{"product_id":"2940012681270","title":"THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH","description":"CHAPTER I--Chirp the First\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe kettle began it!  Don't tell me what Mrs. Peerybingle said.  I\u003cbr\u003eknow better.  Mrs. Peerybingle may leave it on record to the end of\u003cbr\u003etime that she couldn't say which of them began it; but, I say the\u003cbr\u003ekettle did.  I ought to know, I hope!  The kettle began it, full\u003cbr\u003efive minutes by the little waxy-faced Dutch clock in the corner,\u003cbr\u003ebefore the Cricket uttered a chirp.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs if the clock hadn't finished striking, and the convulsive little\u003cbr\u003eHaymaker at the top of it, jerking away right and left with a\u003cbr\u003escythe in front of a Moorish Palace, hadn't mowed down half an acre\u003cbr\u003eof imaginary grass before the Cricket joined in at all!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhy, I am not naturally positive.  Every one knows that.  I\u003cbr\u003ewouldn't set my own opinion against the opinion of Mrs.\u003cbr\u003ePeerybingle, unless I were quite sure, on any account whatever.\u003cbr\u003eNothing should induce me.  But, this is a question of act.  And the\u003cbr\u003efact is, that the kettle began it, at least five minutes before the\u003cbr\u003eCricket gave any sign of being in existence.  Contradict me, and\u003cbr\u003eI'll say ten.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLet me narrate exactly how it happened.  I should have proceeded to\u003cbr\u003edo so in my very first word, but for this plain consideration--if I\u003cbr\u003eam to tell a story I must begin at the beginning; and how is it\u003cbr\u003epossible to begin at the beginning, without beginning at the\u003cbr\u003ekettle?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt appeared as if there were a sort of match, or trial of skill,\u003cbr\u003eyou must understand, between the kettle and the Cricket.  And this\u003cbr\u003eis what led to it, and how it came about.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMrs. Peerybingle, going out into the raw twilight, and clicking\u003cbr\u003eover the wet stones in a pair of pattens that worked innumerable\u003cbr\u003erough impressions of the first proposition in Euclid all about the\u003cbr\u003eyard--Mrs. Peerybingle filled the kettle at the water-butt.\u003cbr\u003ePresently returning, less the pattens (and a good deal less, for\u003cbr\u003ethey were tall and Mrs. Peerybingle was but short), she set the\u003cbr\u003ekettle on the fire.  In doing which she lost her temper, or mislaid\u003cbr\u003eit for an instant; for, the water being uncomfortably cold, and in\u003cbr\u003ethat slippy, slushy, sleety sort of state wherein it seems to\u003cbr\u003epenetrate through every kind of substance, patten rings included--\u003cbr\u003ehad laid hold of Mrs. Peerybingle's toes, and even splashed her\u003cbr\u003elegs.  And when we rather plume ourselves (with reason too) upon\u003cbr\u003eour legs, and keep ourselves particularly neat in point of\u003cbr\u003estockings, we find this, for the moment, hard to bear.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBesides, the kettle was aggravating and obstinate.  It wouldn't\u003cbr\u003eallow itself to be adjusted on the top bar; it wouldn't hear of\u003cbr\u003eaccommodating itself kindly to the knobs of coal; it WOULD lean\u003cbr\u003eforward with a drunken air, and dribble, a very Idiot of a kettle,\u003cbr\u003eon the hearth.  It was quarrelsome, and hissed and spluttered\u003cbr\u003emorosely at the fire.  To sum up all, the lid, resisting Mrs.\u003cbr\u003ePeerybingle's fingers, first of all turned topsy-turvy, and then,\u003cbr\u003ewith an ingenious pertinacity deserving of a better cause, dived\u003cbr\u003esideways in--down to the very bottom of the kettle.  And the hull\u003cbr\u003eof the Royal George has never made half the monstrous resistance to\u003cbr\u003ecoming out of the water, which the lid of that kettle employed\u003cbr\u003eagainst Mrs. Peerybingle, before she got it up again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt looked sullen and pig-headed enough, even then; carrying its\u003cbr\u003ehandle with an air of defiance, and cocking its spout pertly and\u003cbr\u003emockingly at Mrs. Peerybingle, as if it said, 'I won't boil.\u003cbr\u003eNothing shall induce me!'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut Mrs. Peerybingle, with restored good humour, dusted her chubby\u003cbr\u003elittle hands against each other, and sat down before the kettle,\u003cbr\u003elaughing.  Meantime, the jolly blaze uprose and fell, flashing and\u003cbr\u003egleaming on the little Haymaker at the top of the Dutch clock,\u003cbr\u003euntil one might have thought he stood stock still before the\u003cbr\u003eMoorish Palace, and nothing was in motion but the flame.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe was on the move, however; and had his spasms, two to the second,\u003cbr\u003eall right and regular.  But, his sufferings when the clock was\u003cbr\u003egoing to strike, were frightful to behold; and, when a Cuckoo\u003cbr\u003elooked out of a trap-door in the Palace, and gave note six times,\u003cbr\u003eit shook him, each time, like a spectral voice--or like a something\u003cbr\u003ewiry, plucking at his legs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was not until a violent commotion and a whirring noise among the\u003cbr\u003eweights and ropes below him had quite subsided, that this terrified\u003cbr\u003eHaymaker became himself again.  Nor was he startled without reason;\u003cbr\u003efor these rattling, bony skeletons of clocks are very disconcerting\u003cbr\u003ein their operation, and I wonder very much how any set of men, but\u003cbr\u003emost of all how Dutchmen, can have had a liking to invent them.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47078906560752,"sku":"2940012681270","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012681270_p0.jpg?v=1763571687","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012681270","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}