Читать книгу Andiron Tales - Bangs John Kendrick - Страница 3

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:

"The other seven went like this," observed the Righthandiron:

"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:

"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."

"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.

"You can take a red one, a white one, a green one, or all three. See?"