The Story of Ebenezer

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter two of ant Iron Tales by John Bangs. This
LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Story of Ebenezer.
Ebenezer was a boy very much like yourself in several ways,
resumed the right hand iron. He wasn't one of the
sleepy head or dozy pet families, but he was next

(00:22):
thing to it. He was nephew of Senator Tikanap and
a grandson of old a general snore aloud, but he'd
never admit it. He used to get just as angry
when we reminded him that he was quite as much
of a snore aloud as a carrot top as you
were there when we called you sleepy head, And when
my brother lefty here said to him, hullo, weasel, you

(00:44):
didn't like it a bit better than you did when
we said you were a dormouse. He insisted that he
was a boy, and for all we could do, we
couldn't get him to admit that he was a weasel.
He was the most persistent lad that I have ever seen.
You'd always say that bad was bad, that blue could
not be green. We couldn't get him to deny that

(01:06):
white was always white. And though we'd try and try
and try, he'd say that he was right interrupted the
left hand iron, and wasn't he asked Tom, That isn't
part of the story, snapped the right hand iron. And
if you don't stop interrupting me, I'll never speak to
you again. I didn't mean to, said Tom apologetically. That's

(01:30):
just the worst part of it, snapped the hand iron.
You are an interrupter by nature, and that is the
most incurable kind. But as I was telling you, Ebenezer
was bound to be a boy, and no amount of
talk on our part could convince him that he was
a weasel. Well, Lefty and I were very young then,

(01:51):
and up to the time of which I am speaking,
we had always made our little trips in the Fairy
Country or in Giant Land, all by ourselves, and we
had lots of fun together, I can warrant. This time, however,
we decided to take Ebenezer with us to Giant Land,
which was a place he had often heard us tell
about and concerning which he was very curious. We told

(02:15):
him that it would never do for him to visit
Giant Land because the giants were always very hungry and
liked nothing better to eat than a boy like himself.
It would be dangerous for him to go, we said,
unless he would promise to obey us in everything we
told him to do, and to admit that he was
whatever we chose to call him. You see, my dear Tom,

(02:37):
said the left hand Iron in explanation. The giants had
such confidence in us that they accepted as true anything
we said. So that if we should happen to meet
a hungry ogre and he should want to eat Ebenezer
because he was a boy, all that would be necessary
for us to do to save Ebenezer was to say,
hold on, he is not a boy, he is a weazel.

(03:01):
Then Ebenezer would be all right, because giants do not
eat weasels. I see, said Tom, nodding his head. Ebenezer
promised that he would obey us and wouldn't deny he
was a weasel. If we told the giants he was one,
and we took him off with us, resumed the right
hand Iron. We went straight to giant land and had

(03:21):
a perfectly lovely time until about an hour before it
was time to return, when we encountered a huge giant
named sky High. And my, how hungry he was. He
was hungrier than Lefty's friend who went into a restaurant
and ordered thirty seven pounds of cake, sixty four lamb chops,
eighteen portions of beef steak, forty ginger pops, seventeen vanilla puffs,

(03:46):
twenty fresh caught dabs, thirty eight rich raisin duffs, ninety
soft shell crabs. Let those go for course, the first.
Let the second be shrimps and oysters till I burst.
Thirteen quarts of tea, then a dozen sugared hams, one
small cabbage head, ninety dozen pinky clams, sixty loaves of bread,

(04:08):
seven quarts of French canned peas, and a pound or
two of your gorgonzola cheese for my lunch. Will do.
Then the waiter standing by in the usual way, asked him,
won't you also try our hot nights to day. I
don't want to interrupt, said Tom, but it seems to
me that man must have been awful rich. No, he wasn't,

(04:29):
returned Lefty. He was going to eat the dinner, you know,
and then die without paying for it. He wasn't a
very good man, no, remarked the story teller. But he
was a very hungry man, in which respect he was
just like the giant I am trying to tell you about,
and my how the giant roared with glee when he
caught sight of Ebenezer. Good, he cried, That's just what

(04:53):
I wanted for my lunch, a nice fat boy. Then
he reached down, said the right hand iron, and grabbed
Eban by the arm and was about to eat him
just as he would a piece of asparagus, when Lefty
here cried out a vast there, sky High, that isn't
a nice fat boy. That is only a miserable weasel,

(05:13):
Pa said sky High, with a face such as you
put on when you take a horrid tasting medicine. Pa,
I can't eat weasels. And with that he put Ebenezer
down on the road again and was about to walk
along about his business. When what did that foolish little
Ebenezer do but up and deny that he was a weasel.

(05:34):
I'm not a weasel, he yelled, and I'm a boy,
and a fine boy. At that, sky High stopped short,
whirled about, and rushed back to where Ebenezer was standing.
What's that you say, he said eagerly. I say I'm
not a weasel, but a fine fat boy, said the
vainglorious Ebenezer stoutly. Then my friends, the andirons have deceived me.

(05:58):
Have they roared the giant? Yes, replied Ebenezer. But I
can't stand being called a weasel With that, said the
right hand iron. Sky High clapped Ebenezer into his market
basket and then turned on Lefty and me. Lefty managed
to get away, but I was caught. What did he
do to you, asked Tom, trembling with excitement. He tried

(06:21):
to bite my head off, said Righty with a laugh.
See those two dents on either side of my neck.
Tom looked, and sure enough there were the dents, not
very deep, but quite large enough to be seen. His
teeth broke when he got that far, said Righty. I'm
pretty hard, but you see, it needn't have happened at all.
If Ebenezer had only kept quiet about his not being

(06:43):
a weasel. Was he eaten by sky High? Asked Tom.
I don't know, replied Righty. Lefty and I didn't wait
to find out, and we have never been back there since.
I don't believe he did eat him for two reasons.
One is that after trying to bite my head off,
sky High hadn't teeth enough left to eat anything with.

(07:04):
And the other reason is that I saw Ebenezer two
years afterwards on his way to school one beautiful spring morning.
I noticed him particularly because, although it was a lovely
clear morning, he had his umbrella up and positively declined
to put it down and carry it closed, because he
said an umbrella couldn't possibly be a cane, and he

(07:24):
wasn't going to try to make anybody suppose it was
a cane. I don't see anything in that story to
make me unhappy, even if I were a chum of Ebenezer's,
said Tom, as the andiron finished. You don't don't you
think it was sad that the giant couldn't eat a
boy who had behaved in that way, asked Ridy, with
a scornful glance at Tom. It was very sad, Tom,

(07:47):
said the left hand iron. So don't deny it, especially
if you want to go off on our trip to
the stars. Are you really going to the stars? Gasped Tom,
breathless at the very and forgetting all about Ebenezer, perhaps,
returned the andiron. And may I go with you? Whispered Tom.
You may if you will do whatever we tell you

(08:11):
and admit that you are a dormouse, said Righty. All right,
all away, said Tom. And what did you say your
name was asked Lefty, sleepy head, dozy pate, dormouse, said
Tom with a laugh. You'll do, returned the right hand iron,
stepping lightly out of the fireplace. Now sit astride off

(08:31):
my back, and take hold of Lefty's right claw. Tom
did as he was told, and in an instant he
was flying up through space toward the stars. End of
chapter two.