Queer Stories for Boys and Girls Part 8

"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 cla.s.s 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 cus.h.i.+oned 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 a.s.sociation 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. n.o.body 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 fas.h.i.+on without being compelled to a.s.sociate, 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 a.s.sure 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 cus.h.i.+oned 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 n.o.body 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, las.h.i.+ng 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 gla.s.s.

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 gla.s.s in that stupid fas.h.i.+on.

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 relations.h.i.+p 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.