One day, Jimmy received a gay silver-and-blue striped horn from the Toy Shop. But there was no place where he could blow it, or at least that is the way it seemed to him.
When he started to blow it upstairs, the very aunt who had given it to him came hurrying out and said, “Oh, Jimmy, dear, please don’t blow your horn up here! Grandmother’s just getting ready to take a nap.”
And when he started to blow it downstairs, Nurse put her head out of the nursery door and whispered, “Sh—the baby’s asleep.” Jimmy took the horn out on the sidewalk, but he had hardly made a sound with it before the servant next door came out and called, “Jimmy! Jimmy! Mrs. Grey has a headache; you don’t want to disturb her, do you?” And of course, he didn’t.
He sat on the doorstep and held the horn in his hands and looked at it because there was nothing else to do with it; and he wished his Aunt Mary had brought him something else. It was no fun to have a horn unless you could blow it.
He was sitting there when his father came home to luncheon, and as soon as his father saw the horn he said, “Blow me a blast that is loud and gay.”
“But Grandmother and the baby are asleep, and Mrs. Grey has a headache,” said Jimmy, who felt as if he would like to cry. “I mustn’t blow my horn at all.”
He thought Father would be sorry to hear that, but instead, he looked just as pleased as he could be.
“Hurrah for you!” he said. Jimmy was astonished, but Father said, “It takes the right kind of boy to keep from blowing a tin horn when people are asleep or sick. Your mother will be proud of you, too. Let’s go tell her.”
Mother was just as proud as Father had thought she would be: and Aunt Mary said she was glad she had brought Jimmy a horn. And now he had to blow it for Grandmother, who had just woken up from her nap. She wanted to hear it, she said.
He blew it for Baby, too. Nurse called him into the nursery for that special purpose. And Baby liked the noise so well that he kicked up his pretty pink feet and laughed aloud. Jimmy had to blow the horn again and again for him.
When he went out on the sidewalk after luncheon, the servant next door, who was a very kind girl, called to him, “Mrs. Grey hasn’t the headache now; you can blow your horn if you want to”; and of course, he did.
He ran in the house to get it, and when he came back, Father, who had heard what the girl said, was waiting at the door.
“Blow me a blast that is loud and gay, To send me merrily on my way,”
he said, and Jimmy blew it with a will. Toot! Toot! Tootle-te-too! All the people on the street who heard the sound turned their heads and smiled at Jimmy.
Toot! Toot! Tootle-te-too.
It certainly was fun to have a tin horn when you could blow it.
