Who Spoke Next

From the opening

Boys are not apt to forget a promise of a story. Frank and Harry did not fail to call upon their mother for the history of the old musket.

"It appeared to me," said the mother, "that the old musket was not very willing to tell his story. He had a sort of old republican pride, and felt himself superior to the rest of the company in character and importance. When he had made himself heard in the world hitherto, it had always been by one short, but very decided and emphatic word; he despised any thing like a palaver; so he began very abruptly, and as if he had half a mind not to speak at all, because he could not speak in his own way.

"None but fools," said he, "have much to say about themselves--'Deeds, not words,' is a good motto for all. But as I would not be churlish, and as I have agreed, as well as the rest of my companions, to tell my story, I will mention what few things worth relating I can recollect.

I have no distinct consciousness, as my friend the pitcher or the curling tongs has, of what I was before the ingenuity of man brought me into my present form. I would only mention that all the different materials of which I was formed must have been perfect of their kind, or I could never have performed the duties required of me.

My first very distinct recollection is of being stood up in the way I am standing now, with a long row of my brethren, of the same shape and character as myself, as I supposed. This was in a large building somewhere in England. I, like the curling tongs, was at last packed up in a box, and brought to America, but it took a rather larger box to take me and my friends, than it took to pack up him and his friends, with all their thin straddle legs."

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