BUDDY JIM GOES SWIMMING AND MEETS A QUEER LITTLE NEIGHBOR
The sun came climbing up the hills
As red as red could be,
And not a leaf was moving on
Any shrub or tree;
The little birds forgot to sing,
The winds forgot to roam;
"There's nothing to do," said Buddy Jim,
"But stay around at home."
JUST then Old Bob the gardener came along, mopping his brow with his old, red bandana handkerchief which he wore tied around his neck, like a cowboy in a wild west movie.
"O Bob," said Buddy Jim, "Isn't it hot? I don't feel as though I'd ever be cool again!"
"It is, so," said Old Bob the gardener, "for the last week in June, it is about as hot as I've ever seen it; you look a bit peaked, Son, seems to me," said he, sympathetically, "has the heat got hold of you?"
"Oh, I don't think so, Bob," said the little fellow. "But it just seems as though there were not a thing in the world to do!"
"Old Dog Sandy seems a bit tuckered out, too," said Old Bob the gardener. Old Dog Sandy, stretched out flat under a lilac bush, didn't bother to open his eyes. He just thumped the ground feebly with his tail. It was too hot to move, if one didn't have to, but one must always be polite!
"Now let's see," said Old Bob the gardener, "there should be something that a boy could do on a hot day, and get some fun out of it? Can you swim?"
"Some," said Buddy Jim. "I learned in the pool at the gymnasium, at home—I mean in the city."
"Pool!" said Old Bob the gardener, contemptuously, "run and get your bathing suit and I'll take you down to the old swimming hole, where I used to swim when I was your age, and where I've been swimming every year since! I think I would enjoy a swim myself, this morning," he added. Buddy Jim forgot all about the weather, but went tearing like a small whirl-wind to Mother, asking where was his bathing suit, and hopping excitedly around until she had found it. He was so enthusiastic that he could hardly wait until Old Bob the gardener had found his own suit and was ready to go. Even Old Dog Sandy waked up and decided to go along, and it was a happy little procession which went, Indian file, along the narrow path which led through the alder bushes to the swimming hole.
Someone who loved boys must have made that swimming hole. The sand had been scooped out from the bed of the brook, and used to make a fine, wide beach; the brook had been made deeper and wider, and a big old tree had been felled in just the right place for a clean, high dive. The alders grew thickly around the beach, and made the nicest dressing room imaginable, and very soon, all three, the old man, the little boy, and the old dog were splashing happily around in the cool water.
Old Bob the gardener taught Buddy Jim many things that he had not learned at the gymnasium; how to tread water like a dog, how to keep his eyes open under water, and how to lie on his back and just float; it was great fun, and they were soon as cool as though jolly old Mr. Sun had not tried to see how hot he could make a day in June.
After awhile Old Bob the gardener said that they had been in the water long enough for one day, and that he had some work to do, and must go back, but Buddy Jim said that he was going to stay and lie on the beach for a while; it was cooler there.
Old Bob the gardener said, all right, if he wouldn't go in the water alone, because he couldn't yet swim well enough to go in alone, and Buddy Jim promised that he would not. Old Bob knew that when Buddy said he would do a thing, that it was just as good as done, because he was very careful to always keep his word. Mother said that a real man always did. And Buddy Jim meant to be a real man.
It was so cool and comfy there under the alder bushes that Buddy Jim fell fast asleep, and then he was aware of voices, and that Old Dog Sandy was grumbling and complaining that "a fellow never could get forty winks, but that someone had to chatter and wake him up."
"Lie down, Sandy," whispered Buddy Jim, "and keep quiet." The old dog obeyed, though he did not want to, and Buddy Jim crawled quietly over towards the voices and lay very still until they began again.
"I saw it first," said a queer lispy little voice. It was not a very good-natured sounding voice either.
"Why the very idea," said a calm, quiet, little voice, "how can you say so, when we were already here when you arrived? We saw it first, and we intend to keep it; isn't that so, Brother?"
"Of course," answered another little voice, "that's what we intend to do. You go and find another nest if you are hungry."
"No, no," lisped the first voice, "this nest is mine and I'm going to have it."
"Well now, Mrs. Garter Snake," said the first little voice, "you know well enough it's no good wrangling; we are not going to give up our rights to you; finding's keepings; anyway Mrs. Snapping Turtle lays so many eggs that very likely there will be some left, after we have had enough, and we don't mind sharing them with you; you are quite welcome to what we cannot use."
"All right," said Mrs. Garter Snake, "go on and dig them out, then, because I want to get back home to my children."
Buddy Jim crawled a bit nearer to see if he could discover who the little neighbors were who were not a bit afraid of Mrs. Garter Snake.
They were very pretty Little Neighbors indeed, in cool-looking black-and-white suits and they were as frisky as kittens. It was only the work of a moment for them to dig open Mrs. Snapping Turtle's nest in the sand, where she had trustingly laid her eggs to be hatched out by kind Mr. Sun while she was cool and happy in the bed of the brook, or swam around catching frogs for her dinner.
It did not take them long to eat their lunch, either, and when they were no longer hungry, they ran away together, laughing, leaving what was left of the eggs to Mrs. Garter Snake, who immediately ate them and then rustled away out of sight among the bushes.
"I guess that's the last of Mrs. Snapping Turtle's children," said Buddy Jim as he dressed, "it does seem too bad, that her eggs are all lost, but she could not expect anything else to happen. Let's go, Sandy," he called to the old dog.
Old Dog Sandy made believe that he didn't hear; he knew that the Little Neighbors must live somewhere near, and he wished very much to call on them; they had spoiled his nap, and he wanted to give them a chance to apologize.
"Come along, Sandy," said his little master, who knew his tricks, "I know what you want to do; you want to find our Little Neighbors, and you know I do not allow that!"
After lunch Buddy Jim went out to the tool house to find Old Bob the gardener. "Feel better, Son?" asked the old man kindly. "I feel fine, Bob, thank you," said the little fellow, "but I want to ask you something. Who were the Little Neighbors that I saw digging Mrs. Snapping Turtle's eggs out of the sand this morning? They were black and white and looked something like Peter the Prowler, only much prettier. Old Dog Sandy wanted to go after them," he added, "but I made him keep away."
Old Bob the gardener laughed. "It's a good thing for him that you did," said he, "and for all the rest of us, too; that was Brother and Sister Skunk!"
"Why is it a good thing, Bob?" asked Buddy Jim. "They were just as good-natured as could be, and generous also; they let Mrs. Garter Snake have part of the eggs."
"O yes, they're generous," said Old Bob the gardener, "and easy to get along with, too, if you let them alone; I hope Old Dog Sandy was not enough interested in them to go back and try to find them, because, in the matter of perfume, now, they're more than generous."
"O yes," said Buddy Jim, laughing, "Now I remember!"
But Old Dog Sandy didn't remember; he just couldn't forget; and he told himself that he knew the way back there, and that no black-and-white kitteny looking things like that could wake him up without explaining why; and some day,—well they'd see.
"
I don't see any Joke"
