"I was packed up in his satchel, and we journeyed quite a while. When it was opened, we were in a pleasant little room in a country boarding-house"—
"My mother's!" I again interrupted.
"Will you please be so kind as not to interrupt me again?" said the pin, his sharp voice growing sharper than ever. "I found myself, as I remarked before, in a pleasant little room in a country boarding-house. The scenery all around was very beautiful. There were fields, a meadow, a brook and some woods." (I very much wanted to interrupt again, but I bit my tongue, and squealed instead.)
"My master took long walks, and would sit down every little while on stone, stump, or fence, and write. One day as he was going out he asked the lady of the house to give him some lunch, as he would probably not be back for a good while"—
"My mother!" I burst forth.
"I think you are very impolite," the pin replied. "However, to pacify you, I will tell you that you are correct—it was your mother, and she put him up a nice lunch. He took quite a little walk, meditating the while, and every few moments he would lift up his arms, and discourse enthusiastically on the beauty of Nature. These talks were very uninteresting to me, as I felt quite competent to decide for myself what I thought of Nature, but I listened silently and patiently. At one point in the road the gentleman saw a good seat ahead, in the form of a stump, and so he slung his satchel on his arm, after getting some papers out, which he commenced to pin together with me. But at this point, as he was not engaged in looking where he was going, his toe unfortunately collided with the root of a stump which was firmly fixed in the ground, and he fell flat! A breeze coming up at the time, his papers, and so forth, were scattered to the four winds as you might say (though there was but one at the time), and he probably will never find the most of them again. His pens flew into a hollow stump near by, I flew over to the roots of another stump, and he fell on the satchel of lunch that your mother had prepared for him, squeezing it all out on the ground. Then he picked himself up and went home.
"As for me, I remained where I fell until you kindly brought me home with you this afternoon.
"I COULD SEE THE BUSY STREET OF A LARGE CITY."
"Now, my young friend, I will conclude. I have done my work in this world, so far, as faithfully as I knew how, and I think I have fulfilled the purposes for which I was made. I hope I have proved to you that pins are of some importance, for I came very near causing the death of one person and saved the life of another. If you do your work, no matter how small it may be, as well as I have, you will be as happy as I am, perhaps not joyful, but you will at least be satisfied with yourself, which is a great deal better than being satisfied with others. I am through."