Frances Broderip - Tales of the Toys, Told by Themselves

And so he vigorously flapped backwards and forwards, till all the dust was set in motion that had rested quiet so long. So that at last, the Rocking-horse even was roused from his long slumber, and hobbled out of the corner on his lame legs.

"How very pleasant!" exclaimed the Ball, hopping about with the greatest agility; "I declare it is quite worth while living in retirement for a while, if only to enjoy life once more when we come back to it again. How's the Doll now?" enquired he, politely, bounding towards her.

"Better I hope," puffed the Kite; "but you know this cupboard has been stifling for a long while, and so now the first breeze of fresh air is almost too much for us all."

"Speak for yourself," snapped the Shuttlecock, very peevishly; "you have fanned out my last feather, and what I'm to do now I can't think; I'm nothing but cork and leather!"

"We are none of us much to be boasted of," remarked the old leaden Teapot; "I'm sure I have been battered and dinted till I've no shape left. But one gets used in time to being trodden on."

"Yes, indeed, and to get one's horns and legs snapped off," chimed in an eager lilac wooden Cow, who certainly had lost most of her members, "over and above parting with your relations. My twin brother was destroyed ages ago, and so was the scarlet cat's, and there's not even one elephant left in the ark, nor a camel, nor a canary, nor a ladybird, nor a bear."

"Oh! never mind your elephants and ladybirds," interrupted the Ball, irreverently; "we shall waste all our time in this arguing and quarrelling!"

"It's easy for you to talk, young man," remarked the Shuttlecock, sarcastically; " you have never been into the battle of life, or lost all your feathers."

"This is very stupid work," said the Skipping-rope, coiling about and trying to disentangle herself from the Kite, a proceeding that resulted in one of her handles coming off, and the Kite being shorn of the tassel at the end of his tail.

"Well, what are we to do with ourselves," asked the Rocking-Horse, "we are not all of us quite so lively as you, my friend Ball. To us a holiday conveys the idea of rest , not restlessness."

"Then I should think holidays were superfluous things to you!" muttered the Ball, as he took an extra roll out into the room; "but what are we to do, then?"

"Tell stories," suggested the Doll, and the Rocking-Horse and Kite seconded the motion. The Ball bounded about very impatiently, and proposed a game of play, but he was outvoted, and the first motion was carried. But the noise of the argument had awakened the Humming-top, and he began to buzz and hum in such a drony, drowsy fashion, that in sheer terror and dread, the Ball threw himself gallantly into the gap, and promised to tell the first story himself, on condition that he should be allowed to roll softly about the room for the rest of the evening. This was very willingly agreed to, and all the party being comfortably arranged, the Doll having taken care to ensure the services of the Kite, the Ball begun his proffered story in the following manner.

"If I were not of a very lively character," remarked the Ball, "I should feel rather shy at making my first appearance as a story teller. But you know all people of my giddy habits are not much given to serious consideration. We make a bold spring and bound down into the middle of a matter, while all the graver folks are nervously trembling on the very brink. And so, instead of beginning at the very first chapter of my story, and telling you that I first grew on an animal's back as skin, and was then turned into leather, I will skip the dry part of my history, and begin with some of my later impressions."

"Now," said the Humming-top, gravely, "I think I must rather protest against this summary way of disposing of some of the most interestin facts respecting your origin. I should like to know a little more about you, my dear friend. Pray indulge us with all the particulars of your early years: your first recollections."

"I had thought," said the Ball, modestly, "that all these minute facts could hardly be very interesting, and I have a great fear of tiring out your attention, and of being called prosy ," added he, slily.

"That is impossible," answered the Humming-top, in a pompous manner; "let me beg of you to relieve our curiosity. I am sure I may speak for all the rest of our friends," said he, with a very solemn bow to each member of the party. The Toys, only too ready to enjoy the least variation of their long retired life, eagerly agreed, and the Ball resumed his story: —

"I am afraid I am not very clever at giving accurate descriptions of things in which I don't take much interest, and as you may suppose my real life only begun when all my several portions were collected together. I am composed, as you see, of several sections, each of the same size and shape, but all varying in colour and material. This quarter of me is composed of two portions of a pale, tawny leather; and this grew on the back of a fine robust young lamb, who frisked away his brief life on a sunny pasture in Denmark. He formed one of the members of a huge flock of sheep, belonging to a well-to-do farmer, whose riches in herds of cattle and flocks of sheep were accumulating for the dowry of his only child Mari. She was the best dowered maiden for fifty miles round, and though young in her teens, made the yellowest butter and firmest cheese for three villages round. Her father was a thrifty, enterprising man, who was especially successful in rearing fine lambs; thereby giving his old bachelor brother the tanner, plenty of employment in dressing the hides and fleeces, thus keeping "two mills going at once," as he said. The old tanner had a trade secret of his own for curing the skins in some peculiar way with the bark of the willows that grew so plentifully on the borders of the stream that ran through his tan yards. No one's hides sold so readily as old Johann Nilson's, or fetched so good a price in the market. They were entirely reserved for making gloves, and exported to England for that purpose.

"The next two sections of my figure are, as you see, of a bright scarlet colour; and, like those two on the opposite side, which are of a rich dark blue, are made of morocco leather. This is made from the skin of Spanish goats, carefully tanned with oak bark, and then dyed on the grain side. The crimson portion owes its hue to being steeped in a bath with the little cochineal insect; and the blue to indigo. It is then curried and glazed till it becomes as shining and smooth as you see it.

"Half of my fourth and last section is made of kid that was once pure white; and of the same kind as that used for ladies' gloves and boots. But time and rough usage have turned it now to a somewhat dingy hue. This was made from the skin of a calf, which was carefully steeped in baths of lime and bran, and then dressed with flour paste, and well stretched; being finally polished and smoothed with hot irons. This came from France, and after all this toil and care bestowed upon it, was beautifully soft and white, as supple as you could desire, and ready to be made into gloves. The other half of my last portion is formed of what is called chamois leather, being made from the skin of a lively little chamois that in vain once fled along Alpine peaks to escape his fleet hunter. The only part that now remains to account for is the small round portion at each end, which, from its dark, peculiar, tawny hue and pleasant scent, you have no doubt recognised as Russia leather. This, which is so highly prized because insects will not destroy it, or damp penetrate through it, owes much of its virtue to its being tanned with the bark of the graceful birch tree.