The “knitting-woman” sat
knitting in her chamber that looked up the mountain
side, and thinking how the zebra kitten had suffered
from her enemy, the clam. Mrs. McQuilken’s
own cats were most of them asleep; the blind canary
was eating her supper of hemp-seed; and the noisy magpie
had run off to chat with the dog and hens. The
room seemed remarkably quiet. Mrs. McQuilken
narrowed two stitches and glanced out of the window.
“Mercy upon us!” she exclaimed,
though there was not a soul to hear her. “Mercy
upon us, what are those boyoes doing atop of that house?”
In her astonishment she actually dropped
her knitting-work on the floor and rushed out of the
room crying, “Fire!” though there was not
a spark of fire to be seen.
The “boyoes” were Nate
and Jimmy. Nate had said to Jimmy just as they
started on the race:
“You won’t dare follow
where I lead;” and Jimmy, stung by the defiant
tone, had answered:
“Poh, yes, I will! Who’s
afraid?” never once suspecting that Nate was
going to climb the ridge-pole of a house!
The house was a small cabin painted
green, but there were people living in it, and nothing
could be ruder than to storm it in this way, as both
boys knew.
“Why, Nate why, Nate, what are you doing?”
“Ho, needn’t come if you’re scared,”
retorted Nate.
“Who said I was scared?
But I’m not your ‘caddy,’ I won’t
go another step,” gasped Jimmy.
Still he did not stop climbing.
Hadn’t Nate “stumped” him; and hadn’t
he “taken the stump,” agreeing to follow
his lead? Besides, Nate was already on the roof,
and it was necessary to catch him at once.
Jimmy reached the roof easily enough
and darted toward Nate with both arms out-stretched.
But by that time Nate had turned around and begun to
slide down another ridge-pole, shouting:
“Here, my caddy, here I am; catch me, caddy!”
It was most exasperating. Jimmy
saw that he had been outwitted. On the solid
earth, running a fair race, the chances were that he
could have beaten Nate. But was this a fair race?
“No, I’ll leave it out
to anybody if it’s fair! Nate Pollard is
the meanest boy in California,” thought angry
Jimmy, as he started to follow his leader down the
ridge-pole.
At this moment something hit him just
below the knee and held him fast. In his haste
he had not stopped to notice that the chimney was of
the very sort he had just described to Lucy built
of tiles and held on to the roof by wires. He
was caught in these wires; and whenever he tried to
move he found he was actually pulling the chimney after
him! Nate, safely landed on the ground, called
back to him in triumph:
“Hello, Jimmy-cum-jim!
Hello, my caddy! Where are you? Why don’t
you come along?”
Jimmy was coming as fast as he could.
He lay face downward, sliding along toward the edge
of the roof, and carrying with him that most undesirable
chimney! What would become of him if he should
fall head-first with the chimney on his back?
It was a rough scramble; but he managed
to turn over before he reached the ground so
that he landed on his feet. The chimney landed
near him, a wreck. Jimmy was unhurt except for
a few scratches. But oh, it was dreadful to hear
himself laughed at, not only by that mischievous Nate,
but by half a dozen other boys and a few grown people,
who had collected on the spot; among them the landlord
and Mrs. McQuilken.
Not that any one could be blamed for
laughing. Jimmy was a comical object. In
carrying away a chimney which did not belong to him,
he had of course torn his clothes frightfully and
left big pieces sticking on the broken wires of the
roof. A more “raggety” boy never was
seen.
“Wouldn’t he make a good
scarecrow?” said the landlord, shaking his sides.
“Jimmum, chimney, and all!”
It was necessary to tear his clothes
still more in order to get them free from the tangle
of wires. As the poor young culprit crept unwillingly
back to the hotel all the cats, dogs, donkeys, and
chickens in Castle Cliff seemed to combine in a chorus
of mewing, barking, braying, and cackling to inform
the whole world that here was a boy who had stolen
a chimney!
What wretched little beggar was this
coming to the house? No one thought of its being
Jimmy Dunlee.
“We caught this young rogue
stealing a chimney,” said Mr. Templeton.
It seemed funny at first, and the
Dunlees and Sanfords and Hales all laughed heartily,
till it occurred to them that the dear child had been
in actual danger; and then they drew long breaths and
shuddered, thinking how he might have pitched headlong
to the ground and been crushed by the weight of the
chimney.
“But my little son,” asked
Mrs. Dunlee presently, when the child was once more
respectably clad, and was walking down to dinner between
herself and Aunt Vi, “but my little son, what
could have possessed you to climb a roof? Was
that a nice thing to do?”
“No, mamma, of course not.
But ’twas all Nate Pollard’s fault.
Nate stumped me to it and I took the stump.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, he said, ‘You won’t
dare follow me,’ and I said, ‘Yes, I would.’
And I never mistrusted where he was going. Who’d
have thought of his climbing top of a house?”
“Why, Jamie Dunlee, you did
not follow Nate without knowing where he was going?”
“Yes, mamma; if I had
known I wouldn’t have followed. But you
see he had stumped me and I’d taken the stump,
so I was obliged to go!”
“Obliged to go!” repeated
Aunt Vi, laughing, “Isn’t that characteristic
of Jimmy?”
The little fellow felt guiltier than
ever. When Aunt Vi used that word of five syllables
it always meant that people had done very wrong, so
he thought.
“Jamie,” said his mother
very seriously, “I am surprised that you should
have promised to follow Nate without knowing where
he was going! And you never even asked him where
he was going! Is that the way you play, you boys?”
“No, mamma, it isn’t.
Nate makes you play his way because he’s the
oldest. He’s just as mean! But I couldn’t
back out after I was stumped.”
“Oh, fie! Backing out is
exactly the thing to do when a boy is trying to lead
you into mischief! But we’ll talk more of
this by and by.”
As they entered the dining-room, Jimmy
squared his shoulders and would not look toward Nate’s
table; and Nate, who had been severely reproved by
his parents, never once raised his eyes from his plate.
No one felt very happy. Jimmy’s new suit
was ruined; and Mr. Dunlee had already learned that
it would cost ten dollars to restore the tile chimney.
Nor was this all. While Jimmy was trying to console
himself with ice-cream he suddenly thought of his
father’s watch! It must have dropped out
of his pocket when he slid down the roof; but where,
oh, where was it now? Was it still on the ground,
or had some one picked it up? Joe Rolfe had been
there, so had Chicken Little and a dozen others.
He must go and look for that watch, he must go this
minute.
“Mamma,” he murmured,
pushing aside his saucer of ice-cream, “may I may
I be excused?”
There was no answer; his mother had not heard him.
“Mamma,” in a louder tone, “oh,
mamma!”
“What is it, my son?”
Seeing by his unhappy face that something
was wrong, she nodded permission for him to leave
the table; and at the same time arose and followed
him into the hall.
“Dear child, what is the matter?”
“Papa’s watch,” he moaned.
“I’m afraid somebody will steal it.”
As Mrs. Dunlee knew nothing whatever
about the watch this sounded very strange. She
wondered if Jimmy had really been hurt by his fall
and was out of his head.
“Why, my precious little boy,”
said she, taking his hot hand in hers. “Papa’s
watch is safe in his vest pocket. Nobody is going
to steal it.”
Jimmy looked immensely relieved.
“Oh, has he got it back again? I’m
so glad! Where did he find it?”
“Darling,” said Mrs. Dunlee,
now really alarmed. “Come upstairs with
mamma. Does your head ache? I think it will
be best for you to go right to bed.”
But Jimmy persisted in talking about the watch.
“Where did papa find it? He let Lucy have
it; don’t you know?”
“No, I did not know.”
“And I took it away from Lucy.
I was afraid she’d lose it. And then, oh,
dear, oh, dear, then I went and lost it
myself!”
Mrs. Dunlee understood it all now.
Jimmy’s head was clear enough; he knew perfectly
well what he was talking about. The watch was
gone, a very valuable one. Search must be made
for it at once. Without waiting to speak to her
husband, Mrs. Dunlee put on her hat and went with Jimmy
up the hill. He limped a little from the bruise
of his fall and she steadied him with her arm as they
walked.