“Yes, I suppose so,” said his mother, as she walked away to turn the fish that was broiling. Carl lay still and looked at the stocking.
“Where did you come from, old stocking?” said he.
“From England,” said the stocking, very softly.
Carl started right up in bed, and looked between the sheets, and over the counterpane, and behind the head-board—there was nothing to be seen. Then he shook the stocking as hard as he could, but something in it struck his other hand pretty hard too. Carl laid it down and looked at it again, and then cautiously putting in his hand, he with some difficulty found his way to the very toe,—there lay the red cent, just where it had been all the time, upon the biggest of the red darns.
“A red cent!” cried Carl. “O I guess it was you talking, wasn’t it?”
“No,” said the red cent. “But I can talk.”
“Do you know where you came from?” said Carl, staring at the red cent with all his eyes.
“I dreamed that everything in my stocking told me a story,” said Carl.
“So we will,” said the red cent. “Only to you. To nobody else.”
Carl shook his head very gravely, and having slipped the red cent into the little old purse, he put everything into the stocking again and jumped out of bed. For the drift-wood fire was blazing up to the very top of the little fire-place, and breakfast was almost ready upon the old chest.
But as soon as breakfast was over, Carl carried the stocking to one corner of the hut where stood another old chest; and laying out all his treasures thereon, he knelt down before it.
“Now begin,” he said. “But you mustn’t all talk at once. I guess I’ll hear the apples first, because I might want to eat ’em up. I don’t care which of _them_ begins.”
“I assume to myself the task of relating our joint history,” said the largest of the three apples, “because I am perhaps the fairest minded of us all. The judgment and experience of my younger sister, Half-ripe, are as yet immature; and my little brother Knerly is unfortunately of a somewhat sour disposition, and therefore less likely to represent things in a pleasant light. My own name is Beachamwell.”
At this opening the two smaller apples rolled over in an uncomfortable sort of way, but said nothing.
“As for me,” continued Beachamwell, “I have not only been favoured with a southern exposure, but I have also made the most of whatever good influences were within my reach; and have endeavoured to perfect myself in every quality that an apple should have. You perceive not only the fine rounding of my shape, but also the perfect and equal colour of my cheeks. My stem is smooth and erect, and my eye precisely in a line with it; and if I could be cut open this minute I should be found true to my heart’s core. I am also of a very tender disposition, being what is usually called _thin-skinned_; and a very slight thing would make a permanent and deep impression. My behaviour towards every one has always been marked by the most perfect smoothness, and on intimate acquaintance I should be found remarkably sweet and pleasant.”