In Camp With A Tin Soldier Part 9

"Tom answered bravely that he thought he was, and the man said he would give him a trial anyhow, and sent him off on a sample errand, telling him that if he did that one properly, he would pay him fifty cents a day for as many days as he kept him, giving him a half holiday on all circus-days. Tom was delighted, and started off gleefully to perform the sample errand, which was to take a basketful of china plates to the house of a rich merchant who lived four miles back in the country.

Bravely the little fellow plodded along until he came to the gate-way of the rich man's place, when so overcome was he with happiness at getting something to do that he could not wait to get the gate open, but leaped like a deer clear over the topmost pickets. But, alas! his very happiness was his ruin, for as he landed on the other side the china plates flew out of the basket in every direction, and falling on the hard gravel path were broken every one."

"Dear me!" cried Jimmieboy, sympathetically. "Poor little Tom."

"Whereat the cow Remarked, 'Pray how-- If what you say is true-- How should the child, However mild, Become so wildly blue?'"

snored the corporal.

"What's the matter with you?" asked Jimmieboy, very much surprised at the rhyme, which, so far as he could see, had nothing to do with the fairy story.

"What's the matter with me?" returned the corporal. "Nothing. Why?"

"There wasn't anything about a cow in the fairy story you were telling about Tom," said Jimmieboy.

"Was I telling that story about Tom?" asked the sleeping soldier.

"Certainly," replied Jimmieboy.

"Then you must have interrupted me," snored the corporal. "You must never interrupt a person who is snoring until he gets through, because the chances are nine out of ten that, being asleep, he won't remember what he has been snoring about, and will go off on something else entirely. Where was I when you interrupted?"

"You had got to where Tom jumped over the gate and broke all the china plates," answered Jimmieboy.

"Very well, then. I'll go on, but don't you say another thing until I have finished," said the corporal. Then resuming his story, he snored away as follows: "And falling on the hard gravel path the plates were broken every one, which was awfully sad, as any one could understand who could see how the poor little fellow threw himself down on the gra.s.s and wept. Dear me, how he wept! He wept so long and such great tears, that the gra.s.s about him for yards and yards looked as fresh and green as though there had been a rain-storm.

"'Oh, dear! what shall I do?' cried Tom, ruefully regarding the shattered plates. 'They'll beat me if I go back to the shop, and I'll never get to see the circus after all.'

"'No,' said a voice. 'They will not beat you, and I will see that you get to the circus.'

"'Who are you?' asked Tom, looking up and seeing before him a beautiful lady, who looked as if she might be a part of the circus herself. 'Are you the lady with the iron jaw or the horseback lady that jumps through hoops of fire?'

"'Neither,' replied the lady. 'I am your Fairy G.o.dmother, and I have come to tell you that if you will gather up the broken plates and take them up to the great house yonder, I will fix it so that you can go to the circus.'

"'Won't they scold me for breaking the plates?' asked Tom, his eyes brightening and his tears drying.

"'Take them and see,' said the Fairy G.o.dmother, and Tom, who was always an obedient lad, did as he was told. He gathered up the broken plates, put them in his basket, and went up to the house.

"'Here are your plates,' he said, all of a tremble as he entered.

"'Let's see if any of them are broken,' said the merchant in a voice so gruff that Tom trembled all the harder. Surely he was now in worse trouble than ever.

"'H'm!' said the rich man taking one out and looking at it. 'That seems to be all right.'

"'Yes,' said Tom, meekly, surprised to note that the plate was as good as ever. 'It has been very neatly mended.'

"'Very what?' roared the rich man, who didn't want mended plates. 'Did you say mended?'

"'Oh, no, sir!' stammered Tom, who saw that he had made a bad mistake.

'That is, I didn't mean to say mended. I meant to say that they'd been very highly recommended.'

"'Oh! Recommended, eh?' returned the rich man more calmly. 'That's different. The rest of them seem to be all right, too. Here, take your basket and go along with you. Good-by!'

"And so Tom left the merchant's house very much pleased to have got out of his sc.r.a.pe so easily, and feeling very grateful to his Fairy G.o.dmother for having helped him.

"'Well,' said she, when he got back to the gate where she was awaiting him, 'was everything all right?'

"'Yes,' said Tom, happily. 'The plates were all right, and now they are all left.'

"The Fairy G.o.dmother laughed and said he was a bright boy, and then she asked him which he would rather do: pay fifty cents to go to the circus once, or wear the coat of invisibility and walk in and out as many times as he wanted to. To this Tom, who was a real boy, and preferred going to the circus six times to going only once, replied that as he was afraid he might lose the fifty cents he thought he would take the coat, though he also thought, he said, if his dear Fairy G.o.dmother could find it in her heart to let him have both the coat and the fifty cents he could find use for them.

"At this the Fairy G.o.dmother laughed again, and said she guessed he could, and, giving him two s.h.i.+ning silver quarters and the coat of invisibility, she made a mysterious remark, which he could not understand, and disappeared. Tom kissed his hand toward the spot where she had stood, now vacant, and ran gleefully homeward, happy as a bird, for he had at last succeeded in obtaining the means for his visit to the circus. That night, so excited was he, he hardly slept a wink, and even when he did sleep, he dreamed of such unpleasant things as the bitter medicines of the doctor and the broken plates, so that it was just as well he should spend the greater part of the night awake.

"His excitement continued until the hour for going to the circus arrived, when he put on his coat of invisibility and started. To test the effect of the coat he approached one of his chums, who was standing in the middle of the long line of boys waiting for the doors to open, and tweaked his nose, deciding from the expression on his friend's face--one of astonishment, alarm, and mystification--that he really was invisible, and so, proceeding to the gates, he pa.s.sed by the ticket-taker into the tent without interference from any one. It was simply lovely; all the seats in the place were unoccupied, and he could have his choice of them. Surely n.o.body could ask for anything better.

"You may be sure he chose one well down in front, so that he should miss no part of the performance, and then he waited for the beginning of the very wonderful series of things that were to come.

"Alas! poor Tom was again doomed to a very mortifying disappointment. He forgot that his invisibility made his lovely front seat appear to be unoccupied, and while he was looking off in another direction a great, heavy, fat man entered and sat down upon him, squeezing him so hard that he could scarcely breathe, and as for howling, that was altogether out of the question, and there through the whole performance the fat man sat, and the invisible Tom saw not one of the marvelous acts or the wonderful animals, and, what was worse, when a joke was got off he couldn't see whether it was by the clown or the ring-master, and so didn't know when to laugh even if he had wanted to. It was the most dreadful disappointment Tom ever had, and he went home crying, and spent the night groaning and moaning with sorrow.

"It was not until he began to dress for breakfast next morning, and his two beautiful quarters rolled out of his pocket on the floor, that he remembered he still had the means to go again. When he had made this discovery he became happy once more, and started off with his invisible coat hanging over his arm, and paid his way in for the second and last performance like all the other boys. This time he saw all there was to be seen, and was full of happiness, until the lions' cage was brought in, when he thought it would be a fine thing to put on his invisible coat, and enter the cage with the lion-tamer, which he did, having so exciting a time looking at the lions and keeping out of their way that he forgot to watch the tamer when he went out, so that finally when the circus was all over Tom found himself locked in the cage with the lions with nothing but raw meat to eat. This was bad enough, but what was worse, the next city in which the circus was to exhibit was hundreds of miles away from the town in which Tom lived, and no one was expected to open the cage doors again for four weeks.

"When Tom heard this he was frightened to death almost, and rather than spend all that time shut up in a small cage with the kings of the beasts, he threw off the coat of invisibility and shrieked, and then--"

"Yes--then what?" cried Jimmieboy, breathlessly, so excited that he could not help interrupting the corporal, despite the story-teller's warning.

"The bull-dog said he thought it might, But p.u.s.s.y she said 'Nay,'

At which the unicorn took fright, And stole a bale of hay,"

snored the corporal with a yawn.

"That can't be it! that can't be it!" cried Jimmieboy, so excited to hear what happened to little Tom in the lions' cage that he began to shake the corporal almost fiercely.

"What can't be what?" asked the corporal, sitting up and opening his eyes. "What are you trying to talk about, general?"

"Tom--and the circus--what happened to him in the lions' cage when he took off his coat?" cried Jimmieboy.

"Tom? And the circus? I don't know anything about any Tom or any circus," replied the corporal, with a sleepy nod.

"But you've just been snoring to me about it," remonstrated Jimmieboy.

"Don't remember it at all," said the corporal. "I must have been asleep and dreamed it, or else you did, or maybe both of us did; but tell me, general, in confidence now, and don't ever tell anybody I asked you, have you such a thing as a--as a gum-drop in your pocket?"

And Jimmieboy was so put out with the corporal for waking up just at the wrong time that he wouldn't answer him, but turned on his heel, and walked away very much concerned in his mind as to the possible fate of poor little Tom.

CHAPTER VII.

A DISAGREEABLE PERSONAGE.