[Editor: This short story for children, by Eva Oakley, was published in Real Australian Fairy Stories (1945).]
The Cushion and the Chair
One day the Cushion said to the Chair, just after they had all been nicely arranged around the room, “Oh! I’m tired of being sat upon, aren’t you? Every day I am bounced up and down, and then punched all soft, and then, each night, somebody sits on me; it is the same day after day, night after night.”
“Yes!” said the Chair, “that is all quite true; but think how I am, sometimes dragged here and there, so that the floor may be thoroughly swept, or that somebody may sit at the table, or near the fire; but I am glad, because, you see, it means that I am very useful and comforting to the one who wishes to sit on me, and then, when all the people have gone off to bed, I, too, can rest contentedly, because I have proved that I am not a mere ornament which could be done without, but something useful, and loved by the one who comes along, tired after the day’s work, and sits on me.”
You see, the Chair had often heard someone say, “What a lovely, comfy Chair.” The Cushion had not thought of all this before, but she said to the Chair, “Yes! there is, indeed, something in what you say; you are quite right, for you must feel much better yourself when you realise you have done so much for others.”
So then she settled back on the Chair, and was never heard to complain again.
Source:
Eva Oakley, Real Australian Fairy Stories, Melbourne: Austral Printing & Publishing Company, [1945], p. 8
[Editor: The original text has been separated into paragraphs.]
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