"What"s the matter?" asked Jimmie anxious like.
"Oh, I see!" cried Jumpo, looking over the side. "I put too much court plaster on the roller skate wheels, and they"re all stuck up. I"ll soon fix it."
Well, it didn"t take him long, and once more he started the engine.
Faster and faster went the buzzer. The airship began to shiver and to shake, and then all of a sudden it began rolling over the ground.
"Oh, we"re moving! We"re moving!" cried Jimmie.
"Of course we are," said Jumpo proudly. "I told you we"d fly like a bird."
And then, would you believe me, that queer airship did go in the air a little distance because the wind got under the umbrellas and lifted them up. Up and up it went, with Jimmie and Jumpo in it.
"Wow! Isn"t this great?" cried Jumpo.
"Yes, we"re right over our duck pond," said Jimmie. "I hope we don"t fall."
But alas! Just as he said that, something happened. The engine went so fast that the spring flew out of it. One umbrella turned inside out and the other outside in. The sticking plaster fell off, and the roller skate wheels dropped into the pond with a splash. Then the whole airship began falling into the pond.
"Oh, save me! Save me!" cried Jumpo.
"I will!" cried Jimmie. "Get on my back."
So Jumpo did this and Jimmie spread out his strong wings and flew safely to the ground with Jumpo, while the airship fell into the duck pond with a big splash--splash--splash--and it was drowned, I believe, for no one ever saw it again.
"Well," said Jumpo, as he got off Jimmie"s back when they had landed, "I guess I don"t know how to make airships. But I"m much obliged to you.
I"m glad you came along."
"I don"t know whether I am glad or not," answered Jimmie, as he looked at a place where a stone had bruised his foot. "But anyhow I"m sure you don"t know how to build airships that will fly. I"ll stick to my own wings after this." And he did!
Now, next in case the man who cleans our windows doesn"t put the soap in the sugar bowl and make the gold fish sing like a canary bird, I"ll tell you about Jumpo and the talc.u.m powder.
STORY x.x.x
JUMPO AND THE TALc.u.m POWDER
Jumpo Kinkytail was home all alone in the cute little monkey-house in the top of the tree, so the mosquitoes couldn"t get in unless they flew very high. And I"m going to tell you the true and only reason why Jumpo was home alone.
It was because his mamma had gone down to the five and ten-cent store to get a new piano with a dishpan on top, so she could wash her dishes and play the piano at the same time. And Jacko was at school, but Jumpo had been kept home because he had a cold.
"So you will be in charge of the house while I am away," said his mamma, as she started for the five and ten-cent store.
"All right, and I"ll take good care of the house," said Jumpo. And he felt quite pleased to think that he was old enough to take care of a whole big house all by himself.
"I wonder what I can do to make the time pa.s.s quickly until Jacko comes home from school," thought Jumpo as he looked out of the window. "It"s a bit lonesome, so I guess I"ll dust some of the furniture for mamma."
He took a dust rag in each of his two front paws, and also one in his kinkytail, making three in all, and he went about the rooms knocking the dust off the furniture on to the floor, where no one would see it.
When Jumpo got tired of that he read a story book. He read about a big giant with a blue nose and how one day a yellow dwarf saw the giant asleep and painted his nose green and the birds used to think the nose was gra.s.s and they would nestle down on the giant and tickle him so that he sneezed like thunder booming in the sky.
"Well, it will be an hour yet before mamma or Jacko comes home," said Jumpo, as he looked at the clock after finishing the story. "What can I do next?" So he looked around but he couldn"t see anything, and he was just going to knock some more dust off the furniture, when he heard some one crying out-of-doors.
"My! I wonder who that can be?" he thought. So he looked down from the front porch, and there on the ground at the foot of the tree was Buddy Pigg, the little guinea pig boy. And he was crying very hard.
"What"s the matter?" asked Jumpo.
"Oh, a big mosquito has bitten me!" said Buddy, "and my leg is all swelling up from it, so that I can hardly walk."
"Oh, that"s too bad," said Jumpo. "Come up here and I will put some stuff on to make it better."
"I can"t climb that high tree," said Buddy, sad like.
"No more you can!" exclaimed Jumpo. "Wait a minute."
So Jumpo let down a basket fastened to a string and Buddy got in it--I mean he got in the basket, not the string, you understand, of course.
Then Jumpo pulled him up.
"Now let"s see where that mosquito bite is," said the monkey boy, and Buddy showed him. "I should say it was a big one!" cried Jumpo. "That needs some witch hazel on it right away."
Well, Jumpo put a lot of witch hazel on the bite, but that only seemed to make it worse.
"I know what"s good for it," said Buddy. "It"s some stuff my mamma uses."
"What is it?" asked Jumpo.
"Talc.u.m powder," replied the guinea pig. "It"s a white, smooth powder, and it comes in a tin box and smells nice."
"What smells, the powder or the box?" asked Jumpo.
"The powder smells, of course," said Buddy. "Have you any?"
"Yes, I guess so," answered Jumpo. "Let"s look in the bathroom. Mother isn"t home to-day," so into the bathroom those two animal boys went, and they hunted all over for the talc.u.m powder.
"There it is, up on that shelf!" said Buddy at last. "I can tell by the cover of the box. You just get it down and smell of it."
So Jumpo curled up his tail, reached it up and wound it around the box just as an elephant in the circus winds his trunk around a peanut, and the monkey boy lifted down the talc.u.m powder box.
"How does it smell?" asked Buddy.
"Fine!" said Jumpo. "Have a smell yourself. It"s talc.u.m powder, all right."
So they decided that it was, but when Jumpo tried to get some powder out none would come. There were little holes in the top of the box, but they were stopped up somehow or other, and there poor Buddy was suffering from the mosquito bite, and they couldn"t get powder to put on it.
"I know what I"ll do!" exclaimed Jumpo. "I"ll just take off the whole cover and then the powder will come out fine."