'

"'Indeed I will,' I said.

"'Even if I change you into so poor a thing as a Poker?'

"'Yes,' said I.

[Illustration: "ONE DAY THE WOODCUTTERS CAME."]

"'Very well,' said she. 'It shall be so. Good-night.'

"Next morning I waked up to find myself as you see--nothing more than a
Poker, but contented to be one. I have kept my promise with the Fairy, and
I am simply the happiest thing in the world. I don't sit down and groan
because I have to poke the fire. On the contrary, when I am doing that I'm
always thinking how nice it will be when I get done and I lean up against
the rack and gaze on all the beautiful things in the room. I always think
about the pleasant things, and if you don't know it, Dormy, let me tell
you that that's the way to be happy and to make others happy. Sometimes
people think me vain. The Fender told me one night I was the vainest
creature he ever knew. I'm not really so. I only will not admit that there
is anything or anybody in the world who is more favored than I am. That is
all. If I didn't do that I might sometime grow a little envious in spite
of myself. As it is I never do and haven't had an unhappy hour since I
became a contented Poker."

Tom was silent for a few minutes after the Poker had completed his story,
and then he said:

"Don't you sometimes feel unhappy because you are not the boy you used to
be?"

"No," said the Poker. "I am not because Rollo makes a better boy than I
was. He is a contented boy and I was not."

"But don't you miss your father and mother?" queried Tom.

"Of course not," said the Poker, "because the Fairy was good enough to
have me made into the Poker used in their new house. My parents moved away
from the railroad just after Rollo became me, and built themselves a new
house, and of course they had to have a new Poker to go with it--so I
really live home, you see, with them."

A curious light came into Tom's eyes.

"Mr. Poker," said he. "Who was this boy you used to be?"

"Tom," said the Poker.

"I'm not Rollo," roared Tom, starting up.

"Nobody said you were," retorted the Poker. "You are Dormy. Tom is
Rollo--but, I say, here come the Andirons and the Bellows."

Tom looked down from the cloud, and sure enough the three were coming up
as fast as the wind, and in the excitement of the moment the little
traveler forgot all about the Poker's story, in which he seemed himself to
have figured without knowing it.

[Illustration: "SO I REALLY LIVE HO