Jimmy, Lucy, and All by Sophie May

S >> Sophie May >> Jimmy, Lucy, and All

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

[Illustration: "Edith was busy taking their photographs". Page 41.]

LITTLE PRUDY'S CHILDREN

JIMMY, LUCY, AND ALL

BY

SOPHIE MAY

AUTHOR OF "LITTLE PRUDY STORIES" "DOTTY DIMPLE STORIES"
"LITTLE PRUDY'S FLYAWAY SERIES" "FLAXIE FRIZZLE
SERIES" "THE QUINNEBASSET SERIES" ETC.

BOSTON
LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS
1900

COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY LEE AND SHEPARD.

_All Rights Reserved._

JIMMY, LUCY, AND ALL.

Norwood Press
J.S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith
Norwood Mass. U.S.A.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. THE TALLYHO
II. THE FIRST DINNER
III. LUCY'S GOLD MINE
IV. "THE KNITTING-WOMAN"
V. THE AIR-CASTLE
VI. "GRANDMA GRAYMOUSE"
VII. THE ZEBRA KITTEN
VIII. STEALING A CHIMNEY
IX. "CHICKEN LITTLE" AND JOE
X. THE THIEF FOUND
XI. BEGGING PARDON
XII. "THE LITTLE SCHOOLMA'AM'S EARTHQUAKE"
XIII. NATE'S CAVE
XIV. JIMMY'S GOOD LUCK

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

"Edith was busy taking their photographs"
"'It is perfectly awful!' said Aunt Lucy"
Edith painting the Cherub for Mrs. McQuilken
"'James S. Dunlee, will--you--forgive me?'"

JIMMY, LUCY, AND ALL

I

THE TALLYHO

"I never saw a gold mine in my life; and now I'm going to see one,"
cried Lucy, skipping along in advance of the others. It was quite a
large party; the whole Dunlee family, with the two Sanfords,--Uncle
James and Aunt Vi,--making ten in all, counting Maggie, the maid. They
had alighted from the cars at a way-station, and were walking along the
platform toward the tallyho coach which was waiting for them. Lucy was
firmly impressed with the idea that they were starting for the gold
mines. The truth was, they were on their way to an old mining-town high
up in the Cuyamaca Mountains, called Castle Cliff; but there had been no
gold there for a great many years.

Mr. Dunlee was in rather poor health, and had been "ordered" to the
mountains. The others were perfectly well and had not been "ordered"
anywhere: they were going merely because they wanted to have a good
time.

"Papa would be so lonesome without us children," said Edith, "he needs
us all for company."

He was to have still more company. Mr. and Mrs. Hale were coming
to-morrow to join the party, bringing their little daughter Barbara,
Lucy's dearest friend. They could not come to-day; there would have been
hardly room for them in the tallyho. With all "the bonnie Dunlees,"--as
Uncle James called the children,--and all the boxes, baskets, and
bundles, the carriage was about as full as it could hold.

It was seldom that the driver used this tallyho. He was quite choice of
it, and generally drove an old stage, unless, as happened just now, he
was taking a large party. It was a very gay tallyho, as yellow as the
famous pumpkin coach of Cinderella, only that the spokes of the wheels
were striped off with scarlet. There were four white horses, and every
horse sported two tiny American flags, one in each ear.

"All aboard!" called out the driver, a brown-faced, broad-shouldered
man, with a twinkle in his eye.

"All aboard!" responded Mr. Sanford, echoed by Jimmy-boy.

Whereupon crack went the driver's long whip, round went the red and
yellow wheels, and off sped the white horses as freely as if they were
thinking of Lucy's gold mine and longing to show it to her, and didn't
care how many miles they had to travel to reach it. But this was all
Lucy's fancy. They were thinking of oats, not gold mines. These bright
horses knew they were not going very far up the mountain. They would
soon stop to rest in a good stable, and other horses not so handsome
would take their places. It was a very hard road, and grew harder and
harder, and the driver always changed horses twice before he got to the
end of the journey.

As the tallyho rattled along, the older people in it fell to talking;
and the children looked at the country they were passing, sang snatches
of songs, and gave little exclamations of delight. Edith threw one arm
around her older sister Katharine, saying:--

"O Kyzie, aren't you glad you live in California? How sweet the air is,
and how high the mountains look all around! When we were East last
summer didn't you pity the people? Only think, they never saw any lemons
and oranges growing! They don't know much about roses either; they only
have roses once a year."

"That's true," replied Kyzie. "Let me button your gloves, Edy, you'll be
dropping them off."

"See those butterflies! I'd be happy if Bab was only in here," murmured
a little voice from under Lucy's hat. "Bab didn't want to come with her
papa and mamma; she wanted to come with _me_!"

"Now, Lucy, don't be foolish," said Edith. "Where could we have put Bab?
There's not room enough in this coach, unless one of the rest of us had
got out. You'll see Bab to-morrow, and she'll be in Castle Cliff all
summer; so you needn't complain."

"_I_ wasn't complaining, no indeed! Only I don't want to go down in the
gold mine till Bab comes. I s'pose they'll put us down in a bucket,
won't they? I want Uncle James to go with us."

Jimmy-boy laughed and threw himself about in quite a gale. He often
found his little sister very amusing.

"Excuse me, Lucy," said he; "but I do think you're very ignorant! That
mine up there is all played out, and Uncle James has told us so ever so
many times. Didn't you hear him? The shaft is more than half full of
muddy water. I'd like to see you going down in a bucket!"

"Well, then, Jimmy Dunlee, what _shall_ we do at Castle Cliff?"

"We've brought a tent with us, and for one thing I'm going to camp out,"
replied Jimmy. "That's a grand thing, they say."

"Don't! There'll be something come and eat you up, sure as you live,"
said Lucy, who had a vague notion that camping out was connected in some
way with wild animals, such as coyotes and mountain lions.

"Poh! you don't know the least thing about Castle Cliff, Lucy! And Uncle
James has talked and talked! Tell me what he said, now do."

Uncle James was seated nearly opposite, for the two long seats of the
tallyho faced each other. Lucy spoke in a low tone, not wishing him to
overhear.

"He said we were going to board at a big house pretty near the old
mine."

"Yes, Mr. Templeton's."

"And he said somebody had a white Spanish rabbit with reddish brown eyes
and its mouth all a-quiver."

"Yes, I heard him say that about the rabbit. And what are those things
that come and walk on top of the house in the morning?"

"I know. They are woodpeckers. They tap on the roof, and the noise
sounds like 'Jacob, Jacob, wake up, Jacob!' Uncle James says when
strangers hear it they think somebody is calling, and they say, 'Oh,
yes, we're coming!' I shan't say that; I shall know it's woodpeckers.
Tell some more, Jimmy."

"Yes" said Eddo, leaving Maggie and wedging himself between Lucy and
Jimmy. "Tell some more, Jimmum!"

"Well, there's a post-office in town and there's a telephone, and Mr.
Templeton has lots of things brought up to Castle Cliff from the city;
so we shall have plenty to eat; chicken and ice-cream and things. That
makes me think, I'm hungry. Wouldn't they let us open a luncheon
basket?"

Kyzie thought not; so Jimmy went on telling Lucy what he knew of Castle
Cliff. "It's named for an air-castle there is up there; it's a thing
they _call_ an air-castle anyway. A man built it in the hollow of some
trees, away up, up, up. I'm going to climb up there to see it."

"So'm I," said Lucy.

"Ho, you can't climb worth a cent; you're only a girl!"

"But she has an older brother; and sometimes older brothers are kind
enough to help their little sisters," remarked Kyzie, with a meaning
smile toward Jimmy; but Jimmy was looking another way.

"Uncle James told a funny story about that air-castle," went on Kyzie.
"Did you hear him tell of sitting up there one day and seeing a little
toad help another toad--a lame one--up the trunk of the tree?"

"No, I didn't hear," said Lucy. "How did the toad do it?"

"I'll let you all guess."

"Pushed him?" said Edith.

"No."

"Took him up pickaback," suggested Lucy.

"Nothing of the sort. He just took his friend's lame foot in his mouth,
and the two toads hopped along together! Uncle James said it probably
wasn't the first time, for they kept step as if they were used to it."

"Wasn't that cunning?" said Edith. And Jimmy remarked after a pause, "If
Lucy wants to go up to that castle, maybe I could steady her along; only
there's Bab. She'd have to go too. And I don't believe it's any place
for girls!"

The ride was a long one, forty miles at least. The passengers had dinner
at a little inn, the elegant horses were placed in a stable; and the
tallyho started again at one o'clock with a black horse, a sorrel
horse, and two gray ones.

The afternoon wore on. The horses climbed upward at every step; and
though the journey was delightful, the passengers were growing rather
tired.

"Wish I could sit on the seat with the king-ductor," besought little
Eddo, moving about uneasily.

"That isn't a conductor, it's a driver. Conductors are the men that go
on the steam-cars,--the 'choo choo cars,'" explained Jimmum. Then in a
lower tone, "They don't have any cars up at Castle Cliff, and I'm glad
of it."

Lucy did not understand why he should be glad, and Jimmy added in a
lower tone:--

"Because--don't you remember how some little folks used to act about
steam-engines? They might do it again, you know."

"Yes, I 'member now. But that was a long time ago, Jimmy. He wouldn't
run after engines now."

"Who wouldn't?" inquired young Master Eddo, forgetting the "king-ductor"
and turning about to face his elder brother. "Who wouldn't run after the
engine, Jimmum?"

"Nobody--I mean _you_ wouldn't."

"No, no, not me," assented Eddo, shaking his flaxen head.

And there the matter would have ended, if Lucy had not added most
unluckily: "'Twas when you were only a baby that you did it, Eddo. You
said to the engine, 'Come here, little choo choo, Eddo won't hurt oo.'
_You_ didn't know any better."

"_'Course_ I knew better," said Eddo, shaking his head again, but this
time with an air of bewilderment. "_I_ didn't say, 'Come here, little
choo choo.' No, no, not me!"

"Oh, but you did, darling," persisted Lucy. "You were just a tiny bit
of a boy. You stood right on the track, and the engine was coming,
'puff, puff,' and you said, 'Come here, little choo choo, Eddo won't
hurt oo!'"

"I didn't! Oh! Oh! Oh! _When'd_ I say that? _Did_ the engine hurt me?
_Where_ did it hurt me? Say, Jimmum, where did the engine hurt me?"
putting his hand to his throat, to his ears, to his side.

The more he thought of it, the worse he felt; till appalled by the idea
of what he must have suffered he finally fell to sobbing in his mother's
arms, and she soothed his imaginary woes with kisses and cookies. For
the remainder of the journey he was in pretty good spirits and found
much diversion in watching the gambols of the two dogs following the
tallyho. One was a Castle Cliff dog, black and shaggy, named Slam; the
other, yellow and smooth, belonged to the "king-ductor" or driver, and
was called Bang. Slam and Bang often darted off for a race and Eddo
nearly gave them up for lost; but they always came back wagging their
tails and capering about as if to say:--

"Hello, Eddo, we ran away just to scare you, and we'll do it again if we
please!"

It was a great day for dogs. Ever so many dogs ran out to meet Slam and
Bang. They always bit their ears for a "How d'ye do?" and then trotted
along beside them just for company. Eddo found it quite exciting. One
was a Mexican dog, without a particle of hair, but he did not seem to be
in the least ashamed of his singular appearance.

Edith said it was an "empty country," and indeed there were few houses;
but there must have been more dogs than houses, for the whole journey
had a running accompaniment of "bow-wow-wows."

The farther up hill the road wound the steeper it grew; and Jimmy
exclaimed more than once:--

"This coach is standing up straight on its hind feet, papa! Just look!
'Twill spill us all out backward!"

But it did nothing of the sort. It took them straight to Castle Cliff,
"nearly six thousand feet above the level of the sea," and there it
stopped, before the front door of the hotel. It was about half-past five
o'clock in the afternoon, and Mr. Templeton, who had been looking out
for the tallyho, came down the steps to meet his guests.

II

THE FIRST DINNER

Mr. Templeton's wife was just behind him. They both greeted the party as
if they had all been old friends. The house, a large white one, stood as
if in the act of climbing the hill. In front was a sloping lawn full of
brilliant flowers, bordered with house-leek, or "old hen and chickens,"
a plant running over with pink blossoms. Kyzie had not expected to see a
garden like this on the mountain.

At one side of the house, between two black oak trees, was a hammock,
and near it a large stone trough, into which water dripped from a
faucet. Two birds, called red-hammers, were sipping the water with
their bills, not at all disturbed by the arrival of strangers.

It was a small settlement. The hotel, by far the largest house in Castle
Cliff, looked down with a grand air upon the few cottages in sight.
These tiny cottages were not at all pretty, and had no grass or lawns in
front, but people from the city were keeping house in them for the
summer; and besides there were tents scattered all about, full of
"campers."

As the "bonnie Dunlees" and their elders entered the hotel, a merry
voice called out:--

"A hearty welcome to you, my friends, and three cheers for Castle
Cliff!"

Mr. and Mrs. Dunlee and the Sanfords walked on smiling, and the children
lingered awhile outside; but it was a full minute before any of them
discovered that the cheery voice belonged to a parrot, whose cage swung
from a tall sycamore overhead.

"Polly's pretty sociable," laughed Mr. Templeton. "Do you like animals,
young ladies? If so, please stand up here in a group, and you shall have
another welcome."

Then he clapped his hands and called out "Thistleblow!" and immediately
a pretty red pony came frisking along and began to caper around the
young people with regular dancing steps, making at the same time the
most graceful salaams, pausing now and then to sway himself as if he
were courtesying. It was a charming performance. The little creature had
once belonged to a band of gypsies, who had given him a regular course
of training.

"He is trying to tell you how glad he is to see you," said Mr.
Templeton, as the children shouted and clapped their hands.

"Oh, won't Bab like it, though!" cried Lucy. "Seems as if I couldn't
wait till to-morrow for Bab to get here, for then the good times will
begin."

But for Kyzie and Edith and Jimmy the good times had begun already. The
five Dunlees entered the house, little Eddo clinging fast to Jimmum's
forefinger. They passed an old lady who sat on the veranda knitting. She
gazed after them through her spectacles, and said to Mr. Templeton in a
tone of inquiry:--

"Boarders?"

"Yes," he replied, rubbing his chin, "and they have lots of jingle in
'em too; they're just the kind I like."

"Well, I hope they won't get into any mischief up here, that's all I've
got to say. Nobody wants to take children to board anyway, but you can't
always seem to help it."

And then the old lady turned to her knitting again; indeed her fingers
had been flying all the while she talked. Mr. Templeton looked at her
curiously, and wondered if she disliked children.

"I'd as lief have 'em 'round the house as her birds and kittens anyway,"
he reflected; for she kept a magpie, three cats and a canary; and these
pets had not been always agreeable guests at the hotel.

It was now nearly six o'clock, and savory odors from the kitchen mingled
with the balmy breath of the flowers stealing in from the lawn. The
Dunlee party had barely time for hasty toilets when the gong sounded for
dinner. The Templeton dining-room was large and held several tables. The
Dunlees had the longest of these, the one near the west window. There
were twelve plates set, though only nine were needed to-night. The three
extra plates had been placed there for the Hale family, who were
expected to-morrow. Mrs. Dunlee had told the landlord that she would
like the Hales at her table.

"And Bab will sit side o' me," said Lucy. "Oh, won't we be happy?"

As the Dunlees took their seats to-night and looked around the room they
saw a droll sight. The old lady, who had been knitting on the veranda,
was seated at a small table in one corner; and on each side of her in a
chair sat a cat! One cat was a gray "coon," the other an Angora; and
both of them sat up as grave as judges, nibbling bits of cheese. Mrs.
McQuilken herself, dressed in a very odd style, was knitting again. She
was a remarkably industrious woman, and as it would be perhaps three or
four minutes before the soup came in, she could not bear to waste the
time in idleness. Her head-dress was odd enough. It was just a strip of
white muslin wound around the head like an East Indian puggaree. Mrs.
McQuilken had many outlandish fashions. She was the widow of a
sea-captain and had been abroad most of her life. The children could
hardly help staring at her. Even after they had learned to know her
pretty well they still wanted to stare; and not being able to remember
her name they spoke of her as "the knitting-woman."

"Look, Lucy," whispered Jimmy; "there's a boy I know over there at that
little table. It's Nate Pollard."

He waved his hand toward him and Nate waved in reply. At home Jimmy had
not known Nate very well, for he was older than himself and in higher
classes; but here among strangers Jimmy-boy was glad to see a familiar
face. Mr. and Mrs. Pollard were with their son. Perhaps they had all
come for the summer. Jimmy hoped so.

There were two colored servants gliding about the room, and a pretty
waiting-maid.

"O dear, no cook from Cathay," whispered Kyzie to Edith.

"I don't know what you mean."

"I mean I wanted a cook from Cathay or Cipango," went on Kyzie, laughing
behind her napkin.

"I'm going to shake you," said Edith, who suddenly bethought herself
that Cathay and Cipango were the old names for China and Japan. This had
been part of her history lesson a few days ago. How Kyzie did remember
everything!

At that moment the colored man from Georgia stood at her elbow with a
steaming plate of soup. Lucy looked at him askance. Why couldn't he have
been a Chinaman with a pigtail? She had told Bab she was almost sure
there would be a "China cook" at the mountains, and when he passed the
soup he would say, "Have soup-ee?" Bab had been in Europe and in Maine
and in California, but knew very little of Chinamen and had often said
she "wanted to eat China cooking."

The dinner was excellent. Eddo enjoyed it very much for a while; then
his head began to nod over his plate, his spoon waved uncertainly in the
air, and Maggie had to be sent for to take him away from the table.

The ride up the mountain had been so fatiguing that by eight o'clock all
the Dunlees, little and big, were glad to find themselves snugly in bed.
They slept late, every one of them, and even the woodpeckers, tapping on
the roof next morning, failed to arouse them with their "Jacob, Jacob,
wake up, wake up, Jacob!"

After breakfast Edith happened to leave the dining-room just behind Mrs.
McQuilken, who held her two cats cuddled up in her arms like babies,
and was kissing their foreheads and calling them "mamma's precious
darlings." As Edith heard this she could not help smiling, and Mrs.
McQuilken paused in the entry a moment to say:--

"I guess you like cats."

"I do, ma'am. Oh, yes, very much."

"That's right. I like to see children fond of animals. Now, I've got a
new kitty upstairs, a zebra kitty, that you'd be pleased with. It's a
beauty, and _such_ a tail! Come up to my room and see it if you want to.
My room's Number Five. But don't you come now; I shall be busy an hour
and a half. Remember, an hour and a half."

Edith thanked her and ran to tell Kyzie what the "knitting-woman" had
been saying.

"Go get your kodak," said Kyzie. "Nate Pollard is going to take us all
out on an exploring expedition. You know he has been in Castle Cliff a
whole week, and knows the places."

"First thing I want to see is that mine," said Lucy, as they all met
outside the hotel.

"The mine?" repeated Kyzie, and looked at Eddo. "I'm afraid it isn't
quite safe to take little bits of people to such a place as that. Do you
think it is, Nate?"

"Rather risky," replied Nate.

Eddo had caught the words, "little bits of people," and his eyes opened
wide.

"What does _mine_ mean, Jimmum?"

"A great big hole, I guess. See here, Eddo, let's go in the house and
find Maggie."

"Yes," chimed in Edith, "let's go find Maggie. There's a _beau_-tiful
picture book in mamma's drawer. You just ask Maggie and she'll show you
the picture of those nice little guinea-pigs."

Though very young, Eddo was acute enough to see through this little
manoeuvre. It was not the first time the other children had tried to get
him out of the way. They wanted to go to see a charming "great big hole"
somewhere, and they thought he would fall into it and get hurt. They
were always thinking such things--so stupid of them! They thought he
used to run after "choo choos" and talk to them, when of course he never
did it; 'twas some other little boy.

"I want to go with Jimmum," said he, stoutly. "You ought to not go
'thout me! _I_ shan't talk to that mine. _I_ shan't say, 'Come, little
mine, Eddo won't hurt oo.' No, no, not me! I shan't say nuffin', and I
shan't fall in the hole needer. So there! H'm! 'm! 'm!"

It was not easy to resist his pleading. Perhaps Aunt Vi saw how matters
were, for she appeared just then, bearing the news that she and Uncle
James were going to drive, and would like to take one of the children.

"And Eddo is the one we want. He is so small that he can sit on the seat
between us. Aren't the rest of you willing to give him up just for this
morning? He can go to walk with you another time."

So they all said they would try to give him up, and he bounded away with
Aunt Vi, his dear little face beaming with proud satisfaction.

III

LUCY'S GOLD MINE

The other children strolled leisurely along toward a place that looked
like a long strip of sand.

"A sand beach," said Kyzie.

"No," said Nate; "it isn't a beach and it isn't sand."

"What _can_ you mean? What else is it, pray?"

She stooped and took up a handful of something that certainly looked
like sand. The others did the same.

"What do you call that?" they all asked, as they sifted it through their
fingers.

Nate smiled in a superior way.

"Well, I don't call it sand, because it isn't sand. I thought it was
when I first saw it; I got cheated, same as you. But there's no sand to
it; it's just _tailings_."

"What in the world is tailings?" asked Kyzie, taking up another handful
and looking it over very carefully. Strange if she, a girl in her teens,
couldn't tell sand when she saw it! But she politely refrained from
making any more remarks, and waited for Nate to answer her question. He
was an intelligent boy, between eleven and twelve.

"Well, tailings are just powdered rocks," said Nate.

"Powdered rocks? Who powdered them? What for?" asked Edith.

"Why, the miners did it years ago. They ground up the rocks in the mine
into powder just as fine as they could, and then washed the powder to
get the gold out."

"Oh, I see," said Edith. "So these tailings are what's left after the
gold's washed out."

"Yes, they brought 'em and spread 'em 'round here to get rid of 'em I
suppose."

"Is the gold all washed out, every bit?" asked Jimmy. "Seems as if I
could see a little shine to it now."

"Well, they got out all they could. There may be a little dust of it
left though. Mr. Templeton says the folks in 'Frisco that own the mine
think there's _some_ left, and the tailings ought to be sent to San
Diego and worked over."

Jimmy took up another handful. Yes, there was a faint shine to it; it
began to look precious.

"Well, there's a heap of it anyway. It goes ever so far down," said he,
thrusting in a stick.

"It's from ten to twelve feet deep," replied Nate, proud of his
knowledge; "and see how long and wide!"

"_I_ don't see how they ever ground up rocks so fine," said Kyzie.
"Exactly like sand. And it stretches out so far that you'd think 'twas a
sand beach by the sea,--only there isn't any sea."

"Well, it's just as good as a beach anyway," said Nate. "Just as good
for picnics and the like of that. When there's anything going on, they
get out the brass band and have fireworks and bring chairs and benches
and sit round here. I tell you it's great!"

"There are lots of benches here now," remarked Edith. "And what's that
long wooden thing?"

"That's a staging. That's where they have the brass band sit; that's
where they send up the fireworks."

"Oh, I hope they'll have fireworks while we're here, and picnics."

"Of course they will. They're always having 'em. And I heard somebody
say they're talking of a barbecue."

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6