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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Andiron Tales, by John Kendrick Bangs
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Andiron Tales
+
+Author: John Kendrick Bangs
+
+Release Date: January 2, 2008 [EBook #24130]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANDIRON TALES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Irma Spehar, Jason Isbell, Christine D. and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "Get him a mirror."]
+
+
+
+
+  ANDIRON
+  TALES
+
+  BY
+
+  JOHN KENDRICK BANGS
+
+  ILLUSTRATED BY
+  CLARE VICTOR DWIGGINS
+
+  THE JOHN C. WINSTON CO.
+  PUBLISHERS
+  PHILADELPHIA
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+  COPYRIGHT, 1906,
+  BY
+  THE JOHN C. WINSTON CO.
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER I.
+  TOM AND THE ANDIRONS                                                   9
+
+  CHAPTER II.
+  THE STORY OF EBENEZER                                                 17
+
+  CHAPTER III.
+  OFF IN THE CLOUDS                                                     25
+
+  CHAPTER IV.
+  THE POKER TELLS HIS STORY                                             38
+
+  CHAPTER V.
+  THE POKER CONCLUDES HIS STORY                                         45
+
+  CHAPTER VI.
+  THE LITERARY BELLOWS                                                  52
+
+  CHAPTER VII.
+  THEY REACH THE CRESCENT MOON                                          61
+
+  CHAPTER VIII.
+  ON THE TROLLEY CLOUD                                                  70
+
+  CHAPTER IX.
+  ON THE OSCYCLE--A NARROW ESCAPE                                       80
+
+  CHAPTER X.
+  HOME AGAIN                                                            91
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+  ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+  BY CLARE VICTOR DWIGGINS
+
+
+  "GET HIM A MIRROR," SAID THE LEFTHANDIRON. _In colors      Frontispiece_
+
+  "I'M NOT A DORMOUSE"                                                  12
+
+  "A LITTLE TALE WHICH I WILL WAG FOR YOU"                              15
+
+  "AND THEN DIE WITHOUT PAYING FOR IT"                                  20
+
+  "JUST WHAT I WANTED FOR MY LUNCH"                                     22
+
+  "TRIED TO BITE MY HEAD OFF"                                           23
+
+  "A MOUSE WITH A DOOR TO HIM"                                          31
+
+  "THERE'S NO BETTER PLACE THAN THIS CLOUD," SAID THE POKER.
+                                                       _In colors_      33
+
+  "IN ONE EAR AND OUT OF THE OTHER"                                     34
+
+  "A POKER WHO COULD ONLY POKE"                                         39
+
+  "No," she said, "I'm not your mother, I am a Fairy." _In colors_      40
+
+  "DOESN'T HAVE TO LIVE IN A BATHTUB"                                   41
+
+  "EAGLES NEVER HAVE UMBRELLAS"                                         46
+
+  "ONE DAY THE WOODCUTTERS CAME"                                        49
+
+  "SO I REALLY LIVE HOME"                                               51
+
+  "WHAT'S THE USE OF FIGHTING?"                                         53
+
+  "I BLOW A STORY OF TWO, NOW AND THEN," SAID THE BELLOWS.  _In Colors_ 54
+
+  HE GAVE A TREMENDOUS WHEEZE                                           58
+
+  "COLUMBUS WAS A GREAT MAN"                                            63
+
+  "YOU SEE, IT'S THIS SHAPE"                                            66
+
+  "WHY, IT'S REALLY A TROLLEY!" HE CRIED. _In colors_                   68
+
+  "IT KEEPS ME JUMPING ALL THE TIME"                                    72
+
+  "I HAVEN'T THE MONEY"                                                 78
+
+  ON THE OSCYCLE. _In colors_                                           80
+
+  "MY OWN PRIVATE ICEBERG"                                              83
+
+  THE MAN FROM SATURN JUMPED                                            86
+
+  TOM JUMPED, AND IN A MOMENT WAS SITTING ASTRIDE THE GREAT BIRD'S
+    NECK. _In colors_                                                   89
+
+  "UPON THE ANVIL IN HIS SANCTUM"                                       93
+
+  DEVOURING HIS FAVORITE AUTHOR                                         98
+
+  TOM IS AWAKENED BY THE AVALANCHE. _In colors_                        100
+
+  TAIL PIECE                                                           102
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Andiron Tales
+
+By John Kendrick Bangs
+
+
+  Being the Remarkable Adventures of a Boy
+  with a Lively Imagination
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+Tom and the Andirons
+
+
+It was perfectly natural in one respect, anyhow. There was really no
+reason in the world why Tom should not lie upon the great bear-skin rug in
+front of the library fire those cold winter nights if he wanted to, nor
+need anyone be surprised that he should want to. It was indeed a most
+delightful place to lie in. The bear-skin was soft and in every way
+comfortable and comforting. The fireplace itself was one of those huge
+hospitable affairs that might pass in some apartment houses in our narrow
+cooped-up city streets for a butler's pantry or small reception room--in
+fact in the summer time Tom used to sit in the fireplace and pretend he
+was in his office transacting business with such of his sister's dolls as
+could be induced to visit him there; giving orders to imaginary clerks and
+bookkeepers and keeping an equally fanciful office boy continually on the
+run. And then apart from the rug and the fireplace it was a beautiful
+room in which they were. Tom's father was very fond of books, and,
+although he was a great many years older than Tom, he had not forgotten
+how to enjoy the very same kind of books that Tom liked. He was not
+ashamed to have one little niche of his library filled with the stories
+which had delighted him in his boyhood days, and which still continued to
+please him, and, of course, this lent an additional charm to the library
+in Tom's eyes. It held his heroes, and on some of those drowsy nights when
+the only sounds to break the stillness of the room were the scratching of
+his father's pen, the soft humming of some little tune by his mother
+sitting and sewing by the evening lamp, and the fierce crackling of the
+burning logs, Tom could almost see these heroes stepping down from the
+shelves and like so many phantoms flitting in and about the room. In fact,
+upon one occasion, Tom is convinced he did see these very people having a
+dance upon the great tiled hearth--but of that you shall hear later.
+
+There were many other things in the library beside his heroes that
+interested Tom. There was a little Japanese ivory god that used to sit up
+on the mantel shelf and gaze wisely at him, as much as to say, "Dear me,
+boy, what a lot I could tell you if I only would!" Then, too, there was a
+very handsome vase on top of one of the book-cases that had two remarkable
+dragons climbing up its sides, the tail of one of them so fixed that if
+anyone chose to use the vase for a pitcher the tail would make a very
+convenient handle, at which the other dragon always appeared to be
+laughing heartily, which he had no reason to do, because his own tail was
+not arranged any too gracefully. But the things that, next to Jack the
+Giant Killer, and Beauty and the Beast, and Tom Thumb and his other
+heroes and heroines, Tom liked the most, were two great brazen Andirons
+that stood in the fireplace. To Tom these Andirons, though up to the night
+when our story begins he had never seen them move, seemed almost to live.
+They had big, round, good-natured faces, that shone like so much gold.
+Their necks were slight and graceful, but as they developed downward
+toward their handsome feet the Andirons grew more portly, until finally
+they came to look very much like a pair of amiable sea serpents without
+much length. Tom's uncle said they looked like cats, with sunflowers for
+heads, swan necks for bodies, and very little of the cat about them save
+the claws. This description made Tom laugh, but the more he thought about
+it the more truthful did it seem to him to be.
+
+For so long a time as Tom could remember, summer and winter, those
+Andirons had sat staring stolidly ahead in their accustomed place, and not
+until that December night had they even so much as winked at him--but on
+that occasion they more than made up for all their previous silence and
+seeming unsociability. Tom was lying on the rug, as usual, and I am afraid
+was almost asleep. The logs were burning fiercely and at first Tom thought
+that the words he heard spoken were nothing but their crackling and
+hissing, but in a minute he changed his mind about that for the very good
+reason that the "Lefthandiron"--as Tom's uncle once called it--winked his
+eye at Tom and said:
+
+"Hullo, Sleepyhead."
+
+Tom only returned the wink. He was too much surprised to say anything.
+
+"His name isn't Sleepyhead," said the Righthandiron, with a grin. "It's
+Thomas D. Pate."
+
+"What's the D for?" asked the other.
+
+"Dozy--Thomas Dozy Pate," exclaimed the Righthandiron. "His ancestors were
+Sleepyheads on his mother's side, and Dozy Pates on his father's side."
+
+"'Tisn't so at all!" cried Tom, indignantly. "My mama wasn't a Sleepyhead,
+and my name isn't Dozy Pate."
+
+"He's such a Sleepyhead he doesn't know his own name," said the
+Lefthandiron.
+
+[Illustration: "I'M NOT A DORMOUSE."]
+
+"That's a curious thing about the Sleepyheads and the Dozy Pates. They
+very seldom know their own names--and even when they do they always deny
+that they are what they are. Why I really believe if I told Tom here that
+he was a Dormouse he'd deny it and say he was a boy."
+
+"I am a boy," said Tom, stoutly, "and I'm not a Dormouse."
+
+Both of the Andirons laughed heartily at this, and the Righthandiron,
+dancing a little jig, sang over and over again this couplet:
+
+    "He can't be very smart, I wis,
+    If he can't see that's what he is."
+
+"Get him a mirror," said the Lefthandiron. "We can't blame him for
+thinking he is a boy, because everybody has told him he is a boy except
+ourselves, and being a Sleepyhead he believes as a rule what he is told if
+it is pleasant to believe."
+
+"Well, I can't see why he objects to being a Dormouse," said the
+Righthandiron. "I think Dormice are very handsome and just too sweet and
+amiable to live. They are much pleasanter mice than Windowmice and
+Stairmice--don't you think so?"
+
+"Indeed I do," returned the Lefthandiron, "and Tom is about the finest
+Dormouse I ever saw, and I wish he'd let us get acquainted with him."
+
+"So do I," said the other, "but if he doesn't it's his own loss. You and I
+can go off to Santa Clausville by ourselves and have quite as good a time,
+if not better, than if he were along with us. I've noticed one thing, my
+dear Lefty, two's best anyhow.
+
+    "Two people in an omnibus
+      Where there's but one settee,
+    Can both be seated with less fuss
+      Than if the twain were three.
+
+    "If there is candy for but four,
+      This maxim still holds true,
+    Each one will get so much the more
+      If there are only two.
+
+    "Two boys upon a teeter board
+      Can have just twice the fun
+    That any seesaw can afford
+      If there's another one.
+
+"So I say, what if he doesn't come? You and I will enjoy ourselves just as
+much. There'll be more candy for us, we won't have to divide the good time
+we have up into more than two parts, and, what is more, neither of us will
+have to carry the Dormouse."
+
+Here the two Andirons gave a sidelong glance at Tom, and saw that he was
+smiling.
+
+"What are you laughing at?" asked the Righthandiron. "Eh, Dormouse?"
+
+"If I'll be a Dormouse will you take me off on your good time with you?"
+asked Tom.
+
+"Certainly, but we can't take anybody who denies that he is what he is or
+who says that his name doesn't belong to him."
+
+"But I can't tell a story," said Tom.
+
+"Nobody asked you to," returned the Righthandiron. "All we ask is that
+you'll say nothing about it. If we say your name is Sleepyhead you needn't
+try to make people think we don't know what we are talking about by saying
+that your name isn't Sleepyhead, but Tommy Wideawake, or Billy Lemonstick,
+or something else; and when we choose to state that you are a Dormouse we
+want you to be a Dormouse and not go crying out through the street, 'I am
+a huckleberry.' In the countries we visit people think we are the wisest
+of the wise, and what we say no one ever dares dispute."
+
+"So, you see, my dear Dormouse," said the other, "we couldn't possibly
+take you off with us unless you fall in with our plans and submit to our
+calling you anything we please."
+
+"I don't see why you are not willing to admit that I am a boy, though,"
+insisted Tom, who, although he was extremely anxious to go off with the
+Andirons, did not really like to lose sight of the fact that he was a boy.
+"What good does it do you or me or anybody else for me to admit that I am
+a Dormouse, for instance?"
+
+"A little tail which I will wag for you," said the Righthandiron, "will
+explain how that is. Did you ever know a boy named Ebenezer J. Carrottop?"
+
+"No, I never heard of any person with such an absurd name as that,"
+returned Tom.
+
+[Illustration: "A LITTLE TALE WHICH I WILL WAG FOR YOU."]
+
+"Well, you are very fortunate not to have been one of Ebenezer's
+particular friends," said the Righthandiron. "If you had been, the story I
+am going to tell you would have made you very unhappy. As it is, not
+having known Ebenezer, and, having in fact taken a dislike to him because
+of his name, the story will amuse you more than otherwise."
+
+"Good," said Tom; "I like to be amused."
+
+"That being the case," said the Andiron, "I will proceed at once to tell
+you the story of Ebenezer."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+The Story of Ebenezer
+
+
+"Ebenezer was a boy very much like yourself in several ways," resumed the
+Righthandiron. "He wasn't one of the Sleepyhead or Dozy Pate families, but
+he was next thing to it. He was nephew of Senator Takeanap, and a grandson
+of old General Snoraloud--but he'd never admit it. He used to get just as
+angry when we reminded him that he was quite as much of a Snoraloud as a
+Carrottop, as you were when we called you Sleepyhead, and when my brother
+Lefty here said to him, 'Hullo, Weasel,' he didn't like it a bit better
+than you did when we said you were a Dormouse. He insisted that he was a
+boy, and for all we could do we couldn't get him to admit that he was a
+Weasel--"
+
+    "He was the most persistent lad
+      That I have ever seen.
+    He'd always say that bad was bad,
+      That blue could not be green.
+
+    "We couldn't get him to deny
+      That white was always white,
+    And though we'd try and try and try
+      He'd say that he was right,"
+
+interrupted the Lefthandiron.
+
+"And wasn't he?" asked Tom.
+
+"That isn't a part of the story," snapped the Righthandiron, "and if you
+don't stop interrupting me I'll never speak to you again."
+
+"I didn't mean to," said Tom apologetically.
+
+"That's just the worst part of it," snapped the Andiron. "You are an
+interrupter by nature, and that is the most incurable kind. But, as I was
+telling you, Ebenezer was bound to be a boy, and no amount of talk on our
+part could convince him that he was a Weasel. Well, Lefty and I were very
+young then, and up to the time of which I am speaking we had always made
+our little trips in the Fairy Country or in Giantland all by ourselves,
+and we had lots of fun together I can warrant. This time, however, we
+decided to take Ebenezer with us to Giantland, which was a place he had
+often heard us tell about, and concerning which he was very curious. We
+told him that it would never do for him to visit Giantland, because the
+Giants were always very hungry, and liked nothing better to eat than a boy
+like himself. It would be dangerous for him to go, we said, unless he
+would promise to obey us in everything we told him to do, and to admit
+that he was whatever we chose to call him."
+
+"You see, my dear Tom," said the Lefthandiron in explanation, "the Giants
+had such confidence in us that they accepted as true anything we said, so
+that if we should happen to meet a hungry ogre and he should want to eat
+Ebenezer because he was a boy, all that would be necessary for us to do to
+save Ebenezer was to say, 'Hold on. He is not a boy. He is a Weasel.' Then
+Ebenezer would be all right, because Giants do not eat Weasels."
+
+"I see," said Tom, nodding his head.
+
+"Ebenezer promised that he would obey us and wouldn't deny that he was a
+Weasel if we told the Giants he was one, and we took him off with us,"
+resumed the Righthandiron. "We went straight to Giantland and had a
+perfectly lovely time until about an hour before it was time to return,
+when we encountered a huge Giant named Skihigh--and my, how hungry he was!
+He was hungrier than Lefty's friend, who went into a restaurant and
+ordered
+
+    "'Thirty-seven pounds of cake,
+      Sixty-four lamb chops,
+    Eighteen portions of beefsteak,
+      Forty ginger pops;
+    Seventeen vanilla puffs,
+      Twenty fresh-caught dabs,
+    Thirty-eight rich raisin duffs,
+      Ninety soft-shell crabs.
+
+    "'Let those go for course the first;
+      Let the second be
+    Shrimps and oysters till I burst,
+      Thirteen quarts of tea.
+    Then a dozen sugared hams,
+      One small cabbage head,
+    Ninety dozen pinky clams,
+      Sixty loaves of bread.
+
+    "'Seven quarts of French canned pease,
+      And a pound or two
+    Of your Gorgonzola cheese
+      For my lunch will do."
+    Then the waiter standing by
+      In the usual way
+    Asked him: 'Won't you also try
+      Our hot mince today?'"
+
+"I don't want to interrupt," said Tom, "but it seems to me that man must
+have been awful rich."
+
+"No, he wasn't," returned Lefty. "He was going to eat the dinner, you
+know, and then die without paying for it. He wasn't a very good man."
+
+[Illustration: "AND THEN DIE WITHOUT PAYING FOR IT."]
+
+"No," remarked the story-teller. "But he was a very hungry man, in which
+respect he was just like the Giant I am trying to tell you about. And my,
+how the Giant roared with glee when he caught sight of Ebenezer.
+
+"'Good!' he cried, 'that's just what I wanted for my lunch. A nice fat
+boy.'
+
+"Then he reached down," said the Righthandiron, "and grabbed Ebenezer by
+the arm, and was about to eat him just as he would a piece of asparagus,
+when Lefty here cried out:
+
+"'Avast there, Skihigh! That isn't a nice fat boy. That is only a
+miserable Weasel.'
+
+"'Pah!' said Skihigh, with a face such as you put on when you take a
+horrid tasting medicine. 'Pah! I can't eat Weasels.'
+
+"And with that he put Ebenezer down on the road again and was about to
+walk along about his business when what did that foolish little Ebenezer
+do but up and deny that he was a Weasel!
+
+"'I'm not a Weasel,' he yelled. 'And I am a boy--and a fine boy at that!'
+
+"Skihigh stopped short, whirled about and rushed back to where Ebenezer
+was standing.
+
+"'What's that you say?' he said eagerly.
+
+"'I say I am not a Weasel, but a fine fat boy,' said the vainglorious
+Ebenezer stoutly.
+
+"'Then my friends, the Andirons have deceived me, have they?' roared the
+Giant.
+
+"'Yes,' replied Ebenezer. 'But I can't stand being called a Weasel.'
+
+[ILLUSTRATION: "JUST WHAT I WANTED FOR MY LUNCH."]
+
+"With that," said the Righthandiron, "Skihigh clapped Ebenezer into his
+market basket and then turned on Lefty and me. Lefty managed to get away,
+but I was caught."
+
+"What did he do to you?" asked Tom, trembling with excitement.
+
+"He tried to bite my head off," said Righty, with a laugh. "See those two
+dents on either side of my neck?"
+
+Tom looked, and sure enough there were the dents--not very deep, but quite
+large enough to be seen.
+
+"His teeth broke when he got that far," said Righty. "I'm pretty hard--but
+you see it needn't have happened at all if Ebenezer had only kept quiet
+about his not being a Weasel."
+
+[ILLUSTRATION: "TRIED TO BITE MY HEAD OFF."]
+
+"Was he eaten by Skihigh?" asked Tom.
+
+"I don't know," replied Righty. "Lefty and I didn't wait to find out, and
+we have never been back there since. I don't believe he did eat him, for
+two reasons. One is that after trying to bite my head off Skihigh hadn't
+teeth enough left to eat anything with, and the other reason is that I
+saw Ebenezer two years afterwards on his way to school one beautiful
+spring morning. I noticed him particularly because, although it was a
+lovely clear morning, he had his umbrella up and positively declined to
+put it down and carry it closed, because, he said, an umbrella couldn't
+possibly be a cane, and he wasn't going to try to make anybody suppose it
+was a cane."
+
+"I don't see anything in that story to make me unhappy, even if I were a
+chum of Ebenezer's," said Tom, as the Andiron finished.
+
+"You don't? Don't you think it was sad that the Giant couldn't eat a boy
+who'd behave in that way?" asked Righty, with a scornful glance at Tom.
+
+"It was very sad, Tom," said the Lefthandiron. "So don't deny
+it--especially if you want to go off on our trip to the stars."
+
+"Are you really going to the stars?" gasped Tom, breathless at the very
+idea and forgetting all about Ebenezer.
+
+"Perhaps," returned the Andiron.
+
+"And may I go with you?" whispered Tom.
+
+"You may if you will do whatever we tell you, and admit that you are a
+Dormouse," said Righty.
+
+"All right, I'll obey," said Tom.
+
+"And what did you say your name was?" asked Lefty.
+
+"Sleepyhead Dozy Pate Dormouse," said Tom, with a laugh.
+
+"You'll do," returned the Righthandiron, stepping lightly out of the
+fireplace. "Now sit astride of my back and take hold of Lefty's right
+claw."
+
+Tom did as he was told, and in an instant he was flying up through space
+toward the stars.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+Off in the Clouds
+
+
+"Now the point to be decided," said the Lefthandiron, after he and his
+companions had been flying through space for some time, "is where we are
+going. There are two or three things we can do, and Tom can have his
+choice as to which it shall be."
+
+"Subject, of course, to my advice," said the Righthandiron, with a bow to
+Tom. "You can go where you please if I please. See?"
+
+"Yes," said Tom. "I see. I can have my way as long as it is your way."
+
+"Precisely," said the Righthandiron, with an approving nod. "And as you
+may have heard, precisely means exactly so. You can have your way as long
+as it is my way, which shows how generous I am. Fond of my way as I am, I
+am willing to divide it with you."
+
+"All right," returned Tom. "I'm very much obliged. What are the two things
+we can do?"
+
+"Well," said the Lefthandiron, scratching his head softly, "we can fly up
+a little higher and sit down and watch the world go round; we can take the
+long jump, or we can visit Saturn."
+
+"What was the first?" asked Tom.
+
+"To fly up a little higher, where we can get a better view; to sit down
+there and watch the world go round. It is an excellent way to travel. It's
+awfully easy--in fact, it isn't you that travels at all. It's the world
+that does the traveling, while all you've got to do is to sit down there
+and keep an eye on it. It's like a big panorama, only it's real, and any
+time you see a place going by that you think you'd like to see more of,
+all you've got to do is to fly down there and see it."
+
+"When you get up higher and sit down," said Tom, "what do you sit on?"
+
+"You sit on me and I sit on my hind legs, of course," said Lefthandiron.
+"Don't you know anything?"
+
+"Of course I do," said Tom, indignantly. "I know lots of things."
+
+"Then I can't see why you ask such silly questions," retorted the
+Lefthandiron. "What do we sit on? Why, you might just as well ask a dog
+what he barks with, or a lion what he eats his breakfast with--and that
+would be as stupid as the Poker's poem on Sandwiches."
+
+"Did the Poker write a poem on Sandwiches?" asked Tom.
+
+"Eight of 'em," returned the Lefthandiron. "The first of them went this
+way:
+
+    "He sat upon a lofty hill,
+      And smoked his penny pipe.
+    'Ha!' quoth a passing whip-poor-will,
+      'The oranges are ripe.'"
+
+"The other seven went like this," observed the Righthandiron:
+
+    "The day was over, and the six-
+      Teen little darkies then
+    Found they were in a dreadful fix,
+      Like several other men."
+
+"There isn't anything about Sandwiches in those poems," said Tom, with a
+look of perplexity on his face.
+
+"No. That's where the stupidity of it comes in. He wrote those poems and
+called 'em all Sandwiches just to be stupid, and it was stupid."
+
+"But what did he want to be stupid for?" asked Tom.
+
+"Just his vanity, that's all," said the Righthandiron. "The Poker is a
+very vain person. He thinks he is superior to everybody else in
+everything. If you say to him, 'the gas fixture is bright tonight,' he'll
+say, 'Oh, yes--but I'm brighter.' Somebody told him once that the kindling
+wood that started the fires was stupid, and he wouldn't even stop his
+bragging then. 'Oh, yes,' he said, 'but I'm a great deal stupider than the
+kindling wood and I'll prove it.' So he sat down and wrote those verses
+and called 'em all Sandwiches, and everybody agreed that he was the
+stupidest person going."
+
+"You only told me two of 'em," said Tom.
+
+"No--the whole eight were there. To make it more stupid the Poker said
+that the first one was number five and the second was the other seven."
+
+Tom smiled broadly at this and made up his mind to cultivate the
+acquaintance of the Poker. He was boy enough to like stupidity of that
+sort because it made him laugh.
+
+"I'd like to meet the Poker," he said. "He must be lots of fun."
+
+"He is," said the Lefthandiron. "Tenacre lots of fun. You'll meet him soon
+enough because we shall join him shortly. We never go off on any of our
+trips without him. He is a great help sometimes when we get into trouble
+just because he has so many sides. If we fall into a pit through some
+misstep the Poker comes along and pries us out of it. If we fall into the
+hands of some horrible creature that wants to hurt us, the Poker talks to
+that creature as stupid as he knows how, which makes the other so drowsy
+that he can't possibly keep awake, and then, of course, we escape."
+
+"There he is now," cried the Righthandiron, putting his right forepaw up
+to his ear and listening attentively. "I can hear him singing, can't you?"
+
+The Lefthandiron stopped short and Tom strained his ears to hear the
+Poker's song. For a moment he could hear nothing, but then a slight
+buzzing sound like the hum of a bee, came to his ears and in another
+minute he could distinguish the words of the song. It was a song showing
+that the singer was one of those favored beings who are satisfied with
+what the world has given them--as you will see for yourself when you hear
+it. These are the words as they came to Tom's ears, sung to a soft little
+air which the Poker made up as he went along, thereby showing that he was
+a musician as well as a Poker:
+
+    "Oh, I am a Poker bold and free,
+      And I poke the livelong day.
+    I love the land and I hate the sea,
+    But the sky and the clouds are there for me.
+
+      I dote on the Milky Way.
+    The clouds are as soft as a fleecy rug,
+      And as cool as cool can be.
+    The skies fit into my figure snug,
+    And they make me feel so blithe and smug
+      That I am glad Fate made me Me.
+          Oh Me!
+          Ah Me!
+        'Tis a lovely fate
+        And a mission great
+          To be
+          Like me
+        And to love the skies,
+        And the clouds to prize,
+    And to hate the turbulent sea,
+          He--he--
+        So I lift my voice
+        And I loud rejoice
+    That the Fates have made me Me."
+
+"Hullo!" cried the Righthandiron.
+
+"Halloa!" called the Lefthandiron.
+
+"That's not my name," came the voice of the Poker from behind a cloud just
+above Tom's head. "But I know who you mean, so I answer Halloa yourself."
+
+"Where are you?" cried Lefty.
+
+"Here," called the Poker.
+
+"No, you're not," called Righty. "You're there. We are here."
+
+"Well, that's neither here nor there," retorted the Poker, poking his head
+out through the cloud. "Hullo! Who have you got there? That isn't Tom, is
+it?"
+
+"No--it's Sleepyhead D. Dormouse," laughed Lefty.
+
+"Good," said the Poker, advancing and shaking Tom by the hand. "I was
+afraid it was Tom. Not that I dislike Tom, for I don't. I think he is one
+of the nicest boys I know--but he weighs a good fifty-seven pounds, and so
+far we haven't been able to get a cloud strong enough to support more than
+fifty-six. If Tom were to come up here and sit on a cloud he'd fall
+through, and if he fell through, you know what would happen."
+
+"No, I don't," said Tom, to whom the Poker's remarks were addressed. "What
+would happen?"
+
+"Well, in the first place, it would spoil the cloud, and in the second
+place, if he tumbled into the sea he'd have to swim ashore," said the
+Poker, sagely. "That's why I am glad you're young Mr. Dormouse, and not
+Tom. Dormice can sit on the flimsiest clouds we have and not break
+through."
+
+"What is a Dormouse anyhow?" asked Tom, to whom it now occurred for the
+first time that he had never seen a Dormouse.
+
+"Ho!" jeered Righty, as Tom asked the question. "The idea of not knowing
+what a Dormouse is!"
+
+"He's a mouse with a door to him, of course," said Lefty.
+
+"Which he keeps closed," said the Poker, "so that he will not be disturbed
+while he is asleep."
+
+Tom tried to imagine what a creature of that sort looked like, but he
+found it difficult. Not liking to appear stupid he accepted the
+explanation.
+
+"Oh!" he said. "It must be a very pretty animal."
+
+"Oh, yes!" said the Poker. "But he isn't as pretty as I can be when I
+try. My, how pretty I can be--but say, Andies, where are we bound this
+trip?"
+
+"We've left that to Sleepyhead to decide," said Lefty.
+
+"In the usual way of course?" queried the Poker.
+
+"Oh, yes! He can't decide except as we want him to and have it go as a
+real decision. We've given him his choice of watching the world go round,
+going to Saturn or taking the long jump."
+
+[Illustration: "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.
+
+[Illustration: "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."
+
+[Illustration: "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
+the tears 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't be 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 do
+    A thing some one has asked you to,
+    Don't sit you down and moan and cry
+    Because you can't, but wink your eye
+          And 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+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 right answer,
+though he really hadn't the slightest notion that he was correct.
+
+[Illustration: "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.
+
+[Illustration: "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?'
+
+[Illustration: "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 had been, 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."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+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, in attempting 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."
+
+[Illustration: "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
+they came. 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.
+
+"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.
+
+[Illustration: "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.
+
+"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.
+
+[Illustration: "SO I REALLY LIVE HOME."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+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."
+
+[Illustration: "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 let you 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?"
+
+[Illustration: "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 a powder 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. "I haven'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.
+
+[Illustration: "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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+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
+
+    WHAT'S THE USE.
+
+    What's the use of circuses that haven't any beasts?
+    What's the use of restaurants that haven't any feasts?
+
+    What's the use of oranges that haven't any peels?
+    What's the use of bicycles that haven't any wheels?
+
+    What's the use of railway trains that have no place to go?
+    What's the use of going to war if you haven't any foe?
+
+    What's the use of splendid views for those that cannot see?
+    What's the use of freedom's flag to folks that aren't free?
+
+    What's the use of legs to those who have no wish to walk?
+    What's the use of languages to those who cannot talk?
+
+    What's the use of kings and queens that haven't any throne?
+    What's the use of having pains unless you're going to groan?
+
+    What's the use of anything, however grand and good,
+    That doesn't ever, ever work the way it really should?"
+
+"Humph!" panted the Bellows, "you don't call that bright, do you?"
+
+"I do, indeed," said the Poker. "And I call it bright because I know it's
+bright. It is so bright that not a magazine in all the world dare print
+it, because they'd never be able to do as well again, and people would say
+the magazine wasn't as good as it used to be."
+
+"What nonsense," retorted the Bellows. "Why, I could blow a mile of poetry
+like that in ten minutes:
+
+    What's the use of churches big that haven't any steeples?
+    What's the use of nations great that haven't any peoples?
+
+    What's the use of oceans grand that haven't any beaches?
+    What's the use of Delawares that haven't any peaches?
+
+    What's the use--"
+
+"O, shut up Wheezy," interrupted the Poker angrily. "Of course you can go
+on like that forever, once somebody gives you the idea, but to have the
+idea in the beginning was the big thing. Columbus was a great man for
+coming to America, but every foreigner who has come over since isn't, not
+by a long shot. As I say in my celebrated rhyme on "Greatness":
+
+    The greatest man in all the world, by far the greatest one,
+    Is he who goes ahead and does what no one else has done.
+    But he must be the first if he would rank as some "potaters,"
+    For those who follow after him are merely imitators.
+
+[Illustration: "COLUMBUS WAS A GREAT MAN."]
+
+"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the Bellows. "You are a great chap, Pokey--you, with
+your poetry. I hope Tom isn't going to be affected by the lessons you
+teach. The idea of saying that a man is the greatest man in the world
+because he does what no one else has done! I guess nobody's never eaten
+bricks up to now. Do you mean to say that if Tom here ate a brick he'd be
+the greatest man in the world?"
+
+"No; he'd be a cannibal," put in the Righthandiron, desirous of stopping
+the quarrel between the rivals.
+
+"How do you make that out?" demanded the Bellows.
+
+"Because Tom is a brick himself," explained the Righthandiron; and just
+then slap! bang! the party plunged head first into what appeared to
+be--and in fact really was--a huge snowbank.
+
+"Hurrah! Here we are!" cried Lefty, gleefully.
+
+"Wh-where are we?" Tom sputtered, blowing the snow out of his mouth and
+shaking it from his coat and hair and ears.
+
+"Hi, there! Look out!" roared Righty, grabbing Tom by the coat sleeve and
+yanking him off to one side. A terrible swishing sound fell upon the lad's
+ears, and as he gazed doggedly about him to see what had caused it he saw
+a great golden toboggan whizzing down into the valley, and then slipping
+up the hill on the other side.
+
+"You had a narrow escape that time," said Righty, as they excitedly
+watched the toboggan speeding on its way, and which, by the way, was
+filled with a lot of little youngsters no bigger than Tom himself,
+children of all colors, apparently, red, white and blue, green, yellow and
+black. "If I hadn't yanked you away you'd have been run over."
+
+"But where are we?" Tom asked, bewildered by the experience.
+
+"We're on the Crescent Moon at last," said Lefty. "It's the boss toboggan
+slide of the universe."
+
+"A toboggan slide?" cried Tom.
+
+"The very same," said the Poker. "Didn't you know that this dazzling
+whiteness of the Crescent Moon is merely the reflection of the sun's light
+on the purest of pure white snow? It's too high up for dust and dirt here,
+you see, and so the snow is always clean, and so, equally of course, is
+dazzling white."
+
+"But the tobogganing?" asked Tom.
+
+"It's like swinging and letting the old cat die," explained the
+Righthandiron. "You see, it's this shape," and he marked the crescent form
+of the moon on the snow and lettered the various points.
+
+"Now," he continued, "you start your toboggan at A and whizz down to C.
+When you get there you have gathered speed enough to take you up the hill
+to B. Then of its own weight the toboggan slides back to D, from which it
+again moves forward to E, and so it keeps on sliding back and forth until
+finally it comes to a dead stop at C. Isn't that a fine arrangement?"
+
+"Magnificent," said Tom. "And do they call it tobogganing here?"
+
+"No," said Righty, "it's called oscillating, and the machine is known as
+the oscycle"--
+
+"Don't confound it with the icicle," put in the Bellows.
+
+"Oh, I know what an icicle is," said Tom. "It's a spear of ice that hangs
+from a piazza roof."
+
+"That's what it is at home," said the Poker, "but not here, my lad. Here
+an icicle is a bicycle with runners instead of wheels."
+
+"But what makes it go?" demanded Tom.
+
+"Pedals, of course," returned the Poker. "You just tread away on the
+pedals, as if you were riding on a bicycle, and the chain sets a dozen ice
+picks revolving that shove you over the ice like the wind. Oh, it's great
+sport!"
+
+[Illustration: "YOU SEE, IT'S THIS SHAPE."]
+
+Another rush and roar of a passing toboggan caused them to pause in their
+conversation for a moment, and then Tom turned his attention to the
+diagram Righty had drawn on the snow.
+
+"Suppose you didn't stop at B and go back--what would happen?" he asked as
+he considered the possible dangers of this wonderful new sport.
+
+"You'd fall over the edge, of course," said the Poker.
+
+"I see that," said Tom. "But if you fell over the edge what would become
+of you? Where would you land?"
+
+"If you had luck you wouldn't land anywhere," said Righty. "The chances
+are, however, you'd fall back on the earth again. Maybe in Canada,
+possibly in China, perhaps in Egypt. It would all depend on the time of
+night."
+
+"And wouldn't you be killed?" Tom asked.
+
+"Not if you had your rubbers on," said Righty. "If you had your rubbers on
+it would only jar you slightly. You'd just hit the earth and then bounce
+back again, but there's no use of talking about that, because it never
+happened but once. It happened to a chap named Blenkinson, who took an
+Oscillator that hadn't any brake on it. He was one of those smart fellows
+that want to show how clever they are. He whizzed down one side and up the
+other, and pouf! First thing he knew he was flying off into space."
+
+"And what became of him?" demanded Tom.
+
+"He had the luck not to hit anything, but he suffered just the same," said
+Righty. "He flew on until he got to a point where he was held fast up in
+the air by the force of gravity of 1,600 different planets, and he's there
+yet. At a distance he looks like another new star, but when you get close
+to him he's nothing more than just a plain, everyday Smarty."
+
+"I should think he'd starve to death," said Tom, as he reflected on the
+horrid fate of Blenkinson.
+
+"He would if he had any appetite," said the Bellows. "But he hasn't. He's
+so worried all the time that he can't eat, so he gets along very well
+without food."
+
+"Let's quit talking now," suggested the Poker, "and get a ride, eh?"
+
+"I'm ready," said Tom eagerly. "Where do we start?"
+
+"There's the station up on the hill. It's only about 700 miles. We can
+walk it in a year," said Righty.
+
+"I move we take this cloud that's coming up," said the Bellows. "I'm
+winded."
+
+Tom looked in the direction in which the Bellows had pointed, and, sure
+enough, there was a cloud coming slowly along, shaped very much like a
+trolley car, and on the front of it, as it drew nearer, the lad was soon
+able to discern the funny little figure of a Brownie acting as motorman.
+
+"Why, it's really a trolley!" he cried.
+
+[Illustration: "Why it's really a trolley!"]
+
+"Certainly it is!" laughed Righty. "Didn't you know that? When you have
+watched the moon from your window at home and seen constant lines of
+clouds passing up to it and stopping before its face night after night
+what did you suppose they did it for? Fun? I guess not. They're clever
+people up here, these moonfolk are, and they make use of everything going.
+They've taken these electric clouds and turned 'em into a sort of Sky
+Traction Company, and instead of letting 'em travel all around the
+universe doing nothing and raising thunder generally, some of the richer
+Brownies have formed a company to control them."
+
+By this time the cloud had reached the point where our little party stood,
+and the motorman, in response to the Bellows' signal, brought it to a
+standstill.
+
+"Step lively, please," the conductor cried from the rear end.
+
+Tom and the two Andirons and the Poker and Bellows clambered aboard.
+
+The conductor clanged a bell. The motorman turned his wheel and the cloud
+moved rapidly on.
+
+And what a queer crowd of folks there were on board that strange trolley
+cloud. Tom had never seen such an interesting group before.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+On the Trolley Cloud.
+
+
+As I stated at the end of the last chapter, the travelers Tom and his
+companions encountered upon the Trolley cloud were a wonderful lot. In the
+first place, the whole situation was strange. Here was, in fact, a perfect
+car, made of what at a distance looked to be nothing but a fleecy bit of
+vapor. It had seats and signs--indeed, the advertising signs alone were
+enough to occupy the mind of any person seeing them for the first time to
+the exclusion of all else, what with the big painted placard at the end,
+saying:
+
+  FOR POLAR BEARS GO TO ARCTICS
+  FIFTY-SEVEN VARIETIES.
+  No Home Complete Without Them.
+
+Another showing a picture of Potted Town, in which all the inhabitants
+lived on canned food and things that came in jars, reading:
+
+    This is the famous Potted Town,
+    Where everything is done up brown,
+    We live on lobsters tinned, and beans,
+    And freshly caught and oiled sardines;
+    On ham and eggs done up in jars,
+    And caramels that come in bars,
+    Come buy a lot in Potted Town,
+    And join the throngs we do up brown.
+    A corner lot for fifty cents--
+
+    A bargain that is just immense.
+    An inner lot for forty-nine
+    For residence is just divine.
+    If in a year you do not find
+    That we are suited to your mind
+    We'll give you fifteen cents in gold,
+    And take back all the lots we've sold,
+    If, when in other lands you go
+    You'll recommend Soapolio.
+
+"Who on earth wants a Polar Bear at home?" ejaculated Tom as he read the
+first.
+
+"I do," growled a deep bass voice at his side, and the little traveler,
+turning to see who it was that had spoken, was surprised and really
+startled to find himself seated next to a shaggy-coated beast of that
+precise kind. "I do," repeated the Polar Bear, "and if anybody says I
+don't I'll chew him up," and then he opened his mouth and glared at Tom as
+if to warn the young man from pursuing the subject further.
+
+"So would I," put in Righty. "So would I if all the Polar Bears were like
+you."
+
+The bear was apparently pleased by the compliment and, with a satisfied
+wink at Righty, folded his fore legs over his chest and went to sleep.
+
+"I think I'll buy one of those lots in Potted Town," said a Kangaroo who
+sat opposite to Tom.
+
+"You couldn't raise the money," growled a Flamingo who sat at the far end
+of the car. "Thirty cents is your measure."
+
+"Let him alone, Flammy," said an Ostrich who was crowded uncomfortably in
+between the Kangaroo and an old gentleman with one eye and a green beard
+who, Tom learned later, was a leading citizen of Saturn. "He can't help it
+if he's poor."
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Ostrich," said the Kangaroo, with a sob. "I was very much
+hurt by the Flamingo's remark. I have 19,627 children, and it keeps me
+jumping all the time to support them."
+
+[Illustration: "IT KEEPS ME JUMPING ALL THE TIME."]
+
+"I apologize," said the Flamingo. "My observations were most unjust. You
+do not look like thirty cents at all, as I perceive at second glance. As I
+look at you more closely you look like a $1.39 marked down to seventy-two.
+But why don't you get up and give the lady your seat?"
+
+"Is there a lady on the car who wants it?" asked the Kangaroo, standing
+up, and peering anxiously about him.
+
+"No, of course not," said the Flamingo, "but what difference does that
+make? A true gentleman is polite whether there are ladies present or not."
+
+The Polar Bear opened his eyes and leaning forward glared at the
+Flamingo.
+
+"You don't seem to be over-anxious about yourself," he growled. "Why don't
+you give up your seat to the imaginary lady?"
+
+"Because, Mr. Bear," the Flamingo returned, "it would not be polite. The
+seat I occupy is extremely uncomfortable, thanks to the crowding of the
+Hippopotamus on my left and the indulgence in peanuts of the Monkey on my
+right. By sitting down where I am, I am making a personal sacrifice."
+
+"There'll be a free fight in a minute," said the Poker, anxiously. "I
+think we'd better get out."
+
+"You won't do anything of the sort," said the Conductor. "Nobody leaves
+this car until we get there."
+
+"Get where?" demanded the Poker.
+
+"Anywhere," returned the Conductor. "Fares, please."
+
+"But we've all paid," said the Flamingo.
+
+"Somebody hasn't," replied the Conductor. "There are twenty-two on this
+car and I've collected only twenty-one fares. I don't know who is the
+deadhead. Therefore you must all pay. It is better that there should be
+twenty-one lawsuits for a total damage of $1.25 than that this company
+should lose a nickel. Juries disagree. Fares, please."
+
+"I decline to pay a second time," cried the Monkey.
+
+"And I--and I," came from all parts of the car; from Lefty and Righty,
+from Tom, the Flamingo, the Hippopotamus and Polar Bear.
+
+"Very well," said the Conductor, calmly. "I don't care. It isn't my money
+that's lost, but I'll tell you one thing, this car doesn't stop until
+you've all paid up!"
+
+"What!" cried the Polar Bear. "I want to get off at the Toboggan slide."
+
+"So do I--so do I," cried everybody.
+
+"No doubt," said the Conductor; "but that's your business, not mine.
+Double your speed, Moty," he added, calling forward to the Motorman.
+"These people want to get off. Of course, gentlemen and fellow beasts," he
+continued, "I can't keep you from getting off, but this car is traveling
+at the rate of four miles a minute, and if you try it, you do so at your
+own risk. Fares, please."
+
+"It's an outrage!" said the Flamingo.
+
+"I'm going to jump," said the Kangaroo.
+
+"I think we'd better sit still, Tom," whispered Righty. "It would be
+smithereens if we tried to get off the car going at this rate."
+
+"Don't mind me," said Tom. "I'm having a bully time. This is quite as good
+fun as oscillating, I guess."
+
+"Excuse me, sir," said the Conductor, in reply to the Kangaroo, "but I
+must ask your name and address. I cannot prevent you from jumping, but I'm
+required by the rules of the company to find out all about you before
+letting you commit suicide. We need the information in case your heirs sue
+the company. Married?"
+
+"Yes," said the Kangaroo. "Sixteen times."
+
+"Any children?" queried the Conductor.
+
+"I have already said so," sobbed the Kangaroo; "19,627 of them."
+
+"Boys or girls?" asked the Conductor kindly.
+
+"Neither," replied the Kangaroo.
+
+"What?" cried the Conductor.
+
+"Kangaroos, every one of 'em," sobbed the unhappy passenger.
+
+"O, I see," said the Conductor, "What is your business?"
+
+"Jumping," replied the Kangaroo.
+
+"Business address?" demanded the Conductor.
+
+"Number 28 Australia," was the reply.
+
+"Home address?" questioned the Conductor.
+
+"Number 37 Melbourne," said the Kangaroo. "Melbourne is in Australia, you
+know," he added.
+
+"Made your will?" put in the Conductor, suddenly.
+
+"What has that got to do with it?" cried the Kangaroo, angrily, but with a
+nervous start.
+
+"We cannot permit you to jump unless you've made a will," said the
+Conductor, politely. "You see, when you jump you leave the car, and we
+don't know whom you leave the car to until we have read your will. You
+might leave it to Tom or to Righty, or to the poetic Poker--or to old
+Shaggy over there,"--pointing to the Polar Bear. "Inasmuch as it's our car
+we have a right to know to whom you leave it."
+
+"I guess I'll stay where I am," said the Kangaroo meekly, very much
+overcome by the Conductor's logic.
+
+"That's the answer," returned the Conductor. "You seem to be a very
+sensible sort of Kangaroo. Fare, please!" And the Kangaroo, diving down
+into his pocket, produced a five-cent piece, which he handed over to the
+Conductor without further comment.
+
+"Anybody else think of jumping off?" asked the Conductor pleasantly,
+turning about and glancing over the other occupants of the car.
+
+"I might," said the Monkey, placidly.
+
+"O, indeed," said the Conductor, walking along the car to where the Monkey
+sat. "You might think of jumping off, eh?"
+
+"Yes," said the Monkey.
+
+"Do you know where you would land?"
+
+"Yes," said the Monkey.
+
+"Where?" demanded the Conductor.
+
+"On my feet," said the Monkey. "Where else?"
+
+The Conductor was apparently much put out.
+
+"You're pretty smart, aren't you?" he said.
+
+"No," said the Monkey. "I'm only plain smart. I'm not pretty."
+
+"Everybody's talking about you? I presume," sneered the Conductor.
+
+"Not yet, but they will be," returned the Monkey, with a grin.
+
+"When?" demanded the Conductor.
+
+"When my tail is published," retorted the Monkey, with a grin.
+
+"Humph!" jeered the Conductor. "Great tail that."
+
+"No," said the Monkey, "not very great, but it has a swing about it--"
+
+"Say," interrupted the Hippopotamus, "I've got an idea. Somebody hasn't
+paid his fare, eh?"
+
+"That's the point," said the Conductor.
+
+"And unless he owns up we've all got to go on in this car forever?"
+
+"You have," replied the Conductor, firmly.
+
+"Well, let's be sensible about it," said the Hippopotamus. "We're all
+honest--at least I am--and I've paid once, and I admit I'm riding cheap
+considering my weight. But who hasn't paid? Tom, did you pay?"
+
+"I paid for our whole party," put in Righty.
+
+"Good," said the Hippopotamus. "Did you pay, Monk?"
+
+"Yes, I did," said the Monkey. "I paid for me and Polar Bear."
+
+"Good," said the Hippopotamus. "Has the Flamingo paid?"
+
+"I gave him a promissory note for my fare," said the Flamingo.
+
+"Good," said the Hippopotamus. "And now for the main question. Conductor,
+have you paid your fare?"
+
+"I?" cried the Conductor.
+
+"Yes, you!" roared the Hippopotamus, "Have you paid your fare?"
+
+"But--" the Conductor began.
+
+"I won't but," returned the Hippo. "I'm a Hippopotamus, I am. Not a goat.
+Have you paid your fare?"
+
+"Of course I haven't," returned the Conductor, "because--"
+
+"That's it!" returned the Hippopotamus. "That's the whole point. He's the
+one that's shy, and because we won't consent to pay his fare out of our
+own pockets he's going to hold us up. I move we squash him."
+
+"But I say," roared the Conductor.
+
+"Oh, pay your fare and shut up," growled the Polar Bear, "You began the
+row. What's the use?"
+
+"Hear 'em quoting my poem," whispered the Poker to Tom.
+
+"I've taken his number," said the Flamingo. "It's eight billion and seven.
+He's trying to beat his way."
+
+"Pay up, pay up," came from all parts of the car, and before he knew it
+Tom found himself in the midst of an angry group surrounding the
+Conductor, insisting that he should pay his fare.
+
+"Who are you that you should ride free?" demanded the Flamingo. "The idea
+of servants of the company having greater privileges than the patrons of
+the road!"
+
+[Illustration: "I HAVEN'T THE MONEY."]
+
+"If you don't pay up right away," roared the Polar Bear, "I'll squeeze you
+to death."
+
+"And I'll sit on you," put in the Hippopotamus.
+
+"I haven't the money," cried the Conductor, now thoroughly frightened.
+
+"Borrow it from the company," said the Polar Bear, "and ring it up."
+
+This the Conductor did, and a moment later, having reached the station,
+rang the bell, and the car stopped.
+
+"All out!" he cried, and the whole party descended.
+
+"Who paid his fare, anyhow?" asked the Flamingo.
+
+"I didn't," said the Monkey.
+
+"No more did I," said the Hippopotamus. "The Kangaroo did, though. Didn't
+you, Kangy?"
+
+"Only once," said the Kangaroo, "and that was the second time."
+
+"Let's get away from this crowd," said the Bellows. "They're not honest."
+
+"Right you are," said the Polar Bear. "They're a very bad lot. Come along;
+let's get aboard this toboggan, and leave 'em behind."
+
+Whereupon Tom and his companions, accompanied by the Polar Bear, stepped
+aboard the waiting Oscycle, and were soon speeding down the upper incline
+of the Crescent Moon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+On the Oscycle--A Narrow Escape.
+
+
+"Well," said the Polar Bear, as the Oscycle started on its downward
+course: "I'm mighty glad we're off, and away from those other creatures on
+that Trolley. They were a dishonest lot."
+
+"So am I," came a voice from behind him, that made the Bear jump
+nervously, for it was none other than the Flamingo.
+
+"So are the rest of us," added a lot of voices in chorus, and Tom, turning
+to see who beside himself and his companions had got aboard, was hugely
+amused to see the Kangaroo, the Monkey, the Hippopotamus and all the other
+creatures from the Trolley, save only the conductor and motorman, seated
+there behind, as happy as you please.
+
+"It doesn't pay to associate with conductors," said the Flamingo. "They
+don't think of anything but money all the time, and they're awfully rude
+about it sometimes. Why, I knew a conductor once who refused to change a
+$100 bill for me."
+
+"I don't believe you ever had a $100 bill," growled the Hippopotamus.
+
+"I've got one I wouldn't sell for $1,000," said the Flamingo. "It's the
+one I eat with," he added.
+
+"That's not legal tender," said the Polar Bear.
+
+"You couldn't change it if it was," sneered the Flamingo.
+
+[Illustration: On the Oscycle.]
+
+"I could change it in a minute if I wanted to," said the Polar Bear, with
+a chuckle.
+
+"What with, cash?" demanded the Flamingo, scornfully.
+
+"No--with one whack of my paw," said the Bear, shaking his fist menacingly
+at the Flamingo. "I could change your whole face, for that matter," he
+added, with a frown.
+
+"I was only fooling, Poley, old man," said the Flamingo, a trifle worried.
+"Of course you could, but you wouldn't, would you?"
+
+"Not unless I had to," replied the Bear, "but, gee, aren't we just
+whizzing along! Are you cold, Tom?"
+
+"Yes," said Tom, with a shiver, "just a little."
+
+"Well, come sit next to me and I'll let you use my furs. I don't need 'em
+myself. I'm a pretty warm Bear, considering where I come from."
+
+"Sit close, gentlemen," cried the man in charge of the Oscycle. "We're
+coming to a thank-you-marm. Look out! Look out! Hang together. By jove,
+there goes the Monkey."
+
+And sure enough, off the Monkey flew as the Oscycle crossed the hump at an
+enormous rate of speed.
+
+"Hi, there, you fellows," the Monkey shrieked, as he landed in the soft
+snow, "wait a minute. Hi, you! Stop! Wait for me!"
+
+"Can't do it," roared the man in charge. "Can't stop--going too fast."
+
+"But what am I going to doo-oo-oo?" shrieked the Monkey excitedly.
+
+"Get inside of a snowball and roll down. We'll catch you on the way back,"
+the Kangaroo yelled, and as they now passed out of hearing of the
+monkey's voice no one knew how the little creature took the suggestion.
+
+"I'm glad he's gone," said the Hippopotamus. "He was a nuisance--and I
+tell you I had a narrow escape. He had his tail wound around my neck a
+minute before. He might have yanked me off with him."
+
+"Yanked you?" said the Old Gentleman from Saturn, gazing contemptuously at
+the Hippopotamus. "Bosh! The idea of a seven-pound monkey yanking a
+three-ton Hippopotamus!"
+
+"What?" roared the man in charge. "A what how much which?"
+
+"Three-ton," said the Old Gentleman from Saturn. "That's what he weighs. I
+know because he stepped on my toe getting off the Trolley."
+
+"But it's against the law!" cried the Man in Charge. "We're not allowed to
+carry more than 1,000 pounds on these Machines."
+
+"Humph!" laughed the Kangaroo. "It's very evident, Hippy, that you'll have
+to go way back and lose some weight."
+
+"I can't help weighing three tons," said the Hippopotamus. "I'm built that
+way."
+
+"That's all right," said the Man in Charge, wringing his hands in despair;
+"but you'll have to get off. If you don't we'll go over the edge." His
+voice rose to a shriek.
+
+Tom's heart sank and he half rose up.
+
+"Sit still," said the two Andirons, grabbing him by the arms. "We're in
+for it. We've got to take what comes."
+
+"Right you are," said the Bellows. "Don't you bother, Tom. We'll come out
+all right in the end."
+
+[Illustration: "MY OWN PRIVATE ICEBERG."]
+
+"But what's the trouble, Mr. Man?" asked the Poker. "What's the Hippo's
+weight got to do with our going over the edge?"
+
+"Why, can't you see?" explained the Man in Charge. "His 6,000 pounds
+pushing the machine along from behind there gives us just so much extra
+speed, and all the brakes in the world won't stop us now we've got going
+unless he gets off."
+
+The announcement caused an immediate panic, and the Polar Bear began to
+cry like a baby.
+
+"Oh, why did I ever come?" he moaned as the tears trickled down his nose
+and froze into a great icicle at the end of it. "When I might have stayed
+home riding around on my own private iceberg?"
+
+"Stop your whimpering," said the Kangaroo. "Brace up and be a man."
+
+"I don't want to be a man," blubbered the bear, "I'm satisfied to be a
+poor, miserable little Polar Bear."
+
+"You've got to jump, Hippy," said the Flamingo. "That's all there is about
+it."
+
+"Sir," replied the Hippopotamus solemnly, "I shall not jump. It would ill
+comport with my dignity for me to try to jump as if I were merely a
+Kangaroo. No sir. Here I sit, firm as a rock. You might as well ask an
+elephant to dance a jig."
+
+"We'll put you off if you don't get off of your own accord," roared the
+Polar Bear, bracing up, and removing the icicle from his nose he shook it
+angrily at the Hippopotamus.
+
+"All right," said the Hippopotamus with a pleasant smile "All right. Has
+any gentleman brought a derrick along with him to assist in the operation?
+You don't happen to have a freight elevator in your pocket, do you, Mr.
+Kangaroo?"
+
+"Pry him off, Poker," cried the Kangaroo.
+
+"I would if I could," answered the Poker, mournfully. "But I'm not a
+crowbar."
+
+"Well, then, all together here," shouted the Man from Saturn. "Line up and
+we'll shove him off."
+
+There was a frantic rush at the stolid Hippopotamus in response to this
+suggestion, but they might as well have tried to batter down the rock of
+Gibraltar by hurling feathers against it, so firmly fixed in his seat was
+this passenger of outrageous weight.
+
+"Come again, gentlemen," said the Hippopotamus suavely. "There's nothing
+better for the complexion than a good rub, and I assure you you have
+placed me under an obligation to you."
+
+"Prod him with the icicle," said the Kangaroo to the Polar Bear.
+
+"I am not to be moved by tears, even if they are frozen and sharpened to a
+point," laughed the Hippopotamus, as the Polar Bear did as he was told,
+smashing the icicle without so much as denting the Hippo's flesh.
+
+"Well, if you won't jump, I will," said the Man from Saturn angrily. "If
+I'm hurt I'll take it out of your hide when we meet again."
+
+"All right," retorted the Hippopotamus. "You'll have to get a steam drill
+and blast it out. By-by."
+
+The man from Saturn jumped and landed head first in the snow, but whether
+he was hurt or not the party never knew, for their speed was now so
+terrific that he had barely landed before they whizzed past the bottom of
+the hill and up the other incline. It became clear, too, as they sped on
+that at such a fearful rate of progress nothing could now keep the Oscycle
+from going over the edge, and the others began to lay plans for safety.
+
+[Illustration: THE MAN FROM SATURN JUMPED.]
+
+"I'm going to jump for a passing trolley cloud the minute we get to the
+edge," said the Kangaroo.
+
+"I don't know what I shall do," sobbed the Polar Bear. "If I land on my
+feet I'll be all right, for they're big and soft, like sofa cushions, but
+if I land on my head--"
+
+"That's softer yet, Poley," laughed the Flamingo, who appeared to be less
+concerned than anybody. "If you land on your head it will be just as if
+you fell into a great bowl of oatmeal, so you're all right."
+
+"I'm not afraid for myself," said the Poker. "I can drop any distance
+without serious injury, being made of iron, and my friends, the Andirons,
+are equally fortunate. The Bellows, too, is comparatively safe. The worst
+that can happen to him is to have the wind knocked out of him. But--"
+
+"It's Tom we're bothered about," said the Righthandiron, with an anxious
+glance at Lefty. "You see, we invited him to come off here with us, and--"
+
+"Who is he, anyhow?" demanded the Flamingo, glancing at Tom in such a way
+that the youngster began to feel very uncomfortable.
+
+"I'm a Dormouse," said Tom, remembering the agreement.
+
+"Not for this occasion," put in the Poker. "This time you're a boy, and
+we've got to save you somehow or other and we'll do it, Tom, so don't be
+afraid."
+
+"What kind of boy is he?" demanded the Flamingo. "One of these
+bean-snapping boys that go around shooting robins and hooking birds' eggs
+when they haven't anything else to do?"
+
+"Not a bit of it," said Righty. "He never snapped a bean at a bird in all
+his life."
+
+"Humph!" said the Flamingo. "I suppose he's been too busy pulling feathers
+out of peacocks' tails to decorate his room with to be bothering with
+robins and eggs."
+
+"Never did such a thing in all my born days," retorted Tom indignantly.
+
+"Probably not," sneered the Flamingo. "And why? Because you were so well
+satisfied keeping a canary locked up in a cage for your own pleasure that
+you hadn't any time to chase peacocks."
+
+"I've lived in the family forty years," said the Righthandiron, "and to my
+knowledge there was never a caged bird in the house."
+
+"Really?" said the Flamingo, looking at Tom with interest. "Rather a new
+kind of boy this. Very few boys have a good record where birds are
+concerned."
+
+"Tom's no enemy to birds," observed the Bellows. "I know that because I've
+been in his family longer than he has, and I've watched him."
+
+"Well," said the Flamingo, "if that's the case, maybe I can help him. One
+good turn deserves another. If he is good to birds I may be able at this
+time to do good to him. This trouble ahead of us doesn't bother me,
+because I have wings and can fly--" Here the Flamingo flapped his wings
+proudly--"and I could take Tom on my back and fly anywhere with him, for I
+am an extremely powerful bird. But I want to know one more thing about him
+before I undertake to save him. We birds must stand together, you know,
+and I'm not going to befriend a foe to my kind under any circumstances.
+Thomas!"
+
+[Illustration: In a moment he was sitting astride the great bird's neck.]
+
+"Yes, sir," replied Tom, all of a tremble, for he hadn't the slightest
+idea what was coming, and as a truthful boy he knew that whatever the
+consequences to himself might be he must give the correct answer.
+
+"Do you have Sunday breakfast at home?" asked the Flamingo.
+
+"Yes, sir," Tom replied respectfully.
+
+"You have coffee and hominy and toast and fried potatoes and all that?"
+queried the bird.
+
+"Yes, sir," Tom answered, turning very pale, however, for he was in great
+dread of what he now saw was likely to come next.
+
+"And--ah--fruit?" said the Flamingo.
+
+"Oh, yes, plenty of fruit," replied Tom very nervously.
+
+"And now, sir," said the Flamingo, severely, and ruffling his feathers
+like an angry turkey, "now for the main point. Thomas--and, mind you I
+want a truthful answer. Did you ever eat a broiled--Flamingo for your
+Sunday morning breakfast?"
+
+Tom breathed a sigh of relief as the Flamingo blurted out the last part of
+his question.
+
+"No, sir. Never!" he replied.
+
+"Then hurry and climb up on my shoulders here," the Flamingo cried.
+"You're a boy after my own heart. I believe you'd be kind to a stuffed
+parrot. But hurry--there's the edge right ahead of us. Jump--"
+
+Tom jumped and in a moment was sitting astride of the great bird's neck.
+In his right hand he grasped the claw of Righty, in his left that of
+Lefty, while these two clutched tightly hold of the Bellows and the Poker
+respectively. A moment later the Oscycle reached the edge and dashed
+wildly over it, the Kangaroo following out his plan of jumping higher
+still and fortunately for himself catching a passing trolley cloud by
+which he was borne back to the starting point again.
+
+As for the Polar Bear and the Hippopotamus, they plunged out into space,
+while the group comprising our little party from home and the Flamingo
+soared gracefully back to earth again, where the generous-hearted bird
+deposited them safely on top of the most convenient Alp.
+
+"Thanks very much," said Tom, as he clambered down from the bird's neck
+and stood upon solid ground again.
+
+"Don't mention it," said the Flamingo. "It's a pleasure to serve a
+bird-defender and his friends," and with this he soared away.
+
+"I'm glad he didn't ask me if I ever ate broiled chicken for Sunday
+breakfast," said Tom.
+
+"Why?" asked the Poker. "Do you?"
+
+"Do I?" cried Tom. "Well, I guess. I don't do anything else."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+Home Again
+
+
+"And now," said the Lefthandiron as the Flamingo flew off and left them to
+themselves, "it strikes me that it is time we set about having some
+supper. I'm getting hungry, what with the excitement of that ride, and the
+fact I haven't eaten anything but a bowlful of kindling wood since
+yesterday morning."
+
+"I'm with you there," said Tom. "I've been hungry ever since we started
+and that snow on the moon whetted my appetite."
+
+"Never knew a boy who wasn't hungry on all occasions," puffed the Bellows.
+"Fact is, a boy wouldn't be a real boy unless he was hungry. Did you ever
+know a boy that would confess he'd had enough to eat, Pokey?"
+
+"Once," said Poker, "I wrote a poem about him, but I never could get it
+published. Want to hear it?"
+
+"Very much," said Tom.
+
+"Well, here goes," said the Poker anxiously, and he recited the following
+lines:
+
+    THE WONDROUS STRIKE OF SAMMY DIKE.
+
+    Young Sammy Dike was a likely boy
+    Who lived somewhere in Illinois,
+    His father was a blacksmith, and
+    His Ma made pies for all the land.
+    The pies were all so very fine
+    That folks who sought them stood in line
+    Before the shop of Dike & Co.,
+    'Mid passing rain, in drifting snow,
+    For fear they'd lose the tasty prize
+    Of "Dike's new patent home-made pies."
+    One day, alas, poor Mrs. Dike,
+    Who with her pies had made the strike,
+    By overwork fell very ill,
+    And all her orders could not fill.
+    So ill was she she could not bake
+    One-half the pastry folks would take;
+    And so her loving husband said
+    He'd take her place and cook, instead
+    Of making horse-shoes. Kindly Joe,
+    To help his wife in time of woe!
+    He worked by night, he worked by day--
+    Yet worked, alas, in his own way
+    And made such pies, I've understood,
+    As but a simple blacksmith could.
+    He made them hard as iron bars;
+    He made them tough as trolley cars.
+    He seemed to think a pie's estate
+    Was to be used as armor plate.
+    And not a pie would he let go
+    That had not stood the sledge's blow
+    Upon the anvil in his sanctum,
+    Whence naught went out until he'd spanked 'em.
+    Result? With many alas and 'lack
+    The pies Joe made they all came back.
+    From folks who claimed they could not go
+    The latest pies of Dike & Co.
+    And here it was that Sammy came
+    To help his parents in the game.
+    "Can't eat 'em?" cried indignant Joe.
+    "Can't eat 'em? Well, I want to know!
+    Here, Sammy, show these people here
+    How most unjust their plaint, my dear.
+    Come, lad, and eat the luscious pies
+    That I have made and they despise."
+    Poor loyal Sammy then began
+    Upon those stodgy pies--the plan
+    Was very pleasing in his eyes,
+    For Sammy loved his mother's pies.
+    He nibbled one, he bit another,
+    And then began to think of mother.
+    He chewed and gnawed, he munched and bit,
+    But no--he could not swallow it;
+    And then, poor child, it was so tough
+    He had to say he'd had enough,
+    Though never in the world before
+    Was lad who had not wanted more.
+    And what became of Sammy's Ma?
+    And what became of Sammy's Pa?
+    Their profits gone, how could they eke
+    A living good from week to week?
+    They took the recipe for pies
+    That mother made and--Oh, so wise--
+    Let Father make them in his way
+    In form elliptical, they say.
+    And when the football season came
+    Won fortune great, and wondrous fame,
+    Beyond the wildest hope of dreams,
+    By selling these to football teams.
+    And those by whom this game is played
+    Called them the finest ever made.
+    "The Shuregood football" made of mince,
+    Has never quite been equaled since;
+    And few who kick them with their feet,
+    Know they're the pies Sam couldn't eat--
+    The only pies upon this orb
+    A healthy boy could not absorb.
+
+[Illustration: "UPON THE ANVIL IN HIS SANCTUM."]
+
+"Great poem that, eh?" said the Bellows, poking Tom in the ribs, and
+grinning broadly.
+
+"Splendid," said Tom. "New use for pies, that."
+
+"It's beautifully long," said Lefty.
+
+"But why couldn't it be published?" asked Righty. "Wasn't it long enough?"
+
+"The editor said it wasn't true," sighed the Poker. "He had three boys of
+his own, you know, and he said there never was a boy who couldn't eat a
+pie even if it was made of crowbars and rubber, as long as it was pie."
+
+"I guess he was right," observed Righty. "I knew a boy once who ate soft
+coal just because somebody told him it was rock-candy."
+
+"Did he like it?" asked Tom.
+
+"I don't think he did," replied Righty, "but he never let on that he
+didn't."
+
+"Well, anyhow," put in Lefty, "it's time we had something to eat and we'd
+better set out for the Lobster shop or the Candydike--I don't care which."
+
+"Or the what?" asked Tom.
+
+"The Candydike?" said the Lefthandiron. "Didn't you ever hear of the
+Candydike?"
+
+"Never," responded Tom. "What is it?"
+
+"It's a candy Klondike," explained the Lefthandiron. "There are Gumdrop
+Mines and Marshmallow Lodes and Deposits of Chocolate Creams beyond the
+dreams of avarice. Remember 'em, Righty?"
+
+"Oom, mh, mh!" murmured Righty, smacking his lips with joy. "Do I remember
+them! O, my! Don't I just. Why, I never wanted to come back from there. I
+had to be pulled out of the Peppermint mine with a derrick. And the
+river--O, the river. Was there anything ever like it?"
+
+Tom's mouth began to water, he knew not why.
+
+"What about the river?" he asked.
+
+"Soda water flowing from Mountain to the Sea," returned the Righthandiron,
+smacking his lips again ecstatically. "Just imagine it, Tom. A great
+stream of Soda Water fed by little rivulets of Vanilla and Strawberry and
+Chocolate syrup, with here and there a Cream brook feeding the
+combination, until all you had to do to get a glass of the finest nectar
+ever mixed was to dip your cup into the river and there you were."
+
+Tom closed his eyes with very joy at the mere idea.
+
+"O--where is this river?" he cried, when he was able to find words to
+speak.
+
+"In the Candydike, of course. Where else?" said the Poker. "But of course
+we can go to the Lobster shop if you prefer."
+
+"Not I," said Tom. "I don't care for any Lobster shop with a Candydike in
+sight."
+
+"Don't be rash," said the Bellows, who apparently had a strong liking for
+the Lobster shop. "Of course we all love the Candydike because it is so
+sweet, but for real pleasure the Lobster shop is not to be despised. I
+don't think you ought to make up your mind as to where you'll go next in
+too much of a hurry."
+
+"What's the fun in the Lobster shop?" asked Tom.
+
+"Purely intellectual, if you know what that means," said the Bellows. "You
+get your mind filled there instead of your stomach. You meet the wittiest
+oysters, and the most poetic clams, and the most literary lobsters at the
+Lobster shop you ever saw. For my part I love the Lobster shop. I can get
+something to eat anywhere. I can get a stake at any lumber yard in town. I
+can get a chop at any ax factory in the country, and if I want sweets I
+can find a Cakery--"
+
+"Bakery, you mean?" said Tom.
+
+"No, I don't at all," said the Bellows. "I mean Cakery. A Cakery is a
+place where they sell cake, and when I say Cakery I mean what I say. Just
+because you call it Bakery doesn't prove anything."
+
+"We're out for pleasure, not for argument," growled the Lefthandiron. "Go
+on and say what you've got to say."
+
+"Well," said the Bellows, "what I was trying to say, when interrupted, was
+that you can get your stomach filled almost anywhere, but your mind--that
+is different. I'm hungrier in my mind than in my stomach, and I'd rather
+be fed just now on the jests of an oyster, the good stories of a clam and
+the anecdotes of a Lobster, than have the freedom of the richest
+marshmallow mine in creation."
+
+"Well, I'm sure I don't know what to do," said Tom, very much perplexed.
+The Candydike was glorious, but the Lobster shop, too, had its
+attractions, for Tom was fond of witty jokes and good anecdotes. The idea
+of having them from the lips of lobsters and oysters was very appealing.
+
+"I say," he said in a minute, "why isn't the Lobster shop the best place
+for us to go after all, if we are really hungry? We could sit down at the
+table, you know, and listen to the Lobster's anecdotes, and then eat him
+afterward. In that way we could hear the stories and fill up beside."
+
+"Well--I de-clare!" cried the Bellows. "What an idea! You most ungrateful
+boy!"
+
+"Not at all," said the Poker. "Not at all. It's merely the habit of his
+kind. Many's the time when I've heard of men and women devouring their
+favorite authors. Tom couldn't better show his liking for the lobster than
+by eating him. On the other hand, if he goes there and turns his back on
+the Candydike he'll miss the most wonderful sight in all creation, and
+that is the Nesselrode Cataract on the Soda Water river. It is located at
+the point where the Vanilla glacier comes down from the Cream mountains on
+the one side, and the famous Marrons orchards line the other bank for a
+distance of seven miles. It's a perfectly gorgeous sight."
+
+"Mercy me!" cried Tom. "Indeed, I should like to see that."
+
+[Illustration: DEVOURING HIS FAVORITE AUTHOR.]
+
+"No doubt," put in the Bellows. "Nevertheless, you can see Nesselrode
+pudding at home at any time, but did you ever see there a Turtle that can
+recite a fairy story of his own composition or a Crab capable of
+narrating the most thrilling story of the American revolutionary war that
+anybody ever dreamed of?"
+
+"O dear, O dear, O dear!" said Tom. "What shall I do?"
+
+As he spoke, from far down in the valley there seemed to come a crash and
+a roar, following close upon which the barking of a dog made itself heard.
+
+"The ice is slipping," cried the Poker, as the mountain trembled beneath
+them. "There's going to be an avalanche, and we're on it!"
+
+The whole top of the mountain shook as if it had been in an earthquake,
+and then it began to crash rapidly downward.
+
+"Dear me! How annoying," observed the Bellows. "As if we haven't had
+enough coasting this trip without taking a turn on an avalanche."
+
+"But what shall we do?" roared the Andirons excitedly. "I never foresaw
+this."
+
+"Slide, I guess," said the Poker calmly. "It's all we can do."
+
+The barking of the dog approached closer.
+
+"Good!" cried Righty, clapping his claws together gleefully, as an idea
+flashed across his mind. "It's one of those famous St. Bernards; he'll
+take care of Tom, and as for us--"
+
+The thunderous roar of the descending avalanche drowned the sounds of
+Righty's voice, and all that could now serve as a means of conveying their
+thoughts to each other was the making of wild motions with the hands. The
+Poker stood erect and stiff, looking grimly ahead of him, as if resolved
+to meet his fate bravely; the Bellows threw himself flat upon the glacier
+and panted; while the two Andirons, standing guard on either side of Tom,
+peered anxiously about for the rescuer of their little guest, nor did
+they look in vain, for in a few moments the huge figure of a St Bernard
+appeared below them, rushing with all his might and main to their side.
+For some reason or other, the St Bernard seemed to have something familiar
+about him, but Tom couldn't quite say what it was.
+
+"Bow-wow-wow!" the dog barked gleefully, for this was just the sort of
+work he most enjoyed.
+
+Strangely enough, Tom seemed to understand dog language for the first time
+in his life, for the bark said to him as plainly as you please: "Climb on
+my back sonny, and I'll have you out of this in a jiffy."
+
+The lad lost not a moment in obeying. Aided by the affectionate boosts of
+the Andirons he soon found himself lying face downward upon the broad,
+shaggy back of the faithful beast.
+
+He closed his eyes to shut out the blinding snow for a moment, and then--
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Tom sat up and rubbed them, for there was no snow, no avalanche, no Alp,
+no St. Bernard dog in sight. Only a friendly pair of andirons staring
+fixedly at him out of the fireplace of his father's library: the poker
+standing like a grenadier at one side, and the bellows, hanging from a
+brass-headed nail on the other. Beside these, lying on the rug beside him,
+his head cocked to one side, his eyes fixed intently upon Tom's face, and
+his tail wagging furiously, was Jeffy, not a St Bernard, but a shaggy
+little Scotch terrier.
+
+"Hello, Jeffy!" said Tom, as he rubbed his eyes a second time. "Where have
+you been all this time?"
+
+[Illustration: "Was it you who rescued me from the avalanche?"]
+
+"Woof!" barked Jeff, and cocking his eye knowingly.
+
+"And was it you who rescued me from the avalanche?" Tom asked.
+
+"Woof!" replied Jeff, as much as to say he wouldn't tell.
+
+"Well, it was mighty good of you, if you did, Jeffy," Tom said,
+gratefully. "Only I wish you could have taken me to the Candydike or the
+Lobster shop instead of straight home--because I'm not only hungry Jeffy,
+but I should very much have liked to visit those wonderful places."
+
+"Woof!" said Jeffy.
+
+Which Tom took to be a promise that his rescuer would do better next time.
+
+The little party has not been off again since, but the other night some
+pieces of newspaper were thrown into the fire place and all but one of
+them were burned. Righty held this one under his claw and Tom, while
+trying to get a word out of his friend, caught sight of it.
+
+"Hello," said Tom, as he read what was printed on the clipping. "The
+astronomers at the Lick observatory have discovered a new constellation in
+the southeast heavens. It is of huge dimensions and resembles in its
+outlines the figure of a rhinoceros or some such pachydermatous creature."
+
+"Well, I never!" he cried, as he read. "I say, Righty, do you believe
+that's the old Hippopotamus?"
+
+And Righty said never a word, but the look in his eye indicated that he
+thought there was something in the notion.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The End
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Andiron Tales, by John Kendrick Bangs
+
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