The Crow

crow in

it.

‘That is quite a meal!’ said the Princess; ‘but where shall we get the

soup from?’

‘I’ve got that in my pocket!’ said Blockhead-Hans. ‘I have so much

that I can quite well throw some away!’ and he poured some mud out of

his pocket.

‘I like you!’ said the Princess. ‘You can answer, and you can speak,

and I will marry you; but do you know that every word which we are

saying and have said has been taken down and will be in the paper

to-morrow? By each window do you see there are standing three

reporters and an old editor, and this old editor is the worst, for he

doesn’t understand anything!’ but she only said this to tease

Blockhead-Hans. And the reporters giggled, and each dropped a blot of

ink on the floor.

‘Ah! are those the great people?’ said Blockhead-Hans. ‘Then I will

give the editor the best!’ So saying, he turned his pockets inside

out, and threw the mud right in his face.

‘That was neatly done!’ said the Princess. ‘I couldn’t have done it;

but I will soon learn how to!’

Blockhead-Hans became King, got a wife and a crown, and sat on the

throne; and this we have still damp from the newspaper of the editor

and the reporters—and they are not to be believed for a moment.

A STORY ABOUT A DARNING-NEEDLE

There was once a Darning-needle who thought herself so fine that she

believed she was an embroidery-needle. ‘Take great care to hold me

tight!’ said the Darning-needle to the Fingers who were holding her.

‘Don’t let me fall! If I once fall on the ground I shall never be

found again, I am so fine!’

‘It is all right!’ said the Fingers, seizing her round the waist.

‘Look, I am coming with my train!’ said the Darning-needle as she drew

a long thread after her; but there was no knot at the end of the

thread.

The Fingers were using the needle on the cook’s shoe. The upper

leather was unstitched and had to be sewn together.

‘This is common work!’ said the Darning-needle. ‘I shall never get

through it. I am breaking! I am breaking!’ And in fact she did break.

‘Didn’t I tell you so!’ said the Darning-needle. ‘I am too fine!’

‘Now she is good for nothing!’ said the Fingers; but they had to hold

her tight while the cook dropped some sealing-wax on the needle and

stuck it in the front of her dress.

‘Now I am a breast-pin!’ said the Darning-needle. ‘I always knew I

should be promoted. When one is something, one will become something!’

And she laughed to herself; you can never see when a Darning-needle is

laughing. Then she sat up as proudly as if she were in a State coach,

and looked all round her.

‘May I be allowed to ask if you are gold?’ she said to her neighbour,

the Pin. ‘You have a very nice appearance, and a peculiar head; but it

is too small! You must take pains to make it grow, for it is not

everyone who has a head of sealing-wax.’ And so saying the

Darning-needle raised herself up so proudly that she fell out of the

dress, right into the sink which the cook was rinsing out.

‘Now I am off on my travels!’ said the Darning-needle. ‘I do hope I

sha’n’t get lost!’ She did indeed get lost.

‘I am too fine for this world!’ said she as she lay in the gutter;

‘but I know who I am, and that is always a little satisfaction!’

And the Darning-needle kept her proud bearing and did not lose her

good-temper.

All kinds of things swam over her—shavings, bits of straw, and scraps

of old newspapers.

‘Just look how they sail along!’ said the Darning-needle. ‘They don’t

know what is underneath them! Here I am sticking fast! There goes a

shaving thinking of nothing in the world but of itself, a mere chip!

There goes a straw—well, how it does twist and twirl, to be sure!

Don’t think so much about yourself, or you will be knocked against a

stone. There floats a bit of newspaper. What is written on it is long

ago forgotten, and yet how proud it is! I am sitting patient and

quiet. I know who I am, and that is enough for me!’

One day something thick lay near her which glittered so brightly that

the Darning-needle thought it must be a diamond. But it was a bit of

bottle-glass, and because it sparkled the Darning-needle spoke to it,

and gave herself out as a breast-pin.

‘No doubt you are a diamond?’

‘Yes, something of that kind!’ And each believed that the other was

something very costly; and they both said how very proud the world

must be of them.

‘I have come from a lady’s work-box,’ said Darning-needle, ‘and this

lady was a cook; she had five fingers on each hand; anything so proud

as these fingers I have never seen! And yet they were only there to

take me out of the work-box and to put me back again!’

‘Were they of noble birth, then?’ asked the bit of bottle-glass.

‘Of noble birth!’ said the Darning-needle; ‘no indeed, but proud! They

were five brothers, all called “Fingers.” They held themselves proudly

one against the other, although they were of different sizes. The

outside one, the Thumb, was short and fat; he was outside the rank,

and had only one bend in his back, and could only make one bow; but he

said that if he were cut off from a man that he was no longer any use

as a soldier. Dip-into-everything, the second finger, dipped into

sweet things as well as sour things, pointed to the sun and the moon,

and guided the pen when they wrote. Longman, the third, looked at the

others over his shoulder. Goldband, the fourth, had a gold sash round

his waist; and little Playman did nothing at all, and was the more

proud. There was too much ostentation, and so I came away.’

‘And now we are sitting and shining here!’ said the bit of

bottle-glass.

At that moment more water came into the gutter; it streamed over the

edges and washed the bit of bottle-glass away.

‘Ah! now he has been promoted!’ said the Darning-needle. ‘I remain

here; I am too fine. But that is my pride, which is a sign of

respectability!’ And she sat there very proudly, thinking lofty

thoughts.

‘I really believe I must have been born a sunbeam, I am so fine! It

seems to me as if the sunbeams were always looking under the water for

me. Ah, I am so fine that my own mother cannot find me! If I had my

old eye which broke off, I believe I could weep; but I can’t—it is

not fine to weep!’

One day two street-urchins were playing and wading in the gutter,

picking up old nails, pennies, and such things. It was rather dirty

work, but it was a great delight to them.

‘Oh, oh!’ cried out one, as he pricked himself with the

Darning-needle; ‘he is a fine fellow though!’

‘I am not a fellow; I am a young lady!’ said the Darning-needle; but

no one heard. The sealing-wax had gone, and she had become quite

black; but black makes one look very slim, and so she thought she was

even finer than before.

‘Here comes an egg-shell sailing along!’ said the boys, and they stuck

the Darning-needle into the egg-shell.

‘The walls white and I black—what a pretty contrast it makes!’ said

the Darning-needle. ‘Now I can be seen to advantage! If only I am not

sea-sick! I should give myself up for lost!’

But she was not sea-sick, and did not give herself up.

‘It is a good thing to be steeled against sea-sickness; here one has

indeed an advantage over man! Now my qualms are over. The finer one is

the more one can bear.’

‘Crack!’ said the egg-shell as a wagon-wheel went over it.

‘Oh! how it presses!’ said the Darning-needle. ‘I shall indeed be

sea-sick now. I am breaking!’ But she did not break, although the

wagon-wheel went over her; she lay there at full length, and there she

may lie.

Spottiswoode & Co. Printers, New-street Square, London

Transcriber’s Notes:

Certain spelling and grammar of the period has been left unchanged for

authenticity. Errors in punctuation have been corrected without

comment.

1. page 132—corrected typo ‘Fairy-than-a-Fairy’ to ‘Fairer-than-a-Fairy’

2. page 133—same typo

3. page 279—corrected typo ‘pedal’ to ‘petal’

4. page 288—corrected typo ‘besides’ to ‘beside’

5. page 314—corrected typo ‘to’ to ‘too’

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