"Or a clothes-line full of clothes before an east wind," suggested Jimmieboy.
"Yes; or like buckwheat cakes before a hungry school-boy," put in the Blank-book. "Then that same poet in my dream wrote a verse about his little boy I rather liked. It went this way:
""Of rats and snails and puppy-dogs" tails Some man has said boys are made; But he who spoke to be truthful fails, If "twas of my boy "twas said.
""For honey, and wine, and sweet sunshine, And fruits from over the swim, And everything else that"s fair and fine, Are sure to be found in him.
""His kisses are nice and sweet as spice, His smile is richer than cake-- Which, if it were known to rats and mice, The cheeses they would forsake.
""His dear little voice is soft and choice, He giggles all day with glee, And it makes my heart and soul rejoice, To think he belongs to me.""
"That"s first rate," said Jimmieboy. "Only Mother Goose has something very much like it about little girls."
"That was just it," returned the Blank-book. "She had been a little girl herself, and she was too proud to live. If she had been a boy instead of a girl, it would have been the boy who was made of sugar and spice and all that"s nice."
"Didn"t your dream-poet ever write anything funny in you?" asked Jimmieboy. "I do love funny poems."
"Well, I don"t know whether some of the things he wrote were funny or not," returned the Blank-book, scratching his cover with a pencil he carried in a little loop at his side. "But they were queer. There was one about a small boy, named Napples, who spent all his time eating apples, till by some odd mistake he contracted an ache, and now with J.
Ginger he grapples."
"That"s the kind," said Jimmieboy. "I think to some people who never ate a green apple, or tasted Jamaica ginger, or contracted an ache, it would be real funny. I don"t laugh at it, because I know how solemn Tommy Napples must have felt. Did you ever have any more like that?"
"Oh my, yes," returned the Blank-book. "Barrels full. This was another one--only I don"t believe what it says is true:
"A man living near Navesink, Eats nothing but thistles and zinc, With mustard and glue, And pollywog stew, Washed down with the best of blue ink.""
"That"s pretty funny," said Jimmieboy.
"Is it?" queried the Blank-book, with a sigh. "I"ll have to take your word for it. I can"t laugh, because I have nothing to say ha! ha! with, and even if I could say ha! ha! I don"t suppose I"d know when to laugh, because I don"t know a joke when I see one."
"Really?" asked Jimmieboy, who had never supposed any one could be born so blind that he could not at least see a joke.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "EVERYBODY LAUGHED BUT ME."]
"Really," sighed the Blank-book. "Why, a man came into the store where I was for sale once, and said he wanted a Blank-book, and the clerk asked him what for--meaning, of course, did he want an account-book, a diary, or a copy-book. The man answered, "To wash windows with, of course,"
and everybody laughed but me. I simply couldn"t see the point. Can you?"
"Why, certainly," said Jimmieboy, a broad smile coming over his lips.
"It was very funny. The point was that people don"t wash windows with Blank-books."
"What"s funny about that?" asked the Blank-book. "It would be a great deal funnier if people did wash windows with a Blank-book. He might have said "to go coasting on," or "to sweeten my coffee with," or "to send out to the heathen," and it would have been just as funny."
"I guess that"s true," said Jimmieboy. "But it was funny just the same."
"No doubt," returned the Blank-book; "but it seems to me what"s funny depends on the other fellow. You might get off a splendid joke, and if he hadn"t his joke spectacles on he"d think it was nonsense."
"Oh no," said Jimmieboy. "If he hadn"t his joke spectacles on he wouldn"t think it was nonsense. Jokes are nonsense."
"But you said a moment ago the fun of the Blank-book joke was that you couldn"t wash windows with one. That"s a fact, so how could it be nonsense?"
"I never thought of it in that way," said Jimmieboy.
"Ah!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the Blank-book. "Now that is really funny, because I don"t see how you could think of it in any other way."
"I don"t see anything funny about that," began Jimmieboy.
"Oh dear!" sighed the Blank-book. "We never shall agree, except that I am willing to believe that you know more about nonsense than I do.
Perhaps you can explain this poem to me. I dreamt my poet wrote this on my twelfth page. It was called "A Plane Tale:"
""I used to be so surly, that All men avoided me; But now I am a diplomat, Of wondrous suavity.
""I met a carpenter one night, Who wore a dotted vest; And when I asked if that was right, He told me to go West.
""I seized his saw and brandished it, As fiercely as I could, And told him, with much show of wit, I thought he was no good.
""At that he looked me in the face, And said my tone was gruff; My manner lacked a needed grace, In every way was rough.
""He seized and laid me on a plank, He gave a little cough; And then, although my spirits sank, _He planed me wholly off_!
""And ever since that painful night, When he so treated me, I"ve been as polished, smooth a wight, As any one can be.""
"There isn"t much sense in that," said Jimmieboy.
"Well, now, I think there is," said the Blank-book. "There"s a moral to that. Two of "em. One"s mind your own business. If the carpenter wanted to wear a dotted vest it was n.o.body"s affair. The other moral is, a little plane speaking goes a great way."
"Oh, what a joke!" cried Jimmieboy.
"I didn"t make any joke," retorted the Blank-book, his Russia-leather cover getting red as a beet.
"Yes, you did, too," returned Jimmieboy. "Plane and plain--don"t you see? P-l-a-n-e and p-l-a-i-n."
[Ill.u.s.tration: "IS THAT WHAT YOU CALL A JOKE?"]
"Bah!" said the Blank-book. "Nonsense! That can"t be a joke. That"s a coincidence. Is that what you call a joke?"
"Certainly," replied Jimmieboy.
"Well, then, I"m not as badly off as I thought. I wanted to be a poet"s book and couldn"t, but it is better to be used for a wash-list as I am than to help funny men to remember stuff like that. I am very grateful to you, Jimmieboy, for the information. You have made me see that I might have fared worse than I have fared, and I thank you, and as I hear your mamma and papa coming up the stairs now, I"ll run back to the desk.
Good-night!"
And the Blank-book kissed Jimmieboy, and scampered over to the desk as fast as it could, and the next day Jimmieboy begged so hard for it that his mamma gave it to him for his very own.
"What shall you do with it now that you have it?" asked mamma.
"I"m going to save it till I grow up," returned Jimmieboy. "Maybe I"ll be a poet, and I can use it to write poems in."