In Camp With A Tin Soldier Part 6

"I don't know what else to do," said Jimmieboy. "I'm obeying orders. The colonel told me to get those things, and I supposed I ought to get 'em."

"It doesn't pay to suppose," said the Parallelopipedon. "Many a victory has been lost by a supposition. As that old idiot Major Blueface said once, when he tried to tell an untruth, and so hit the truth by mistake:

'Success always comes to The mortal who knows, And never to him who Does naught but suppose.

For knowledge is certain, While hypothesees Oft drop defeat's curtain On great victories.'"

"What are hypothesees?" asked Jimmieboy.

"They are ifs in words of four syllables," said the Parallelopipedon, "and you want to steer clear of them as much as you can."

"I'll try to," said Jimmieboy. "But how am I to get knowledge instead of hypotheseeses? I have to take what people tell me. I don't know everything."

"Well, that's only natural," said the Parallelopipedon, kindly. "There are only two creatures about here that do know everything. They--between you and me--are me and myself. The others you meet here don't even begin to know everything, though they'll try to make you believe they do. Now I dare say that tin colonel of yours would try to make you believe that water is wet, and that fire is hot, and other things like that. Well, they are, but he doesn't know it. He only thinks it. He has put his hand into a pail of water and found out that it was wet, but he doesn't know why it is wet any more than he knows why fire is hot."

"Do you?" queried Jimmieboy.

"Certainly," returned the Parallelopipedon. "Water is wet because it is water, and fire is hot because it wouldn't be fire if it wasn't hot. Oh, it takes brains to know everything, Jimmieboy, and if there's one thing old Colonel Zinc hasn't got, it's brains. If you don't believe it, cut his head off some day and see for yourself. You won't find a whole brain in his head."

"It must be nice to know everything," said Jimmieboy.

"It's pretty nice," said the Parallelopipedon, cautiously. "But it's not always the nicest thing in the world. If you are off on a long journey, for instance, it's awfully hard work to carry all you know along with you. It has given me a headache many a time, I can tell you. Sometimes I wish I did like your papa, and kept all I know in books instead of in my head. It's a great deal better to do things that way; then, when you go travelling, and have to take what you know along with you, you can just pack it up in a trunk and make the railroad people carry it."

"Do you know what's going to happen to-morrow and the next day?" asked Jimmieboy, gazing in rapt admiration at the spot whence the voice proceeded.

"Yes, indeed. That's just where the great trouble comes in," answered the Parallelopipedon. "It isn't so much bother to know what has been--what everybody knows--but when you have to store up in your mind thousands and millions of things that aren't so now, but have got to be so some day, it's positively awful. Why, Jimmieboy," he said, impressively, "you'd be terrified if I told you what is going to be known by the time you go to school; it's awful to think of all the things you will have to learn then that aren't things yet, but are going to be within a year or two. I'm real sorry for the little boys who will live a hundred years from now, when I think of all the history they will have to learn when they go to school--history that isn't made yet. Just take the Presidents of the United States, for instance. In George Was.h.i.+ngton's time it didn't take a boy five seconds to learn the list of Presidents; but think of that list to-day! Why, there are twenty-five names on it now, and more to come. It gets harder every year. Now I--I know the names of all the Presidents there's ever going to be, and it would take me just eighteen million nine hundred and sixty-seven years, eleven months and twenty-six days, four hours and twenty-eight minutes to tell you all of them, and even then I wouldn't be half through."

"Why, it's terrible," said Jimmieboy.

"Yes, indeed it is," returned the Parallelopipedon. "You ought to be glad you are a little boy now instead of having to wait until then. The boys of the year 19,605,726,422 are going to have the hardest time in the world learning things, and I don't believe they'll get through going to school much before they're ninety years old."

"I guess the colonel is glad he doesn't know all that," said Jimmieboy, "if it's so hard to carry it around with you."

"Indeed he ought to be, if he isn't," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the Parallelopipedon.

"There's no two ways about it; if he had the weight of one half of what I know on his shoulders, it would bend him in two and squash him into a piece of tin-foil."

"Say," said Jimmieboy, after a moment's pause. "I heard my papa say he thought I might be President of the United States some day. If you know all the names of the Presidents that are to come, tell me, will I be?"

"I don't remember any name like Jimmieboy on the list," said the Parallelopipedon; "but that doesn't prove anything. You might get elected on your last name. But don't let's talk about that--that's politics, and I don't like politics. What I want to know is, do you really want to capture me?"

"Yes, I do," said Jimmieboy.

"Then you'd better give up trying to get the peaches and cherries," said the Parallelopipedon, firmly. "I won't have 'em. You can shoot 'em at me at the rate of a can a minute for ninety-seven years, and I'll never surrender. I hate 'em."

"But what am I to do, then?" queried the little general. "What must I do to capture you?"

"Get something in the place of the cherries and peaches that I like, that's all. Very simple matter, that."

"But I don't know what you like," said Jimmieboy. "I never took lunch with you."

"No--and you never will," answered the Parallelopipedon. "And for a very good reason. I never eat lunch, breakfast, tea, or supper. I never eat anything but dinner, and I eat that four times a day."

Jimmieboy laughed, half with mirth at the oddity of the Parallelopipedon's habit of eating, and half with the pleasure it gave him to think of what a delectable habit it was. Four dinners a day seemed to him to be the height of bliss, and he almost wished he too were a Parallelopipedon, that he might enjoy the same privilege.

"Don't you ever eat between meals?" he asked, after a minute of silence.

"Never," said the Parallelopipedon. "Never. There isn't time for it in the first place, and in the second there's never anything left between meals for me to eat. But if you had ever dined with me you'd know mighty well what I like, for I always have the same thing at every single dinner--two platefuls of each thing. It's a fine plan, that of having the same dishes at every dinner, day after day. Your stomach always knows what to expect, and is ready for it, so you don't get cholera morbus. If you want me to, I'll tell you what I always have, and what you must get me before you can coax me back."

"Thank you," said Jimmieboy. "I'll be very much obliged."

And then the Parallelopipedon recited the following delicious bill of fare for the young general.

"THE PARALLELOPIPEDON'S DINNER.

First bring on a spring mock-turtle Stuffed with chestnuts roasted through, Served in gravy; then a fertile Steaming bowl of oyster stew.

Then about six dozen tartlets Full of huckleberry jam, Edges trimmed with juicy Bartletts-- Pears, these latter--then some ham.

Follow these with cauliflower, Soaked in maple syrup sweet; Then an apple large and sour, And a rich red rosy beet.

Then eight quarts of cream--vanilla Is the flavor I like best-- Acts sublimely as a chiller, Gives your fevered system rest.

After this a pint of coffee, Forty jars of marmalade, And a pound of peanut toffee, Then a pumpkin pie--home-made.

Top this off with pickled salmon, Cold roast beef, and eat it four Times each day, and ghastly famine Ne'er will enter at your door."

"H'm! h'm! h'm!" cried Jimmieboy, dancing up and down, and clapping his hands with delight at the very thought of such a meal. "Do you mean to say that you eat that four times a day?"

"Yes," said the Parallelopipedon, "I do. In fact, general, it is that that has made me what I am. I was originally a Parallelogram, and I ate that four times a day, and it kept doubling me up until I became six Parallelograms as I am to-day. Get me those things--enough of them to enable me to have 'em five times a day, and I surrender. Without them, I go on and stay escaped forever, and the longer I stay escaped, the worse it will be for these people who live about here, for I shall devastate the country. I shall chew up all the mowing-machines in Pictureland.

I'll bite the smoke-stack off every railway engine I encounter, and throw it into the smoking car, where it really belongs. I'll drink all the water in the wells. I'll pull up all the cellars by the roots; I may even go so far as to run down into your nursery, and gnaw into the wire that holds this picture country upon the wall, and let it drop into the water pitcher. But, oh dear, there's the major coming down the road!" he added, in a tone of alarm. "I must go, or he'll insist on telling me a poem. But remember what I say, my boy, and beware! I'll do all I threaten to do if you don't do what I tell you. Good-by!"

There was a slight rustling among the leaves, and the Parallelopipedon's voice died away as Major Blueface came galloping up astride of his panting, lather-covered steed.

CHAPTER V.

THE MAJOR RETURNS.

"Well," said Jimmieboy, as the major dismounted, "did you catch up with them?"

"No, I didn't," returned the major, evidently much excited. "I should have caught them but for a dreadful encounter I had up the road, for between you and me, Jimmieboy, I have had a terrible adventure since I saw you last, and the soldiers I went to order back have been destroyed to the very last man."

"Dear me!" cried Jimmieboy. "I am glad I didn't go with you. What happened?"

"I was attacked about four miles up the road by a tremendous sixty-pound Quandary, and I was nearly killed," said the major. "The soldiers had only got four and a half miles on their way, and hearing the disturbance and my cries for help they hastened to the rescue, and were simply an-ni-hi-lated, which is old English for all mashed to pieces."