"Oh, that"s it, is it?" said the major. "Well, it"s easy enough to tell you that. First as to how you are to find them--this applies to huckleberries and daisies and fire-engines and everything else, just as well as it does to peaches, so you"d better listen. It"s a very valuable thing to know.
"The way to find a pickled peach, A cow, or piece of pumpkin pie, A simple lesson is to teach, As can be seen with half an eye.
Look up the road and down the road, Look North and South and East and West.
Let not a single episode Come in betwixt you and your quest.
Search morning, night, and afternoon, From Monday until Sat.u.r.day; By light of sun and that of moon, Nor mind the troubles in your way.
And keep this up until you get The thing that you are looking for, And then, of course, you need not fret About the matter any more."
"You are a great help," said Jimmieboy.
"Don"t mention it, my dear boy," replied the major, so pleased that he smiled and cracked some of the red enamel on his lips. "I like to be useful. It"s almost as good as being youthful. In fact, to people who lisp and p.r.o.nounce their esses as though they were teeaitches, it"s quite the same. It was very easy to tell you how to find a pickled peach, but it"s much harder to tell you where. In fact, I don"t know that I can tell you where, but if I were not compelled to ignore the truth I should inform you at once that I haven"t the slightest idea.
But, of course, I can tell you where you might find them if they were there--which, of course, they aren"t. For instance:
"Pickled peaches might be found In the gold mines underground;
Pickled peaches might be seen Rolling down the Bowling Green;
Pickled peaches might spring up In a bed of custard cup;
Pickled peaches might sprout forth From an ice-cake in the North;
I have seen them in the South In a pickaninny"s mouth;
I have seen them in the West Hid inside a cowboy"s vest;
I have seen them in the East At a small boy"s birthday feast;
Maybe, too, a few you"d see In the land of the Chinee;
And this statement broad I"ll dare: You might find them anywhere."
"Thank you," said Jimmieboy. "I feel easier now that I know all this. I don"t know what I should have done if I hadn"t met you, major."
"It"s very unkind of you to say so," said the major, very much pleased by Jimmieboy"s appreciation. "Of course you know what I mean."
"Yes," answered Jimmieboy, "I do. Now I"ll tell you what I think. I think pickled peaches come in cans and bottles."
"Bottles and cans, Bottles and cans, When a man marries it ruins his plans,"
quoted the major. "I got married once," he added, "but I became a bachelor again right off. My wife wrote better poetry than I could, and I couldn"t stand that, you know. That"s how I came to be a soldier."
"That hasn"t anything to do with the pickled peaches," said Jimmieboy, impatiently. "Now, unless I am very much mistaken, we can go to the grocery store and buy a few bottles."
"Ho!" jeered the major. "What"s the use of buying bottles when you"re after pickled peaches?
"Of all the futile, futile things-- Remarked the Apogee-- That is as truly futilest As futilest can be."
You never heard my poem on the Apogee, did you, Jimmieboy?"
"No. I never even heard of an Apogee. What is an Apogee, anyhow?" asked the boy.
"To give definitions isn"t a part of my bargain," answered the major. "I haven"t the slightest idea what an Apogee is. He may be a bird with a whole file of unpaid bills, for all I know, but I wrote a poem about him once that made another poet so jealous that he purposely caught a bad cold and sneezed his head off; and I don"t blame him either, because it was a magnificent thing in its way. I"ll tell it to you. Listen:
"THE APOGEE.
The Apogee wept saline tears Into the saline sea, To overhear two mutineers Discuss their pedigree.
Said he: Of all the futile, futile things That ever I did see.
That is as truly futilest As futilest can be.
He hied him thence to his hotel, And there it made him ill To hear a pretty damosel A ba.s.s song try to trill.
Said he: Of all the futile, futile things-- To say it I am free-- That is about the futilest That ever I did see.
He went from sea to mountain height, And there he heard a lad Of sixty-eight compare the sight To other views he"d had; And he Remarked: Of all the futile things That ever came to me, This is as futily futile As futile well can be.
Then in disgust he went back home, His door-bell rang all day, But no one to the door did come: The butler"d gone away.
Said he: This is the strangest, queerest world That ever I did see.
It"s two per cent. of earth, and nine- Ty-eight futility."
"Isn"t that elegant?" added the major, when he had finished.
"It sounds well," said Jimmieboy. "But what does it mean? What"s futile?"
"Futile? What does futile mean?" said the major, slowly. "Why, it"s--it"s a word, you know, and sort of stands for "what"s the use.""
"Oh," replied Jimmieboy. "I see. To be futile means that you are wasting time, eh?"
"That"s it," said the major. "I"m glad you said it and not I, because that makes it true. If I"d said it, it wouldn"t have been so."
"Well, all I"ve got to say," said Jimmieboy, "is that if anybody ever came to me and asked me where he could find a futile person, I"d send him over to you. Here we"ve wasted nearly the whole afternoon and we haven"t got a single thing. We haven"t even talked of anything but peaches and cherries, and we"ve got to get jam and sugar and almonds yet."
Here the major smiled.
"It isn"t any laughing matter," said Jimmieboy. "It"s a very serious piece of business, in fact. Here"s this Parawelopipedon going around ruining everything he can lay his claws on, and instead of helping me out of the fix I"m in, and starting the expedition off, you sit here and tell me about Apogees and other things I haven"t time to hear about."
"I was only smiling to show how sorry I was," said the major, apologetically.
"I always smile when I am sad, And when I"m filled with glee A solitary tear-drop trick- Les down the cheek of me."
"Oh, that"s it," said Jimmieboy. "Well, let"s stop fooling now and get those supplies."
"All right," a.s.sented the major. "Where are the soldiers who accompanied you? We"ll give "em their orders, and you"ll have the supplies in no time."
"How"s that?" queried Jimmieboy.
"Why, don"t you see," said the major, "that"s the nice thing about being a general. If you have to do something you don"t know how to do, you command your men to go and do it. That lifts the responsibility from your shoulders to theirs. They don"t dare disobey, and there you are."
"Good enough!" cried Jimmieboy, delighted to find so easy a way out of his troubles. "I"ll give them their orders at once. I"ll tell them to get the supplies. Will they surely do it?"