Half-Hours with Jimmieboy

by John Kendrick Bangs

"Did he shake it down?" asked Jimmieboy.

"No, indeed, he didn't," returned the picture. "He just stood in front of it and got so movey that the mirror couldn't keep up with him, but it tried to do it so hard that it shook itself to pieces. But that wasn't anything like as bad as what happened to Jumping Sam. He was the worst I ever knew. He never would keep still, and it all happened and he never could unhappen it, so that it's still so to this very day."

"But you haven't told me what happened yet," said Jimmieboy, very much interested in Jumping Sam.

"Well, I will tell you," said the picture, gravely. "And this is it. The story is a poem, Jimmieboy, and it's called:

"THE HORRID FATE OF JUMPING SAM.

"Small Sammy was as fine a lad
As ever you did see;
But one bad habit Sammy had,
A Jumper bold was he.
And, oh! his fate was very sad,
As it was told to me.
"He never, never, would stand still
In school or on the street;
He'd squirm if he were well or ill,
If on his back or feet.
He'd wriggle on the window-sill,
He'd waggle in his seat.
"And so it happened one fine day,
When all alone was he,
He got to jumping in a way
That was a sight to see.
He leaped two feet at first, they say,
And then he made it three.
"Then four, and five, the long day through,
Until he could not stop.
Each jump he jumped much longer grew,
Until he gave a hop
Up in the air a mile or two,
A-twirling like a top.
"He turned about and tried to jump
Back to his father's door,
But landed by the village pump,
Some twenty miles or more
Beyond it, and an awful bump
He'd got when it was o'er.
"And still his jumps increased in size,
Until they got so great,
He landed on the railway ties
In some far distant state;
And then he knew 'twould have been wise,
His jumping to abate.
"But as the years passed slowly by,
His jumping still went on,
Until he leaped from Italy,
As far as Washington.
And he confessed, with heavy eye,
It wasn't any fun.
"And when, in 1883,
I met him up in Perth,
He wept and said 'good-by' to me,
And jumped around the earth.
And I was saddened much to see
That he knew naught of mirth.
"Last year in far Allahabad,
Late in the month of June,
I met again this jumping lad—
'Twas in the afternoon—
As he with visage pale and sad
Was jumping to the moon.
"So all his days, leap after leap,
He takes from morn to night.
He cannot eat, he cannot sleep,
But flies just like a kite,
And all because he would not keep
From jumping when he might.
"And I believe the moral's true—
Though shown with little skill—
That whatsoever you may do,
Be it of good or ill,
Once in a while it may pay you
To practice keeping still."

A long silence followed the completion of the blurred picture's poem. For some reason or other it had made Jimmieboy think, and while he was thinking, wonderful to say, he was keeping very quiet, so that it was quite evident that the fate of Jumping Sam had had some effect upon him. Finally, however, the spell was broken, and he began to wiggle just as he wiggled while his picture was being taken, and then he said:

"I don't know whether to believe that story or not. I can't see your face very plainly here. Come over into the light and tell me the poem all over again, and I can tell by looking in your eye whether it is true or not."

The picture made no reply, and Jimmieboy, grasping it firmly in his hand, went to the window and gazed steadily at it for a minute, but it was useless. The picture not only refused to speak, but, as the rays of the setting sun fell full upon it, faded slowly from sight.