"I don't know. What?" answered Jimmieboy's father, laying his paper down, and coming over to where the little boy sat.
"It's a—it's a—it's an ash-barrel," said the little fellow, trying to remember what the Dictionary had said.
"Who said so?" asked papa.
"The Dictionary," answered Jimmieboy.
And when Jimmieboy's father came to examine the Dictionary on the subject, the disagreeable old book hadn't a thing to say about the sasspipedon, and Jimmieboy went up to bed wondering what on earth it all meant, anyhow.
[VI.]
JIMMIEBOY'S SNOWMAN.
The snow had been falling fast for well-nigh forty-eight hours and Jimmieboy was almost crazy with delight. He loved the snow because it was possible to do so much with it. One didn't need to go into a store, for instance, and part with ten cents every time one happened to want a ball, when there was snow on the ground. Then, too, Jimmieboy had a new sled he wanted to try, but best of all, his father had promised to make him a snowman, with shoe-buttons for eyes and a battered old hat on his head, if perchance there could be found anywhere in the house a hat of that sort. Fortunately a battered old hat was found, and the snowman when finished looked very well in it. I say fortunately because Jimmieboy had fully made up his mind that a battered hat was absolutely necessary to make the snowman a success, and had not the old one been found I very much fear the youth would have taken his father's new one and battered that into the state of usefulness required to complete the icy statue to his satisfaction.