Transcribed from the Charles Scribner’s Sons“Works of Charles Dickens” edition ,
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| 20795 | (Some black and white illustrations) |
| 37581 | (Many fine black and white illustrations) |
| 678 | (Not illustrated) |
THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH
A Fairy Tale of Home
TO
LORD JEFFREY
THIS LITTLE STORY IS INSCRIBED
WITH
THE AFFECTION AND ATTACHMENT OF HISFRIEND
THE AUTHOR
December, 1845
CHAPTER I—Chirp the First
The kettle began it! Don’t tell me what Mrs.Peerybingle said. I know better. Mrs. Peerybingle mayleave it on record to the end of time that she couldn’t saywhich of them began it; but, I say the kettle did. I oughtto know, I hope! The kettle began it, full five minutes bythe little waxy-faced Dutch clock in the corner, before theCricket uttered a chirp.
As if the clock hadn’t finished striking, and theconvulsive little Haymaker at the top of it, jerking away rightand left with a scythe in front of a Moorish Palace, hadn’tmowed down half an acre of imaginary grass before the Cricketjoined in at all!
Why, I am not naturally positive. Every one knowsthat. I wouldn’t set my own opinion against theopinion of Mrs. Peerybingle, unless I were quite sure, on anyaccount whatever. Nothing should induce me. But, thisis a question of fact. And the fact is, that the kettlebegan it, at least five minutes before the Cricket gave any signof being in existence. Contradict me, and I’ll sayten.
Let me narrate exactly how it happened. I should haveproceeded to do so in my very first word, but for this plainconsideration—if I am to tell a story I must begin at thebeginning; and how is it possible to begin at the beginning,without beginning at the kettle?
It appeared as if there were a sort of match, or trial ofskill, you must understand, between the kettle and theCricket. And this is what led to it, and how it cameabout.
Mrs. Peerybingle, going out into the raw twilight, andclicking over the wet stones in a pair of pattens that workedinnumerable rough impressions of the first proposition in Euclidall about the yard—Mrs. Peerybingle filled the kettle atthe water-butt. Presently returning, less the pattens (anda good deal less, for they were tall and Mrs. Peerybingle was butshort), she set the kettle on the fire. In doing which shelost her temper, or mislaid it for an instant; for, the waterbeing uncomfortably cold, and in that slippy, slushy, sleety sortof state wherein it seems to penetrate through every