jimmieboy, like every other right-minded youth, was a great admirer of[pg 213] the brownies. they never paid any attention to him, but went about their business in the books as solemnly as ever no matter what jokes he might crack at their expense. nor did it seem to make any difference to them how much noise was being made in the nursery, they swam, threw snow-balls, climbed trees, floated over niagara, and built houses as unconcernedly as ever. nevertheless jimmieboy liked them. he didn't need to have any attention paid to him by the little folk in pictures. he didn't expect it, and so it made no difference to him whatever whether they noticed him or not.
the other day, however, just before the christmas vacation had come to an end jimmieboy had a very queer experience with his little picture book acquaintances. he was feeling a trifle lonesome. his brothers had gone to a party which was given by one of the neighbors for the babies, and jimmieboy at the last moment had decided that he would not go. he wasn't a baby any more, but a small man. he had pockets in his trousers and wore suspenders exactly like his father's, only smaller, and of course a proper regard for his own dignity would not permit him to take part in a mere baby party.
"i'll spend my afternoon reading," he said in a lordly way. "i don't feel like playing 'here we go round the mulberry bush' now that i wear suspenders."
so he went down into his father's library where his mother had put a book-case for[pg 215] him, on the shelves of which he kept his treasured books. they were the most beautiful fairy books you ever saw; brownie books and true story books by the dozen; books of funny poetry illustrated by still funnier pictures, and, what i fancy he liked best of all, a half dozen or more big blank books that his father had given him, in which jimmieboy wrote poems of his own in great capital letters, some of which stood on their heads and others on their sides, but all of which anybody who could read at all could make out at the rate of one letter every ten minutes. i never read much of jimmieboy's poetry myself and so cannot say how good it was, but his father told me that the boy never had the slightest difficulty in making massachusetts rhyme with potato, or jacksonville with lemonade, so that i presume they were remarkable in their way.
arrived in the library jimmieboy seated[pg 216] himself before his book-case, and after gloating over his possessions for a few moments, selected one of the brownie books, curled himself up in a comfortable armchair before the fire, and opened the book.
"why!" he cried as his eye fell upon one of the picture pages. "that's funny. i never saw that picture before. there isn't a brownie in it; nothing but an empty house and a yard in front of it. where can the brownies have gone?"
he hadn't long to wait for an answer. he had hardly spoken when the little door of the house opened and the dude brownie poked his head out and said softly:
"'tis not an empty house, my dear.
the brownies all have come in here.
we've played so long to make you smile
we thought we'd like to rest awhile.
we're every one of us in bed
with night-caps on each little head,
and if you'll list you'll hear the roar
with which the sleeping brownies snore."
[pg 217]
jimmieboy raised the book to his ear and listened, and sure enough, there came a most extraordinary noise out of the windows of the house. it sounded like a carpenter at work with a saw in a menagerie full of roaring lions.
"well, that is funny," said jimmieboy as he listened. "i never knew before that brownies ever got tired. i thought they simply played and played and played all the time."
the dude brownie laughed.
"now there, my boy, is where you make
a really elegant mistake,"
he said, and then he added,
"if you will open wide the book
we'll let you come inside and look.
no other boy has e'er done that.
come in and never mind your hat."
"i wouldn't wear my hat in the house anyhow," said jimmieboy. "but i say,[pg 218] mr. brownie, i don't see how i can get in there. i'm too big."
"your statement makes me fancy that
you really don't know where you're at;
for, though you're big and tall and wide,
already, sir, you've come inside,"
replied the dude brownie, and jimmieboy, rubbing his eyes as if he couldn't believe it, looked about him and discovered that even as the dude brownie had said, he had without knowing it already accepted the invitation and stood in the hall of the brownie mansion. and o! such a mansion! it was just such a house as you would expect brownies to have. there were no stairs in it, though it was three stories high. on the walls were all sorts of funny pictures, pictures of the most remarkable animals in the world or out of it, in fact most of the pictures were of animals that jimmieboy had never heard of before, or even imagined. there was the[pg 219] brownie elephant, for instance, the cunningest little animal you ever saw, with forty pairs of spectacles running all the way down its trunk; and a brownie pug-dog with its tail curled so tightly that it lifted the little creature's hind legs off the floor; and most interesting of all, a brownie bear that could take its fur off in hot weather and put on a light flannel robe instead. jimmieboy gazed with eyes and mouth wide open at these pictures.
"what queer animals," he said. "do you really have such animals as those?"
"excuse me," said the dude brownie anxiously, "but before i answer, must i answer in poetry or in prose? i'll do whichever you wish me to, but i'm a little tired this afternoon, and poetry is such an effort!"
"i'm very fond of poetry," said jimmieboy, "especially your kind, but if you are[pg 220] tired and would rather speak the other way, you can."
the dude brownie smiled gratefully.
"you're a very kind little man," he said. "this time i'll talk the other way, but some day when i get it written i'll send you my book of poetry to make up for it. you like our animals, do you?"
"very much," said jimmieboy. "i'd like to see a brownie zoo some time."
"i'll attend to that," said the dude brownie. "i'll make a note of it on the wall so that we won't forget it."
here he seized a huge pencil, almost as big as himself, and wrote something on the wall which jimmieboy could not read, but which he supposed was the brownie's memorandum.
"won't you spoil your wall doing that?" queried the little visitor.
"oh no," said the brownie. "all these[pg 221] walls are made of slate and we use 'em to write on. it saves littering the house all up with paper, and every tuesday we have a house-cleaning bee and rub all the writing off. it's a very good scheme and i wonder your grown-up people don't have it, particularly in your nurseries. i've noticed children writing things on nursery walls lots of times and then they've been scolded for doing it because their nurses said it spoiled the paper. i can't understand why they don't have slate walls instead that can't be spoiled. it's such a temptation to write on a wall, but it does spoil paper. but to come back to our animals, they're really lovely, and have such wonderfully sweet dispositions. there is the brownie elephant, for instance—he's the most light hearted creature you ever saw, and he has holes bored through his trunk like a flute and at night he plays the most beautiful music on[pg 222] it, while we brownies sit around and listen to him."
"what does he wear so many pairs of spectacles for?" asked jimmieboy.
"he has weak eyes," said the brownie. "that is, he has at night. he can't see his notes to play tunes by when it is dark, and so we've provided him with those spectacles to help him out. then the bear is very self-sacrificing. if anyone of us wants to go out anywhere in the cold he'll let us have his robe just for the asking. the pug-dog isn't much use but he's playful and intelligent. if you tell him to go to the post-office for your mail he'll rush out of the front door, down the road to the grocer's and bring you back an apple or an orange, because he always knows that there isn't any mail. one of your hired men wouldn't know that, but would waste his time going to the post-office to find it out if you told him to."
[pg 223]
jimmieboy expressed his admiration of the intelligence of the brownie dog and the good nature of the other animals, and then asked if he mightn't go upstairs he was so curious to see the rest of the house.
"certainly," said the dude brownie, "only you'll have to slide up the banisters. we haven't any stairs."
"don't think i know how," said jimmieboy. "i can slide down banisters, but i never learned to slide up 'em."
"you don't have to learn it," returned the brownie. "all you have to do is to get aboard and slide. it's a poor banister that won't work both ways. the trouble with your banisters is that they are poor ones. climb aboard and let yourself go."
the boy did as he was told, and pop! the first thing he knew he was in the midst of the brownies on the second floor. much to his surprise, while they were unquestionably[pg 224] snoring, they were all reading, or writing, or engaged in some other occupation.
"well this beats everything!" said jimmieboy. "i thought you said they were asleep?"
"they are," said the dude brownie. "so am i, for that matter, but we don't waste our time just because we happen to be asleep. some of us do our best work while we are resting. the chinese brownie washes all our clothes while he's asleep, and the dutch brownie does his practising on his cornet at the same time. if people like you did the same thing you'd get twice as much work done. it's all very well and very necessary too to get eight hours of sleep every day, but what's the use of wasting that time? take your sleep, but don't loaf while you're taking it. when i was only a boy brownie i used to play all day and go to school after i'd gone to bed. in[pg 225] that way i learned a great deal and never got tired of school. you don't get tired while you are asleep."
"it's a wonderful plan," said jimmieboy, "and i wish i knew how to work it. i'm not very fond of school myself and i'd a great deal rather play than go there in the daytime. can't you tell me how it's done so that i can tell my papa all about it? maybe he'd let me do it that way if i asked him."
"of course i'll tell you," said the dude brownie. "it's just this way. you go to bed, pull the covers up over you, shut your eyes, fall asleep, and then—"
alas! the sentence was never finished, for as the brownie spoke a gong in the hallway below began to clang fearfully, and in an instant the whole brownie troupe sprang to the banisters, slid down into the hall and rushed out into the yard. their play time[pg 226] had come, and their manager had summoned them back to it. jimmieboy followed, but he slid so fast that it made him dizzy. he thought he would never stop. down the banisters he slid, out through the hall to the yard, over the heads of the brownies he whizzed and landed with a thud in the soft embrace of the armchair once more, and just in time too, for hardly had he realized where he was when in walked his father and mother, and following in their train were his two baby brothers, their mouths and hands full of sweetmeats.
"hullo," said jimmieboy's father. "where have you been, jimmieboy?"
"in the brown——" began the boy, but he stopped short. it seemed to him as if the dude brownie in the book tipped him a wink to be silent, and he returned the wink.
"i've been here, looking at my brownie book," he said.
"indeed?" said his father. "and do you never get tired of it?"
"no," said jimmieboy quietly, "it seems to me i see something new in it every time i open it," and then in spite of the brownie's wink he climbed out of the chair into his papa's lap and told him all that occurred, and his papa said it was truly wonderful, especially that part which told about how much could be done by an intelligent creature when fast asleep.
