Jibby Jones

Tad and Skippy and Wampus and I were down by the river in front of Wampus’s cottage trying to see what was the matter with the motor of Wampus’s motorboat when this Jibby Jones came walking up along the path and stopped to look at us.

“Good morning,” he said, in a sort of lazy drawl, and we looked up and decided we did not like him. We thought we hadn’t much use for another fellow, anyway, because we four were enough. We four always hung together and had good enough times by ourselves. So we looked up and thought, “Well, we don’t want you around!” but he had said “Good morning!” so we had to say something. So we said “Hello!” but not as if we meant it. We thought we didn’t want to have anything to do with a fellow that said “Good morning!” when he might just as well have said “Hello!” in the first place.

We went right on fixing the motorboat. We thought we would let him stand there until he was tired of it, and then perhaps he would go away. By and by he said:

“Are you mending the motorboat? Doesn’t it go?”

We wondered what he thought we were fussing with it for. It seemed about as foolish a question as any question he could have asked us. So I said:

“Sometimes it goes; what do you think a motorboat is for?”

“How do they do,” Jibby asked Tad, “when they dive for mussels and root them out?”

“Why, it is as simple as pie if you have the right kind of nose,” Tad said. “You dive from a boat in a slough or some other muddy place⁠—some place with a muddy bottom⁠—and when you reach the mud you take hold of the mud with both hands. That is to hold you down. Then you begin rooting in the mud with your nose. You root here and you root there, as fast as you can, and if you don’t find a mussel you come up for breath.”

“Of course. One would do that,” said Jibby, as serious as an owl. “But if one roots out a mussel?”

“Oh! Then you have to open your mouth and grab it quick,” said Tad, nudging me. “Like mumblety-peg. When you root up a shell with your nose, you open your mouth and grab the shell and then come up as quick as you can; but you have to be sure you don’t open your mouth until you get in the boat. If you do, the mussel will open its shell and spit out the pearl.”

Jibby Jones looked over the side of the boat.

“Do you think this would be a good place to dive for pearls?” he asked, sort of wistfully.

“This? This is one of the finest places in the Mississippi,” Tad said. “I’m surprised there is no one diving right now.”

I had to turn my head away and grin. The water was not five feet deep where we were.

“I am going to dive for a pearl,” Jibby Jones said suddenly.

I sat up in bed, and I could feel the old cottage joggle as Rover jerked at his rope, and then, suddenly, the rope broke and off Rover went, barking to beat the band, full tilt toward the slough back of our cottages. About halfway there, I should judge, he came up with what had set him to barking. I heard a rough voice say, “Get away from here! Get away from here!” and a club thumping on Rover’s back, and more barking, and swearing, and then Rover yipped, and began to scream⁠—if you can call it that⁠—the way a dog does when it is hurt, or has its paw run over by a wagon, or breaks a toe.

In a second I was out of bed and getting into my clothes, and I heard Rover come yipping and whining back toward the cottage. I did not have many clothes to put on, and in a couple of seconds I was downstairs, and by the time I was out there and Rover was whining at my feet, Wampus and his Uncle Oscar and Skippy and Tad and Jibby were out there, too, and we heard Orph Cadwallader coming running as fast as such a fat man could.

Orph had his shotgun, and Wampus’s Uncle Oscar had a pistol, and Jibby had brought along an electric torch.

“Hides,” Jibby said, as serious as an owl. “I had a white mouse once and it died, so I saved the hide, and I thought it would be nice to collect hides⁠—to get a collection of all the kinds of hides in the world.”

“Say!” Skippy said. “That would be bully, wouldn’t it? Why wouldn’t your father let you collect them?”

“Well, we were in Egypt then,” said Jibby Jones, “and the next hide I collected was one a hunter gave me. It was a hippopotamus hide and it needed an ox cart with four oxen to haul it. When it came to our tent I was greatly pleased, and I told father I knew where there was a crocodile hide a boy would trade me if I could get something to trade for it. It weighed about one hundred pounds. And I knew an old Arab that had a sick camel, and he said I could have the camel’s hide if the camel died, only I would have to skin the camel⁠—he was too busy. So I asked father if he would help me skin the camel.”

“And wouldn’t he?” asked Wampus.

“No,” said Jibby Jones. “Father put his foot down. He said I could not collect hides. We often traveled with only one suitcase, because he was an author and had to be in a hurry, and he said that if my collection amounted to much, and I got an elephant hide and a rhinoceros hide and, maybe, a giraffe hide and a buffalo hide, and added them to my mouse hide and my hippopotamus hide, there wouldn’t be room in the suitcase for his toothbrush.

“Pshaw!” he said. “I forgot to feed Orlando!”

“Orlando?” I asked, for this was the first time I had heard of any Orlando. “Who’s Orlando?”

Jibby looked at me.

“My goodness!” he exclaimed. “Didn’t I ever tell you about Orlando? That’s because we’ve had Orlando so long I never think much of him, I guess. Orlando is my father’s pet skunk.”

We did not say anything. Mr. Jones is an author, and an author is liable to have almost any kind of pet. They are funny folks, mostly, I guess.

“My father caught Orlando when Orlando was no bigger than a cat’s kitten,” Jibby Jones went on. “He caught Orlando in Pike County, Pennsylvania, and he raised Orlando on a bottle, and Orlando is as affectionate as a kitten. If you catch a skunk young and treat it right, it is the most affectionate pet you can have, and it makes the best kind of watchdog⁠—if you can call a skunk a dog. We keep Orlando in the cellar, and I have to feed Orlando when my father does not. And father is away today and I forgot to feed Orlando. I’ll have to go home now and feed Orlando.”

“Gee whiz!” Skippy said. “That’s a funny kind of pet. Don’t it ever⁠—well, you know!⁠—perfumery?”

“Oh, no, indeed!” Jibby drawled. “That’s where you do Orlando a great wrong, Skippy. If a skunk is fond of you, and knows you, it never bothers you that way. It is only when a skunk is hostile to you that it bothers you that way.”

“Has⁠—has Orlando ever been hostile?” Wampus asked.