The Literary Bellows

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter six of and Iron Tales by John Bangs. This
LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The literary bellows.
What kept you so long? Asked the poker, as the
and Iron and Bellows came up. Was our friend Bellows
out of breath or what? No? I wasn't out of breath,

(00:22):
said the bellows. I never am out of breath. You
might as well expect a grocer man to be out
of groceries as the bellows to be out of breath.
I wasn't long either, at least no longer than usual,
which is two foot three. A longer bellows than that
would be useless for our purpose. I simply didn't want

(00:43):
to come, that's all. I was very busy writing when
they interrupted me. It was very kind of you to
come when you didn't want to, said Tom. No, it wasn't,
said the bellows. I didn't want to come then. I
don't want to be here now, and I wouldn't blow
the cloud an inch for you if I didn't have to.
But why do you have to, asked Tom. I'm out voted,

(01:06):
that's all, replied the bellows. You see, my dear weasel dormouse,
whispered the poker, I mean dormouse, said the bellows, correcting himself.
You see, I believe in everybody having a say in
regard to everything. I always have everything I can put
to a vote. Consequently, when Righty here came down and

(01:28):
asked me to help blow the cloud over and I
said that I wouldn't do it, he called Lefty in
and we put it to a vote as to whether
i'd have to or not. They voted that I must,
and I voted that I needn't, and of course that
beat me so here. I am. Well, it's very good
of you. Just the same, said the poker. You aren't

(01:49):
quite as good natured as I am, but you come
pretty near it. Most people would have left a matter
of that kind entirely to themselves and then voted the
way they felt like voting. You aren't selfish anyhow, yes
I am, said the bellows. I'm awfully selfish. You're not, either,
said the poker. Oh goodness, ejaculated the bellows. What's the

(02:12):
use of fighting, I say, I am. Let's have a
vote on it, said Righty. I vot tee isn't so? Do?
I said? Tom me too? Said Lefty. Those are my sentiments. Likewise,
put in the poker. Oh very well, then, I'm not,
said the Bellows, with a deep drawn sigh. But I

(02:33):
do wish you'd let me have my own way about
some things. I want to be selfish, even if i'm
not well. We are very sorry, said the poker. Oh
we can't let you be. We need you too much
to permit you to be selfish. Besides, you're too good
a fellow to be selfish. I knew a boy who
was selfish once, and he got into all sorts of trouble.

(02:56):
Nobody liked him. And once he gave a big dinner
to a lot of other boys, not one of them
would come, and he had to eat all the dinner himself.
The result was that he over ate himself, ruined his digestion,
and all the rest of his life had to do
without pies and cake and other good things. It served
him right too. Do you think we are going to

(03:18):
let you be like that, mister Bellows? I suppose, not,
said the Bellows. But stories about selfish boys don't frighten me.
I'm a Bellows, not a boy. I don't give dinners,
and I don't eat pie and cake. Plain air is
good enough for me, and I wouldn't give a cent
for all the other good eatables in the world except doughnuts.

(03:40):
I like donuts because, after all, they are only Bellows cakes.
But come, let's hurry up with the cloud. I want
to get back to my desk. I have a poem
to finish before breakfast. This statement interested Tom hugely. He
had read many a book, but never before had he
met a real author, and even if the Bellows had

(04:01):
been a man, so long as he was a writer,
Tom would have looked upon him with awe. Excuse me,
he said hesitatingly, as the Bellows began to wheeze away
at the cloud. Do you really write well? No, said
the Bellows. No, I don't write, but I blow a
story or two now and then you see. I can't

(04:23):
write because I haven't any hands. But I can wheeze
out a tale to a stenographer once in a while,
which any magazine would be glad to publish if it
could get hold of it. One of my stories, called Sparks,
blew into a powder magazine once, and it made a
tremendous noise in the world when it came out. I

(04:44):
wish you would tell me, one, said Tom. Are you
a stenographer, asked the Bellows. No, said Tom, but I
like stories just the same. Well, said the Bellows, I'll
tell you one about Jimmie Tompkins and the red apple. Hurrah,
cried Tom. I love red apples, so did Jimmie Tompkins,

(05:05):
said the Bellows, and that's why he died. He ate
a red apple while it was green, and it killed him.
There was a pause for an instant and the Bellows
redoubled his efforts to move the cloud, which, for some
reason or other did not stir easily. Go ahead, said Tom,
when he thought he had waited long enough for the
Bellows to resume. What on, asked the Bellows, on your

(05:29):
story about Jimmy Tompkins and the red apple. Tom answered,
why I've told you that story, retorted the Bellows. Jimmy
ate the red apple and died. What more do you want?
That's all there is to it. It isn't a very
long story, suggested Tom ruefully, for he was much disappointed.
Well why should it be, demanded the Bellows. A story

(05:53):
doesn't have to be long to be good, and as
long as it is all there I know, said Tom.
But in most stories there's a lot of things put
in that help make it interesting all padding, sneered the Bellows,
and that I will never do. If a story can
be told in five words, what's the use of patting

(06:13):
it out to five thousand? None, said Tom, except that
you can't make a book out of a story of
five words. Oh yes you can, said the Bellows airily.
It isn't any trouble at all if you only know how,
And in the end you have a much more useful
book than if you made it a million words long.

(06:34):
You can print the five words on the first page
and leave the other five hundred pages blank, so that
after you get through with a volume as a story book,
you can use it for a blank book or a diary.
Most books nowadays are so full of story that when
you get through them, there isn't anything else you can
do with the book. It's a new idea, said Tom

(06:56):
with a laugh. And all my own invention, too, said
the Bellows proudly. He's the most inventive Bellows that ever
was put in the poker, that is, in a literary way.
How many copies of your book of unwritten poems did
you sell? Wheezy, he added, eight million, returned the Bellows,
that was probably my greatest literary achievement, unwritten poems, eh,

(07:22):
said Tom, to whom the title seemed curious, Yes, said
the Bellows. The book had three hundred pages, all nicely bound,
twenty six lines to a page, and each beginning with
a capital letter, just as poetry should. Then, so as
to be quite fair to all the letters, I began
with an A and went right straight through the alphabet

(07:43):
to Z. But the poems, demanded Tom, they were unwritten,
just as the title said, returned the Bellows. You see
that left everything to the imagination, which is a great
thing in poetry. Didn't people complain, Tom asked. Everybody did,
replied the Bellows. But that was just what I wanted.

(08:05):
I agreed to answer every complaint, accompanied by ten cents
in postage stamps. Eight million complaints alone brought me in
four hundred eighty thousand dollars over and above all expenses,
which were four cents per complaint. But what was your answer,
demanded Tom. I merely told them that my book stood

(08:26):
upon its own merits, and that if they didn't like
my unwritten poems, they could write some of their own
on the blank pages of the book. It was a
perfectly fair proposition, the Bellows replied. I think I like
written poetry best, though, said Tom. That's entirely a matter
of taste, said the Bellows. And I shan't find fault

(08:47):
with you for that. The only thing is that unwritten
poems are apt to have fewer faults than the written ones.
And every great poet will tell you that nobody ever
detected any mistakes in his poems until he had put
them down on paper. If he had left them unwritten,
nobody would ever have known how bad they were. Tom

(09:09):
scratched his head in a puzzled mood. He could not
quite grasp the Bellows. Meaning, what do you think about it? Righty?
He demanded of the Andiron. Oh, I don't think anything
about it, replied Ridy. I haven't watched poetry much. You see, left,
and I don't see much of it. People light fires
nowadays more with newspapers than with poetry. What I've seen

(09:32):
burns well, observed the left hand Iron, and don't make
much ashes to get into your eyes. But say, wheezy,
if you'll do your blowing about this cloud rather than
about your poetry, we may get somewhere very well, said
the Bellows, Fasten your hats on tight and turn up
your collars. I'm going to give you a regular tornado.

(09:55):
And he was as good as his word for expanding
himself to the utmo a limit. He gave a tremendous
wheeze which nearly blew Tom from his perch, sent his
cap flying off into space, and smashed the cloud into
four separate pieces, one of which, bearing the poker, floated
rapidly off to the north, while the other three sped south,

(10:18):
east and west respectively. Hi there, cried Ridy as he
perceived the damage done to their fleecy chariot. What are
you up to? We don't want to be blown to
the four corners of the earth. Pull in, pull in
for goodness sake, or we'll never get together again. There's
no satisfying you, fellows, growled the bellows. First I don't

(10:41):
blow enough, and then I blow too much. Stop growling,
and haullis back again, cried the poker. The Bellows began
to haul in his breath rapidly, and by a process
of suction, soon had the four parts of the burst
cloud back together once more. By Jingo, panted Lefty. That

(11:02):
was a narrow escape. Two seconds more, and this party
would have been a goner. Even as it is, You've
twisted my neck, so I'll never get it back in
shape again, said the right hand iron. Well, I'm sorry,
said the bellows, but it's all your own fault. You
asked me to blow the cloud, and I blew it.
You didn't say where you wanted it blown. You needn't

(11:25):
have blown it to smether rains just the same, retorted
the poker. It doesn't cost anything to ask a question
now and then where, then, demanded the bellows. I'd like
to find my hat, said Tom. Very well, said the bellows.
I see it speeding off toward the moon, and we'll
chase after it, but we'll never catch it if it

(11:46):
misses the moon and falls past it into space. The
poker rose to his full height and peered after the cap, which,
even as the bellows had said, was sailing rapidly off
in the direction of the crescent Moon, which lay to
the west and below them. Hurrah, he cried. It's all right.
Can you see it? Still, asked Tom, anxiously, for his

(12:08):
cap was made of seal skin and he didn't wish
to lose it. Yes, it's all right. Said the poker.
It nearly missed, but not quite. If you will look
through these glasses, you will see it. The poker handed
Tommy pair of strong field glasses, and the lad gazing
anxiously through them, was delighted to see his wandering cap

(12:29):
hanging as if on a great golden hook in the
sky beneath them, and which was nothing more than the
last appearance of the moon itself. Good, cried the right
hand iron. That settles the question for us of where
we shall go next. There's no choice left. We'll go
to the moon. Heave ahead, wheezy. Whereupon the bellows began

(12:51):
to blow, at first gently, then stronger and stronger, and
yet more strongly still, until the cloud was moving rapidly
in the direction they desired. End of Chapter six