The Chairs In Council

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Title:     The Chairs In Council
Author: Edward Eggleston [More Titles by Eggleston]

It was a quiet autumn afternoon. I was stretched on a lounge, with a pile of newspapers for a pillow. I do not know that I succeeded in getting any information _into_ my head by putting newspapers _under_ it. But on this particular afternoon I was attacked by a disease of the eyes, or rather of the eyelids. They would droop. I don't know by what learned name the doctors call this disease, but, as I could not read with my eyes closing every second or two, I just tucked my newspapers away under my head and rested my eyelids awhile.

I remember that there was a hen cackling in the barn, and a big bumble-bee buzzing and bumbling around in a consequential way among the roses under the window, and I could hear the voices of the children in the front yard playing with their dishes.

I don't know how long I had lain thus. But I remember that the cackling hen and the bumbling bee and the laughing children seemed to get farther and farther away, the sounds becoming less and less distinct. All at once the sewing chair that sat alongside of me, with a pile of magazines on it, began to rock, and as it rocked it moved off from me. I felt surprised, and at first thought of taking hold of it, but my arm seemed so _tired_ that I couldn't move it. And the chair rocked itself across the floor, and through the door into the sitting-room. And as I looked after it, I saw my old library chair hobble into the sitting-room, also. Then came the well-cushioned easy chair, puffing and panting good naturedly, as it rolled smoothly along on castors. I was just wondering what all this meant, when the parlor door opened, and there marched in a procession of parlor chairs, behind which gathered the plainer cane-seat ones of the dining-room. Next came a solemn line of black, wooden kitchen chairs. Then I heard a commotion above, and the staid bedroom seats made a fearful racket as they came down the steps.

"Are we all in now?" said the easy chair, blandly.

A faint noise was heard on the steps, and presently in came an old arm chair that had belonged to my grandmother. It had lain in the garret covered with spider webs for years, and indeed it was quite infirm in the joints, and must have had a hard time getting down two flights of stairs.

I now tried to move, determined to go and see what was the matter with the furniture, but the _tired_ feeling crept all over me and I lay still.

"Well," said the easy chair, who seemed to be president, "we are ready for business."

There was a confused murmur, and the next I knew one of the damask satin parlor chairs was speaking in a very polished and dignified way about the grievances of parlor chairs in general.

"It's too bad," said he, "to be always shut up in a close room except when there's company. There are no better-looking chairs than we are. We belong to a superior class of beings, and it is trying to one's nerves to lead so secluded a life when one wants to be generally admired. These cane-seat chairs, and those low, black, wooden fellows----"

"I trust there will be no personalities," said the easy chair. "The kitchen chairs are wooden, but that is not their fault; and as to their being black, that's a mere matter of paint, a mere matter of paint;" and the easy chair shook his cushioned sides as if he thought this last remark a piece of exquisite pleasantry.

"I say," continued Damask Satin, Esq., "I say that these common-place fellows are constantly admitted to the society of the family, and we, genteel as we are, have to live secluded. But for that matter I should rather be shut up always than be forced into association with these common cane-seat and those low, vulgar, wooden----"

"Order!" said the easy chair; "I must call Mr. Satin to order."

"Why, sir," said one of the cane-seats, "the insolence of that parlor fellow is insufferable! He's good for nothing but show. Nobody likes to use him. He wasn't made for any useful purpose. Talk about a thing being trying to his nerves! Let him have the children make a steamboat of him as they do of me! Let him have some awkward fellow rack his joints by sitting on him and leaning back against the wall. Then let him talk about nerves! It's hard enough, sir, to have to be used in that fashion without being compelled to associate, as we have to, with those low, wooden fellows, and then have to listen to the abuse of that pampered, good-for-nothing dandy in damask satin, that----"

"I trust," said the easy chair, "that the debate will not proceed in this way. I am sorry that so much discontent is manifested. The life of a chair is certainly not altogether unpleasant; at least I have not found it so."

"Sir," said one of the kitchen chairs, "I know I am wooden, but I was made so; and I know I am black, but, as you observed awhile ago, that is a question of paint."

"A mere question of paint," said the easy chair again, evidently delighted to have his witticism quoted.

"But, sir," continued the wooden chair, "when I was new I was not to be laughed at. If I was black, I was varnished brightly and glistened beautifully when the chair-maker set me and my brothers, here, out in a row in the sun. And then, sir, we each had a large yellow rose on our foreheads, and I assure you we were beautiful in our own way, sir, in our way. But, sir, you talk about the life of a chair not being altogether unpleasant. Perhaps not, for an easy chair, so nicely cushioned as you are. Every time our owner sits down in your arms she says, 'Well, this is just the most comfortable seat in the world!' But nobody ever praises me. If a neighbor drops in and takes me or one of my fellows, the mistress just says, 'Don't take that uncomfortable chair,' and immediately offers one of these cane-seats. That's the way we're insulted, sir; and when anybody wants a chair to stand on, the mistress says, 'Take a wooden one.' Just see the marks of Johnny's boot nails on me now, and that scratch, caused by Bridget's using me and one of my fellows to put the washtub on!"

The black chair subsided with the look of an injured individual, and the high chair commenced to complain, but was interrupted by the sewing chair, who thought that "females had some rights." She was silenced, however, by my grandmother's old chair, who leaned on the table while she spoke. The old lady complained of the neglect of old age by the younger generation.

Just at this moment, as the meeting was getting into a hubbub, and bade fair to dissolve as unceremoniously as some ward political meetings do, my staid old library chair began to talk, looking very learned at the same time.

"Mr. President," said he, "I regret the turn affairs have taken. The race of chairs is a very honorable one. A chair is an insignia of honor, as I might prove by many eminent authorities. When human beings wish to call some one to the presidency of a meeting, they move that the Hon. Jonathan Wire-worker be called to _the chair_. And then they call him the _chair_-man. Now it is an honor to be a chair, whether it be a parlor chair, bottomed with damask satin, or a hair-seat chair, or a cane-seat chair, a high chair, or a baby's rocking chair, or a superannuated chair in a garret, or an easy chair, or a wooden-bottomed chair, or a learned library chair, like myself. I tell you, sir, it is an honor to be a chair. I am proud of the fact that I am a chair. [Cries of hear! hear!!]

"And now, sir, we are each adapted to our station. What kind of a kitchen chair would one of these high-headed, damask satin parlor gentlemen make? How would they stand washtubs and boot heels? And what sort of a looking parlor chair would my friend, Mr. Wooden Bottom, be? Even if he were new, and covered with black varnish, and had a yellow rose on his forehead, how would he look among the pictures, and on the nice parlor carpet?

"Now let us each stick to our several stations, and not degrade ourselves by learning the evil and discontented habits of human beings, each one of whom thinks his lot the hardest."

I felt a little provoked at this last remark, and was going to get up and dissolve the meeting, but the library chair said something about what a glorious thing it was to be a chair, and then they all applauded, damask satins, wooden bottoms, and all; and then everything was in a whirl, and I rubbed my eyes, and the sewing chair sat just as it was at first, with the pile of magazines on it, and I peeped into the parlor, and the damask satins were in their places as stiff as ever. How they all got back in their places so quickly I couldn't tell. I went into the dining-room and found Allegra perched on the high chair, lashing two of the cane-seat ones that were thrown down for horses.

And I rubbed my eyes again,--I must have slept.

[The end]
Edward Eggleston's short story: The Chairs In Council

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