"boo!" said something.
and jimmieboy of course was startled. so startled was he that, according to his own statement, he jumped ninety-seven feet, though for my own part i don't believe he really jumped more than thirty-three. he was too sleepy to count straight anyhow. he had been lolling under his canvas tent down near the tennis-court all the afternoon, getting lazier and lazier every minute, and finally he had turned over square on his back, put his head on a small cushion his mamma had made for him, closed his eyes, and then came the "boo!"
"i wonder—" he said, as he gazed about him, seeing no sign of any creature that could by any possibility say "boo!" however.
[pg 86]
"of course you do. that's why i've come," interrupted a voice from the bushes. "more children of your age suffer from the wonders than from measles, mumps, or canthaves."
"what are canthaves?" asked jimmieboy.
"canthaves are things you can't have. don't you ever suffer because you can't have things?" queried the voice.
"oh, yes, indeed!" returned jimmieboy. "lots and lots of times."
"and didn't you ever have the wonders so badly that you got cross and wouldn't eat anything but sweet things for dinner?" the voice asked.
"i don't know exactly what you mean by the wonders," replied jimmieboy.
"why, wonders is a disease that attacks boys who want to know why things are and can't find out," said the voice.
"oh, my, yes i've had that lots of times," laughed jimmieboy. "why, only this morning i asked my papa why there weren't any dandelionesses, and he wouldn't tell me because he said he had to catch a train, and i've been wondering why ever since."
"i thought you'd had it; all boys do get it sooner or later, and it's a thing you can have[pg 87] any number of times unless you have me around," said the voice.
"what are you anyhow?" asked jimmieboy.
"i'm what they call the encyclopædia bird. i'm a regular owl for wisdom. i know everything—just like the cyclopædia; and i have two wheels instead of legs, which is why they call me the bicyclopædia bird. i can't let you see me, because these are not my office hours. i can only be seen between ten and two on the thirty-second of march every seventeenth year. you can get a fair idea of what i look like from my photograph, though."
as the voice said this, sure enough a photograph did actually pop out of the bush, and land at jimmieboy's feet. he sprang forward eagerly, stooped, and picking it up, gazed earnestly at it. and a singular creature the bicyclopædia bird must have been if the photograph did him justice. he had the head of an owl, but his body was oblong in shape, just like a book, and, as the voice had said, in place of legs were two wheels precisely like those of a bicycle. the effect was rather pleasing, but so funny that jimmieboy really wanted to laugh. he did not laugh, however, for fear of hurting the bird's feelings, which the bird noticed and appreciated.
[pg 88]
"thank you," he said, simply.
"what for?" asked jimmieboy, looking up from the photograph, and peering into the bush in the vain hope of catching a glimpse of the bird itself.
"for not laughing," replied the bird. "if you[pg 89] had laughed i should have biked away at once because i am of no value to any one who laughs at my personal appearance. it always makes me forget all i know, and that does me up for a whole year. if i forget all i know, you see, i have to study hard to learn it all over again, and that's a tremendous job, considering how much knowledge there is to be had in the world. so you see, by being polite and kind enough not to laugh at me, who can't help being funny to look at, and who am not to blame for looking that way, because i am not a self-made bird, you are really the gainer, for i promise you i'll tell you anything you want to know."
"that's very nice of you," returned jimmieboy; "and perhaps, to begin with, you'll tell me something that i ought to want to know, whether i do or not."
"that is a very wise idea," said the bicyclopædia bird, "and i'll try to do it. let me see; now, do you know why the pollywog is always amiable?"
"no," returned jimmieboy. "i never even knew that he was, and so couldn't really wonder why."
"but you wonder why now, don't you?" asked the voice, anxiously. "for if you don't, i can't tell you."
[pg 90]
"i'm just crazy to know," jimmieboy responded.
"then listen, and i will tell you," said the voice. and then the strange bird recited this poem about
the pollywog.
"the pollywog's a perfect type
of amiability.
he never uses angry speech
wherever he may be.
he never calls his brother names,
or tweaks his sister's nose;
he never pulls the sea-dog's tail,
or treads upon his toes.
"he never says an unkind word,
and frown he never will.
a smile is ever on his lips,
e'en when he's feeling ill.
and this is why: when pollywog
the first came on the scene,
he had a temper like a cat's—
his eye with it was green.
"now, just about the time when he
began to lose his tail,
to change into a croaking frog,
he came across a nail—
a nail so rusty that it looked
just like an angle-worm,
except that it was straight and stiff,
[pg 91]and so could never squirm.
"and polly, feeling hungry, to
assuage his appetite,
swam boldly up to that old nail,
and gave it such a bite,
he nearly broke his upper jaw;
his lower jaw he bent.
and then he got so very mad,
his temper simply went.
"he lost it so completely as
he lashed and gnashed around,
that though this happened years ago,
it has not since been found.
and that is why, at all times, in
the pollywog you see,
a model of that virtue rare—
true amiability."
"now, i dare say," continued the bird—"i dare say you might have asked your father—who really knows a great deal, considering he isn't my twin brother—sixteen million four hundred and twenty-three times why the pollywog is always so good-natured, and he couldn't have answered you more than once out of the whole lot, and he'd have been wrong even then."
"it must be lovely to know so much," said jimmieboy.
"it is," said the bird; "that is, it is lovely when you don't have to keep it all to yourself. it's very nice to tell things. that's really the[pg 92] best part of secrets, i think. it is such fun telling them. now, why does the sun rise in the morning?"
"i don't know. why?"
"for the same reason that you do," returned the sage bird. "because it is time to get up."
"well, here's a thing i don't know about," said jimmieboy. "what is 'to alarm?'"
"to frighten—to scare—to discombobulate," replied the bird. "why?"
"well, i don't see why an alarm-clock is called an alarm-clock, because it doesn't ever alarm anybody," said jimmieboy.
"oh, it doesn't, eh?" cried the bird. "well, that's just where you are mistaken. it alarms the people or the animals you dream about when you are asleep, and they make such a noise getting away that they wake you up. why, an alarm-clock saved my life once. i dreamed that i fell asleep on board a steamboat that went so fast hardly anybody could stay on board of her—she just regularly slipped out from under their feet, and unless a passenger could run fast enough to keep up with her, or was chained fast enough to keep aboard of her, he'd get dropped astern every single time. i dreamed i was aboard of her one day, and that to keep on deck i[pg 93] chained myself to the smoke-stack, and then dozed off. just as i was dozing, a misinformation bird, who was jealous of me, sneaked up and cut the chain. as he expected, the minute i was cut loose the boat rushed from under me, and the first thing i knew i was struggling in the water. while i was struggling there, i was attacked by a catfish. cats are death to birds, you know, and i really had given myself up for lost, when 'ling-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling' went the alarm-clock in the corner of my cage; the fish turned blue with fear, swished his tail about in his fright, and the splashing of the water waked me up, and there i was standing on one wheel on my perch, safe and sound. if that clock hadn't gone off and alarmed that catfish, i am afraid i should have been forever lost to the world."
"i see now; but i never knew before why it was called an alarm-clock, and i've wondered about it a good deal," said jimmieboy. "now, here's another thing i've bothered over many a time: what's the use of weeds?"
"oh, that's easy," said the bird, with a laugh. "to make lawns look prettier next year than they do this."
"i don't see how that is," said jimmieboy.
"clear as window-glass. this year you have weeds on your lawn, don't you?"
[pg 94]
"yes," returned jimmieboy.
"and you make them get out, don't you?" said the bird.
"yes," assented jimmieboy.
"well, there you are. by getting out they make your lawns prettier. that's one of the simplest things in the world. but here's a thing i should think you'd wonder at. why do houses have shutters on their windows?" asked the bird.
"i know why," said jimmieboy. "it's to keep the sun out."
"that's nonsense, because the sun is so much larger than any house that was ever built it couldn't get in if it tried," returned the feathered sage.
"then i don't know why. why?" asked jimmieboy.
"so as to wake people up by banging about on windy nights, and they are a mighty useful invention too," said the bird. "i knew of a whole family that got blown away once just because they hadn't any shutters to bang about and warn them of their danger. it was out in the west, where they have cyclones, which are things that pick up houses and toss them about just as you would pebbles. a mr. and mrs. podlington had built a house in the middle of a big field for[pg 95] themselves and their seventeen children. mr. podlington was very rich, but awful mean, and when the house was finished, all except the shutters, he said he wasn't going to have any shutters because they cost too much, and so they hadn't a shutter on the house. one night after they had lived where they were about six months they all went to bed about nine o'clock, and by ten they were sound asleep, every one of them. at eleven o'clock a breeze sprang up. this grew very shortly into a gale. then it became a hurricane, and by two o'clock it was a cyclone. one cyclone wouldn't have hurt much, but at three o'clock two more came along, and the first thing the podlington family knew their house was blown off its foundations, lifted high up in the air, and at breakfast-time was out of sight, and, what is worse, it has never come down anywhere, and all this happened ten years ago."
"but where did it go?" asked jimmieboy.
"nobody knows. maybe it landed in the moon. maybe it's being blown about on the wings of those cyclones yet. i don't believe we'll ever know," answered the bird. "but you can see just why that all happened. it was mr. podlington's meanness about the shutters, and nothing[pg 96] else. if he had had shutters on that house, at least one of them would have flopped bangety-bang against the house all night, and the chances are that they would all have been waked up by it before the cyclone came, and in plenty of time to save themselves. in fact, i think very likely they could have fastened the house more securely to the ground, and saved it too, if they had waked up and seen what was going on."
"i'll never build a house without shutters," said jimmieboy, as he tried to fancy the condition of the podlingtons whisking about in the air for ten long years—nearly five years longer than he himself had lived. if they had landed in the moon it wouldn't have been so bad, but this other possible and even more likely fate of mounting on the wind ever higher and higher and not landing anywhere was simply dreadful to think about.
"i wouldn't, especially in the cyclone country," returned the voice in the bush. "but i'll tell you of one thing that would save you if you really did have to build a house without shutters; build it with wings. you've heard of houses with wings, of course?"
"yes, indeed," said jimmieboy. "why, our house has three wings. one of 'em was put on it[pg 97]
[pg 98] last summer, so that we could have a bigger kitchen."
"i remember," said the bird. "i wondered a good deal about that wing until i found out it was for a kitchen, and not to fly with. the house had enough wings to fly with without the new one. in fact, the new one for flying purposes would be as useless as a third wheel to a bicycle."
"what do you mean by to fly with?" asked jimmieboy, puzzled at this absurd remark of the bird.
"exactly what i say. wings are meant to fly with, aren't they? i hope you knew that!" said the bird. "so if the podlingtons' house had had wings it might have got back all right. it could have worked its way slowly out of the cyclone, and then sort of rested on its wings a little until it was prepared to swoop down on to its old foundations, alighting just where it was before. a trip through the air under such circumstances would have been rather pleasant, i think—much pleasanter than going off into the air forever, without any means of getting back."
"but," asked jimmieboy, "even if mr. podlington's house had had wings, how could he have made them work?"
[pg 99]
"why, how stupid of you!" cried the bird. "don't you know that he could have taken hold of the——"
"ting-a-ling-a-ling a-ling-a-ling!" rang the alarm-clock up in the cook's room, which had been set for six o'clock in the afternoon instead of for six in the morning by some odd mistake of mary ann's.
"the alarm! the alarm!" shrieked the bird, in terror.
and then the invisible creature, if jimmieboy could judge by the noise in the bush, seemed to make off as fast as he could go, his cries of fear growing fainter and fainter as the wise bird got farther and farther away, until finally they died away in the distance altogether.
jimmieboy sprang to his feet, looked down the road along which his strange friend had fled, and then walked into the house, wishing that the alarm-clock had held off just a little longer, so that he might have learned how the wings of a house should be managed to make the house fly off into the air. he really felt as if he would like to try the experiment with his own house.
