JIMMIE TRESCOTT'S new
velocipede had the largest front wheel of any velocipede in Whilomville. When
it first arrived from New York he wished to sacrifice school, food, and sleep
to it. Evidently he wished to become a sort of a perpetual velocipede-rider.
But the powers of the family laid a number of judicious embargoes upon him, and
he was prevented from becoming a fanatic. Of course this caused him to retain a
fondness for the three-wheeled thing much longer than if he had been allowed to
debauch himself for a span of days. But in the end it was an immaterial machine
to him. For long periods he left it idle in the stable.
One day he loitered
from school toward home by a very circuitous route. He was accompanied by only
one of his retainers. The object of this detour was the wooing of a little girl
in a red hood. He had been in love with her for some three weeks. His desk was
near her desk at school, but he had never spoken to her. He had been afraid to
take such a radical step. It was not customary to speak to girls. Even boys who
had school-going sisters seldom addressed them during that part of a day which
was devoted to education.
The reasons for this
conduct were very plain. First, the more robust boys considered talking with
girls an unmanly occupation; second, the greater part of the boys were afraid;
third, they had no idea of what to say, because they esteemed the proper
sentences should be supernaturally incisive and eloquent. In consequence, a
small contingent of blue-eyed weaklings were the sole intimates of the frail
sex, and for it they were boisterously and disdainfully called
"girl-boys."
But this situation did
not prevent serious and ardent wooing. For instance, Jimmie and the little girl
who wore the red hood must have exchanged glances at least two hundred times in
every school-hour, and this exchange of glances accomplished everything. In
them the two children renewed their curious inarticulate vows.
Jimmie had developed a
devotion to school which was the admiration of his father and mother. In the
mornings he was so impatient to have it made known to him that no misfortune
had befallen his romance during the night that he was actually detected at
times feverishly listening for the "first bell." Dr. Trescott was
exceedingly complacent of the change, and as for Mrs. Trescott, she had ecstatic
visions of a white-haired Jimmie leading the nations in knowledge,
comprehending all from bugs to comets. It was merely the doing of the little
girl in the red hood.
When Jimmie made up his
mind to follow his sweetheart home from school, the project seemed such an
arbitrary and shameless innovation that he hastily lied to himself about it.
No, he was not following Abbie. He was merely making his way homeward through
the new and rather longer route of Bryant Street and Oakland Park. It had
nothing at all to do with a girl. It was a mere eccentric notion.
"Come on,"
said Jimmie, gruffly, to his retainer. "Let's go home this way."
"What fer?"
demanded the retainer.
"Oh,
b'cause."
"Huh?"
"Oh, it's more
fun--goin' this way."
The retainer was bored
and loath, but that mattered very little. He did not know how to disobey his
chief. Together they followed the trail of red-hooded Abbie and another small
girl. These latter at once understood the object of the chase, and looking back
giggling, they pretended to quicken their pace. But they were always looking
back. Jimmie now began his courtship in earnest. The first thing to do was to
prove his strength in battle. This was transacted by means of the retainer. He
took that devoted boy and flung him heavily to the ground, meanwhile mouthing a
preposterous ferocity.
The retainer accepted
this behavior with a sort of bland resignation. After his overthrow he raised
himself, coolly brushed some dust and dead leaves from his clothes, and then
seemed to forget the incident.
"I can jump
farther'n you can," said Jimmie, in a loud voice.
"I know it,"
responded the retainer, simply.
But this would not do.
There must be a contest.
"Come on,"
shouted Jimmie, imperiously. "Let's see you jump."
The retainer selected a
footing on the curb, balanced and calculated a moment, and jumped without
enthusiasm. Jimmie's leap of course was longer.
"There!" he
cried, blowing out his lips. "I beat you, didn't I? Easy. I beat
you." He made a great hubbub, as if the affair was unprecedented.
"Yes,"
admitted the other, emotionless.
Later, Jimmie forced
his retainer to run a race with him, held more jumping-matches, flung him twice
to earth, and generally behaved as if a retainer was indestructible. If the retainer
had been in the plot, it is conceivable that he would have endured this
treatment with mere whispered, half-laughing protests. But he was not in the
plot at all, and so he became enigmatic. One cannot often sound the profound
well in which lie the meanings of boyhood.
Following the two
little girls, Jimmie eventually passed into that suburb of Whilomville which is
called Oakland Park. At his heels came a badly battered retainer. Oakland Park
was a somewhat strange country to the boys. They were dubious of the manners
and customs, and of course they would have to meet the local chieftains, who
might look askance upon this invasion.
Jimmie's girl departed
into her home with a last backward glance that almost blinded the thrilling
boy. On this pretext and that pretext, he kept his retainer in play before the
house. He had hopes that she would emerge as soon as she had deposited her
school-bag.
A boy came along the
walk. Jimmie knew him at school. He was Tommie Semple, one of the weaklings who
made friends with the fair sex. "Hello, Tom," said Jimmie. "You
live round here?"
"Yeh," said
Tom, with composed pride. At school he was afraid of Jimmie, but he did not
evince any of this fear as he strolled well inside his own frontiers. Jimmie
and his retainer had not expected this boy to display the manners of a minor
chief, and they contemplated him attentively. There was a silence. Finally
Jimmie said,
"I can put you
down." He moved forward briskly. "Can't I?" he demanded. The
challenged boy backed away.
"I know you
can," he declared, frankly and promptly.
The little girl in the
red hood had come out with a hoop. She looked at Jimmie with an air of insolent
surprise in the fact that he still existed, and began to trundle her hoop off
toward some other little girls who were shrilly playing near a nurse-maid and a
perambulator.
Jimmie adroitly shifted
his position until he too was playing near the perambulator, pretentiously
making mince-meat out of his retainer and Tommie Semple.
Of course little Abbie
had defined the meaning of Jimmie's appearance in Oakland Park. Despite this
nonchalance and grand air of accident, nothing could have been more plain.
Whereupon she of course became insufferably vain in manner, and whenever Jimmie
came near her she tossed her head and turned away her face, and daintily
swished her skirts as if he were contagion itself. But Jimmie was happy. His
soul was satisfied with the mere presence of the beloved object so long as he
could feel that she furtively gazed upon him from time to time and noted his
extraordinary prowess, which he was proving upon the persons of his retainer
and Tommie Semple. And he was making an impression. There could be no doubt of
it. He had many times caught her eye fixed admiringly upon him as he mauled the
retainer. Indeed, all the little girls gave attention to his deeds, and he was
the hero of the hour.
Presently a boy on a
velocipede was seen to be tooling down toward them. "Who's this
comin'?" said Jimmie, bluntly, to the Semple boy.
"That's Horace
Glenn," said Tommie, "an' he's got a new velocipede, an' he can ride
it like anything."
"Can you lick
him?" asked Jimmie.
"I don't--I never
fought with 'im," answered the other. He bravely tried to appear as a man
of respectable achievement, but with Horace coming toward them the risk was too
great. However, he added, "Maybe I could."
The advent of Horace on
his new velocipede created a sensation which he haughtily accepted as a
familiar thing. Only Jimmie and his retainer remained silent and impassive.
Horace eyed the two invaders.
"Hello,
Jimmie!"
"Hello,
Horace!"
After the typical
silence Jimmie said, pompously, "I got a velocipede."
"Have you?"
asked Horace, anxiously. He did not wish anybody in the world but himself to
possess a velocipede.
"Yes," sang
Jimmie. "An' it's a bigger one than that, too! A good deal bigger! An'
it's a better one, too!"
"Huh!"
retorted Horace, sceptically.
"'Ain't I,
Clarence? 'Ain't I? 'Ain't I got one bigger'n that?"
The retainer answered
with alacrity:
"Yes, he has! A
good deal bigger! An' it's a dindy, too!"
This corroboration
rather disconcerted Horace, but he continued to scoff at any statement that
Jimmie also owned a velocipede. As for the contention that this supposed
velocipede could be larger than his own, he simply wouldn't hear of it. Jimmie
had been a very gallant figure before the coming of Horace, but the new
velocipede had relegated him to a squalid secondary position. So he affected to
look with contempt upon it. Voluminously he bragged of the velocipede in the
stable at home. He painted its virtues and beauty in loud and extravagant
words, flaming words. And the retainer stood by, glibly endorsing everything.
The little company
heeded him, and he passed on vociferously from extravagance to utter
impossibility. Horace was very sick of it. His defense was reduced to a mere
mechanical grumbling: "Don't believe you got one 'tall. Don't believe you
got one 'tall." Jimmie turned upon him suddenly. "How fast can you
go? How fast can you go?" he demanded. "Let's see. I bet you can't go
fast."
Horace lifted his
spirits and answered with proper defiance. "Can't I?" he mocked.
"Can't I?"
"No, you
can't," said Jimmie. "You can't go fast."
Horace cried:
"Well, you see me now! I'll show you! I'll show you if I can't go
fast!" Taking a firm seat on his vermilion machine, he pedalled furiously
up the walk, turned, and pedalled back again. "There, now!" he
shouted, triumphantly. "Ain't that fast? There, now!" There was a low
murmur of appreciation from the little girls. Jimmie saw with pain that even
his divinity was smiling upon his rival. "There! Ain't that fast? Ain't
that fast?" He strove to pin Jimmie down to an admission. He was exuberant
with victory.
Notwithstanding a
feeling of discomfiture, Jimmie did not lose a moment of time. "Why,"
he yelled, "that ain't goin' fast 'tall!" That ain't goin' fast
'tall! Why, I can go almost twice as fast as that! Almost twice as fast! Can't
I, Clarence?"
The royal retainer
nodded solemnly at the wide-eyed group. "Course you can!"
"Why,"
spouted Jimmie, "you just ought to see me ride once! You just ought to see
me! Why, I can go like the wind! Can't I, Clarence? And I can ride far,
too--oh, awful far! Can't I, Clarence? Why, I wouldn't have that one! 'Tain't
any good! You just ought to see mine once!"
The overwhelmed Horace
attempted to reconstruct his battered glories. "I can ride right over the
curb-stone--at some of the crossin's," he announced, brightly.
Jimmie's derision was a
splendid sight. "'Right over the curb-stone!' Why, that wouldn't be
nothin' for me to do! I've rode mine down Bridge Street hill. Yessir! 'Ain't I,
Clarence? Why, it ain't nothin' to ride over a curb-stone--not for me! Is it,
Clarence?"
"Down Bridge
Street hill? You never!" said Horace, hopelessly.
"Well, didn't I,
Clarence? Didn't I, now?"
The faithful retainer
again nodded solemnly at the assemblage.
At last Horace, having
fallen as low as was possible, began to display a spirit for climbing up again.
"Oh, you can do wonders!" he said, laughing. "You can do
wonders! I s'pose you could ride down that bank there?" he asked, with
art. He had indicated a grassy terrace some six feet in height which bounded
one side of the walk. At the bottom was a small ravine in which the reckless
had flung ashes and tins. "I s'pose you could ride down that bank?"
All eyes now turned
upon Jimmie to detect a sign of his weakening, but he instantly and sublimely
arose to the occasion. "That bank?" he asked, scornfully. "Why,
I've ridden down banks like that many a time. 'Ain't I, Clarence?"
This was too much for
the company. A sound like the wind in the leaves arose; it was the song of
incredulity and ridicule. "O- -o--o--o--o!" And on the outskirts a
little girl suddenly shrieked out, "Story-teller!"
Horace had certainly
won a skirmish. He was gleeful. "Oh, you can do wonders!" he gurgled.
"You can do wonders!" The neighborhood's superficial hostility to
foreigners arose like magic under the influence of his sudden success, and
Horace had the delight of seeing Jimmie persecuted in that manner known only to
children and insects.
Jimmie called angrily
to the boy on the velocipede, "If you'll lend me yours, I'll show you
whether I can or not."
Horace turned his
superior nose in the air. "Oh, no! I don't ever lend it." Then he
thought of a blow which would make Jimmie's humiliation complete.
"Besides," he said, airily, "'tain't really anything hard to do.
I could do it--easy--if I wanted to." But his supposed adherents, instead
of receiving this boast with cheers, looked upon him in a sudden blank silence.
Jimmie and his retainer pounced like cats upon their advantage.
"Oh," they
yelled, "you could, eh? Well, let's see you do it, then! Let's see you do
it! Let's see you do it! Now!" In a moment the crew of little spectators
were gibing at Horace. The blow that would make Jimmie's humiliation complete!
Instead, it had boomeranged Horace into the mud. He kept up a sullen muttering:
"'Tain't really
anything! I could if I wanted to!"
"Dare you
to!" screeched Jimmie and his partisans. "Dare you to! Dare you to!
Dare you to!"
There were two things
to be done--to make gallant effort or to retreat. Somewhat to their amazement,
the children at last found Horace moving through their clamor to the edge of
the bank. Sitting on the velocipede, he looked at the ravine, and then, with
gloomy pride, at the other children. A hush came upon them, for it was seen
that he was intending to make some kind of an ante-mortem statement.
"I--" he
began. Then he vanished from the edge of the walk. The start had been unintentional--an
accident.
The stupefied Jimmie
saw the calamity through a haze. His first clear vision was when Horace, with a
face as red as a red flag, arose bawling from his tangled velocipede. He and
his retainer exchanged a glance of horror and fled the neighborhood. They did
not look back until they had reached the top of the hill near the lake. They
could see Horace walking slowly under the maples toward his home, pushing his
shattered velocipede before him. His chin was thrown high, and the breeze bore
them the sound of his howls.