?" asked Jimmieboy, naturally a little curious to know the meaning of this strange proceeding.
"I am going to set off the sugar-plum bomb," the little creature replied. "But of course if you don"t want the sugar-plums you can keep your mouth closed."
"Can"t I catch "em in my hands?" said Jimmieboy.
"You can if you want to, but they won"t be of any use if you do,"
returned the little creature. "You see, this bomb shoots out candy instead of sparks, but the candy is so delicate that, like the sparks in fire fireworks, it goes out just as soon as it comes down. If you catch "em in your hands you won"t be able to see how good they taste, don"t you see?"
"Yeh," said Jimmieboy, opening his mouth as wide as he could, and so speaking with difficulty. "Hire ahay!"--by which I presume he meant fire away, only he couldn"t say it plainly with his mouth open.
And then the little creature set off the sugar-plum bomb, and the candies it put forth were marvelous in number and sweetness, and, strange to say, there wasn"t one of them that, in falling, came down anywhere but in the mouth of the small boy who had been "stang."
"Got any cannon crackers?" asked Jimmieboy, delighted with what he had already seen, as soon as the sweet taste from the sugar-plums died away.
"I"m fond of noise, too."
"Well," said the little creature, "we have great big crackers, only they don"t break the silence in just the way you mean. They make a noise, but it isn"t just a plain ordinary crash such as your cannon crackers make.
We call "em our Grand Opera Crackers. I"ll set one off and let you see what I mean."
So the little creature opened a big chest that in some way happened to come up out of the ground beside him, and with difficulty hauled from it a huge thing that looked like the ordinary giant crackers that Jimmieboy was used to seeing. It was twice as big as the little creature, but he got it out nevertheless.
"My!" cried Jimmieboy. "That"s fine. That ought to make lots of noise."
"It will," returned the little creature, touching a match to the fuse.
"Just listen now."
The fuse burned slowly along, and then, with a great puff of smoke, the cracker burst, but not into a mere crash as the little creature had hinted, but into a most entrancing military march, that was inspiring enough to set even the four legs of the heaviest dinner-table to strutting about the room. Jimmieboy could hardly keep his own feet still as the music went on, but he did not dare draw his face away from the pillow so that he might march about the room, for fear that by so doing he would lose what might remain of this wonderful exhibition, whose like he had never even dreamed of before, and alongside of which he felt that the display he had missed by having to go to bed must be as insignificant as a pin compared to Cleopatra"s great stone needle.
"That was fine!" he cried, ecstatically, as the last echoes of the musical cracker died away. "I wouldn"t mind having a hundred packs of those. Have you got any music torpedoes?"
"No," returned the little creature. "But we"ve got picture torpedoes.
Look at this." The little creature here took a small paper ball from the chest, and, slamming it on the ground with all his might, it exploded, and the spot whereon it fell was covered with a gorgeous little picture of Jimmieboy himself, all dressed in sailor"s clothes and dancing a hornpipe.
"That"s a very good picture of you," said the little creature, looking at the dancing figure. "It"s so full of motion, like you. Here"s another one," he added, as the picture from the first torpedo faded away. "This shows how you"d look if you were a fairy."
The second torpedo was slammed down upon the ground just as the first had been, and Jimmieboy had the pleasure of seeing himself in another picture, only this time he had gossamer wings and a little wand, and he was flying about a great field of poppies and laughing with a lot of other fairies, among whom he recognized his little brothers and a few of his playmates. He could have looked at this all night and not grown weary of it, but, like a great many other good things, the picture could not last forever, and just at the most interesting point, when he saw himself about to fly a race across the poppy-field with a robin, the picture faded away, and the little creature called out: "Now for the finest of the lot. Here goes the Fairy-Book Rocket!"
With a tremendous whizz, up soared the most magnificent rocket you ever saw. It left behind it a trail of golden fire that was dazzling, and then, when it reached its highest point in the sky, it burst as all other rockets do, but, instead of putting forth stars, all the people in Jimmieboy"s favorite fairy tales jumped out into the heavens. There was a glittering Jack chasing a dozen silver giants around about the moon; there was a dainty little Cinderella, with her gorgeous coach and four, driving up and down the Milky Way; Puss-in-Boots was hopping about from one cloud to another, as easily as if he were an ordinary cat jumping from an ordinary footstool on to an ordinary sofa. They were all there cutting up the finest pranks imaginable, when suddenly Jack of the beanstalk fame appeared at the side of the little creature who had set the rocket off, and planted a bean at his feet, and from it there immediately sprang forth a huge stalk covered with leaves of gold and silver, dropping showers of rubies and pearls and diamonds to the ground, as it grew rapidly upwards to where the fairy-land folk were disporting themselves in the skies. These, when the stalk had reached its full growth, rushed toward it, and in a moment were clambering back to earth again, and then, when they were all safely down, they ranged themselves in a row, sang a beautiful good-night song to the boy with his face in the pillow, and disappeared into the darkness.
"There!" said the little voice back of Jimmieboy. "That"s what one jiffy will do."
Jimmieboy turned about and smiled happily at the bee--for it was the bee who had spoken.
"Sometime we"ll have another," the bee added. "But now I must go--I"ve got to get ready for to-morrow, which will be bright and sunshiny, and in every way a great day for honey. Good-by!"
And Jimmieboy, as the bee flew out of the window, was pleased to notice that the pain in his cheek was all gone. With a contented smile on his face he turned over and went to sleep, and when his papa came in to look at him as he lay there in his little bed, noticing the smile, he turned to his mamma and said, "Well, he doesn"t look as if he"d missed the fireworks very much, after all, does he?"
"No," said his mamma. "He seems to be just the same happy little fellow he always was."
And between us, I think they were both right, for we know that he didn"t miss the fireworks, and as for being happy, he was just as much so as are most boys who know what it is to be contented, and who, when trials come upon them, endeavor to make the best of them, anyhow.
HIGH JINKS IN THE BARN