"now jump into the sleigh just as quickly as you can, jimmieboy," said the stove, as they issued forth into the cold night air. "put on that fur cap and the overcoat, shoes, and gloves, and i'll light 'em up."
"they won't burn, for sure?" queried jimmieboy, nervously, for the idea of wearing clothes heated by gas was a little bit terrifying.
"not a bit," said the stove in reply. "i wouldn't give 'em to you if they would. thanks," he added, turning and throwing a ten-cent piece to a gas boy, who handed him the reins by which the horses were controlled. "we'll be back about sunrise."
"very well," said the boy. "do you want me turned on all night, sir?"
[pg 169]
"no," answered the stove. "gas is expensive these days. you can turn yourself out right away. have you fed the horses?"
"yes, sir," said the boy. "they've each had four thousand feet by the meter for supper."
"fuel or illuminating?" queried the stove.
"illuminating," replied the boy.
"good," said the stove. "that ought to make them bright. good-by. get up!"
with this the horses made a spring forward—fiery steeds in very truth, their outlines in jets, each burning a small flame, standing out like lines of stars in the sky.
"this is pretty fine, eh?" said the gas stove, with a smile, which, had any one looked, must[pg 170] have been visible for miles, so light and cheerful was it.
"lovely!" cried jimmieboy, almost gasping in ecstasy. "i'm just as warm and comfortable as can be. i didn't know you had a team like this."
"ah, my boy," returned the stove, "there's lots you don't know. for instance:
"you don't know why a fire will burn
on hot days merrily;
and when the cold days come, will turn
as cold as i-c-e!
"you don't know why the puppies bark,
or why snap-turtles snap;
or why a horse runs round the park,
because you say, 'git-ap.'
"you don't know why a peach has fuzz
upon its pinky cheek;
or what the poor dumb-crambo does
when he desires to speak.
"do you?"
"no, i don't," said jimmieboy. "but i should like to very much."
"so should i," said the stove. "we're very much alike in a great many respects, and particularly in those in which we resemble each other."
the truth of this was so evident that jimmieboy[pg 171] could think of nothing to say in answer to it, so he merely observed: "i'm awful hungry."
this was a favorite remark of his, particularly between meals.
"so am i," said the stove. "let's see what we've got here. just hold the reins while i dive down into the lunch basket."
jimmieboy took the reins with some fear at first, but when he saw that they were high up in the air where there was really nothing but a star or two to run into, and realized that even they were millions of miles away, he soon got used to it, and was sorry when the stove resumed control.
"there, jimmieboy," said the stove, as he drew his hand out of the basket. "there's a nice hot ginger-snap for you. i think i'll take a snack of this fuel gas myself."
"you don't eat gas, do you?" asked the small passenger.
"i guess i do," ejaculated the stove, with a smack of his lips. "as our gas poet laureate said:
"oh, kerosene
is good, i ween,
and so is apple sass;
but bring for me,
oh, chickadee,
[pg 172]a bowl of fuel gas!
"some persons like
the red beefstike,
the cow just dotes on grass—
but to my mind
no one can find
more toothsome things than gas.
"and so i say,
bring me no hay;
no roasted deep-sea bass.
bring me no pease,
or fricassees,
if, haply, you have gas."
"it's easy to eat, too," added the stove. "in fact, i heard your papa say we consumed too much of it one day when he'd got his bill from the gas butcher."
"do you chew it?" asked jimmieboy.
"no, indeed. we take it in through a pipe. it isn't like soup or meat, though i sometimes think if people could take soup out of a pipe instead of from a spoon they'd look handsomer while they were eating. but the great thing about it is it's always ready, and if it comes cold, all you have to do is to touch a match to it, and it gets as hot as you could want."
"i should think you'd get tired of it," said jimmieboy.
"not at all. there's a great variety in gases.[pg 173] there's fuel gas, illuminating gas, laughing gas, attagas——"
"what's that last?" queried jimmieboy.
"attagas? why, when we want a game dinner, we have attagas. if you will look it up in the dictionary you will find that it's a sort of partridge. it's mighty good, too, with a sauce of stewed gasberries, and a mug or two of gasparillo to wash it down."
here jimmieboy smacked his lips. gasparillo truly sounded as if it might be very delightful, though i don't myself believe it is any less bitter to the taste than some other barks of trees, such as quinine, for instance.
"howdy do?" said the stove, with a familiar nod to the east of them.
"howdy do!" replied jimmieboy.
"i wasn't speaking to you," said the stove, with a laugh. "i was only nodding to an old friend of mine; he's got a fine place up in the sky there. his name is sirius. they call him the dog-star, and all he has to do is twinkle. you can't see him all the time from your house, but when you get up as high as this he stands right out and twinkles at you. pretty good fellow, sirius is. i might have had his place, but somehow or other i prefer to work in-doors and rest[pg 174] nights. sirius is out all the time, and has to keep awake all night. but we've got to get down to the earth again. here's where we take to the skates."
jimmieboy looked over the edge of the sleigh as the horses turned in response to a movement of the reins, and started down to earth. he saw a great white river below him, flowing silently along a narrow winding channel, everything on the border of which seemed bathed in silver except the middle of the river itself, a strip of forty or fifty feet in width, which was not frozen over.
"that's frostland," whispered the gas stove. "we can't get over to the other side with this team because they are very skittish, and if the sleigh were overturned and our ammunition lost we should be lost ourselves. we've got to land directly below where we are now, skate to the edge of the ice on this bank, row over to the other, and then skate again directly to the palace. we mustn't let anybody know who we really are, either, or we may have trouble, and we want to avoid that; for you know, jimmieboy,
"the man who gets along without
a care or bit of strife,
is certain sure, beyond all doubt,
to lead a happy life."
[pg 175]
"but i can't skate," said jimmieboy.
"you can slide, can't you?" asked the stove.
"yes, both ways. standing up and sitting down."
"well, my patent steam skates, operated by gas, will attend to all the rest if you will only stand up straight," returned the stove, and the sleigh dropped lightly down to the earth, and the two crusaders against jack frost alighted.
"isn't it beautiful here?" said jimmieboy, as he looked about him and saw superb tall trees, their leaves white and glistening in the moonlight, bound in an icy covering that kept them always as he saw them then. "and look at the flowers," he added, joyously, as he caught sight of a bed of rose-bushes, only the flowers were lustrous as silver and of the same dazzling whiteness.
"yes," said the gas stove, sadly. "every time jack frost withers a flower or a plant he brings it here, and it remains forever as you see them now; he has had the choice of the most beautiful things in the world. but come, we must hurry. put on these skates."
jimmieboy did as he was told, and then the stove lit a row of small jets of gas along the steel runners of the skates, and they grew warm[pg 176] to jimmieboy's feet, and in a moment little puffs of steam issued forth from them, and jimmieboy began to move, slowly at first, and then more and more quickly, until he was racing at breakneck speed.
"hi, stovey!" he cried, very much alarmed to find himself speeding off through this strange country all alone. "hurry up and catch me, or i'll be out of sight."
"keep on," hallooed the stove in return. "don't bother about me. i've got four feet to your two, and i can go twice as fast as you do. keep on straight ahead, and i'll be up with you in a minute—just as soon as i can get the ammunition and my hose out."
"i wonder what he's going to do with the hose?" jimmieboy asked himself. the stove was too far behind him for the little skater to ask him.
"halt!" cried a voice in front of jimmieboy.
"i can't," gasped the little fellow, very much frightened, for as he gazed through the darkness to see who it was that addressed him, he perceived a huge snow man standing directly in his path.
"you must," cried the snow man, opening his mouth and breathing forth an icy blast that[pg 177] nearly froze the water in jimmieboy's eyes. "you shall!" he added, opening his arms wide, so that before he knew it jimmieboy was precipitated into them.
"see?" said the snow man. "i can compel y—"
the snow man never got any further with this remark, for in a moment jimmieboy passed[pg 178] straight through him. the heat of jimmieboy's clothes had melted a hole through the snow man, and as the small skater turned to look at his adversary he saw him standing there, his head, his sides, and legs still intact, but from his waist down all the middle part of him had disappeared.
"dear me! how sad," jimmieboy said.
"not at all," responded a voice beside him. "it serves him right; he's the meanest snow man that ever lived. if you hadn't melted him he'd have turned himself into an avalanche, and then you'd have been buried so deep in snow and ice you'd never have got out."
"who are you?" queried jimmieboy, with a startled glance in the direction whence the voice seemed to come.
"only what you hear," replied the voice. "i am a voice. jack frost froze the rest of me and carted it away, and left me here for the rest of my life."
"what were you?"
"i cannot remember," said the voice. "i may have been anything you can think of. you could stand there and call me all the names you chose, and i couldn't deny that i was any of them.
[pg 179]
"sometimes i think i may have been
a piece of apple pie;
perhaps a great and haughty queen,
perhaps a gaily dressed marine,
in former days was i.
"i may have been a calendar,
to tell some man the date;
i may have been a railway car,
a rocket or a shooting star,
or e'en a roller skate.
"i may have been a jar of jam,
perhaps a watch and chain;
i may have been a boy named sam,
an oyster or a toothsome clam,
perhaps a weather vane.
"i may have been a pot of ink,
a sloop or schooner yacht;
i may have been the missing link,
but what i was i cannot think—
for i have quite forgot.
"all i know is that i was something once; that jack frost came along and caught me and added me to his collection of curiosities, where i have been ever since. they call me the invisible chatter-box, and tell visitors that i escaped from the national vocabulary at washington."
"i am very sorry for you," said jimmieboy, sympathetically.
"you needn't be," said the voice. "i'm happy![pg 180] i'm the only curiosity here that can be impudent to king jack. i can say what i please, you know, and there's no way of punishing me; i'm like a newspaper in that respect. i can go into any home, high or low, say what i please, and there you are. nobody can hurt me at all. oh, it's just immense. i play all sorts of tricks on jack, too. i get right up in front of his mouth and talk ridiculous nonsense, and people think he says it. why, only the other night a snow man i don't like went in to see jack, and jack liked him tremendously, too, and was really glad to see him; but before the king had a chance to[pg 181] say a word i hallooed out: 'get out of here, you donkey. go make snow-balls of your head and throw them at yourself;' and the snow man thought jack said it, and, do you know, he went outside and did it. he's been laid up ever since."
"i think that was a very mean thing to do," said jimmieboy.
"i'd agree with you if i had any conscience, but alas! they've deprived me of that too," sighed the voice. "but look out," it added, hastily. "throw yourself into that snow-bank or you'll fall into the river."
without waiting to think why, jimmieboy obeyed the voice and threw himself headlong into a huge snow bank at his side, and glanced anxiously about him.
he was indeed, as the voice had said, on the very edge of the ice, and another yard's advance would have landed him head over heels in the rushing water.
"that would have been awful, wouldn't it?" he said to the stove, as his little friend came up.
"yes, it would," returned the stove. "it would have put out the lights in your clothes, and that would have been very awful, for i find we have come away without any matches. jump into the[pg 182] boat, now, and row as straight for the other side as you can."
jimmieboy looked about him for a boat, but couldn't see one.
"there is no boat," he said.
"yes, there is—jump!" cried the stove.
and jimmieboy jumped, and, strange to relate, found himself in an instant seated amidships in an exquisitely light row-boat made entirely of ice.
"row fast, now," said the stove. "if you don't the boat will melt before we can get across."
