""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.
"n.o.body 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "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!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the Bellows. "What"s the use of fighting? I say I am."
[Ill.u.s.tration: "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. n.o.body 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?"
[Ill.u.s.tration: "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.