“Oh, very well.”
Harold scampered up the tree trunk to his nest and returned with four acorns stuffed in the pouches of his cheeks. At the toaster’s bidding Harold and Marjorie cracked them open, and then Harold placed them carefully on the thin strips of metal that went up and down inside the toaster’s slots. As these strips were meant to accommodate large slices of bread, it had to be very careful lest the tiny round acorns should roll off as it lowered them into itself. When this was done it turned on its coils and commenced toasting them. When the acorns were starting to turn a crispy brown, the toaster lifted them up gently as far as it could, turned off its coils, and (when it judged the squirrels would not burn their paws by reaching in) bade them take out the roasted nuts and taste them.
“Delicious!” Marjorie declared.
“Exquisite!” Harold agreed.
As soon as the squirrels had eaten the first four acorns, they returned to their nest for more, and when those were gone still more, and then again some more after that. Marjorie, especially, was insatiable. She urged the toaster to remain in the forest as their guest. It could stay in their own nest, where it would always be dry and cozy, and she would introduce it to all their friends.
“I’d love to be able to accept,” said the toaster, from a sense not only of politeness but of deep obligation as well, “but it really isn’t possible. Once I’ve roasted your nuts for you—would you like some more?—we must be on our way to the city where our master lives.”
While the toaster roasted some more acorns, the radio explained to the squirrels the important reason for their journey. It also demonstrated its own capacities as a utensil and persuaded the other appliances to do the same. The poor Hoover was scarcely able to function from having been clogged with mud, and the squirrels, in any case, could not see the point of sweeping up dirt from one place and putting it somewhere else. Nor did the lamp’s beams or the radio’s music excite their admiration. However, they were both very taken with the electric blanket, which, damp as it was, had plugged itself into the battery strapped under the office chair and was glowing warmly. Marjorie renewed her invitation to the toaster and extended it to the blanket as well. “Until,” she explained, “you’re quite well again.”
“That’s very kind,” said the blanket, “and of course I’m so grateful for all you’ve done. But we must be on our way. Truly.”
Marjorie sighed resignedly. “At least,” she said, “keep your tail tucked into that black thing that makes the furry part of you so delightfully hot. Until you have to leave. The warmth is so pleasant. Isn’t it, my dear?”
“Oh, yes,” said Harold, who was busy shelling acorns. “Most agreeable.”
The Hoover ventured a mild protest, for it feared that with both the toaster and the blanket working so hard the battery would be worn down needlessly. But really what else could they do but comply with the squirrels’ request? Besides, quite apart from their debt of gratitude, it felt so good to be useful again! The toaster would have gone on gladly roasting acorns all morning and all afternoon, and the squirrels seemed of much the same disposition.
“It’s strange,” said Harold complacently, while he stroked the toaster’s side (now sadly streaked with raindrop patterns like the outside of a window), “it’s more than strange that you should maintain you have no sex, when it’s very clear to me that you’re male.” He studied his own face in the mottled chromium. “You have a man’s whiskers and a man’s front teeth.”
“Nonsense, darling,” said his wife, who was lying on the other side of the toaster. “Now that I look carefully, I can see her whiskers are most definitely a woman’s whiskers and teeth as well.”
“I won’t argue, my love, about anything so patently obvious as whether or not a man is a man, for it’s evident that he is!”
It suddenly dawned on the toaster how the squirrels—and the daisy the day before—had come by their confusions. They were seeing themselves in his sides! Living in the wild as they did, where there are no bathroom mirrors, they were unacquainted with the principle of reflectivity. It considered trying to explain their error to them, but what would be the use? They would only go away with hurt feelings. You can’t always expect people, or squirrels, to be rational. Appliances, yes—appliances have to be rational, because they’re built that way.
To Harold the toaster explained, under seal of strictest secrecy, that it was indeed, just as he had supposed, a man; and to Marjorie it confided, under a similar pact of trust, that it was a woman. It hoped they were both true to their promises. If not, their argument would be fated to continue for a long, long while.
With its coils turned to HIGH, the blanket was soon quite dry, and so, after a final round of roast acorns, the appliances said good-bye to Harold and Marjorie and continued on their way.
And what a long and weary way it was! The forest stretched on seemingly forever with the most monotonous predictability, each tree just like the next—trunk, branches, leaves; trunk, branches, leaves. Of course a tree would have taken a different view of the matter. We all tend to see the way others are alike and how we differ, and it’s probably just as well we do, since that prevents a great deal of confusion. But perhaps we should remind ourselves from time to time that ours is a very partial view, and that the world is full of a great deal more variety than we ever manage to take in. At this stage of their journey, however, the appliances had lost sight of this important truth, and they were very bored and impatient, in addition simply to being worn to a frazzle. Rust spots had begun to develop alarmingly on the unchromed bottom of the toaster and inside it as well. The stiffness that the vacuum and lamp complained of each morning on rising no longer vanished with a bit of exercise but persisted through the day. As for the blanket, it was almost in tatters, poor thing. Alone of the appliances, the radio seemed not to have suffered damage from the demands of the trip.
The toaster began to worry that when they did at last arrive at the master’s apartment they would be in such raggle-taggle condition that he would have no further use for them. They’d be put on the scrap heap, and all their efforts to reach him would have been in vain! What a dreadful reward for so much loyalty and devotion! But it is a rare human being who will be swayed by considerations of the heart in his dealings with appliances, and the master, as the toaster well knew, was not notable for his tender conscience. Its own predecessor at the cottage had still been quite serviceable when it had been sent to the dump, its only faults having been that its chrome had been worn away in patches and that its sense of timing was sometimes erratic. In its youth the toaster had thought these sufficient grounds for the older appliance’s replacement, but now…
Now it was better not to think about such matters. Better simply to pursue one’s duty wherever it led, along the path through the forest.
Until, at the bank of a wide river, that path finally came to an end.
They were all, at first sight of that broad impassable expanse of water, utterly cast-down and despairing, none more so than the Hoover, which became almost incoherent in its distress. “No!” it roared aloud. “I refuse! Never! Oh! Stop, turn me off, empty my bag, leave me alone, go away!” It began to choke and sputter, and then ran over its own cord and started chewing on it. Only the toaster had enough presence of mind to wrest the cord from the vacuum’s powerful suction grip. Then, to calm it down, it led the Hoover back and forth across the grassy bank of the river in regular, carpet-sweeping swathes.
At last these habitual motions brought the Hoover round to a more reasonable frame of mind, and it was able to account for its extraordinary alarm. It was not only the sight of this new obstacle that had distressed it so, but, as well, its certainty that the battery was now too rundown for them to be able to return to the cottage by its power. They could not go forward and they could not turn back. They were marooned! Marooned in the middle of the forest, and soon it would be fall and they would have no shelter from the inclemencies of the autumn weather, and then it would be winter and they’d be buried in the snow. Their metal parts would corrode. The Hoover’s rubber belt would crack. They would be powerless to resist the forces that would slowly but surely debilitate and destroy them, and in only a few months—or even weeks—they would all be unable to work.