Andiron Tales. Bangs John Kendrick
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
"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