A STORY ABOUT A DARNING-NEEDLE

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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 beat.’

‘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.

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