er for all the world.'

"Then the Fairy turned to me and said, 'I'm sorry, my dear, but if Rollo
won't consent to the change you'll have to be contented to remain as you
are--unless you'd like to try being an eagle for a while.'

"'I'll never consent,' said Rollo, selfishly, though I couldn't really
blame him for it.

"'Then make me an eagle,' I said. 'Make me anything but what I am.'

"'Very well,' said the Fairy. 'Good-night.'

"Next morning," continued the Poker, "when I waked up I was cold and
stiff, and when I opened my eyes to look about me I found myself seated on
a great ledge of rock on the side of a mountain. Far below me were tops of
the trees in a forest I never remembered to have seen before, while above
me a hard black wall of rock rose straight up for a thousand feet. To
climb upward was impossible; to climb down, equally so.

"'What on earth does this mean?' thought I; and then, in attempting to
walk, I found that I had but two legs, where the night before I had fallen
asleep with four.

"'Am I a boy again?' I cried with delight.

"'No,' said a voice from way below me in the trees. 'You are now an eagle
and I hope you will be happy.'

"You never were an eagle, were you, Dormy?" said the Poker, gazing
earnestly into Tom's face.

"No," said Tom, "never. I've never been any kind of bird."

[Illustration: "EAGLES NEVER HAVE UMBRELLAS."]

"Well, don't you ever be one," said the Poker, with a knowing shake of the
head. "It's all very beautiful to think about, but being an eagle is
entirely different from what thinking about it is. I was that eagle for
one whole month, and the life of a Scotch terrier is bliss alongside of
it. In the first place it was fight, fight, fight for food. It was lots of
fun at first jumping off the crag down a thousand feet into the valley,
but flying back there to get out of the way of the huntsmen was worse than
pulling a sled with rusty runners up a hill a mile long. Then, when storms
came up I had to sit up there on that mountain side and take 'em all as
they came. I hadn't any umbrella--eagles never have--to keep off the
rain; and no walls except on one side, to keep off the wind, and no
shutters to close up so that I couldn't see the lightning. It was
terrible. All I got to eat in the whole month was a small goat and a
chicken hawk, and those I had to swallow wool, feathers and all. Then I
got into fights with other eagles, and finally while I was looking for
lunch