One day something shone so beautifully close by the darning needle, and she thought it was a diamond. Actually it was a glass shard from a broken bottle, and when the darning needle saw it shining she spoke to it and introduced herself as a brooch. “I presume you are a diamond?” “Well yes, I am something of the sort.” And they both believed that the other was very precious, and so they talked about how stuck up the world was.
“Well, I used to live in a box belonging to a young lady,” said the darning needle, “and that young lady was a cook. She had five fingers on each hand, but anything more conceited than those fingers I have never known in my life. And yet they only existed to hold me, take me out of the box, and put me back again!”
“Was there any brilliance to them?” asked the bottle shard.
“Brilliance!” said the darning needle, “Oh no, they were so stuck-up! They were five brothers, all five of the “Finger” family. They all stuck proudly together, although they were of different sizes. At the end of the row was Tom Thumb. He was short and fat, and walked outside the ranks and only had one joint in his back. He could only bow once, but he said that if he was cut out of the ranks then the whole person would be spoiled for military service. Next to him was Slick-pot. He gets into everything, both sweet and sour, and points at the sun and the moon. It was he who squeezed whenever they wrote something. Then there was Middleman, who looked over the heads of the others. Ring Finger had a golden ring around his tummy, and the little guy on the end didn’t do anything and was proud of it. Nothing but boasting and bragging all day long, so I went down the drain—washed up.”
“And now we’re sitting here sparkling,” said the bottle shard. Just then more water flushed through the gutter. It ran over the edges and took the bottle shard along.
“Well, he has advanced!” said the darning needle, “I remain here. I am too fine, but that is my pride and worthy of respect,” and she sat stiffly and continued thinking.
“I could almost believe that I’m born of a sunbeam, as fine as I am. It seems to me too that the sun is always searching me out under the water. Oh, I’m so fine that my own mother can’t find me! If I had my old eye, the one that broke, I think I would cry! But I wouldn’t do it anyway. Fine ladies don’t cry!”
One day some street urchins were digging around in the gutters, where they found old nails, coins, and things like that. It was messy, but they enjoyed it.
“Ouch,” said one. He had been pricked by the darning needle. “What kind of a fellow is this?”
“I’m not a fellow; I’m a young lady,” said the darning needle, but no one heard her. The sealing wax had worn off, and she had turned black. But since black makes you look thinner, she thought she was even finer than before.
“There comes an egg shell floating,” said the boys, and they stuck the darning needle into the shell.
“White walls and black myself,” said the darning needle. “That’s very becoming, and at least now I can be seen!—just so I don’t get seasick because then I would throw up or get the bends and break. But she didn’t get seasick, and she didn’t get the bends and break.
“A good defense against seasickness is having an iron stomach, like me, and also always remembering that you are a little bit more than human! I’m feeling better. The finer you are, the more you can stand.”
“Crunch!” said the eggshell. A wagon wheel rolled over it. “Oh, what pressure!” said the darning needle, “Now I’ll get seasick after all! I’ve got the bends! I’ve got the bends and I’m breaking!” But she didn’t break, even though a wagon wheel went over her. She was lying lengthwise—and there she can stay.
THE OLD HOUSE
UP THE STREET THERE was an old, old house. It was almost three hundred years old. You could read the year on the beam where it was carved, along with tulips and hop vines. There were whole verses spelled like in the old days, and over every window a grimacing face was carved in the beam. The upper story hung far out over the other one, and right under the roof was a lead gutter with a gargoyle on the end. Rain water was supposed to run out of its mouth, but it ran out of its stomach because there was a hole in the gutter.
All the other houses in the street were so new and neat looking, with wide windows and smooth walls. You could see that they didn’t want to have anything to do with the old house. They were probably thinking: “How long is that old eyesore going to stand here as an object of ridicule? The bay window sticks out so far that nobody can see from our windows what is going on in that direction. The stairs are as wide as for a castle, and as high as a church steeple. Why the iron railings look like the door to an old burial vault, and there are brass knobs! It’s totally tasteless!”
There were neat new houses right across the street too, and they thought the same as the others, but at one window sat a little boy with fresh, rosy cheeks and clear bright eyes. He certainly liked the old house best, both in sunshine and in moonlight. And when he looked over at the wall, where the plaster had come off, he could make out all kinds of odd pictures of how the street had looked before, with stairs, bay windows, and sharp gables. He could see soldiers with halberds and roof gutters that ran about as dragons and serpents. It was really a house to look at!
An old man lived there. He wore plush trousers, a coat with big brass buttons, and a wig that you could see was a real wig. Every morning an old fellow came by, and he cleaned up and ran errands. Otherwise, the old man in the plush trousers was all alone in the old house. Now and then he came to the window and looked out, and the little boy nodded to him, and the old man nodded back. In that way they became acquaintances and then friends, even though they had never talked to each other, but that didn’t matter.
The little boy heard his parents say, “That old man over there is well-off, but he is so awfully alone.”
The following Sunday the little boy wrapped something into a piece of paper, went down to the gate, and when the man who did errands came, the boy said to him, “Listen! Will you take this to the old man over there for me? I have two tin soldiers. This is one of them. He’s to have it because I know he’s so awfully alone.”
The old fellow looked pretty pleased, nodded, and took the tin soldier to the old house. Later a message came asking if the little boy would like to come over himself for a visit. He was allowed to do so by his parents, and so he went over to the old house.
The brass knobs on the iron railing were shining more brightly than usual. You would think that they had been polished in honor of the visit, and it seemed as if the carved trumpeters—because there were trumpeters among the tulips on the door—were blowing with all their might. Their cheeks looked fuller than usual. They were playing “Tra-ter-ah-tra! The little boy is coming, tra-ter-ah-tra!” and then the door opened. The hallway was full of portraits, knights in armor and women in silk gowns, and the armor rattled and the silk gowns rustled. There was a stairway that went up a long way and then down a little way again—and then you were on a balcony. It was
