jimmieboy had been taken to the photographer's and had posed several times for the man who made pictures of little boys. one picture showed how he looked leaning against a picket fence with a tiger skin rug under his feet. another showed him in the act of putting his hands into his pockets, while a third was a miserable attempt to show how he looked when he couldn't stand still. the last pleased jimmieboy very much. it made him laugh and jimmieboy liked laughing better than anything, perhaps, excepting custard, which was his idea of real solid bliss. why it made him laugh, i do not know, unless it was because in the picture he was very much blurred and looked something like a mixture of a cloud and a pin-wheel.
[pg 125]
"i like that one," jimmieboy said to his mother, when the proof came home. "won't you let me have it?"
"yes," said his mother. "you can have it. i don't think any one else wants it."
so the proof became jimmieboy's property, and he put it away in his collection of treasures, which already contained many valuable things, such as the whistle of a rubber ball, a piece of elastic, and a worn-out tennis racket. these treasures the boy used to have out two or three times a day, and the last time he had them out something queer happened. the blurred little figure in the picture spoke to him and told him something he didn't forget in a hurry.
"you think i'm a funny-looking thing don't you?" said the blurred picture of himself.
"yes, i do," said jimmieboy, "that's why i laugh at you whenever i see you."
"well, i laugh when i see you, too," retorted the picture. "you are just as funny to look at sometimes as i am."
"i'm not either," said jimmieboy. "i don't look like a cloud or a pin-wheel, and you do."
"i'm a picture of you, just the same," returned the proof, "and if you had stood still when the man was taking you, i'd have been all right. it's[pg 126] awful mean the way little boys have of not standing still when they are having their pictures taken, and then laughing at the thing they're responsible for afterward."
"i didn't mean to be mean," said jimmieboy.
"perhaps not," retorted the picture, "but if it hadn't been for you i'd have been a lovely picture, and your mamma would have had a nice little silver frame put around me, and maybe i'd have been standing on your papa's desk with the inkstand and the mucilage instead of having to live all my life with a broken whistle and a tennis bat that nobody but you has any use for."
here the picture sighed, and jimmieboy felt very sorry for it.
"boys don't know what a terrible lot of horrid things happen because they don't stand still sometimes," continued the picture. "i know of lots of cases where untold misery has come from movey boys."
"from what?" queried jimmieboy.
"movey boys," replied the picture. "by that i mean boys that don't stand still when they ought to. why, i knew of a boy once who wouldn't stand still and he shook a whole town to pieces."
"ho!" jeered jimmieboy. "i don't believe it."
[pg 127]
"well, it's so, whether you believe it or not," said the picture. "the boy's name was bob, and he lived somewhere, i don't remember where. his mother told him to stand still and he wouldn't; he just jumped up and down, and up and down all the time."
"that may be, but i don't see how he could shake a whole town to pieces," said jimmieboy, "unless he was a very heavy boy."
"he didn't weigh a bit more than you do," answered the picture. "he was heavy enough when he jumped to shake his nursery though, and the nursery was heavy enough to shake the house, and the house was heavy enough to shake the lot, and the lot was heavy enough to shake the street, and the street shook the whole town, and when the town shook, everybody thought there was an earthquake, and they all moved away, and took the name of the town with them, which is why i don't know where it was."
jimmieboy was silent. he never knew before that not standing still could result in such an awful happening.
"i know another boy, too, who lived in—well, i won't say where, but he lived there. he broke a fine big mirror in his father's parlor by not standing still when he was told to."
[pg 128]
"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,
[pg 129]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,
[pg 130]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[pg 131] 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.
nevertheless, true story or not, jimmieboy has practiced standing still very often since the affair happened, which is a good thing for little boys to do, so that perhaps the brief life and long poem of the rejected picture were not wasted after all.
