Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 December 1889 — A TIMELY TALE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A TIMELY TALE

Told on Christmas Eve by the Old Clock Most Feelingly.

Christmas Eve the old clock stood in the corner and sang . “tick-tock, tick- ’ teck” until everything else in the room had gone to sleep everything except the jumping jack. • Tick-tock, ’’said the old clock, and

then it looked right at the jumpingtack and asked: “Why haven’t you Bfone to sleep, too?” “I’m waiting for Santa Claus,” answered the jumping-jack, “n “Waiting for Santa Claus,” laughed the old clock; why, you don’t suppose that Santa Claus is going to bring you anything, do you?” “I need it 4 bad enough,” said the jumping-jack; “I fell into the washbasin three weeks ago and by the time i was pulled out and dried I lost all the beautiful red stripes and yellow buttons off my coat, and this left eye of mine faded from a lovely purple into a dirty lavender. I have been the oickest jumping-jack in town ever since.” “Ob, phsaw!” said the old clock; “handsome is that handsome does; tick-tock! tick-feck!” “But I shall be all right in the morning,” said the jumping-jack, “for my little mistress Bertha put me here bjthe fire to-day and whispered up the ohimney: ‘Please, Santa Claus, bring i new eye nnd a new suit of clothes for jumping-jack, and please, Santa Claus, bring rzte a nice big box of sandy.’ ” “So you like Bertha, do you?” asked the old clock. “No, not very much,” satd the jump-Ing-jack; she dropped me in the washbasin, you know, and then, too, she makes me jump when I don’t want to. Last week she pulled me so hard that the string broke.” i “Sque-ea-ea-eak!” said another small voice and the little blue mouse peeped out from under the wardrobe. “Sque-ea-eareakandl don’t like Bertha either !”»she said. “Tick-tock, tick-tock,” said the old clock, ‘and why don’t you like Bertha, Mistress Blue Mouse ?” “She frightens me,” answered the little blue mouse, “and she pets that horrid old cat No, I could never like a child that keeps such bad company. Depend ujxjb it, no child that keeps company with a cat ever came to any good end—soue-ea-ea-eak!” Now, while the old clock and the jumping-jack and the little blue mouse talked together. Bertha lay fast asleep in her crib, and the old clock and the jumping-jack and the little blue mouse were still talking and Bertha was still fast asleep when there came the sound of sleigh bells and then the noise of some one slipping down the chimney. But instead of Santa Claus there came out of the chimney and stood on the hearth a very fat and very sleepylooking boy. He wore fur clothes and a fur cap, and the first thing he did was to yawn. “You’re not Santa Claus, are you?” asked the jumping-jack. ••Of course he isn’t!” said the old clock. “I know Santa Claus, for I’ve seen him twenty times!” "No, I’m Santa Claus* boy,” said the boy. and he yawned again, for he was very sleepy. , "What on earth are you doing here at this time of night?” said the jump-iug-jack. t «■ “Why. father was so busy.” said the boy. "that he sent me down here with this box of candy and this box of paints. One of them is for—let me see—he •add to give the candy to the jumpingjack. and—no that wasnlt it! lam to paint Bertha—no, I’m sure I don’t remember what he did tell me to do. but here is the candy and here are the paints!” You see he had forgotten all about what he came for. Wasn’t that just like a boy? Just then a wicked thought came to the jumping-jack. He winked his one eye at the little blue mouse, as much as to say, "You help me out in this story and I’ll make it all right with you.” Then the jumping-jack said to the boy, "I know all about this, and I will tell you what to da. The box of

candy is for me, and yoa are to paiai Bertha- You’ll find her in the erite over there. Put some red stripes and yellow buttons on her, and don’t forget to give her a new purple left eya” “That's right,'' squeaked the tittle blue mouse. The old clock was so suprised that it could only “tick-tock, tick-tock,” over and over again, and these “tick-toeks" were so sad that tears of sorrow filled the eyes of the needles in the workbasket on the table. The boy was foolish enough to believe the wicked jumping-jack. So he handed over the box of candy, and then—oh. horrible! —he went to the crib and painted red stripes and yellow buttons all over poor little Bertha, and having done that he painted one of her beautiful blue eyes (the left one) an awful purple! Then he tied a string to her and climbed up the chimney again.

As for Bertha, she got the worst of it, of course, for there she was—all painted up like a jumping-jack, with a big purple left eye. She couldn’t speak or do anything else unless somebody pulled the string, and she had to stay that way a whole year, until Santa*Claus came around himself and fixed things. When Santa Claus dW come he took the evil jumping-jack away with him and changed him into a nut-cracker. So now the evil jumpingjack has to work harder than ever before, and nobody is a bit sorry, I’m certain. But the old clock sings “tick-tock, tick-tock” just the same as before, and once when I sat listening to this strange music, which will go on long after you and I are done with Christmas times, the old clock paused in its solemn singiug to tell me the story I have just told you, and the old clock knows many other pretty stories which I may sometime repeat.