In Camp With A Tin Soldier

by John Kendrick Bangs

"How could I?" retorted the major. "Did you ever see a spoon with a tongue?"

The sprite made no answer. He evidently had never seen a spoon with a tongue.

"The war was a terrible one," said the major, resuming his story. "One by one the kings were destroyed, and finally only Bigaroo remained, and Fuzzywuz not having found me in the treasures of the others, finally came to see that it was Bigaroo who had stolen me. So he turned his forces toward the wicked monarch, defeated his army, and set fire to his palace. In that fire I was destroyed as a souvenir spoon and became a lump of lead once more, lying in the ruins for nearly a thousand years, when I was sold along with a lot of iron and other things to a junk dealer. He in turn sold me to a ship-maker, who worked me over into a sounding lead for a steamer he had built. On my first trip out I was sent overboard to see how deep the ocean was. I fell in between two huge rocks down on the ocean's bed and was caught, the rope connecting me with the ship snapped, and there I was, twenty thousand fathoms under the sea, lost, as I supposed, forever. The effect of the salt water upon me was very much like that of hair restorer on some people's heads. I began to grow a head of green hair—seaweed some people call it—and to this fact, strangely enough, I owed my escape from the water. A sea-cow who used to graze about where I lay, thinking that I was only a tuft of grass gathered me in one afternoon and swallowed me without blinking, and some time after, the cow having been caught and killed by some giant fishermen, I was found by the wife of one of the men when the great cow was about to be cooked. These giants were very strange people who inhabited an island out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, which was gradually sinking into the water with the weight of the people on it, and which has now entirely disappeared. There wasn't one of the inhabitants that was less than one hundred feet tall, and in those days they used to act as light-houses for each other at night. They had but one eye apiece, and when that was open it used to flash just like a great electric light, and they'd take turns at standing up in the middle of the island all night long and turning round and round and round until you'd think they'd drop with dizziness. I staid with these people, I should say, about forty years, when one morning two of the giants got disputing as to which of them could throw a stone the farthest. One of them said he could throw a pebble two thousand miles, and the other said he could throw one all the way round the world. At this the first one laughed and jeered, and to prove that he had told the truth the second grabbed up what he thought was a pebble, but which happened to be me and threw me from him with all his force."

"Did you go all the way around?" queried Jimmieboy.

"Did I? Well, rather. I went around once and a half. And sad to say I killed the giant who threw me," returned the major. "I went around the world so swiftly that when I got back to the island the poor fellow hadn't had time to get out of my way, and as I came whizzing along I struck him in the back, went right through him, and leaving him dead on the island went on again and finally fell into a great gun manufactory in Massachusetts where I was smelted over into a bullet, and sent to the war. I did lots of work for George Washington. I think I must have killed off half a dozen regiments of his enemies, and between you and me, General Washington said I was his favorite bullet, and added that as long as he had me with him he wasn't afraid of anybody."

Here the major paused a minute to smile at the sprite who was beginning to look a little blue. It was rather plain, the sprite thought, that the major was getting the best of the duel.

"Go on," said Jimmieboy. "What next? How long did you stay with George Washington?"

"Six months," said the major. "I'd never have left him if he hadn't ordered me to do work that I wasn't made for. When a bullet goes to war he doesn't want to waste himself on ducks. I wanted to go after hostile generals and majors and cornet players, and if Mr. Washington had used me for them I'd have hit home every time, but instead of that he took me off duck shooting one day and actually asked me to knock over a miserable wild bird he happened to want. I rebelled at this. He insisted, and I said, 'very well, General, fire away.' He fired, the duck laughed, and I simply flew off into the woods on the border of the bay and rested there for nearly a hundred years. The rest of my story is soon told. I lay where I had fallen until six years ago when I was picked up by a small boy who used me for a sinker to go fishing with, after which I found my way into the smelting pot once more, and on the Fifteenth of November, 1892, I became what I am, Major Blueface, the handsomest soldier, the bravest warrior, the most talented tin poet that ever breathed."

A long silence followed the completion of the major's story. Which of the two he liked the better Jimmieboy could not make up his mind, and he hoped his two companions would be considerate enough not to ask him to decide between them.

"I thought they had to be true stories," said the sprite, gloomily. "I don't think it's fair to tell stories like yours—the idea of your being thrown one and a half times around the world!"