"It followed her to town one day
Unto the Country Fair,
And earned five hundred dollars just
In shining silver-ware."
Whistlebinkie indulged in a loud whistle of mirth at this, which so startled the little creature that it leapt backward fifteen feet in the air and landed on top of a small pump at the rear of the yard, and stood there poised on its four feet just like the chamois we see in pictures standing on a sharp peak miles up in the air, trembling just a little for fear that Whistlebinkie's squeak would be repeated. A moment of silence seemed to cure this, however, for in less than two minutes it was back again at the Unwiseman's side gazing soulfully at him as if demanding yet another verse. Of course the Unwiseman could not resist—he never could when people demanded poetry from him, it came so very easy—and so he continued:
"The children at the Country Fair
Indulged in merry squawks
To see the shammy polishing
The family knives and forks.
"The tablespoons, and coffee pots,
The platters and tureens,
The top of the mahogany,
And crystal fire-screens."
"More!" pleaded the chamois with his soft eyes, snuggling its head close into the Unwiseman's lap, and the old gentleman went on:
"'O isn't he a wondrous kid!'
The wondering children cried.
We didn't know a shammy could
Do such things if he tried.
"And Mary answered with a smile
That dimpled up her chin
'There's much that shammy's cannot do,
But much that shammy-skin.'"
Whistlebinkie's behavior at this point became so utterly and inexcusably boisterous with mirth that the confiding little chamois was again frightened away and this time it gave three rapid leaps into the air which landed it ultimately upon the ridge-pole of the chalet, from which it wholly refused to descend, in spite of all the persuasion in the world, for the rest of the afternoon.
"Very intelligent little animal that," said the Unwiseman, as he trudged his way home. "A very high appreciation of true poetry, inclined to make friendship with the worthy, and properly mistrustful of people full of strange noises and squeaks."
"He was awfully pretty, wasn't he," said Mollie.
"Yes, but he was better than pretty," observed the Unwiseman. "He could be made useful. Things that are only pretty are all very well in their way, but give me the useful things—like my kitchen-stove for instance. If that kitchen-stove was only pretty do you suppose I'd love it the way I do? Not at all. I'd just put it on the mantel-piece, or on the piano in my parlor and never think of it a second time, but because it is useful I pay attention to it every day, polish it with stove polish, feed it with coal and see that the ashes are removed from it when its day's work is done. Nobody ever thinks of doing such things with a plain piece of bric-a-brac that can't be used for anything at all. You don't put any coal or stove polish on that big Chinese vase you have in your parlor, do you?"
"No," said Mollie, "of course not."