"A MOUSE WITH A DOOR TO HIM.""A MOUSE WITH A DOOR TO HIM."
"And which will it be, Dormy?" asked the Poker.
"I sort of think I'd like to sit up here and watch the world go round," said Tom.
"Nope," said Righty.
"Then let's go to Saturn," suggested Tom.
"Oh, no!" said Righty. "Not that."
"Then there's only one thing left," said Tom, with a sigh, "and that's the long jump—whatever that is."
Tom's three companions roared with laughter.
"Absurd!" cried Righty. "The idea. The long jump the only thing left! Ha, ha, ha!"
"Perfect nonsense," laughed Lefty. "I never thought Dozy Pate could be so dull."
"Well, he isn't anything like as dull as I can be when I try," said the Poker. "He's pretty dull, though."
"I don't see where the joke comes in," snapped Tom, who did not at all like the way the Andirons and the Poker were behaving. "If there are only three things we can do and you won't do two of them there's only one left."
"Ha, ha, ha!" roared Lefty.
"Poor dull Dormouse," said Righty, with a smile that was half of mirth and half sympathy.
"You are evidently a Dormouse with very little education, Dormy," said the Poker. "If there are three apples on a plate, one red, one green and one white and you are told to take your pick of the lot there are four things you can do, not three."
"What are they?" asked Tom, meekly.
"There's no better place than this cloud.""There's no better place than this cloud."
"You can take a red one, a white one, a green one, or all three. See?"
"Oh, yes!" said Tom, beginning to smile again. "I see. You don't want me to choose watching the earth go round, or going to Saturn, or taking the long jump, but you do want me to choose all three."
"Now you are talking sense," said Righty. "And sense is what we are after."
"That's it," said the Poker. "Now what do you choose, Dormy?"
"All three!" roared Tom.
"The Dormouse is getting his eyes open," said Lefty.
"Which is very proper," put in Righty, "for there is a great deal for him to see."
"Not so much as there is for me to see," said the Poker. "My, what a lot there is for me to see!"
"The first thing for us to do," said Lefty, paying no attention to the Poker's words, "is to get a good place for us to sit, so that Sleepyhead can see the world."
"There's no better place than this cloud," said the Poker. "I've sat here many a time and studied China by the hour."
"It's a little too far away for Sleepyhead," said Lefty. "Dormy mustn't be allowed to strain his eyes."
"Never thought of that," said the Poker. "Of course, I can see a great deal farther than he can. My, how far I can see! What's the matter with our pushing the cloud in a little nearer?"
"Nothing—if we can do it," said Righty. "But can we?"
"We can 'wink our eye and try,' as the poet says," returned the Poker. "Ever heard that poem, Dormy?"
"No," returned Tom. "That is, not that I know of. I've heard lots of poetry in my life, but it goes in one ear and out of the other."
"You must have a queer head," said the Poker, peering into Tom's ear. "How a poem poured into one ear can go out of the other I can't understand. There doesn't seem to be any opening there."
"In one ear and out of the other.""In one ear and out of the other."
"His head isn't solid like ours," said Lefty. "It's too bad to be afflicted the way he is. He ought to do the way a boy I knew once did. He suffered just as Dormy does. You'd tell him a thing in his left ear and the first thing you'd know, pop! it would all come out of the other ear and be lost. The poor fellow was growing up to be an ignoramus. Couldn't keep a thing in his head, until one night I overheard his father and mother talking about it in the library. The boy's father wanted to punish him for not remembering what he learned at school, when his mother said just what Dormy here said, that everything went in one ear and out of the other. Then they both looked sad, and the mother rubbed her eyes until thetears came. I couldn't stand that. If there's one thing in the world I can't stand it's other people's sorrows. Mine don't amount to much, but other people's do sometimes. I felt so bad for the poor parents that I racked and racked my brains trying to think of some way to cure the boy. It took me a week, but I got it at last and the next time the boy's parents talked about it I took the matter in hand. I simply walked out of the fireplace where I was and said, 'I hope you will excuse the interference of an Andiron, ma'am, but I think your boy can be cured of his ear trouble.' 'Noble fellow,' said the father, after he had got over his surprise at my unusual behavior. 'What do you suggest?'
"'Put a cork in his other ear,' said I.
"And they did, and from that time on the boy never lost a bit of information any one gave him. He grew up to be a dreadfully wise man and when he finally died he was known as the human N. Cyclopedia."
"That was a noble act of yours," said the Poker. "Did you have the idea patented?"
"No," said the Andiron. "I wanted to, but the patent rules require that a working model should be sent with the request for a patent for the patent office to keep, which of course I couldn't do."
"Why not?" asked Tom.
"I couldn't get a boy who would consent to spend his life in the showcase. I could get all the corks I wanted, but no boy, and so I had to give it up," replied Lefty, with a sigh. "I'd have been a rich Andiron today if I could have had that idea patented. I shouldn'tbe surprised if I'd have had enough to have Righty and the Poker and myself goldplated."
"Oh, well, I wouldn't feel bad about that," said the Poker. "What's the use? You're bright as any gold that ever shined and you are quite as useful. Gold may be worth more than you are, but what of it? The people who bought you are willing to change their gold for you, so that really puts you ahead. As for myself I wouldn't be gold if I could. Gold Pokers aren't worth anything as Pokers, and what's more, if I were gold Tom's father would lock me up in the safe every night and then I couldn't travel about the way I do."
"Never thought of it in that light," said Lefty. "I'm glad I'm brass, after all."
"But you were going to tell us a poem, weren't you?" asked Tom.
"Yes," said the Poker. "It's a simple little verse, but there is a good deal of fine advice in it. All it says is:
"If you're in doubt if you can doA thing some one has asked you to,Don't sit you down and moan and cryBecause you can't, but wink your eyeAnd try."
"If you're in doubt if you can doA thing some one has asked you to,Don't sit you down and moan and cryBecause you can't, but wink your eyeAnd try."
"There's good advice enough for a lifetime in that, Dormy," said the Righthandiron. "And now let's see if we can move the cloud."
The four little creatures set out at once to push the cloud nearer to the earth so that Tom could see the latter going around more clearly, but their efforts were in vain. The cloud wouldn't budge an inch.
"No use," said the Poker, panting with his exertion. "There is only one thing to do now and that is to send for the Bellows. If he'll come and blow in his usual style we'll have that cloud where we want it in less than no time. I'd blow it there myself, for I am a far better blower than the Bellows is—my, how I can blow! But I'm out of breath trying to push the cloud."
"I'll run back and get the Bellows," said Lefty.
"And I'll go with you," said Righty. "He may not come for one, but I'm sure he will for two."
"All right," said the Poker. "Dormy and I will wait here for you; and I'll tell him a story while you're gone. How will that suit you Dormy?"
"First rate," said Tom. "I like stories."
"We'll be back soon," said the Righthandiron, as he and the other started back after the Bellows. "So make your story short."
"Very good," returned the Poker amiably. "I'll make it so short that Dormy will hardly know that it was ever begun."
And so Tom was left sitting on a big cloud way up in the sky with the Poker—which was indeed a very novel position for a small boy like him to be in.
The Poker Tells His Story
"I suppose," said the Poker, after the Andirons had passed out of hearing distance, "I suppose you think it a very extraordinary thing that I, who am nothing but a Poker, should be satisfied with my lot. Eh?"
"Oh, I don't know," said Tom, snuggling down on the cloud which he found to be deliciously soft and comfortable. "If you were a Poker who could only poke it might seem queer. But you can talk and sing and travel about. You don't have to do any work in summer time, and in winter you have a nice warm spot to stay in all the day long. I don't think it's very strange."
"But I'm not different from any other Poker," said Tom's companion, "They all do pretty much what I do except that most of them are always growling at their hard lot, while I do very little but sing and rejoice that I am what I am, and the story I was going to tell you was how I came to be so well satisfied to be a Poker. Would you like to have me do that, Dormy?"
"Yes," said Tom. "Very much. Were you always a Poker?"
"Not I," said the Poker, with a shake of his head. "I've been a Poker only two years. Before that I had been a little of everything. What do you suppose I began life as?"
"A railroad track," said Tom, bound to have a guess at the rightanswer, though he really hadn't the slightest notion that he was correct.
"A POKER WHO COULD ONLY POKE.""A POKER WHO COULD ONLY POKE."
"You came pretty near it," said the Poker, with a smile. "I began life as a boy."
"I don't see how a boy is pretty near a railroad track," said Tom.
"The boy I began life as lived right next door to a railroad," explained the Poker. "See now?"
"Yes," said Tom. "But why didn't you stay a boy?"
"Because I wasn't contented," said the Poker, with a sigh. "I ought to have been, though. I had everything in the world that a boy could want. My parents were as good to me as they could possibly be. I had all the toys I wanted. All I could eat—plenty of pudding and other good things as often as they were to be had. I had two little sisters, who used to do everything in the world for me. Plenty of boy friends to play with, and, as I said before, a railroad right next door—and oh, the trains, and trains, and trains I used to see! It was great fun. I can see, now that I look back on it, and yet I never was satisfied. I used to cry my eyes out sometimes because I hadn't wings like a bird, so that I could fly. At other times I'd get discontented that I couldn't run as fast as a dog—I never went to bed without feeling envious of somebody or something.
"Finally one night I'd gone to bed feeling particularly unhappy because a big eagle I had seen flying about in the sky could do things I couldn't. My nurse, thinking I had fallen asleep, went out of the night nursery and left me alone. Just as she went out of one door the other door opened and a very beautiful lady came in.
"'Is that you, mama?' I asked.
"'No,' said she. 'I am not your mother. I am a Fairy.'
"I had been crying pretty hard, I can tell you," said the Poker, with a shake of his head, "but as soon as I heard the lady say she was a Fairy my tears dried up as quick as lightning.
"I am not your mother; I am a fairy.""I am not your mother; I am a fairy."
"'I am a Fairy,' she repeated, coming to the side of my little bed and stroking my forehead kindly. 'My duty is to seek out one discontented person each year and see if I can't do something to help him. I have come to help you if I can. Don't you like being a boy?'
"'Not very much,' said I. 'It's awfully hard work. I have to go to school every day and learn lots of things I don't care to know about, and most of the time I'm kept in an hour or two just because I can't remember how much seven times two are, or whether c-a-t spells dog or horse, and I don't like it.'
"'But you are strong and well. Your father and mother are very good to you and you have more good times than unhappy ones, don't you?'
"DOESN'T HAVE TO LIVE IN A BATHTUB.""DOESN'T HAVE TO LIVE IN A BATHTUB."
"'I never counted,' said I. 'I don't believe I do, though. I'm strong and well, but so is that eagle I saw today, and he can fly, and I can't. Then there's my little dog—he's as well as can be, and my father and mother are kind to him just as they are kind to me. He doesn't have to bother with school. He's allowed to go anywhere he wants to, and never gets scolded for it. Besides, he doesn't have to be dressed up all the time and live in a bathtub the way I do.'
"'Then you think you would be happier as Rollo than you are as yourself?' said she.
"'Very much,' said I.
"'Then it shall be so,' said she. 'Good-by!'
"She went out as quietly as she had come, and I turned over and after thinking over what she had said I fell asleep. Then the queerest thing happened. I slept right through until the morning, dreaming the strangest dream you ever heard of. I dreamed that I had been changed into Rollo—and oh, the fun I had! Life was nothing but play and liberty, and then I waked. I tried to call my father and tell him I was ready for the morning story, but what do you suppose I did instead?"
"Give it up," said Tom. "What?"
"I barked," said the Poker, "and when I barked I looked down at my feet. Sure enough I was Rollo, and Rollo was I lying asleep in my bed. I was on the floor at the foot of the bed. Then the nurse came in and slapped me for barking and I had the pleasure of being sent down stairs to the cellar, while Rollo himself, who had been changed into me went into my father's room and got the story."
"Mercy!" said Tom. "I guess you were sorry about that."
"I was, a little," said the Poker. "But after I had been down in the cellar an hour or two I saw a beautiful piece of steak in the ice-box and I ate it all up. It wasn't cooked at all, but being a little dog I liked it all the better for that. Then I drank up a panful of milk and had a lovely time teasing the cat, until the cook came down, when my troubles began. I never knew when I was a boy that Rollo had troubles, but I found out that day that he had. The cook gave me a terrible whipping because I had eaten the steak, and I had hardly recovered from that when Rollo, who was now what I hadbeen, took me up into the nursery and played with me just as I had always played with him. He held me up by the tail; he flicked me with his handkerchief; he harnessed me up to a small cart and made me drag his sisters' doll babies about the room for one whole hour, and then when lunch time came the waitress forgot me and I had to go hungry all the afternoon. Every time I'd try to go into the kitchen the cook would drive me out with a stick for fear I would eat the other things in the cellar—and oh, dear, I had a miserable time of it.
"The worst of it came two or three days later," continued the Poker. "It was Rollo's bath day, and as I was Rollo of course I had to take Rollo's bath, and my, wasn't it awful! I'd rather take a hundred such baths as I had when I was a boy than one like Rollo's. The soap got into my eyes and I couldn't say a word. Then it got into my mouth, and bah! how fearful it was. After that I was grabbed by all four of my legs and soused into the water until I thought I should drown, and rubbed until my fur nearly came off.
"I wished then that I had asked the Fairy to leave her address so that I could send for her and have her come back and let me be a boy again. All the fun of being Rollo was spoiled by the woes that were his to bear—woes I had never dreamed of his having until I took his place.
"I must have been Rollo a month when the Fairy came back one night to see how I was getting along. Rollo lay asleep in my crib, while I was curled up in a dog basket at the foot of it.
"'Well,' said the Fairy as she entered the room, 'how do you both do?'
"'I like it first-rate,' said Rollo. 'Being a boy is ever so much nicer than being a dog.'
"'I think so, too," said I. 'And if you don't mind I'd like to be a boy again.'
"'What boy do you want to be?' she asked.
"'What boy?' said I. 'Why, myself, of course. Who else?'
"'What has Rollo to say about that?' said the Fairy, turning to him—and I tell you, Dormy, it made my heart sick to hear that Rollo had anything to say about it, for there couldn't be much doubt as to how he would decide."
The Poker Concludes His Story
"It was just as I feared," said the Poker. "Rollo knew a good thing when he had it."
"'I'm satisfied, the way things are now,' said he. 'I wouldn't change back and be a Scotch terrier for all the world.'
"Then the Fairy turned to me and said, 'I'm sorry, my dear, but if Rollo won't consent to the change you'll have to be contented to remain as you are—unless you'd like to try being an eagle for a while.'
"'I'll never consent,' said Rollo, selfishly, though I couldn't really blame him for it.
"'Then make me an eagle,' I said. 'Make me anything but what I am.'
"'Very well,' said the Fairy. 'Good-night.'
"Next morning," continued the Poker, "when I waked up I was cold and stiff, and when I opened my eyes to look about me I found myself seated on a great ledge of rock on the side of a mountain. Far below me were tops of the trees in a forest I never remembered to have seen before, while above me a hard black wall of rock rose straight up for a thousand feet. To climb upward was impossible; to climb down, equally so.
"'What on earth does this mean?' thought I; and then, inattempting to walk, I found that I had but two legs, where the night before I had fallen asleep with four.
"'Am I a boy again?' I cried with delight.
"'No,' said a voice from way below me in the trees. 'You are now an eagle and I hope you will be happy.'
"You never were an eagle, were you, Dormy?" said the Poker, gazing earnestly into Tom's face.
"No," said Tom, "never. I've never been any kind of bird."
"EAGLES NEVER HAVE UMBRELLAS.""EAGLES NEVER HAVE UMBRELLAS."
"Well, don't you ever be one," said the Poker, with a knowing shake of the head. "It's all very beautiful to think about, but being an eagle is entirely different from what thinking about it is. I was that eagle for one whole month, and the life of a Scotch terrier is bliss alongside of it. In the first place it was fight, fight, fight for food. It was lots of fun at first jumping off the crag down a thousand feet into the valley, but flying back there to get out of the way of the huntsmen was worse than pulling a sled with rusty runners up a hill a mile long. Then, when storms came up I had to sit up there on that mountain side and take 'em all as theycame. I hadn't any umbrella—eagles never have—to keep off the rain; and no walls except on one side, to keep off the wind, and no shutters to close up so that I couldn't see the lightning. It was terrible. All I got to eat in the whole month was a small goat and a chicken hawk, and those I had to swallow wool, feathers and all. Then I got into fights with other eagles, and finally while I was looking for lunch in the forest I fell into a trap and was caught by some men who put me in a cage so that people could come to see me."
"Ever been shut up in a cage?" queried the Poker at this point.
"No," said Tom, "only in a dark closet."
"Never had to stay shut up, though, more than ten minutes, did you?"
"No," answered Tom, "never."
"Well, think of me cooped up in an old cage for two weeks!" said the Poker. "That was woe enough for a lifetime, but it wasn't half what I had altogether. The other creatures in the Zoo growled and shrieked all night long; none of us ever got a quarter enough to eat, and several times the monkey in the cage next to me would reach his long arm into my prison and yank out half a dozen of my feathers at once. In fact, I had nothing but mishaps all the time. As the poet says:
"Talk about your troubles,Talk about your woes,Yours are only bubbles,Sir, compared with those.
"Talk about your troubles,Talk about your woes,Yours are only bubbles,Sir, compared with those.
"At the end of two weeks I was nearly frantic. I don't think I could have stood it another week—but fortunately at the end of the month back came the Fairy again.
"'How do you like being an eagle?' she said.
"'I'd rather be a tree rooted to the ground in the midst of a dense forest than all the eagles in the world,' said I.
"'Very well,' said she. 'It shall be so. Good-night.'
"In the morning I was a tree—and if there is anything worse than being a dog or an eagle it's being a tree," said the Poker. "I could hear processions going by with fine bands of music in the distance, but I couldn't stir a step to see them. Boys would come along and climb up into my branches and shake me nearly to pieces. Cows came and chewed up my leaves, and one day the wood-cutters came and were just about to cut me down when the Fairy appeared again and sent them away.
"'They will be back again tomorrow,' she said. 'Do you wish to remain a tree?'
"'No, no, no,' I cried. 'I'll be content to be anything you choose if you will save me from them.'
"'There,' she said. 'That's the point. If you will keep that promise you will finally be happy. If you will only look on the bright side of things, remembering the pleasant and forgetting the unpleasant, you will be happy. If you will be satisfied with what you are and have and not go about swelling up with envy whenever you see anyone or anything that has or can do things that you have not or cannot do, you will be happy in spite of yourself. Will you promise me this?'
"'Indeed I will,' I said.
"'Even if I change you into so poor a thing as a Poker?'
"'Yes,' said I.
"ONE DAY THE WOODCUTTERS CAME.""ONE DAY THE WOODCUTTERS CAME."
"'Very well,' said she. 'It shall be so. Good-night.'
"Next morning I waked up to find myself as you see—nothing more than a Poker, but contented to be one. I have kept my promise with the Fairy, and I am simply the happiest thing in the world. I don't sit down and groan because I have to poke the fire. On the contrary, when I am doing that I'm always thinking how nice it will be when I get done and I lean up against the rack and gaze on all the beautiful things in the room. I always think about the pleasant things, and if you don't know it, Dormy, let me tell you that that's the way to be happy and to make others happy. Sometimes people think me vain. The Fender told me one night I was the vainest creature he ever knew. I'm not really so. I only will not admit that there is anything or anybody in the world who is more favored than I am. That is all. If I didn't do that I might sometime grow a little envious in spite of myself. As it is I never do and haven't had an unhappy hour since I became a contented Poker."
Tom was silent for a few minutes after the Poker had completed his story, and then he said:
"Don't you sometimes feel unhappy because you are not the boy you used to be?"
"No," said the Poker. "I am not because Rollo makes a better boy than I was. He is a contented boy and I was not."
"But don't you miss your father and mother?" queried Tom.
"SO I REALLY LIVE HOME.""SO I REALLY LIVE HOME."
"Of course not," said the Poker, "because the Fairy was good enough to have me made into the Poker used in their new house. My parents moved away from the railroad just after Rollo became me,and built themselves a new house, and of course they had to have a new Poker to go with it—so I really live home, you see, with them."
A curious light came into Tom's eyes.
"Mr. Poker," said he. "Who was this boy you used to be?"
"Tom," said the Poker.
"I'm not Rollo," roared Tom, starting up.
"Nobody said you were," retorted the Poker. "You are Dormy. Tom is Rollo—but, I say, here come the Andirons and the Bellows."
Tom looked down from the cloud, and sure enough the three were coming up as fast as the wind, and in the excitement of the moment the little traveler forgot all about the Poker's story, in which he seemed himself to have figured without knowing it.
The Literary Bellows
"What kept you so long?" asked the Poker, as the Andiron and Bellows came up. "Was our friend Bellows out of breath, or what?"
"No, I wasn't out of breath," said the Bellows. "I never am out of breath. You might as well expect a groceryman to be out of groceries as a bellows to be out of breath. I wasn't long, either—at least, no longer than usual, which is two foot three. A longer bellows than that would be useless for our purpose. I simply didn't want to come, that's all. I was very busy writing when they interrupted me."
"It was very kind of you to come when you didn't want to," said Tom.
"No, it wasn't," said the Bellows. "I didn't want to come then, I don't want to be here now, and I wouldn't blow the cloud an inch for you if I didn't have to."
"But why do you have to?" asked Tom.
"I'm outvoted, that's all," replied the Bellows. "You see, my dear Weasel"—
"Dormouse," whispered the Poker.
"I mean Dormouse," said the Bellows, correcting himself. "You see, I believe in everybody having a say in regard to everything. I always have everything I can put to a vote. Consequently,when Righty here came down and asked me to help blow the cloud over and I said that I wouldn't do it he called Lefty in, and we put it to a vote as to whether I'd have to or not. They voted that I must and I voted that I needn't, and, of course, that beat me; so here I am."
"Well, it's very good of you, just the same," said the Poker. "You aren't quite as good-natured as I am, but you come pretty near it. Most people would have left a matter of that kind entirely to themselves and then voted the way they felt like voting. You aren't selfish, anyhow."
"Yes, I am," said the Bellows. "I'm awfully selfish."
"You're not, either," said the Poker.
"Oh, goodness!" ejaculated the Bellows. "What's the use of fighting? I say I am."
"WHAT'S THE USE OF FIGHTING?""WHAT'S THE USE OF FIGHTING?"
"Let's have a vote on it," said Righty. "I vote he isn't."
"So do I," said Tom.
"Me, too," said Lefty.
"Those are my sentiments likewise," put in the Poker.
"Oh, very well, then, I'm not," said the Bellows, with a deep drawn sigh; "but I do wish you'd let me have my own way about some things. I want to be selfish, even if I'm not."
"Well, we are very sorry," said the Poker, "but we can't letyou be; we need you too much to permit you to be selfish. Besides, you're too good a fellow to be selfish. I knew a boy who was selfish once, and he got into all sorts of trouble. Nobody liked him, and once when he gave a big dinner to a lot of other boys not one of them would come, and he had to eat all the dinner himself. The result was that he overate himself, ruined his digestion, and all the rest of his life had to do without pies and cake and other good things. It served him right, too. Do you think we are going to let you be like that, Mr. Bellows?"
"I suppose not," said the Bellows, "but stories about selfish boys don't frighten me. I'm a bellows, not a boy. I don't give dinners and I don't eat pie and cake. Plain air is good enough for me, and I wouldn't give a cent for all the other good eatables in the world except doughnuts. I like doughnuts because, after all, they are only bellows cakes. But come, let's hurry up with the cloud. I want to get back to my desk. I have a poem to finish before breakfast."
This statement interested Tom hugely. He had read many a book, but never before had he met a real author, and even if the Bellows had been a man, so long as he was a writer, Tom would have looked upon him with awe.
"Excuse me," he said hesitatingly, as the Bellows began to wheeze away at the cloud, "do you really write?"
"I blow a story or two, now and then.""I blow a story or two, now and then."
"Well, no," said the Bellows. "No, I don't write, but I blow a story or two now and then. You see, I can't write because I haven't any hands, but I can wheeze out a tale to a stenographer once in a while which any magazine would be glad to publish if it could get hold of it. One of my stories called Sparks blew into apowder magazine once and it made a tremendous noise in the world when it came out."
"I wish you would tell me one," said Tom.
"Are you a stenographer?" asked the Bellows.
"No," said Tom, "but I like stories just the same."
"Well," said the Bellows, "I'll tell you one about Jimmie Tompkins and the red apple."
"Hurrah!" cried Tom. "I love red apples."
"So did Jimmie Tompkins," said the Bellows, "and that's why he died. He ate a red apple while it was green and it killed him."
There was a pause for an instant, and the Bellows redoubled his efforts to move the cloud, which for some reason or other did not stir easily.
"Go ahead," said Tom, when he thought he had waited long enough for the Bellows to resume.
"What on?" asked the Bellows.
"On your story about Jimmie Tompkins and the red apple," Tom answered.
"Why, I've told you that story," retorted the Bellows. "Jimmie ate the red apple and died. What more do you want? That's all there is to it."
"It isn't a very long story," suggested Tom, ruefully, for he was much disappointed.
"Well, why should it be?" demanded the Bellows. "A story doesn't have to be long to be good, and as long as it is all there—"
"I know," said Tom; "but in most stories there's a lot of things put in that help to make it interesting."
"All padding!" sneered the Bellows, "and that I will never do. If a story can be told in five words what's the use of padding it out to five thousand?"
"None," said Tom, "except that you can't make a book out of a story of five words."
"Oh, yes, you can," said the Bellows, airily. "It isn't any trouble at all if you only know how, and in the end you have a much more useful book than if you made it a million words long. You can print the five words on the first page and leave the other five hundred pages blank, so that after you get through with the volume as a story book you can use it for a blank book or a diary. Most books nowadays are so full of story that when you get through with them there isn't anything else you can do with the book."
"It's a new idea," said Tom, with a laugh.
"And all my own invention, too," said the Bellows proudly.
"He's the most inventive Bellows that ever was," put in the Poker, "that is, in a literary way. How many copies of your book of 'Unwritten Poems' did you sell, Wheezy?" he added.
"Eight million," returned the Bellows. "That was probably my greatest literary achievement."
"'Unwritten Poems,' eh?" said Tom, to whom the title seemed curious.
"Yes," said the Bellows. "The book had three hundred pages, all nicely bound—twenty-six lines to a page—and each beginning with a capital letter, just as poetry should. Then, so as to be quite fair to all the letters, I began with A and went right straight through the alphabet to Z."
"But the poems?" demanded Tom.
"They were unwritten just as the title said," returned the Bellows. "You see that left everything to the imagination, which is a great thing in poetry."
"Didn't people complain?" Tom asked.
"Everybody did," replied the Bellows, "but that was just what I wanted. I agreed to answer every complaint accompanied by ten cents in postage stamps. Eight million complaints alone brought me in $480,000 over and above all expenses, which were four cents per complaint."
"But what was your answer?" demanded Tom.
"I merely told them that my book stood upon its own merits, and that if they didn't like my unwritten poems they could write some of their own on the blank pages of the book. It was a perfectly fair proposition," the Bellows replied.
"I think I like written poetry best, though," said Tom.
"That's entirely a matter of taste," said the Bellows, "and I shan't find fault with you for that. The only thing is that Unwritten Poems are apt to have fewer faults than the written ones, and every great poet will tell you that nobody ever detected any mistakes in his poems until he had put them down on paper. If he had left them unwritten nobody would ever have known how bad they were."
Tom scratched his head in a puzzled mood. He could not quite grasp the Bellows' meaning.
"What do you think about it, Righty?" he demanded of the Andiron.
"Oh, I don't think anything about it," replied Righty. "Ihaven't watched poetry much. You see, Lefty and I don't see much of it. People light fires nowadays more with newspapers than with poetry."
"What I've seen burns well," observed the Lefthandiron, "and don't make much ashes to get into your eyes; but, say, Wheezy, if you'll do your blowing about this cloud rather than about your poetry we may get somewhere."
"Very well," said the Bellows; "fasten your hats on tight and turn up your collars. I'm going to give you a regular tornado."
And he was as good as his word, for, expanding himself to the utmost limit, he gave a tremendous wheeze, which nearly blew Tom from his perch, sent his cap flying off into space and smashed the cloud into four separate pieces, one of which, bearing the Poker, floated rapidly off to the north, while the other three sped south, east and west, respectively.
"HE GAVE A TREMENDOUS WHEEZE.""HE GAVE A TREMENDOUS WHEEZE."
"Hi, there," cried Righty, as he perceived the damage done to their fleecy chariot. "What are you up to? We don't want to be blown to the four corners of the earth. Pull in—pull in, for goodness sake, or we'll never get together again!"
"There's no satisfying you fellows," growled the Bellows. "First I don't blow enough, and then I blow too much."
"Stop growling and haul us back again!" cried the Poker.
The Bellows began to haul in his breath rapidly, and by a process of suction soon had the four parts of the burst cloud back together once more.
"By jingo!" panted Lefty. "That was a narrow escape. Two seconds more and this party would have been a goner. Even as it is, you've twisted my neck so I'll never get it back in shape again," said the Righthandiron.
"Well, I'm sorry," said the Bellows, "but it's all your own fault. You asked me to blow the cloud, and I blew it. You didn't say where you wanted it blown."
"You needn't have blown it to smithereens, just the same!" retorted the Poker. "It doesn't cost anything to ask a question now and then."
"Where, then?" demanded the Bellows.
"I'd like to find my hat," said Tom.
"Very well," said the Bellows. "I see it speeding off toward the moon, and we'll chase after it, but we'll never catch it if it misses the moon and falls past it into space."
The Poker rose to his full height and peered after the cap, which, even as the Bellows had said, was sailing rapidly off in the direction of the crescent moon, which lay to the west and below them.
"Hurrah!" he cried. "It's all right."
"Can you see it still?" asked Tom, anxiously, for his cap was made of sealskin and he didn't wish to lose it.
"Yes, it's all right," said the Poker. "It nearly missed, but not quite. If you will look through these glasses you will see it."
The Poker handed Tom a pair of strong field glasses and the lad, gazing anxiously through them, was delighted to see his wandering cap hanging, as if on a great golden hook in the sky beneath them, and which was nothing more than the last appearance of the moon itself.
"Good!" cried the Righthandiron. "That settles the question for us of where we shall go next. There is no choice left. We'll go to the moon. Heave ahead, Wheezy."
Whereupon the Bellows began to blow, at first gently, then stronger and stronger, and yet more strongly still, until the cloud was moving rapidly in the direction they desired.
They Reach the Crescent Moon
As the jolly party sped along through the heavens Tom began to find his eyes bothering him a trifle. Brilliant as many of the sunshiny days had been at home, particularly when the snow was on the ground, nothing so dazzlingly bright as this great golden arc in the sky was getting to be, as they approached closer, had ever greeted his sight.
"It's blinding!" he cried, his eyes blinking and filling with water as he gazed upon the scene. "I can't stand it. What shall I do, Lefty?"
"Turn your head around and approach it backward," said Lefty. "Then you won't see it."
"But I want to see it," retorted Tom. "What's the use of visiting the moon if you can't see it?"
"Reminds me of a poem I wrote once," put in the Poker. "'What's the Use?' was one of my masterpieces, and maybe if I recite it to you it will help your eyes."
"Bosh!" growled the Bellows, who was beginning to get a little short-winded with his labors, and, therefore, a trifle out of temper. "How on earth will reciting your poem help Tom's eyes?"
"Easy enough," returned the Poker haughtily and with a contemptuous glance at the Bellows. "My poem is so much brighter than the moon that the moon will seem dull alongside of it."
"Go ahead anyhow," said Tom, interested at once and forgetting his eyes for the moment. "Give us the poem."
"Here goes, then," said the Poker, with a low bow and then, standing erect, he began. "It's called