Half-Hours with Jimmieboy

by John Kendrick Bangs

  VI.

  JIMMIEBOY'S SNOWMAN.

  The snow had been falling fast for well-nigh forty-eight hours andJimmieboy was almost crazy with delight. He loved the snow because itwas possible to do so much with it. One didn't need to go into a store,for instance, and part with ten cents every time one happened to want aball, when there was snow on the ground. Then, too, Jimmieboy had a newsled he wanted to try, but best of all, his father had promised to makehim a snowman, with shoe-buttons for eyes and a battered old hat on hishead, if perchance there could be found anywhere in the house a hat ofthat sort. Fortunately a battered old hat was found, and the snowmanwhen finished looked very well in it. I say fortunately becauseJimmieboy had fully made up his mind that a battered hat was absolutelynecessary to make the snowman a success, and had not the old one beenfound I very much fear the youth would have taken his father's new oneand battered that into the state of usefulness required to complete theicy statue to his satisfaction.

  After the snowman was finished Jimmieboy romped about him and shouted ingreat glee for an hour or more, and then, growing a little weary of thesport, he ran up into his nursery to rest for a little while. He had notbeen there very long however when he became, for some unknown reason,uneasy about the funny looking creature he had left behind him. Runningto the window he looked out to see if the snowman was all right, and hewas much surprised to discover that he wasn't there at all. He couldn'thave melted, that was certain, for the air was colder than it had beenwhen the snowman was put up. No one could have stolen him because he wastoo big, and so, well, it certainly was a strange conclusion, but nonethe less the only one, he must have walked off himself.

  "It's mighty queer!" thought Jimmieboy. "He was there ten minutes ago."

  Then he ran down stairs and peered out of the window. At the front ofthe house no snowman was in sight. Then he went to a side window andlooked out. Still no snowman. And then the door-bell rang, and Jimmieboywent to the door and opened it, and, dear me! how he laughed when he sawwho it was that had rung the bell, as would also have you, for,honestly, it was no one else than the snowman himself.

  "What do you want?" asked Jimmieboy. The snowman made a low bow toJimmieboy, and replied:

  "I got so weary standing there, I thought I'd ask you for a chair; 'Tis rather cool of me, I know, But coolness in a man of snow Is quite the fashion in these days, And to be stylish always pays."

  "Won't you come in?" asked Jimmieboy politely.

  The snowman stared at Jimmieboy with all the power of the shoe-buttons.He was evidently surprised. In a moment or two, however, he recoveredand said:

  "Indeed, I'll enter not that door, I've tried it once or twice before."

  "What of that?" asked Jimmieboy. "Didn't you like it?"

  "Oh, yes; I liked it well enough, Although it used me pretty rough; I lost a nose and foot and ear, Last time I happened to come here."

  "Do you always speak in rhyme?" asked Jimmieboy, noticing the snowman'shabit for the first time.

  "Always, except when I speak in prose," said the snowman. "But perhapsyou don't like rhyme?"

  "Yes, I do like rhyme very much," said Jimmieboy.

  "Then you like me," said the snowman, "because I'm mostly rime myself.But say, don't stand there with the door open letting all the heat outinto the world. If you want to talk to me come outside where we can becomfortable."

  "Very well," said Jimmieboy. "I'll come, if you'll wait until I bundleup a little so as to keep warm."

  "All right, I'll wait," the snowman answered, "only don't you get toowarm. I'll take you up to where I live and introduce you to my boys ifyou like--only hurry. If a thaw should set in we might have trouble.

  "Of all mean things I ever saw The meanest of them is a thaw."

  Jimmieboy, pondering deeply over his curious experience, quickly donnedhis overcoat and rubber boots, and in less time than it takes to tell itwas out of doors again with the snowman. The huge white creature smiledhappily as Jimmieboy came out, and taking him by the hand they went offup the road together.

  "I'm glad you weren't offended with me because I wouldn't go in and sitdown in your house," said the snowman, after they had walked a littleway. "I had a very narrow escape thirty winters ago when I was young anddidn't know any better than to accept an invitation of that sort. Ilived in Russia then, and a small boy very much like you asked me to gointo his house with him and see some funny picture-books he had. I saidall right, and in I went, never thinking that the house was hot and thatI'd be in danger of melting away. The boy got out his picture-books andwe sat down before a blazing log fire. Suddenly the boy turned white asI was, and cried out:

  "'Hi! What have you done with your leg?'

  "'I brought it in with me, didn't I?' I said, looking down to where theleg ought to be, and noticing much to my concern that it was gone.

  "'I thought so,' said the boy. 'Maybe you left it down on the hat-rackwith your hat and cane.'

  "'Well I wish you'd go and see,' said I, very nervously. 'I don't wantto lose that leg if I can help it.'

  "So off the boy went," continued the snowman, "and I waited there beforethe fire wondering what on earth had become of the missing limb. The boysoon came back and announced that he couldn't find it.

  "'Then I must hop around until I do find it,' I put in, starting up.Would you believe it, Jimmieboy, that the minute I tried to rise and hopoff on the search I discovered that my other leg was gone too?"

  "Dear me!" said Jimmieboy. "How dreadful."

  "It was fearful," returned the snowman, "but that wasn't half. I raisedmy hand to my forehead so as to think better, when off dropped my rightarm, and as I reached out with my left to pick it up again that droppedoff too. Then as my vest also disappeared, the boy cried out:

  "'Why, I know what's the matter. You are melting away!'

  "He was right. The heat of the log fire was just withering me right up.Fortunately as my neck began to go and my head rolled off the chaironto the floor, the boy had presence of mind enough to pick it up--itwas all that was left of me--and throw it out of the window. If ithadn't been for that timely act of his I should have met the horrid fateof my cousin the iceberg."

  "What was that?" asked Jimmieboy.

  "Oh, he wanted to travel," said the snowman, "so he floated off down toSouth America and waked up one morning to find himself nothing but atankful of the Gulf of Mexico. We never saw the poor fellow again."

  "I understand now why you didn't want to come in," said Jimmieboy, "andI'm glad you didn't do as I asked you, for I don't think mamma wouldhave been pleased if you'd melted away in the parlor."

  "I know she wouldn't," said the snowman. "She's like the woman mentionedin the poem, who

  "--hated flies and muddy shoes, As well as pigs and kangaroos; But most of all she did abhor, A melted snow-drift on the floor."

  "Do you live near here?" asked Jimmieboy as he trudged along at thesnowman's side.

  "Well," replied the snowman, "I do, and I don't. When I do, I do, andwhen I don't, it's otherwise. This climate doesn't agree with me in thesummer, and so when summer comes I move up to the North Pole. Ever beenthere?"

  "No," said Jimmieboy, "what sort of a place is it?"

  "Fine," returned the snowman. "The thermometer is always at least twentymiles below zero, even on the hottest days, and fire can't by anypossibility come near us. Only one fire ever tried to and it was frozenstiff before it got within a hundred leagues of us. In winter, however,I come to places like this, and bring my little boys with me. We hire aconvenient snow-drift and live in that. There's mine now right ahead ofyou."

  Jimmieboy peered curiously along the road, at the far end of which hecould see a huge mound of snow like the one the famous blizzard hadpiled up in front of his father's house some time before Jimmieboy andthe world came to know each other.

  "Do you live in that?" he asked.

  "Yes," said the snowman. "And I will say that it's one of the mostconveniently arranged s
now-drifts I ever lived in. The house part of itis always as cold as ice--it's cooled by a special kind of refrigeratorI had put in, which consumes about half a ton of ice a week."

  Jimmieboy laughed.

  "It's a cold furnace, eh?" he said.

  "Precisely," answered the snowman. "And besides that the house isdeliciously draughty so that we have no difficulty in keeping cold. Oncein a while my boys run in the sun and get warmed through, but I dose 'emup with ice-water and cold cream and they soon get chilled again. Butcome, shall we go in?"

  The pedestrians had by this time reached the side of the snow-drift, andJimmieboy was pleased to see a door at one side of it. This the snowmanopened, and they entered together a marvelously beautiful and extensivegarden glistening with frosty flowers and snow-clad trees. At the end ofthe garden was a little white house that looked like the icing onJimmieboy's birthday cake. As they approached it, the door of the littlehouse was thrown open and a dozen small-sized snow boys rushed out andbegan to pelt the snowman and Jimmieboy with tennis balls.

  "Hold up, boys," cried the snowman. "I've brought a friend home to seeyou."

  The boys stopped at once, and Jimmieboy was introduced to them. Forhours they entertained him in the gardens and in the house. They showedhim wondrous snow toys, among which were rocking horses, railway trains,soldiers--all made of the same soft fleecy substance from which thesnowman and his children were constructed. When he had played for a longtime with these they gave him caramels and taffy and cream cakes, thesealso made of snow, though as far as their taste went they were betterthan those made of sugar and chocolate and cream, or, at least, itseemed so to Jimmieboy at the time.

  After this bit of luncheon the boys invited him out to coast, and hewent along with them to the top of a high hill without any snow upon it,and for hours he and they slid from summit to base in great red-wheeledwagons. It took his breath away the first time he went down, but when hegot used to it he found the sport delightful. He was glad, however, whena voice from the little white house called to the children to return.

  "Come in now, boys," it said. "It is getting too warm for you to stayout."

  The boys were obedient to the word and they all--a dozen of them atleast--trooped back into the house where Jimmieboy was welcomed by hisfriend the snowman again. The snowman looked a little anxious, Jimmieboythought, but he supposed this was because the littlest snowboy hadoverheated himself at his play and had come in minus two fingers and anear. It was not this, however, that bothered him, as Jimmieboy found outin a few minutes, for the snowman simply restored the missing fingersand the ear by making a new lot for the little fellow out of a handfulof snow he got in the garden. Anything so easily replaced was not worthworrying over. The real cause of his anxiety came out when the father ofthis happy little family of snow boys called Jimmieboy to one side.

  "You must go home right away," he said. "I'm sorry, but we have got tofly just as hard as we can or we are lost."

  "But----" said Jimmieboy.

  "Don't ask for reasons," returned the snowman, gathering his littlesnowboys together and rushing off with them in tow. "I haven't time togive them. Just read that and you'll see. Farewell."

  Then he made off down the garden path, and as he fled with his babiesJimmieboy picked up the thing the snowman had told him to read, andwandered back into the house, holding it in his hand. It was only anewspaper, but at the top of the first column was an announcement inhuge letters:

  WARM WAVE TO-NIGHT.

  * * * * *

  WISE SNOWMEN WILL MOVE NORTH AT ONCE.

  When Jimmieboy saw this he knew right away why he had been deserted, butto this day he doesn't know how he knew it, because at the time thishappened he had not learned how to read. At all events he discoveredwhat the trouble was instantly, and then he decided that as he had beenleft by all of his new friends he would go home. He walked to the frontdoor and opened it, and what do you suppose it opened into?

  The garden?

  Not a bit of it.

  Into Jimmieboy's nursery itself, and when the door closed upon him afterhe had stepped through it into the nursery and Jimmieboy turned to lookat it, lo, and behold it wasn't there!

  Nor was the snowman to be found the next morning. It was quite evidentthat he had got away from the warm wave that appeared on the scene thenight before, for there wasn't even a sign of the shoe-button eyes orthe battered hat, as there certainly would have been had he meltedinstead of run away.