“‘Yes, yes!’ cried Jimmy. ‘I dreamed all about it.’
“The driver seemed more puzzled than ever. He stood still, looked down at Jimmy; and at last said he,—
“‘Well, to please you, I’ll stop.”
THE BARREL-MAN LOOKING AT HIS POSSESSIONS.—FROM A SKETCH BY THE BARREL-MAN HIMSELF.
HOW THE BARN CAME FROM JORULLO.
TOLD BY THE FAMILY STORY-TELLER.
It was not a new story; indeed, it was hardly a story at all: but the children liked the family story-teller’s way of telling it and of acting it out. The family story-teller made a big matter of that barn-moving. He put in words enough to describe an earthquake, or a West-India hurricane, or a volcano pouring out red-hot melted lava, or a steamboat bursting her boiler and blowing herself up. He also wanted plenty of room in which to fling his arms about, and shake his fists, and make other kinds of motions, so as to act out what was done, and especially what the oxen-drivers did.
“Oh, yes!” the family story-teller said, taking a leap into the middle of the floor: “I’ll tell how the barn came from Jorullo. All keep quiet. The story is going to begin now. One morning the barrel-man—a collector of barrels—went forth from his house by the back-door; and there he stood with folded arms (like this), looking at all his carts, wheelbarrows, barrels, haystacks, garden-tools, and many other things. And he said, ‘Behold, I have carts, wheelbarrows, barrels, haystacks, garden-tools, and many other things, but have no roof whereunder to shelter them.’ And he said, ‘Behold, in Jorullo there stands a barn,—a brown barn, a right goodly barn. This barn will I buy. And I will get oxen (horned oxen with their drivers) and horses, and moving-men with their stout wheels, and timbers, and great iron chains; and the timbers shall be raised upon the wheels, and the barn shall be raised upon the timbers, and the oxen shall draw, and the wheels shall roll, and the barn shall come from Jorullo; and in that will I shelter my carts, barrels, wheelbarrows, haystacks, garden-tools, and many other things.’