the givers found it more blessed than the receivers. What talk Mr. Blake
heard in his rounds I cannot tell. If you want to know, you must ask the
Old Ebony.
THE CHAIRS IN COUNCIL.
It was a quiet autumn afternoon. I was stretched on a lounge, with a pile
of newspapers for a pillow. I do not know that I succeeded in getting any
information _into_ my head by putting newspapers _under_ it. But on this
particular afternoon I was attacked by a disease of the eyes, or rather
of the eyelids. They would droop. I don't know by what learned name the
doctors call this disease, but, as I could not read with my eyes closing
every second or two, I just tucked my newspapers away under my head and
rested my eyelids awhile.
I remember that there was a hen cackling in the barn, and a big
bumble-bee buzzing and bumbling around in a consequential way among the
roses under the window, and I could hear the voices of the children in
the front yard playing with their dishes.
I don't know how long I had lain thus. But I remember that the cackling
hen and the bumbling bee and the laughing children seemed to get farther
and farther away, the sounds becoming less and less distinct. All at once
the sewing chair that sat alongside of me, with a pile of magazines on
it, began to rock, and as it rocked it moved off from me. I felt
surprised, and at first thought of taking hold of it, but my arm seemed
so _tired_ that I couldn't move it. And the chair rocked itself across
the floor, and through the door into the sitting-room. And as I looked
after it, I saw my old library chair hobble into the sitting-room, also.
Then came the well-cushioned easy chair, puffing and panting good
naturedly, as it rolled smoothly along on castors. I was just wondering
what all this meant, when the parlor door opened, and there marched in a
procession of parlor chairs, behind which gathered the plainer cane-seat
ones of the dining-room. Next came a solemn line of black, wooden kitchen
chairs. Then I heard a commotion above, and the staid bedroom seats made
a fearful racket as they came down the steps.
"Are we all in now?" said the easy chair, blandly.
A faint noise was heard on the steps, and presently in came an old arm
chair that had belonged to my grandmother. It had lain in the garret
covered with spider webs for years, and indeed it was quite infirm in the
joints, and must have had a hard time getting down two flights of stairs.
I now tried to move, determined to go and see what was the matter with
the furniture, but the _tired_ feeling crept all over me and I lay still.
"Well," said the easy chair, who seemed to be president, "we are ready
for business."
There was a confused murmur, and the next I knew one of the damask satin
parlor chairs was speaking in a very polished and dignified way about the
grievances of parlor chairs in general.
"It's too bad," said he, "to be always shut up in a close room except
when there's company. There are no better-looking chairs than we are. We
belong to a superior class of beings, and it is trying to one's nerves to
lead so secluded a life when one wants to be generally admired. These
cane-seat chairs, and those low, black, wooden fellows----"
"I trust there will be no personalities," said the easy chair. "The
kitchen chairs are wooden, but that is not their fault; and as to their
being black, that's a mere matter of paint, a mere matter of paint;" and
the easy chair shook his cushioned sides as if he thought this last
remark a piece of exquisite pleasantry.
"I say," continued Damask Satin, Esq., "I say that these common-place
fellows are constantly admitted to the society of the family, and we,
genteel as we are, have to live secluded. But for that matter I should
rather be shut up always than be forced into association with these
common cane-seat and those low, vulgar, wooden----"
"Order!" said the easy chair; "I must call Mr. Satin to order."
"Why, sir," said one of the cane-seats, "the insolence of that parlor
fellow is insufferable! He's good for nothing but show. Nobody likes to
use him. He wasn't made for any useful purpose. Talk about a thing being
trying to his nerves! Let him have the children make a steamboat of him
as they do of me! Let him have some awkward fellow rack his joints by
sitting on him and leaning back against the wall. Then let him talk about
nerves! It's hard enough, sir, to have to be used in that fashion without
being compelled to associate, as we have to, with those low, wooden
fellows, and then have to listen to the abuse of that pampered,
good-for-nothing dandy in damask satin, that----"
"I trust," said the easy chair, "that the debate will not proceed in this
way. I am sorry that so much discontent is manifested. The life of a
chair is certainly not altogether unpleasant; at least I have not found
it so."
"Sir," said one of the kitchen chairs, "I know I am wooden, but I was
made so; and I know I am black, but, as you observed awhile ago, that is
a question of paint."
"A mere question of paint," said the easy chair again, evidently
delighted to have his witticism quoted.
"But, sir," continued the wooden chair, "when I was new I was not to be
laughed at. If I was black, I was varnished brightly and glistened
beautifully when the chair-maker set me and my brothers, here, out in a
row in the sun. And then, sir, we each had a large yellow rose on our
foreheads, and I assure you we were beautiful in our own way, sir, in our
way. But, sir, you talk about the life of a chair not being altogether
unpleasant. Perhaps not, for an easy chair, so nicely cushioned as you
are. Every time our owner sits down in your arms she says, 'Well, this is
just the most comfortable seat in the world!' But nobody ever praises me.
If a neighbor drops in and takes me or one of my fellows, the mistress
just says, 'Don't take that uncomfortable chair,' and immediately offers
one of these cane-seats. That's the way we're insulted, sir; and when
anybody wants a chair to stand on, the mistress says, 'Take a wooden
one.' Just see the marks of Johnny's boot nails on me now, and that
scratch, caused by Bridget's using me and one of my fellows to put the
washtub on!"
The black chair subsided with the look of an injured individual, and the
high chair commenced to complain, but was interrupted by the sewing
chair, who thought that "females had some rights." She was silenced,
however, by my grandmother's old chair, who leaned on the table while she
spoke. The old lady complained of the neglect of old age by the younger
generation.
Just at this moment, as the meeting was getting into a hubbub, and bade
fair to dissolve as unceremoniously as some ward political meetings do,
my staid old library chair began to talk, looking very learned at the
same time.
"Mr. President," said he, "I regret the turn affairs have taken. The race
of chairs is a very honorable one. A chair is an insignia of honor, as I
might prove by many eminent authorities. When human beings wish to call
some one to the presidency of a meeting, they move that the Hon. Jonathan
Wire-worker be called to _the chair_. And then they call him the
_chair_-man. Now it is an honor to be a chair, whether it be a parlor
chair, bottomed with damask satin, or a hair-seat chair, or a cane-seat
chair, a high chair, or a baby's rocking chair, or a superannuated chair
in a garret, or an easy chair, or a wooden-bottomed chair, or a learned
library chair, like myself. I tell you, sir, it is an honor to be a
chair. I am proud of the fact that I am a chair. [Cries of hear! hear!!]
"And now, sir, we are each adapted to our station. What kind of a kitchen
chair would one of these high-headed, damask satin parlor gentlemen make?
How would they stand washtubs and boot heels? And what sort of a looking
parlor chair would my friend, Mr. Wooden Bottom, be? Even if he were new,
and covered with black varnish, and had a yellow rose on his forehead,
how would he look among the pictures, and on the nice parlor carpet?
"Now let us each stick to our several stations, and not degrade ourselves
by learning the evil and discontented habits of human beings, each one of
whom thinks his lot the hardest."
I felt a little provoked at this last remark, and was going to get up and
dissolve the meeting, but the library chair said something about what a
glorious thing it was to be a chair, and then they all applauded, damask
satins, wooden bottoms, and all; and then everything was in a whirl, and
I rubbed my eyes, and the sewing chair sat just as it was at first, with
the pile of magazines on it, and I peeped into the parlor, and the damask
satins were in their places as stiff as ever. How they all got back in
their places so quickly I couldn't tell. I went into the dining-room and
found Allegra perched on the high chair, lashing two of the cane-seat
ones that were thrown down for horses.
And I rubbed my eyes again,--I must have slept.
WHAT THE TEA-KETTLE SAID.
About the time the chairs had a talk together, I believe I told you.
Well, ever since that time I have been afflicted, now and then, with that
same disease of the eyes, inclining them to close. In fact, I am rather
of the opinion that the affliction must be one of the ear, too, for I
hear some curious things while the spell is on. Either that, or else
something has "gotten into" the furniture about my house. It beats all,
the time I had the other day. It was a cold, wet October day, the wind
whistled through the key-holes and shook the sash violently, while the
rain drizzled wretchedly against the glass.
As there happened to be no fire anywhere else, I took a seat in the
kitchen. There I sat in the heat of the cooking-stove, and reading, or
trying to read Rollin's "Ancient History." But the book was dull, and the
day was dull, and it really seemed to me that I was duller than anything
else. Hannibal and Themistocles, Spain and Carthage, and Rome seemed to
me the dullest things in the world. I wondered how people that were so
dull had managed to live, and how so stupid a fellow as Monsieur Rollin
ever contrived to write so big and dull a book. It did seem very dull in
the rain, too, to keep pattering away at the glass in that stupid
fashion.
And so I leaned back in my chair, and watched Bridget fill the tea-kettle
and set it over the fire.
"Good!" said I; "Bridget, there's no music on a dull day like the cheery
singing of the tea-kettle."
And Biddy laughed, as she went out, and I leaned back again, and closed
my eyes. All at once I heard a keen, piping voice, saying,
"Hum--hum! Simmer! We'll soon have things a-going."
The sound seemed to come up out of the tea-kettle spout. I was so
surprised that I rubbed my eyes and looked around. There was the
tea-kettle, but I could hear no sound from it. Closing my eyes again, I
heard it begin,
"Simmer, simmer, hum, hum, now we'll have things a-going. Hot fire, this!
Simmer, simmer, hum, hum, simmer. There's nothing like contentment," it
went on. "But it's a little hard to sit here and simmer, simmer, simmer
forever. But I keep on singing, and I am happy. There's my sister, the
tea-pot. Bridget always keeps her bright. She goes into the best society,
sits by the side of the china cups on the tea-tray that has flowers
painted on it; vain little thing is my sister tea-pot! Dreadful proud of
her graceful waist. Thinks her crooked nose is prettier than my straight
one. She _is_ handsome, and I am glad of it. I feel proud of her when I
see her sitting among the china. But, la, me! of what account would she
be if I didn't help her? I'd like to know how they'd make tea without hot
water! What would she be good for, any how, if I didn't do the drudgery
for her? This fire would ruin her complexion!
"Whew! this is hot work."
The tea-kettle's voice had grown higher and higher, until she was almost
shrieking by this time, and so she went on.
"But then, I don't mean to be proud or envious. I mean to keep cheerful.
But I do get tired of staying in the kitchen, always among the pots. I'm
a good singer, but the world don't seem to appreciate my voice, and
'Chicken Little' says that I sing through my nose.
"But I wish I could travel a little. There are my cousins, the family of
steam boilers. They won't acknowledge their relationship to me any more.
But what is that huge locomotive, with such a horrid voice, that goes
puffing and screeching past here every morning? What is he but a great,
big, black tea-kettle on wheels! I wish I was on wheels, and then I could
travel, too. But this old stove won't budge, no matter how high I get the
steam.
"And they do say the tea-kettle family is much older than the steam
boiler family. But wouldn't I like to travel! I wonder if I couldn't
start off this old stove. Bridget's out, and the master's asleep,
and----"
I was just going to tell the kettle I was wide awake, but I didn't feel
like talking, and so the kettle went on.
"Yes, I have a good mind to try it. Wouldn't it be a brilliant thing, if
I could move the old cooking stove? Wouldn't Bridget stare, when she came
back, if she should see the 'Home Companion' running off down the
railroad track?
"Whew! I believe I'll burst. Bridget's jammed the lid down so tight I
can't breathe!
"But I'm going to try to be a locomotive. Here goes."
Here the kettle stopped singing, and the steam poured out the spout and
pushed up the lid, and the kettle hissed and rattled and rattled and
hissed so that I really was afraid it would run off with the stove. But
all its puffing was in vain. And so, as the fire began to go down, the
kettle commenced to sing again.
"Well, what a fool I was!
"I'm only a tea-kettle; I never shall be anything else; and so there's
the end of it. It's my business to stay here and do my duty in the
kitchen. I suppose an industrious, cheerful tea-kettle is just as useful
in its place as a steam engine; yes, and just as happy, too. And if I
must stay in this kitchen among the pots the rest of my days, I mean to
do my share to make it the cheerfulest kitchen in all the country."
Here the voice of the tea-kettle died down to a plaintive simmer, simmer,
and I heard Sunbeam say, "He's asleep." She always thinks I'm asleep when
I rest my eyes.
"Tea is ready," said three of them, at once.
CROOKED JACK.
Jack Grip was a queer fellow. Queer because he never got enough money,
and yet never seemed to know the right use of money. His family had the
bare comforts of life, but his wife was a drudge, and his children had
neither books nor pictures, nor any of those other things so necessary to
the right education of children. Jack was yet young, but he was in great
danger of becoming a miser. The truth was, he had made up his mind to get
rich. It took him some time to make up his mind to be dishonest, but he
was in a hurry to be rich, and lately he had been what his neighbors
called "slippery" in his dealings. Poor Jack! he was selling his
conscience for gold, but gold could never buy it back.
On a certain night in November, the night that my story begins, Jack was
not at ease. His accounts showed that he had made money. He was getting
rich very fast, but something troubled him. Shall I tell you what it was?
Just next to Jack's farm was a perfect beauty of a little place, on which
lived the Widow Lundy. Her husband had bought the farm, and borrowed
money of Jack Grip to pay for it. It was about half paid for when poor
Lundy was killed by a falling tree. There was some money due him, and he
had a little property besides, so that the widow sent word to Mr. Grip
that if he would only wait till she could get her means together, she
would pay up the remainder. But times were hard, and Jack saw a chance to
make two thousand dollars by forcing the sale of the farm and buying it
himself. It just fitted on to his lower field. It went hard to turn the
widow out, but Jack Grip made up his mind that he would be rich. He tried
to make it seem right, but he couldn't. He had forced the sale; he had
bought the place for two thousand less than it was worth.
The widow was to move the next morning. She had little left, and it was a
sad night in the small brown house. Poor little Jane, only ten years old,
cried herself to sleep, to think she must leave her home, and Harry was
to go to live with an aunt until his mother found some way of making a
living.
Poor Jack could not sleep and dare not pray. He kept thinking of
something in the Bible about "devouring widows' houses." He could not
forget the face of an old Quaker who had met him on the road that day and
said: "Friend Jack, thy ways are crooked before the Lord!" "Maybe they
are," said Jack, "but my money is as straight as anybody's, and my farm
is a good deal nearer straight than it was before I bought the Lundy
place." Jack could not sleep, however, for thinking of the old Quaker and
his solemn words. He tried to think that his possessions were straight
anyhow. When he did sleep, he dreamed he was the young ruler that gave up
Christ for the sake of his money; then he was the rich man in torment. At
last he opened his eyes, and though the sun was shining in at the
windows, he thought things looked curious. The chairs were crooked, so
was the bedstead. The window was crooked, the whole house seemed to be
crooked. Jack got up, and found he was old and crooked himself. The cat
and dog on the crooked hearth were crooked. There was nobody in the house
but Jack. He took his crooked stick, and went out through the crooked
door, down the crooked walk, among the crooked trees, along the wall into
the crooked cemetery, where were crooked graves with the names of his
wife and children over them. As crooked Jack, with his crooked stick,
followed by his crooked dog, took his crooked way back, he met the old
Quaker, who said again: "Friend Jack, thy ways are very crooked." He went
in at a crooked gate, and up the crooked walk among the crooked trees, in
at the crooked door, and sat down on the crooked chair by the crooked
hearth. The crooked dog lay down by him, and the crooked cat mewed. He
opened his crooked money-box and the gold coins were all crooked. "Here I
am," said Jack, "a crooked old man in a crooked old house, with no
friends but this crooked old dog and crooked old cat. What is all my
crooked money worth? What crooked ways I took to get it."
Crooked old Jack felt sick and lay down upon his crooked old bed.
Somehow, his crooked old money-box got upon his breast and seemed to
smother him. Then his crooked account-books piled themselves upon him,
and it seemed impossible for him to breathe. He tried to call out, but
his voice died to a whisper, and the only answer he received was a low
growl from the crooked old dog. Then the crooked old cat mewed.
Just then Jack Grip awoke, and found that all this was a crooked dream;
but the perspiration stood in beads on his brow, and though it was broad
daylight, and his wife and children were about him, Jack thought things
were indeed crooked. In the first place, Jack was sure that his farm was
crooked, for his new addition was little better than stolen. His home was
crooked, for he had not made it a pleasant home. His children were
crooked, for he was not educating them right. And then, at bottom, he
knew that his own heart was the crookedest thing of all. The Lundys were
all packed ready to start that morning. Bitter were their tears. But a
messenger from Mr. Grip brought them a deed to their farm, and a note,
saying that, as some amend for the trouble he had given them, Mrs. Lundy
would please accept the amount still due on the farm as a present.
There are many crooked people in the world; some in one way, some in
another. When you get to be a crooked old man, or a crooked old woman,
will your life look crooked to you as crooked Jack's did to him?
THE FUNNY LITTLE OLD WOMAN.
Little Tilda Tulip had two lips as pretty as any little girl might want.
But Tilda Tulip tilted her two lips into a pout, on a moment's notice. If
any thing went wrong--and things had a way of going wrong with her--if
any thing went at all wrong, she would go wrong, too, as if it would do
any good to do wrong. Some people are always trying to mend crooked
things by getting crooked themselves. There are some little girls, and
not a few big ones, that seem to think the quickest way of straightening
a seam that is puckered is to pucker a face that is straight.
Sometimes her friends would ask what she would do if her face were to
freeze in frowns, but her Uncle John used to say that she was always too
hot to freeze. One evening she came to Uncle John with the usual frown,
showing him her new brocade doll dress. She had put it away carelessly,
and it was all in "beggars' presses."
"Just see, Uncle John," she whined; "dear me! I never get any thing nice
that it isn't spoiled somehow or other. Isn't that too bad? This dress
has been wrinkled for a week, and now it will never come smooth at all."
"That's bad, surely," said Uncle John, "but there is something more than
that. I know something of yours that is finer than that brocade silk,
that is all in 'beggars' presses.'"
"Why, no, Uncle John, I haven't any thing so fine as this, you know, and
now this is all puckered and wrinkled and krinkled, and what will I do?"
"Give me your hand," said Uncle John. "Do you see that skin? There is no
silk so fine as that. These chubby cheeks are covered with a skin that is
finer. But you have kept this skin puckered about your eyes and your
forehead and the corner of your mouth, you have kept it puckered and
wrinkled and krinkled as you say, till I am afraid it will never be
straight. I don't think a hot iron would smoothe it. Do you?"
Now Uncle John spoke very kindly, indeed. There were no wrinkles in his
voice. Some people have wrinkles in their words. But notwithstanding her
uncle's kindness, naughty little Tilda Tulip went off in a pout, and
declared that Uncle John was "real mean. He never feels sorry for a body
when they are in trouble." And so she wrinkled her voice into a whine,
and wrinkled and puckered her face up most frightfully.
At last, tired of teasing and talking and troubling, Tilda Tulip tumbled
into her trundle-bed and was tucked tightly in. Everybody was glad when
she went to sleep. Everybody dreaded the time when she should wake up.
She was a good girl when she was asleep.
She dreamed. It was a funny dream. I think she must have remembered what
Uncle John said, for she thought she saw a funny little old house, by a
funny little old hill, near a funny little old bridge. Out of this house
came a funny little old woman, with a funny little old bonnet, carrying a
funny little old bag on her back, and with a funny little old cane in her
hand. Her face was wrinkled and cross--wrinkled all over, and she stooped
dreadfully. But she tossed her funny little old bag on to the back of a
funny little old donkey, and climbed up herself. Then she was cross with
the funny little old bag, and mad with the funny little old donkey, and
she beat him with a funny little old stick, and scolded and scolded with
a funny little old cracked, quivering, peevish, hateful voice.
And so Tilda followed her as she rode, and all the rude boys along the
road cried out, "There goes the funny little old woman and her donkey!"
And a beautiful lady came along, and when she met the funny little old
woman, she sat down on a stone and wept, and said, "O Miriam, my
daughter!" But the funny little old woman only beat her donkey and
scolded more than ever. And Tilda wondered why the beautiful woman called
the funny little old woman her daughter. And Tilda dreamed that many days
passed, and that every day the funny little old woman rode on the funny
little old donkey to the city. And every day the beautiful woman wept and
said, "O Miriam, my daughter!" One day Tilda approached the beautiful
woman and spoke to her.
"Why do you call that funny, hateful, little old woman your daughter?"
"Because she is my daughter."
"But she is so much older than you are."