Part 13 (1/2)
”Yes; but I don't think it's very funny,” said Jimmieboy. ”I like to laugh, you know, and I couldn't laugh at that.”
”Oh!” said the silvery voice, with a slight tinge of disappointment in it. ”You want fun do you? Well, how do you like this? I think it is the funniest thing ever written, except others by the same author:
”There was an old man in New York Who thought he'd been changed to a stork; He stood on one limb 'Til his eyesight grew dim, And used his left foot for a fork.”
”That's the kind,” said Jimmieboy, enthusiastically. ”I could listen to a million of that sort of poems.”
”I'd be very glad to tell you a million of them,” returned the voice, ”but I don't believe there's electricity enough for me to do it under twenty-five minutes, and as we only have five left, I'm going to recite my lines on 'A Sulphur Match.'
”The flame you make, O Sulphur Match!
When your big head I chance to scratch,
”Appears so small most people deem You lilliputian, as you seem.
”And yet the force that in you lies Can light with brilliance all the skies.
”There's strength enough in you to send Great cities burning to their end;
”So that we have a hint in you Of what the smallest thing can do.
”Don't you like that?” queried the voice, anxiously. ”I do hope you do, because I am especially proud of that. The word lilliputian is a tremendous word for a poet of my size, and to think that I was able, alone and una.s.sisted, to lift it bodily out of the vocabulary into the poem makes me feel very, very proud of myself, and agree with my mother that I am the greatest poet that ever lived.”
”Well, if you want me to, I'll like it,” said Jimmieboy, who was in an accommodating mood. ”I'll take your word for it that it is a tremendous poem, but if you think of repeating it over again to me, don't do it.
Let me have another comic poem.”
”All right,” said Pixyweevil--for it was he that spoke through the book.
”You are very kind to like my poem just to please me. Tell me anything in the world you want a poem about, and I'll let you have the poem.”
”Really?” cried Jimmieboy, delighted to meet with so talented a person as Pixyweevil. ”Well--let me see--I'd like a poem about my garden rake.”
”Certainly. Here it is:
”I had a little garden rake With seven handsome teeth, It followed me o'er fern and brake, O'er meadow-land and heath.
”And though at it I'd often scowl, And treat it far from right, My garden rake would never growl, Nor use its teeth to bite.”
”Elegant!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Jimmieboy. ”Say it again.”
”Oh no! we haven't time for that. Besides, I've forgotten it. What else shall I recite about?” queried Pixyweevil.
”I don't know; I can't make up my mind,” said Jimmieboy.
”Oh dear me! that's awful easy,” returned Pixyweevil. ”I can do that with my eyes shut. Here she goes:
”Shall I become a lawyer great, A captain of a yacht, A man who deals in real estate, A doctor, or a what?
Ah me! Oh ho!
I do not know.
I can't make up my mind.