"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. [Illustration: "A POKER WHO COULD ONLY POKE."] "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.'