THE BRASS TACKS OF ADVENTURE
InWoicb Romance- Lurks Around ihc Corner
Syy JOSEPH BOARDMAJM, Jr. Itludratiom by FREDERIC DORR STEELE
H'NSHINK WAS IN THE ROOM when Carrie awoke.
Silently the bod exploded. A wliite ihue of Hying
sheets went one way; Carrie herself went fluttering
the other until she brought up against the window
sill; and there she stood, with the fresh morning air
coming through her night-dress, leaning on the sill
and looking and looking at the yard across the street.
It was there, sure enough, with the grass all pale with
dew in the shadows, nil green and flashing in the sun.
Hut it was only the yard across the street. It was
not a bit different, after all. And:
"Oh, dear!" the little girl said to herself, "I wish it was real!" And again,
as if Jim had been there: "Say, Jim, 1 do wish it was real."
It wns only yesterday afternoon that she first saw Jim. She was halfway
up one of the fancy porch-posts, and he came tearing across the road like a
house-afire, chasing something very small and gray and lively, which he caught
just as it was going under the porch, lie stopped its squeaking with a stick
and held it up by the tail.
"That's a mouse," he said grinning. "Was you scared'"'
Carrie came down from the post with a bang and took the warm little body
in her hand, saying that she was n't afraid, and that it was a rat, any way, not
a mouse. But Jim was sure it was a mouse, and said he was
going to bury it in his cemetery over in the yard; so Carrie
went across the street with him to hold the funeral. She liked
him right away; he had been playing escape from Libhy Prison
under his grandfather's porch, and he was the dirtiest little
boy she had ever seen.
The cemetery was a black piece of ground under a thick
leaved little cherry-tree, where it was so dark that nothing
would grow. Jim was minister and Carrie stood up and made
believe sing Tho Palms, and they put apple-loaves and a big
red tiger-lily on the grave. And all the rest of the afternoon
he was showing her the things he had in the yard, and they
played
"Carrie-ee!"
Her mother's voice from the foot of the stairs brought
her sharply out of her window-musings, and the little girl had
to come back to the dreariness of dressing, and after that to
breakfast and dish-washing. Hut tho first instant she could
slip away sho went pelting over into thnt wonderful yard.
Jim was not there. She found tho little hidden grave just as
they had left it, except that the leaves were curling at the edges
and the tiger-lily was all wilted and bloody-looking. There
was no fun in standing there looking at it, so she went on to
the circus-ground Jim had shown her, whore there were two
big clothes-posts all ready for tho tent and trapeze. Over by
tho high brick wall, Jim said he had laid out a city. The
Public Gardens were all done, with a fountain thnt had real
water in it and wooden fish with tin fins. Then, in the open
ground behind there were great ranches and herds of wild
steers and cowboys; and off the other way, toward the fence,
were woods for hunting in: two clumps of snowball-bushos,
some artichokes and thickets of high-grown asparagus.
Carrie looked at the water-logged little fish, and at the
park lawns where new grass was coming up in patches like a
funny green rash on tho ground, and tried hard to believe in
them. When Jim wns there it was all real; she could make
out the little city all around her with its long, straight streets
and its speeding trolloy-cnrs elevators, too, in all tho houses,
Jim said. Hut now sho knew it was a play city, only an ordi
nary dooryard like her own, and so she wanted Jim.
' Sho hoard him presently as he came clumping down the
brick walk. He turned the corner quickly and leaned against
the house and never saw her.
"Say, Jim!" sho called gaily; then saw he was crying, and
stopped.
"Wha-nw-aw'7" ho wailed, his head still against the wall.
"Say, what what 's tho matter?"
"They 're a-playin' circus," ho got old, turning half-choked.
"An' 1 can't. Not even hold up tho tent. Said I was a fresh
kid. An' 1 got a rock, an' Peto Morrissey ho basted mo. Wi'
his fist ! An' Ow-wow "
"Hull!" said Carrie, coming closer. "Hawlin' over playin'
circus! Hofore 1 M cry over that ! Cry-baby! Say, Cry-baby !"
Jim whirled and faced her, his fists doubled up, water
running oft his round, dirty chin. Ho was more ashamed of
crying before her than before any ordinary girl. Her face
was longish and not very white; her nose was long; her hair
was reddy-brown, and it hung down her back in a thick, solid
pig-tail with an elastic at tho end, so that she had no ribbons
to bother with. She looked that same way all over; like a
climhing-nround kind of girl who wouldn't cry. So Jim felt
cold inside, as if his tears were freezing up, and stopped.
"I ain't no cry-baby," he shouted.
"All right," said Carrie. "Now, let's ua play smnpth'u'."
"Let 's play circus."
"1 don't want to pln nivii
you're a-goin' to bawl."
That brought on a quarrel;
would play adventure. Carrie
adventures.
"What 's out there?" she as
"That 's well, I tell vou."
I want to play bavin' adventures an' now
but when they had made it up Jim saiil he
did n't know what kind sho wanted just
cd suddenlv, pointing.
im said in a low voice, kicking one too on the
ground. "I 1 don t go out there much. 1 here s jungles an' snakes. You
see out beyond the ocean, whore they 's them stops up Well, out there I play
it 's all foreign."
"Jungles'.'" said Carrie, skipping. "Oh, (loodv! Come on, let 's get into 'cm."
They did, first crossing the ocean in the no wheeled body of an express
wagon Hint lay at the top of the little bank. It was a stormy passage, anil they
found themselves shi wrccked at last on an unknown shore. Then, they prowled
in between tho grape trellis and the high brick wall, through a rank, wild growth
of tomato-vines and hollyhocks and high-standing corn. Jim was afraid of the
place; but he crawled ahead all the same, and showed Carrie the very hollow
between the corn-stalks where be had seen the snake. When at last they came
to the stable, the girl jumped to her feet and stood looking up at the garden
wall beside them.
Carrie looked at him dumbly, pitying him. She felt the ought to hive nudr him tit down brforr