Jimmy Boy

Sophie May’s Complete Works

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“He looked again and beheld his little sister.”

[Page 12.]

LITTLE PRUDY’S CHILDREN

JIMMY BOY

BY
SOPHIE MAY
AUTHOR OF “WEE LUCY” “LITTLE PRUDY STORIES” “DOTTY DIMPLE
STORIES” “LITTLE PRUDY’S FLYAWAY SERIES” “FLAXIE
FRIZZLE SERIES” “THE QUINNEBASSET SERIES” ETC.
LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS
10 MILK STREET
BOSTON

Copyright, 1895, by Lee and Shepard
———
All Rights Reserved
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Jimmy Boy
ELECTROTYPED BY C. J. PETERS & SON
——————
PRINTED BY S. J. PARKHILL & CO. BOSTON

TO
MASTER EDMOND H. MORSE
OF
BALTIMORE

CONTENTS

ChapterPage
I.Washington-Pie[9]
II.Seven Peppermints[22]
III.Fourth of July[35]
IV.Was it Judy?[50]
V.Mrs. Biddy Chick[63]
VI.Jimmy’s Butter[77]
VII.The Boy from New York[90]
VIII.The Missing Cake[100]
IX.The Indian Basket[113]
X.A Great Secret[129]
XI.A Wee Wedding[142]

JIMMY-BOY

I
WASHINGTON-PIE

The pepper-tree in the backyard nodded its long, sweeping branches as if it were inviting the little white burro to come and stand in its shade.

The burro was coming, with Jimmy-boy on his back and the dog Punch at his heels.

“Selim is always glad to get home,” said John, the coachman, as he helped Jimmy-boy down, and fastened the burro to the pepper-tree.

“Yes; he likes to switch flies,” said Jimmy, patting Selim on the shoulder.

Jimmy was a fine, straight boy, with frank brown eyes and a pleasant smile. People called him “a noble little fellow;” and so he was on the whole, but he admired himself rather too much. It was hard for him to own that Jimmy Sanford Dunlee ever did anything wrong. You will see this for yourself as we go on with our story.

Jimmy-boy and Punch ran along to the garden at the left of the house. Here was a little pond with a stone wall around it. It had been made there just to look pretty; and water went into it from a long pipe that lay under the ground.

Jimmy paused to converse with a horned toad sitting half hidden under a black calla. There were three or four horned toads near the pond, all brought there by Jimmy-boy; but this was the youngest, and his especial pet. Jimmy had more than once saved the gentle creature from being pounced upon by Judy, the cat.

“I won’t let Judy get you if I can help it, Jacky Horner. But if she comes, you must hook her with your little horns, Jacky. Now mind what I say!”

Jacky’s black eyes glistened like two round beads. He did not try to run away or hide; for he had learned that this small boy who fed flies to him was his friend.

As Jimmy went toward the front veranda, he heard a pleasant child-voice singing from somewhere up in the air,—

“My bonnie sweet Jamie is all my joy.”

The voice was wee Lucy’s, and she was singing a Scotch song which had been taught her by her sister Kyzie. But where was Lucy? Jimmy looked up to the tower windows, but could see nothing of her.

“Where are you, Lucy?”

“Up here,” she answered.

“Up where?”

“Up in the sky.”

He looked again, and beheld his little sister sitting high on the limb of a tall cypress-tree. How had she got there? Jimmy was startled; for it was all of a quarter of a minute before he saw Mr. Henry Sanford, who had hidden, laughing, behind the tree. The young man had raised Lucy to her lofty seat, and was now standing guard over her.

“You never knew your little sister had wings, did you, Jimmy-boy?” said he.

“I’ll have ’em when I go up to heaven,” cried Lucy, “and I’ll fly this way!” spreading out her little skirts, and waving her arms above her head.

It was well that Mr. Sanford was there to catch her before she fell.

“There! I wanted to get down awf’ly!” she cried, as she landed on the grass. “I fink that pie is done.”

“The Washington-pie,” explained Jimmy to Mr. Sanford. “It’s just a cake with jelly in. I don’t know why folks call it a pie. Vendla is making it for George Washington; it’s his birthday to-morrow.”

“Aren’t you a little mistaken there, Jimmy? To-morrow will be Fourth of July, not Washington’s Birthday.”

“Oh, wasn’t he born to-morrow? I thought papa said so,” said Jimmy, slowly following Lucy, who had gone in search of the pie.

She had already bounded in at the back door, and, finding no one in the kitchen, had danced along to the pantry. There it was on the shelf by the window. Not a pie,—a lovely, plump brown cake. Some people were coming visiting to-morrow, perhaps a good many people, and Washington with them. That was the reason the cake was so very large, Lucy thought.

Was it cooling properly? The child hopped about, making little exclamations, and thinking Washington would like his cake, it was so large and brown, and so slippery smooth.

“Tastes like choc-lid drops, I s’pose. No; like candy-mels. Wish I knew how it does taste.” She gazed and gazed. “Would mamma care if I should touch it with my finger,—so,—my littlest finger, just to see ’f it’s hard? I wouldn’t hurt it any! Why, it’s just as soft!”

Delightful discovery! And, being soft, a scrap of it adhered to that littlest finger. Only a tiny scrap. And pray, what could Lucy do but put it in her mouth?

“’Tis like choc-lid drops. No; I don’t know—maybe it’s like candy-mels. Can’t tell ’thout I have a bigger piece.”

The first hole had been no deeper than the dimple in Lucy’s cheek; the next hole went farther in. She was ready for the third nibble when her brother entered the pantry.

“Lucy Lyman Dunlee!” he exclaimed; “that’s a Fourth o’ July Washington-pie! Made for company! Now you’ll catch it!”

“I wasn’t hurting Wash’ton’s Fourthy July pie; ’course I wasn’t,” returned the little mischief very innocently.

“I never saw such a girl. You’re as bad as the captain’s monkey,” said Jimmy severely. But he was not looking at Lucy; he was looking at the pie. “Go right away and let it alone! I suppose you don’t mean to go, though. Why, how you have dented it up!” Here Jimmy seized a knife, and made a neat little dash at the frosting. “There, that doesn’t leave any mark.”

A large bit was left on the knife, a much larger one than Lucy had been able to secure. She opened her mouth expectantly; but, strange to say, the dainty morsel went straight into Jimmy’s own mouth, not hers!

“Hello! that’s good,” said he. “I don’t like frosting after it’s all dried up.”

“Nor me, either! Give me some!” pleaded the little sister.

“There, take that; I’m only smoothing it off. You were a naughty girl to touch it in the first place. Maybe when you get as old as I am you’ll have some sense. You see,” he added, as he went on making repairs, “I have to smooth it off, or mamma’ll know what you’ve done, and you’ll get a snipping.”

It was very interesting business “smoothing it off;” it gave the children so many chances to find out just how the frosting tasted.

But alas! Jimmy’s knife made worse havoc than Lucy’s finger had done. Though he tried his best, it would leave deep tracks like a wagon-wheel in the mud. Or you might have fancied a dozen mischievous brownies had been driving over that beautiful cake pell-mell on their bicycles.

Jimmy, amazed and alarmed, gave it up at last.

“No use,” said he. “For shame, Lucy Dunlee!” and hid the “Fourth o’ July Washington-pie” behind a pan, there to dry in all its ugly roughness.

Vendla descried it that afternoon, and showed it to her mistress. Vendla was the new girl, a Swede, who had come after Molly was married.

Mrs. Dunlee summoned Jimmy-boy into the pantry, and pointed out to him something which looked like a huge mud-ball baked in the sun. It was the ruins of the Washington-pie. Jimmy was deeply mortified, but tried to defend himself.

“’Twas Lucy began it, mamma. True’s the world, ’twas Lucy! Boys don’t do such things. She pitched right in and spoiled it, or I wouldn’t ever ’a’ touched it.”

“James!” said his mother sternly.

“I only tried to smooth it off, mamma, so folks wouldn’t know folks had touched it. If Lucy”—

“So because Lucy had picked off some of the frosting, you must meddle with it too. And now you throw all the blame on your little sister! How shabby of you! Isn’t my boy any more manly than this?”

Jimmy hung his head. It was dreadful not to be a manly boy. He scowled at the cracks in the floor, and thoroughly despised himself.

“I don’t see,” moaned he, laying his hand with a gesture of despair on his chest, “I don’t see how such mean things get into my”—he paused, unable to think of the right word—“into my—stomach.”

He meant his heart.

“I’m older’n Lucy is, and I’m a boy. She’s only a girl! I think I was mean, awful mean, mamma!”

It was a great thing for Jimmy to own this.

“Well said, my son! I like that. But you know you are apt to forget. You forgot twice last week to be manly toward Lucy. Is there any way to make you remember?”

Jimmy’s hand, which had been pressed upon his heart, dropped suddenly. He hoped his mother would not think it necessary to punish him very much.

“If—if you don’t let me eat any of that Fourth o’ July Washington-pie, mamma”—

“Certainly I shall forbid the pie at any rate, because you meddled with it. But now for being a coward, and saying, ‘’Twas Lucy;’ what ought we to do about that?”

“O mamma, mamma!” cried Jimmy in alarm, “you wouldn’t take away my fire-crackers and pin-wheels and things?—you wouldn’t do it, mamma?”

“My precious boy! I couldn’t bear to deprive you of the beautiful rockets and Roman candles which Mr. Sanford and your papa have given you for the Fourth! There must be some easier punishment; let us think.”

Jimmy looked relieved.

“Didn’t Aunt Vi give you some money to spend for candy?”

“Yes, mamma; two bits,” (twenty-five cents). “But I want it! Gilly Irwin is coming in the morning to go to the candy stores with me. O mamma, please!”

“But, my dear, if I should pass by your faults you would forget them, and then you wouldn’t improve. I really think you ought to go without your Fourth of July candy.”

“Oh—Oh—Oh!”

“I shall not take away the money, however. You may simply drop it in your bank.”

Jimmy twisted his neck and twirled his fingers, but said not a word.

Two people in this world were always right, he thought,—mamma and papa. Always right, and never changed their minds; so it wasn’t of the slightest use to tease.

But Fourth of July, and not a speck of candy! Oh, dear!

II
SEVEN PEPPERMINTS

Gilbert Irwin appeared at Mr. Dunlee’s next morning, holding in his hand a tiny lizard-skin purse, containing a dime and a nickel.

“Come, Jimmy,” said he; “let’s go get our candy.”

Before Jimmy could answer, the Chinese vegetable man, Quon Wo, drove up to the back door, calling out in a high, squealing tone.—

“Platoes, sleet corn, cabbagee, spinny-gee!”

“What’s a spinny-gee? Give us a spinny-gee!” laughed both the boys, running up to Quon Wo, whom they knew very well.

“Go ’way! Too much, talkee, talkee!” replied the Chinaman, grinning, and showing nearly all his white teeth. At the same time, being ready for a frolic, he pelted both the boys with a handful of spinach.

Vendla stood in the doorway with a basket and a pan. She bought potatoes and celery. These went into her basket, and then she held out the pan for something else.

Quon Wo knew what she wanted. He had promised her some nice fresh ducks’ eggs; and there they were, under the seat of the cart in a pretty tea-chest.

“Duckee! Duckee!” said Quon Wo. “Duckee heap good!” and counted out the eggs into her pan, twelve of them, and then drove away.

The boys would have run after him, but Jimmy happened to remember why the ducks’ eggs had been spoken for. John wanted to put them under a hen, to be hatched into ducklings. And here came John, carrying in his arms a white hen, squawking angrily.

“Oh, yes, you must, Polly White; yes, you must!” said John. “You’ve been wanting to for a good while, and now we’re ready for you. Come, Vendla, bring on your ducks’ eggs.”

Vendla went to the stable with the pan; the little boys, the dog Punch and his friend Toby, Mrs. Porter’s dog, close at her heels. After the eggs had been put in a nice nest of straw, John placed Mrs. White over them, covering her up with a basket.

“Now stay there,” said John, “and see how you like it.”

Polly was very young, and had never sat on any eggs before. She had thought it would be good fun; but when the basket was put over her, she felt as if she should fly. It was not pleasant to be shut up in the dark.

“How long will she have to stay?” asked Gilbert.

“Four weeks. ’Twill be easy keeping count; four weeks from Fourth of July.”

The words “Fourth of July” reminded Gilbert that he must buy his candy.

“Come, Jimmy,” said he, shaking his purse up and down. He liked to hear the coins jingle. “Where’s your purse, Jimmy?”

Jimmy drew out of his pocket a small, very pretty mother-of-pearl portemonnaie, and sighed as he opened it. It held a nickel and a one-cent stamp.

“I can’t buy any candy to-day; but you can buy yours all the same.”

“Why can’t you?”

“’Cause I can’t.”

“Oh, ho! been a bad boy?”

“Not much; not very; no!”

Then, as Gilly jingled his money again, Jimmy added rather tartly,—

“Not half so bad as you are, Gilly Irwin!”

“Me? Who said I’s bad?”

“Well, you are; but your mamma doesn’t know it, and that’s why you don’t be punished.”

Gilly whistled. Perhaps he felt that there was some truth in this.

“Your mamma punishes you more’n you are naughty,” he said.

“Now you stop!” cried Jimmy. “My mamma always finds out things. She isn’t talking all the time with ladies in the parlor, the way your mamma is.”

“Pshaw! You think you have the best mamma and best papa and best everything!” exclaimed Gilly.

“So I have!” said Jimmy confidently.

This was more than even the mild-tempered Gilly could bear.

“What you mean? My papa is a major, and yours isn’t!”

“H’m! My papa doesn’t want to be a major, and that’s why! Some people perfers to be ministers!” Jimmy’s eyes were growing fiery. “Don’t you know,” he went on, “ministers are the nicest men there is in this world?”

But Gilly refused to be crushed.

“Has your papa got a coat with gold cushions on the shoulders, Jimmy Dunlee? Does he go march, marching, when they beat the drum?”

“No; he just despises to go march, marching! He stays in his pulpit, I s’pose you know!”

The foolish dispute might have gone on much longer if Gilbert had not changed the subject by saying,—

“I want some cocoanut taffy.”

But Gilly’s “candy-man” was away that morning. He had just started with his wife and children for a picnic.

Jimmy did not care very much.

“See the folks, lots and lots of ’em, going to Fourth o’ July,” said he. “You can’t get any candy to-day, Gil Irwin.”

“Yes, I can. I know where I can get some, better’n you ever saw. There are some new ladies in that yellow house by the corner that sell it. I went there the other day with mamma, and got some.”

“Let’s go there, then,” said Jimmy.

They turned into a quiet street, and walked three or four blocks, till they came to a pretty buff cottage half covered with roses.

The “new ladies,”—really quite old ones,—had lately bought it to live in; and of course it was not a shop, and they kept nothing to sell. Only, as it happened, they had given Gilly a cake of maple-sugar the Thursday before, when he called there with his mamma.

“It doesn’t look a bit like a shop,” said Jimmy, as they walked up to the front door of this quiet house, and Gilly pounded on the screen-door. There was an electric bell at the side. Jimmy did not think candy-shops generally had electric bells. It was too late, however, to turn back.

A sweet old lady came into the hall, looking rather surprised. She naturally thought that only rude children would pound in this way for admission; yet these boys did not look rude nor disrespectful.

“How do you do, my dears? Oh, this is Gilbert Irwin, I think. But whom have you brought with you, Master Gilly?”

“My name is James Sanford Dunlee,” replied Jimmy, bowing low, hat in hand.

“Ah, yes, the minister’s son. I’m glad to see you both. Please walk in.”

Gilbert entered, followed slowly by Jimmy.

“Can you sell us some candy, ma’am?” asked Gilly in a low voice. It was dawning upon him that he had made some mistake.

“Candy? Did you think I kept it to sell?”

Mrs. Alvord smiled as she asked the question. She was a gentle, graceful lady, all in black. She had been putting on her bonnet when the children knocked, and had not finished tying the strings.

“I don’t keep candy to sell. You’ve come to the wrong place, my dears.”

“Oh!” said Jimmy.

“Oh!” echoed Gilly, gazing regretfully at his portemonnaie. He had kept it all the while in his hand.

“Have you been trying to buy candy?”

“Yes, ma’am,” answered Gilly; “but the candy-men ’most all have gone off to Fourth o’ July.”

“What a pity!” said Mrs. Alvord. “I wish I had some candy for you.”

“Come, Gilly,” whispered Jimmy, plucking his companion by the sleeve. “Come, Gilly; let’s go.”

“Wait a minute,” said Mrs. Alvord. “My sister, Mrs. Lewis, keeps peppermints sometimes in a box on her bureau. Now, if peppermints will only do?”

She had turned to go up the staircase. Jimmy felt that it was not polite to give the kind lady all this trouble; but before he could think exactly what to say, or indeed whether he ought to say anything at all, she was gone.

She soon returned, bearing in her hand a pretty gilt-edged plate, on which were several peppermints, pink and white.

“Just fourteen. I’m so glad there were any left!” said she, smiling. “Mrs. Lewis wishes she had a boxful. Now hold out your hands, little boys, and I’ll divide. Seven for you, Master Gilly, and seven for you, Master Jamie.”

Gilbert had opened his lizard-skin wallet by this time, and was offering Mrs. Alvord first the nickel, and then the dime.

“No; oh, no; keep your money, child! I give you the peppermints.”

And she put half of them in his hand. He dropped purse and coins on the hall carpet, and for a minute forgot to say “Thank you.”

“And here are yours, Master James.”

But James did not hold out his hand.

“Don’t you like peppermints?”

“Yes, I thank you.”

“Then why not take them? Gilbert has had his share.”

Jimmy dropped his eyes to the black ruffles on the lady’s skirt, then turned shyly away. Must folks always answer folks’ questions? Yes; he had been taught that they must. So, in a low voice, but, as I think, very bravely, he replied,—

“Mamma told me not to buy any candy to-day.”

“He’s been a naughty boy,” struck in Gilbert, who certainly might have kept quiet.

Mrs. Alvord looked from one boy to the other, her glance resting at last very kindly on Jimmy.

“But, my dear, you are not buying this candy; it is given you.”

Still Jimmy did not reach forth his hand.

“Ah! you really think you ought not to take it? Then don’t do it by any means. You are a noble, manly, little boy, James Dunlee.”

Jimmy blushed for pleasure, but could not raise his eyes. Oh, wasn’t it grand to be called a manly boy!

“You may have been naughty once, but you are good now, and I shall tell your mamma so. I’m going to your house to dinner.”

Jimmy’s little face was radiant. Mamma would know he was manly after all!

“And now shall I give the rest of the peppermints to Gilbert?” asked Mrs. Alvord.

Gilbert took them eagerly, wondering why Jimmy had refused them, and suspecting that Jimmy did not care much for peppermints.

“That’s the ‘Jimmy-boy’ the blind Mrs. Pope talks so much about. He is a boy to be proud of,” said Mrs. Alvord, as she finished tying her bonnet-strings before the glass in her sister’s room.

“Dear little fellow!” returned Mrs. Lewis. “I am so glad I shall see him to-day.”

III
FOURTH OF JULY

All this while wee Lucy was growing impatient.

“I fink Jimmy might come back,” said she.

For she had a small tricycle, and he was teaching her to ride.

“When will he come, Vendla?”

Vendla did not know. She thought he might come by ten o’clock.

“Well, what’s now o’clock?”

“It’s half-past nine o’clock now.”

Lucy ran to the back parlor, and climbed a chair that stood by the mantel. The pretty marble clock was ticking its best; but she thought it did not tick fast enough. She opened the door of the clock, and moved the black hands round.

“Now maybe ’twill strike,” she thought; “and then he’ll come.”

It did strike, again and again, and yet again, till the sweet cathedral chimes filled all the air, and mamma came hurrying down-stairs to see what had happened.

“Lucy, Lucy,” said she in a tone of displeasure, “have you been touching the clock?”

“I had to make it strike, mamma, so my Jimmy would come,” replied the little rogue, scrambling down from the chair. “Are you in earnest, mamma? Oh, I don’t want you to be in earnest with your little girl!”

She looked in her mother’s face anxiously as she spoke; and Mrs. Dunlee promised to forgive her if she would never meddle with the clock again.

“No, I won’t ever, mamma, ever any more.”

At that very moment Jimmy appeared. Lucy ran up to him, laughing and crying; laughing because she had brought him home by making time go faster; crying because mamma was “in earnest” with her little girl.

“I’m all ready, and my dolly’s been all ready for ever ’n’ ever. ’Most got the friz out of her hair,” said Lucy reproachfully.

The brother and sister had a long ride, each on a little tricycle; and Punch, who was in attendance, could not have been prouder of his little master and mistress if they had owned the whole State of California and part of Mexico.

Jimmy usually reproved Lucy for “doddlin’ round and wiggling so;” but was very patient to-day, and said, “You do pretty well—for a girl! Sometimes you do go so awful slow that it tires me all out to keep up with you. Now see me!”

And away he spun alone on his little wheel, his sister gazing after him in wonder, admiration, and despair.

They had both planned to give the baby a “Fourthy July” ride in his own private carriage, to the tune of,—

“Yankee Doodle came to town

On a Kentish pony;

Stuck a feather in his hat,

And called it Maccaroni.”

But objections were made to this. Eddy was young and tender, and could not stand the jolting.

“H’m! boys can stand ’most anything,” said Jimmy. “You’d think he was a girl, to hear ’em talk!”

“Glad he isn’t,” returned Lucy, patting baby’s cheek. “I want him for a little brother. What do I want of a little sister? I’m a little sister myse’f!”

It was time now for dinner. There were two guests in the parlor, Mrs. Alvord and Mrs. Lewis. As Mrs. Alvord took Jimmy-boy’s hand, she said,—

“May I kiss you on your cheek, Master James? You don’t know how I wanted to kiss you this morning!”

Jimmy offered both cheeks with a blush and a smile. He was proud and happy to be admired by this sweet lady; and he was sure, too, that she had told, or was going to tell, his mamma all about his call at “the yellow house by the corner” with Gilly Irwin.

“I am glad to know you too, Master Jimmy-boy,” said Mrs. Lewis, a tall lady with tiny white curls about her face. “Mrs. Alvord and I love little children; but we have none at our house, and your mamma has five. I’m going to ask her if she can’t spare us one,—you or Lucy or the baby. Which do you think she would give away?”

Jimmy knew very well by the twinkle in the lady’s eye that this was only said in sport. He reflected a moment, then replied,—

“It’s polite to give away the largest pieces and things; so I think mamma ought to give me!”

Both the ladies laughed, and thought this a bright answer. Jimmy felt rather proud of it himself, and looked around to see if mamma had heard it. But Mrs. Dunlee was not in the parlor.

She had stolen into her husband’s study just for a moment, to tell him Mrs. Alvord’s story of Jimmy-boy.

“A small thing, to be sure,” said she; “he only gave up seven peppermints!”

“Not a small thing, my love,” returned Mr. Dunlee. “It shows that the boy has character. I am as happy about it as you.”

Jimmy thought it a remarkably pleasant dinner-party. There was maccaroni soup, which reminded Lucy at once of the singular sort of feather which “that Yankee Doodle boy” had stuck in his cap.

“This is Yankee Doodle soup!” said she in a loud whisper to her brother, who nearly choked from trying not to laugh.

Sister Kyzie scowled darkly. When would Lucy learn not to whisper at table? How often must she be told to move her spoon away from, and not towards, herself in taking soup?

When the dessert came on, strange to say, it was that same “Fourth-of-July-Washington-pie,” no longer brown and ragged, but shining as white as the far-off mountains at Christmastide. What had Vendla done to it? And why did mamma smile every moment? Was she thinking how much fairer the great cake looked now in this creamy covering? Jimmy knew she was not thinking of the cake!

After dinner he entertained Aunt Vi and Mr. Sanford on the veranda by firing off a round of crackers.

“Jimmy, Jimmy!” pleaded his aunt at last. “If you’ll only be quiet a moment, I’d like to show you something.”

She opened an old book, and he and Lucy drew near to look at the picture of a man in a military coat and cocked hat.

“I know who that is!” exclaimed Jimmy; “that’s George Washington!”

“Right,” said Mr. Sanford; “the very man you said Vendla made the pie for. And who was he? What did he do?”

“What did he do?” repeated Jimmy. “Why, I know that just as easy!”

Then, after a long pause,—

“Well, anyway he had a hatchet. No, no,” seeing an amused look on Mr. Sanford’s face; “’twas when he was little that he had the hatchet! But afterwards he was—was he the president?”

“Yes; our first president.”

Then Mr. Sanford told as simply as possible what the good man did for us more than a hundred years ago to make us a free nation.

Jimmy listened carefully, and understood a little of it. He was glad to learn that we are free.

“I like to be free,” said he, swinging his arms and throwing out his chest. “I like to have a president ruling over me! Not a queen, you know, away off in England! That would be awful! Why, we should have to sail to England in a ship every time we wanted to ask the queen a question!”

“But here is little Lucy,” said Mr. Sanford, “who looks as if she cares very little about kings and queens. Perhaps she would like to hear the story of the hatchet.”

Then he took her on his knee, and told her how the little George Washington long, long ago had the present of a hatchet, and enjoyed swinging it so well that he cut down a small cherry-tree before he stopped to think.

Lucy was very indignant. She loved trees, and often stood and gazed up at them with awe and delight. She was always angry when she saw a man cut off the tops of eucalyptus trees, even though she knew it was done to make the trees grow broader and handsomer.

“Georgie was a naughty boy,” she said. “I don’t like Georgie!”

“But,” said Mr. Sanford, “I told you how sorry he was. Don’t you think children should be forgiven when they are sorry?”

“I do,” returned Jimmy; “’specially when they ‘can’t tell a lie!’”

Still Lucy was pitiless.

“They won’t have any more cherries at that boy’s house—ever!”

And slipping down from Mr. Sanford’s knee she strode into the house without looking back.

Mr. Sanford was sorry he had told her the story.

“She doesn’t care much if George Washington couldn’t tell a lie,” said Jimmy. “All she cares about is the cherries.”

“Perhaps she thinks,” remarked Aunt Vi,—

“‘If all the trees were cherry-trees,

And every little boy

Should have, like young George Washington,

A hatchet for his toy,

And use it in a way unwise,

What should we do for cherry-pies?’”

After tea the whole family, with the guests, Mrs. Alvord and Mrs. Lewis, met on the veranda to watch the glorious sunset.

“In a few minutes we shall see the fireworks shooting up from the city,” said Mr. Sanford; “and then we’ll light up our own fireworks, Jimmy-boy, in honor of this free country.”

So saying, he made a deep bow to the American flags that hung in clusters all about the veranda.