CHAPTER IV.

The Poker Tells His Story

"I suppose," said the Poker, after the Andirons had passed out of hearing distance, "I suppose you think it a very extraordinary thing that I, who am nothing but a Poker, should be satisfied with my lot. Eh?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Tom, snuggling down on the cloud which he found to be deliciously soft and comfortable. "If you were a Poker who could only poke it might seem queer. But you can talk and sing and travel about. You don't have to do any work in summer time, and in winter you have a nice warm spot to stay in all the day long. I don't think it's very strange."

"But I'm not different from any other Poker," said Tom's companion, "They all do pretty much what I do except that most of them are always growling at their hard lot, while I do very little but sing and rejoice that I am what I am, and the story I was going to tell you was how I came to be so well satisfied to be a Poker. Would you like to have me do that, Dormy?"

"Yes," said Tom. "Very much. Were you always a Poker?"

"Not I," said the Poker, with a shake of his head. "I've been a Poker only two years. Before that I had been a little of everything. What do you suppose I began life as?"

"A railroad track," said Tom, bound to have a guess at the right answer, though he really hadn't the slightest notion that he was correct.

"You came pretty near it," said the Poker, with a smile. "I began life as a boy."

"I don't see how a boy is pretty near a railroad track," said Tom.

"The boy I began life as lived right next door to a railroad," explained the Poker. "See now?"

"Yes," said Tom. "But why didn't you stay a boy?"

"Because I wasn't contented," said the Poker, with a sigh. "I ought to have been, though. I had everything in the world that a boy could want. My parents were as good to me as they could possibly be. I had all the toys I wanted. All I could eat—plenty of pudding and other good things as often as they were to be had. I had two little sisters, who used to do everything in the world for me. Plenty of boy friends to play with, and, as I said before, a railroad right next door—and oh, the trains, and trains, and trains I used to see! It was great fun. I can see, now that I look back on it, and yet I never was satisfied. I used to cry my eyes out sometimes because I hadn't wings like a bird, so that I could fly. At other times I'd get discontented that I couldn't run as fast as a dog—I never went to bed without feeling envious of somebody or something.

"Finally one night I'd gone to bed feeling particularly unhappy because a big eagle I had seen flying about in the sky could do things I couldn't. My nurse, thinking I had fallen asleep, went out of the night nursery and left me alone. Just as she went out of one door the other door opened and a very beautiful lady came in.

"'Is that you, mama?' I asked.

"'No,' said she. 'I am not your mother. I am a Fairy.'

"I had been crying pretty hard, I can tell you," said the Poker, with a shake of his head, "but as soon as I heard the lady say she was a Fairy my tears dried up as quick as lightning.

"'I am a Fairy,' she repeated, coming to the side of my little bed and stroking my forehead kindly. 'My duty is to seek out one discontented person each year and see if I can't do something to help him. I have come to help you if I can. Don't you like being a boy?'

"'Not very much,' said I. 'It's awfully hard work. I have to go to school every day and learn lots of things I don't care to know about, and most of the time I'm kept in an hour or two just because I can't remember how much seven times two are, or whether c-a-t spells dog or horse, and I don't like it.'

"'But you are strong and well. Your father and mother are very good to you and you have more good times than unhappy ones, don't you?'

"'I never counted,' said I. 'I don't believe I do, though. I'm strong and well, but so is that eagle I saw today, and he can fly, and I can't. Then there's my little dog—he's as well as can be, and my father and mother are kind to him just as they are kind to me. He doesn't have to bother with school. He's allowed to go anywhere he wants to, and never gets scolded for it. Besides, he doesn't have to be dressed up all the time and live in a bathtub the way I do.'

"'Then you think you would be happier as Rollo than you are as yourself?' said she.

"'Very much,' said I.

"'Then it shall be so,' said she. 'Good-by!'

"She went out as quietly as she had come, and I turned over and after thinking over what she had said I fell asleep. Then the queerest thing happened. I slept right through until the morning, dreaming the strangest dream you ever heard of. I dreamed that I had been changed into Rollo—and oh, the fun I had! Life was nothing but play and liberty, and then I waked. I tried to call my father and tell him I was ready for the morning story, but what do you suppose I did instead?"

"Give it up," said Tom. "What?"

"I barked," said the Poker, "and when I barked I looked down at my feet. Sure enough I was Rollo, and Rollo was I lying asleep in my bed. I was on the floor at the foot of the bed. Then the nurse came in and slapped me for barking and I had the pleasure of being sent down stairs to the cellar, while Rollo himself, who had been changed into me went into my father's room and got the story."

"Mercy!" said Tom. "I guess you were sorry about that."

"I was, a little," said the Poker. "But after I had been down in the cellar an hour or two I saw a beautiful piece of steak in the ice-box and I ate it all up. It wasn't cooked at all, but being a little dog I liked it all the better for that. Then I drank up a panful of milk and had a lovely time teasing the cat, until the cook came down, when my troubles began. I never knew when I was a boy that Rollo had troubles, but I found out that day that he had. The cook gave me a terrible whipping because I had eaten the steak, and I had hardly recovered from that when Rollo, who was now what I had been, took me up into the nursery and played with me just as I had always played with him. He held me up by the tail; he flicked me with his handkerchief; he harnessed me up to a small cart and made me drag his sisters' doll babies about the room for one whole hour, and then when lunch time came the waitress forgot me and I had to go hungry all the afternoon. Every time I'd try to go into the kitchen the cook would drive me out with a stick for fear I would eat the other things in the cellar—and oh, dear, I had a miserable time of it.

"The worst of it came two or three days later," continued the Poker. "It was Rollo's bath day, and as I was Rollo of course I had to take Rollo's bath, and my, wasn't it awful! I'd rather take a hundred such baths as I had when I was a boy than one like Rollo's. The soap got into my eyes and I couldn't say a word. Then it got into my mouth, and bah! how fearful it was. After that I was grabbed by all four of my legs and soused into the water until I thought I should drown, and rubbed until my fur nearly came off.

"I wished then that I had asked the Fairy to leave her address so that I could send for her and have her come back and let me be a boy again. All the fun of being Rollo was spoiled by the woes that were his to bear—woes I had never dreamed of his having until I took his place.

"I must have been Rollo a month when the Fairy came back one night to see how I was getting along. Rollo lay asleep in my crib, while I was curled up in a dog basket at the foot of it.

"'Well,' said the Fairy as she entered the room, 'how do you both do?'

"'I like it first-rate,' said Rollo. 'Being a boy is ever so much nicer than being a dog.'

"'I think so, too," said I. 'And if you don't mind I'd like to be a boy again.'

"'What boy do you want to be?' she asked.

"'What boy?' said I. 'Why, myself, of course. Who else?'

"'What has Rollo to say about that?' said the Fairy, turning to him—and I tell you, Dormy, it made my heart sick to hear that Rollo had anything to say about it, for there couldn't be much doubt as to how he would decide."