when jimmieboy waked up the other morning the ground was white with snow and his heart was rejoiced. like many another small youth jimmieboy has very little use for green winters. he likes them white. somehow or other they do not seem like winters if they haven't plenty of snow and he had been much afraid that the season was going to pass away without bringing to him an opportunity to use the beautiful sled santa claus had brought him at christmas.
it was a fine sled, one of the finest he had ever seen. it had a red back, yellow runners and two swan heads standing erect in front of it to tell it which way it should go. on the red surface of the back was painted[pg 292] its name in very artistic blue letters, and that name was nothing more nor less than "magic."
"hooray," he cried as he rushed to the window and saw the dazzling silver coating on the lawn and street. "snow at last! now i can see if magic can slide."
he dressed hastily—so hastily in fact that he had to undress again, because it was discovered by his mother, who came to see how he was getting along, that he had put on his stocking wrong side out, and that his left shoe was making his right foot uncomfortable.
"don't be in such a hurry," said his mamma. "there was a man once who was always in such a hurry that he forgot to take his head down town with him one day, and when lunch time came he hadn't anything with him to eat his lunch with."
"but i want to slide," said jimmieboy,[pg 293] "and i'm afraid there'll be a slaw come along and melt the snow."
jimmieboy always called thaws slaws, so his mother wasn't surprised at this remark, and in a few minutes the boy was ready to coast.
"come along, magic!" he said, gleefully catching up the rope. "we'll see now if uncle periwinkle was right when he said he didn't think you'd go more'n a mile a minute, unless you had a roller-skate on both your runners."
and then, though jimmieboy did not notice it, the left-hand swan-head winked its eye at the other swan-head and whispered, "humph! it's plain uncle periwinkle doesn't know that we are a magic sled."
"well, why should he?" returned the other swan-head, with a laugh. "he never slode on us."
"i'm glad i'm not an uncle," said the[pg 294] left-hand head. "uncles don't know half as much as we do."
"and why should they!" put in the other. "they haven't had the importunities we have for gaining knowledge. a man who has lived all his days in one country and which has never slad around the world like us has, don't see things the way us would."
and still jimmieboy did not notice that the swan-heads were talking together, though i can hardly blame him for that, because, now that he was out of doors he had to keep his eyes wide open to keep from bumping his head into the snow balls the hired man was throwing at him. in a few minutes, however, he did notice the peculiar fact and he was so surprised that he sat plump down on the red back of the sled and was off for—well, where the sled took him, and of all the slides that ever were slid, that[pg 295] was indeed the strangest. no sooner had he sat down than with a leap that nearly threw him off his balance, the swans started. the steel runners crackled merrily over the snow, and the wind itself was soon left behind.
"c-can you sus-swans tut-talk?" jimmieboy cried, in amazement, as soon as he could get his breath.
"oh, no, of course not," said the right-hand swan. "we can't talk, can we swanny?"
"no, indeed, swayny," returned the other with a laugh. "you may think we talk, you may even hear words from our lips, we might even recite a poem, but that wouldn't be talk—oh, no, indeed. certainly not."
"it's a queer question for him to ask, eh swanny?" said the right-hand head.
"extraordinary, swayny," said the one[pg 296] on the left. "might as well ask a locomotive if it smokes."
"well, i only wanted to know," said jimmieboy.
"he only wanted to know, swanny," said swayny.
"i presume that was why he asked—as though we didn't know that," said swanny. "he'd ask a pie-man with a tray full of pies, if he had any pies, i believe."
"yes, or a cat if he could miaou. queer boy," returned swayny. and then he added:
"i think a boy, who'd waste his time
in asking questions such as that,
would ask a man, who dealt in rhyme
if he'd a head inside his hat."
jimmieboy laughed.
"you know poetry, don't you," he said.
"well, rather," said swayny. "that is to say, i can tell it from a church steeple."
"which reminds me," put in swanny, as[pg 297] strange to say, this wonderful sled began to slide up a very steep hill, "of a conundrum i never heard before. what's the difference between writing poetry the way some people do and building a steeple as all people do?"
"i can't say," said swayny, "though if you'll tell me the answer now next time you ask that conundrum i'll be able to inform you."
"some people who write poetry run it into the ground," said swanny, "and all people who build steeples, run 'em up into the air."
"that's not bad," said jimmieboy, with a smile.
"no," said swanny, "it is not—but you don't know why."
"i don't indeed," observed jimmieboy. "why?"
"because my conundrums never are," said swanny.
[pg 298]
"europe!" cried swayny. "five minutes for refreshments."
"what do you mean?" said jimmieboy, as the sled came to a standstill.
"what does any conductor mean when he calls out the name of a station?" said swayny scornfully. "he means that's where you are at of course. which is what i mean. we've arrived at europe. that's the kind of a fast mail sled we are. in three minutes we've carried you up hill and down dale, over the sea to europe."
"really?" cried jimmieboy, dumfounded.
"certainly," said swanny. "you are now in europe. that blue place you see over on the right is germany, off to the left is france and that little pink speck is switzerland. see that glistening thing just on the edge of the pink speck?"
"yes," said jimmieboy.
[pg 299]
"that's an alp," said swanny. "it's too bad we've got to get you home in time for breakfast. if we weren't in such a hurry, we'd let you off so that you could buy an alp to take home to your brother. you could have snow-balls all through the summer if you had an alp in your nursery, but we can't stop now to get it. we've got to runaway immediately. ready swayny?"
"yes," said swayny. "all aboard for england. passengers will please keep their seats until the sled comes to a standstill in the station."
and then they were off again.
"how did you like europe?" asked swanny, as they sped along through a beautiful country, which swayny said was france.
"very nice what i saw of it," said jimmieboy. "but, of course i couldn't see very much in five minutes."
[pg 300]
"hoh! hear that, swayny?" said swanny. "couldn't see much in five minutes. why you could see all europe in five minutes, if you only looked fast enough. you kept your eye glued on that alp, i guess."
"that's what he did," said swayny. "and that's why it was so hard to get the sled started. i had to hump three times before i could get my runner off and it was all because he'd glued his eye on the alp! don't do it again, jimmieboy. we haven't time to unglue your eye every time we start."
"i don't blame him," said swanny. "those alps are simply great, and i sometimes feel myself as if i'd like to look at 'em as much as forty minutes. i'd hate to be a hired man on an alp, though."
"so would i," said swayny. "it would be awful if the owner of the alp made the[pg 301] hired man shovel the snow off it every morning."
"i wasn't thinking of that so much as i was of getting up every morning, early, to push the clouds away," said swanny. "people are very careless about their clouds on the alps, and they wander here and there, straying from one man's lawn onto another's, just like cows where jimmieboy lives. i knew a man once who bought the top of an alp just for the view, and one of his neighbor's clouds came along and squatted down on his place and simply killed the view entirely, and i tell you he made his hired man's life miserable. scolded him from morning until night, and fed him on cracked ice for a week, just because he didn't scare the cloud off when he saw it coming."
"i don't see how a man could scare a cloud off," said jimmieboy.
[pg 302]
"easy as eating chocolate creams," said swayny. "you can do it with a fan, if you have one big enough—but, i say, swanny, put on the brakes there quick, or we'll run slam-bang into——"
"london!" cried swanny, putting on the brakes, and sure enough that's where they were. jimmieboy knew it in a minute, because there was a lady coming out of a shop preceded by a band of music, and wearing a big crown on her head, whom he recognized at once as the great and good queen, whose pictures he had often seen in his story books.
"howdy do, little boy," said the queen, as her eye rested on jimmieboy.
"i'm very well, thank you, ma'am," said jimmieboy, holding out his hand for her majesty to shake.
"what are you doing here?" she asked.
[pg 303]
"i'm sliding until breakfast is ready," he replied.
"until breakfast is ready?" she cried. "why, what time do you have breakfast?"
"eight o'clock, so's papa can catch the 8:30 train, ma'am," said jimmieboy.
"but—it is now nearly one o'clock!" said the queen.
"that's all right, your roily highnishness," said swanny. "this is an american boy and he breakfasts on the american plan. it isn't eight o'clock yet where he lives."
"oh, yes—so it isn't," said the queen. "i remember now. the sun rises earlier here than it does in america."
"yes, ma'am," put in swayny. "it has to in order to get to america on time. america is some distance from here as you may have heard."
[pg 304]
and before the queen could say another word, the sled was sliding merrily along at such a rapid pace that jimmieboy had to throw his arms about swayny's neck to keep from falling overboard.
"w-where are we g-g gug-going to now?" he stammered.
"china," said swanny.
"egypt," said swayny.
"i said china," cried swanny, turning his eyes full upon swayny and glaring at him.
"i know you did," said swayny. "i may not show 'em, but i have ears. i, on the other hand said egypt, and egypt is where we are going. i want to show jimmieboy the pyramids. he's never seen a pyramid and he has seen chinamen."
"no doubt," said swanny. "but this time he's not going to egypt. i'm going to show him a mandarin. he can build a[pg 305] pyramid with his blocks, but he never in his life could build a mandarin. therefore, ho for china."
"you mean bah! for china," said swayny, angrily. "i'm not going to china, mr. william g. swanny and that's all there is about that. last time i was there a chinaman captured me and tied me to his pig-tail and i vowed i'd never go again."
"and when i was in egypt last time, i was stolen by a mummy, who wanted to broil and eat me because he hadn't had anything to eat for two thousand years. so i'm not going to egypt."
whereupon the two strange birds became involved in a dreadful quarrel, one trying to run the sled off toward china, the other trying, with equal vim, to steer it over to egypt. the runners creaked; the red back groaned and finally, there came a most dreadful crash. swanny flew off with his[pg 306] runner to the land of flowers, and swayny, freed from his partner, forgetting jimmieboy completely, sped on to egypt.
and jimmieboy.
well, jimmieboy, fell in between and by some great good fortune, for which i am not at all prepared to account, landed in a heap immediately beside his little bed in the nursery, not dressed in his furs at all but in his night gown, while out of doors not a speck of snow was to be seen, and strangest of all, when he was really dressed and had gone down stairs, there stood magic and the two swan heads, as spick and span as you please, still waiting to be tried.
