All the people came running to the window. “Who’s hurt? What’s the matter? Oh, they’ve tumbled down! they’ve tumbled down!”
The flour-barrel was at the bottom of it all. In their hurry to get the brooms, the Jimmies climbed on a flour-barrel which lay upon its side. It rolled over, and they rolled over with it. It is plain, therefore, that the flour-barrel was at the bottom of it all.
The poor Jimmyjohns cried bitterly, and the tears ran streaming down. Still they were not hurt badly, and the crying changed to kissing much sooner than usual. To explain what this means, it must be told, that when the Jimmies were little toddling things, just beginning to walk, they were constantly tumbling down, tipping over in their cradle, or bumping heads together; and Mrs. Plummer found that the best way to stop the crying at such times was to turn it into kissing. The reason of this is very plain. In crying, the mouth flies open; in kissing, it shuts. Mrs. Plummer was a wonderful woman. She found out that shutting the mouth would stop its crying, and to shut the mouth she contrived that pretty kissing plan, and at the first sound of a bump would catch up the little toddlers, put their arms round each other’s necks, and say, “Kiss Johnny, Jimmy; kiss Jimmy, Johnny.” And that was the way the habit began. They had not quite outgrown it; and it was enough to make anybody laugh to see them, in the midst of a crying spell, run toward each other, their cheeks still wet with tears, and to see their poor little twisted, crying mouths trying to shut up into a kiss.
But now must be told the sad fate of Banty White’s tub. Alas for poor Banty! Nevermore will she gather chicks under its roof.
Mrs. Plummer, it seems, allowed the Jimmies to take her third-best broom and the barn broom to row with.
“Let’s go way over there, where there’s some good grass,” said Jimmy.
“So I say,” said Johnny. “How shall we get her over?”
“Take the reins,” said Jimmy.
“Oh, yes! so I say,” said Johnny.
The reins were then taken from the horses, and tied to one tub-handle. The brooms were tied to the other tub-handle, and so dragged behind. The Jimmies hoisted the tub over the fence into the field of “good grass,” squeezed themselves inside, put the broom-handles through the tub-handles, and began to row.