"Whew! I believe I'll burst. Bridget's jammed the lid down so tight I can't breathe!
"But I'm going to try to be a locomotive. Here goes."
Here the kettle stopped singing, and the steam poured out the spout and pushed up the lid, and the kettle hissed and rattled and rattled and hissed so that I really was afraid it would run off with the stove. But all its puffing was in vain. And so, as the fire began to go down, the kettle commenced to sing again.
"Well, what a fool I was!
"I'm only a tea-kettle; I never shall be anything else; and so there's the end of it. It's my business to stay here and do my duty in the kitchen. I suppose an industrious, cheerful tea-kettle is just as useful in its place as a steam engine; yes, and just as happy, too. And if I must stay in this kitchen among the pots the rest of my days, I mean to do my share to make it the cheerfulest kitchen in all the country."
Here the voice of the tea-kettle died down to a plaintive simmer, simmer, and I heard Sunbeam say, "He's asleep." She always thinks I'm asleep when I rest my eyes.
"Tea is ready," said three of them, at once.
Jack Grip was a queer fellow. Queer because he never got enough money, and yet never seemed to know the right use of money. His family had the bare comforts of life, but his wife was a drudge, and his children had neither books nor pictures, nor any of those other things so necessary to the right education of children. Jack was yet young, but he was in great danger of becoming a miser. The truth was, he had made up his mind to get rich. It took him some time to make up his mind to be dishonest, but he was in a hurry to be rich, and lately he had been what his neighbors called "slippery" in his dealings. Poor Jack! he was selling his conscience for gold, but gold could never buy it back.
On a certain night in November, the night that my story begins, Jack was not at ease. His accounts showed that he had made money. He was getting rich very fast, but something troubled him. Shall I tell you what it was?