The Joblilies

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Title:     The Joblilies
Author: Edward Eggleston [More Titles by Eggleston]

We have oak trees and green grass at our house, what many children in crowded cities do not get. Three little girls love to play in the green grass, with some pet chickens, and a white, pink-eyed rabbit for companions. Now, you must know that I am quite as fond of the oaks and the grass and the blue sky as Sunbeam, or Fairy, or the brown-faced Little Chick. And so it happens, when the day is hot, and the lazy breezes will not keep the house cool, that I just move my chair and table out by the lilac-bush that grows under the twin oaks, and then I think I can write better. And there I sit and watch the trains coming and going to and from the great, bustling city, only a dozen miles away, or listen to the singing of the robins while I write.

I was sitting thus one dull, hot afternoon, trying to write; but it was a lazy day; the robins had forgotten to sing, the little sparrows that live up in the oaks had stopped twittering, and the very honey bees were humming drowsily, when Chicken Little came up with a wreath of white clover around her head, and begged for a story. The older children wanted one, also, and so I had to tell one. To tell the truth, I was a little lazy myself, and so I willingly sat down in the grass among the children and began.

"Shall I tell about a lazy girl about as big as Chicken Little?" I asked.

"No, sir," she said; "tell about a lazy boy that was as big as Sunbeam."

Sunbeam laughed at this, and nodded her head for me to go on.

And so I began thus: "Little Lazy Larkin laughed and leaped, or longed and lounged the livelong day, and loved not labor, but liked leisure."

"Ha! ha!" cried the Wee Chick; "that sounds so funny!"

"It's got so many l's, that's the reason," said Fairy.

"Tell it right," said Sunbeam.

"Well, then," I said, "Larkin was an indolent juvenile, fond of mirthfulness and cachinatory and saltatory exercises--"

"I don't know what you mean!" said Fairy, just ready to get angry.

"Sech awful big words!" cried the Little Pullet; "they is as big--as big as punkins!"

"I guess that's what they call hifalutin," said Sunbeam; "now do tell it right."

And so I told it "right."

Larkin was an idle fellow, and was so utterly good-for-nothing, that he came to be called "Lazy Larkin." It is a dreadful thing to get a bad name when you are young. It sticks to you like a sand burr. Larkin would neither work nor study. He did not even like good, hearty play, for any great length of time, but was very fond of the play that boys call _mumble-the-peg_, because, as he said, you could sit down to play it. He fished a little, but if the fish did not bite at the first place, he sat down; he would not move, but just sat and waited for them to come to him.

He had gone out to Bass Lake to fish, one day, in company with some other boys, but they had put him out of the boat because he was too lazy to row when his turn came. The others were rowing about, trolling for pickerel, and he sat down on a point of land called "Duck Point," and went to fishing. As the fish would not bite, he sat looking at them in the clear water, and wishing that he was a fish--they had such a lazy time of it, lying there in the sun, or paddling idly around through the water. He saw a large pickerel lying perfectly still over a certain spot near the shore. When other fish came near the pickerel, it darted out and drove them off, and then paddled back to the same place again. Larkin dropped his bait near by, but the fish paid no attention to it, and, indeed, seemed to have nothing to do but to lie still in the same place.

"I wish I were a pickerel," said the lazy fellow; "I wouldn't have to carry in wood or pull weeds out of the garden, or feed the chickens, or get the multiplication table, or--or--do anything else;" and he gave one vast yawn, stretching his mouth so wide, and keeping it open so long, that it really seemed as if he never would get it together again. When it did shut, his eyes shut with it, for the fellow was too lazy to hold them open.

"Ha! ha! lazy fellow! lazy fellow!"

Larkin heard some one say this, and raised up his head to see who it was. Not finding any one about, he thought he must have been dreaming. So he just gave one more yawn, opening his mouth like the lid of an old tin coffee-pot, and keeping it open nearly a minute. Then he stretched himself upon the grass again.

"Ha! ha! lazy fellow! lazy fellow!"

This time there seemed to be half a dozen voices, but Larkin felt too lazy to look up.

"Ha! ha! very lazy fellow!"

Larkin just got one eye open a little, and looked around to see where the sound came from. After a while, he saw a dozen or more very odd, queer-looking creatures, sitting on the broad, round leaves of the water-lilies, that floated on the surface of the lake. These little people had white caps, for all the world like the white lily blossoms that were bobbing up and down around them. In fact, it took Larkin some time to make out clearly that they were not lilies. But finally he saw their faces peeping out, and noticed that they had no hands, but only fins instead. Then he noticed that their coats were beautifully mottled, like the sides of the pickerel, and their feet flattened out, like a fish's tail. Soon he saw that others of the same kind were coming up, all dripping, from the water, and taking their places on the leaves; and as each new-comer arrived, the others kept saying,

"Ha! ha! lazy fellow! very lazy fellow!"

And then the others would look at him, and shake their speckled sides with laughter, and say, "Lazy fellow! ha! ha!"

Poor Larkin was used to being laughed at, but it was provoking to be laughed at by these queer-looking folk, sitting on the lilies in the water. Soon he saw that there were nearly a hundred of them gathered.

"Come on, Joblilies!" cried one of them, who carried a long fish-bone, and seemed to be leader; "let's make a Joblily of him."

Upon that the whole swarm of them came ashore. The leader stuck his fish-bone in Larkin, and made him cry out. Then they all set up another laugh, and another cry of "lazy fellow!"

"Bring me three grains of silver-white sand from the middle of the lake," said the leader; and two of them jumped into the water and disappeared.

"Now fetch three blades of dry grass from the lining of the kingfisher's nest," he said; and immediately two others were gone.

When the four returned, the leader dropped the grains of sand in Larkin's eyes, saying,

"Three grains of silver sand,
From the Joblily's hand!
Where shall the Joblily lie,
When the young owl learns to fly?"

Then they all jumped upon him and stamped, but Larkin could not move hand or foot. In fact, he found that his hands were flattening out, like fins. The leader then put the three blades of grass in Larkin's mouth, and said,

"Eat a dry blade! eat a dry blade!
From the nest that the kingfisher made!
What will the Joblilies do,
When the old owl cries tu-whoo?"

And then the whole party set up such a cry of "tu-whoo! tu-whoo!" that Larkin was frightened beyond measure; and they caught him and rolled him over rapidly, until he found himself falling with a great splash into the water. On rising to the surface, he saw that he was changed into a Joblily himself.

Then the whole party broke out singing,

"When the sun shines the Joblilies roam;
When the storm comes we play with the foam;
When the owl hoots Joblilies fly home!"

When they had sung this, they all went under the water; and the leader, giving Larkin a thrust with his fish-bone, cried out, "Come along!" and Lazy Larkin had nothing to do but to swim after them. Once under the water, the scene was exceedingly beautiful. The great umbrella-like leaves of the lilies made spots of shadow in the water and on the pebbles of the bottom, while the streaks of sunshine that came down between flecked everything with patches of glorious light, just as you have seen the hills and valleys made glorious by alternate patches of light and shade, produced by the shadows of the clouds. And the tall lily stems, in the soft light, appeared to be pillars, while the great variety of water weed, that wound about them in strange festoons, was glorious beyond description. There were beautiful bass turning their sides up to the sun, and darting about through these strange, weird scenes, seeming to enjoy their glorious abode.

"You have an easy time of it, no doubt," said Larkin, to one of these fish.

"Easy time of it, indeed! I have rather a happy time of it, because I have plenty to do; but you are a strange Joblily if you do not know that I have anything but an easy time of it. Chasing minnows, jumping three feet out of water after a butterfly, catching wigglers and mosquitoes, and keeping a sharp lookout for unlucky grasshoppers that may chance to fall in my way; all these are not easy. I tell you, there is no family of our social position that has more trouble to earn a living than the bass family."

"Come along," said the Joblily, giving another punch with his fish-bone; and Larkin travelled on.

Presently they came to a log with something growing on it.

"What beautiful moss!"

"Moss, indeed!" said one of the Joblilies; "that is a colony of small animals, all fast to one stem."

"They have an easy time of it, I suppose," said Lazy Larkin; "they don't have to travel, for they cannot move."

"True, but these beautiful, transparent moss animals have to get their living by catching creatures so small that you cannot see them. They have great numbers of little fingers or feelers that are going all the time."

Larkin touched one, and it immediately drew itself in,--really _swallowed itself_; for these little things take this way of saving themselves from harm.

And so Larkin swam on, and found that it was a busy world beneath the lake. He saw mussels slowly crawling through the sand; he found that the pickerel, which he had supposed idle, was really standing guard over her nest, and fanning the water with her fins all day long, that a current of fresh water might be supplied to her eggs. And all the time the Joblilies kept singing--

"Work! work!
Never shirk!
There is work for you,
Work for all to do!
Happy they who do it,
They that shirk shall rue it!"

And after their long swim around the lake, the Joblilies came back to Duck Point again, and climbed out on the lily leaves. No sooner had Larkin seated himself with the rest than he heard a great owl cry, "Tu-whit! tu-whoo!"

Immediately the Joblilies leaped into the air, and the whole hundred of them dashed into the water like so many bull-frogs, crying, as they came down,

"What will the Joblily do,
When the great owl cries tu-whoo?"

Larkin looked around suddenly to see whither they had gone, but could discover no trace of them. A moment after, he found himself sitting under the same tree that he was under when the Joblilies came for him. The boys had gone, and he was forced to walk home alone. He thought carefully over his trip with the Joblilies, and, I am glad to say, gradually learned to be more industrious, though it took him a long while to overcome his lazy habits, and still longer to get rid of the name of Lazy Larkin. But he remembered the jingle of the Joblilies, and I trust you will not forget it:

"Work! work!
Never shirk!
There is work for you,
Work for all to do!
Happy they who do it,
They that shirk shall rue it!"

[The end]
Edward Eggleston's short story: The Joblilies

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