Short Stories for Children

by Walter De la Mare

  Still, she toiled on, still sang over her work, and simply refused to be miserable. And however sick and hungry and anxious she might feel, she never let her grandmother see that she was. The old soul lay helpless and in pain on her bed, and had troubles enough of her own. So Griselda had nobody to share hers with; and instead of their getting better they got worse.

  And when – after a hot breathless night during which she had lain between waking and dreaming while the lightning flared at her window, and the thunder raved over the sea – when, next morning she came down very early to find that the hungry mice had stolen more than half of the handful of oatmeal she had left in the cupboard, and that her little crock of milk had turned sour, her heart all but failed her. She sat down on the doorstep and she began to cry.

  It was early in May; the flashing dark blue sea was tumbling among the rocks of the beach, its surf like snow. The sun blazed in the east, and all around her the trees in their new leaves were blossoming, and the birds singing, and the air was cool and fragrant with flowers after the rain.

  In a little while Griselda stopped crying – and very few tears had trickled down from her eyes – and with her chin propped on her hands, she sat staring out across the bright green grass, her eyes fixed vacantly on three butterflies that were chasing one another in the calm sweet air. This way, that way, they glided, fluttered, dipped and soared; then suddenly swooped up into the dazzling blue of the sky above the high broken wall and vanished from sight.

  Griselda sighed. It was as if they had been mocking her misery. And with that sigh, there was no more breath left in her body. So she had to take a much deeper breath to make up for it. After that she sighed no more – since she had suddenly become aware again that she was being watched. And this time she knew by what. Not twelve paces away, at the top of a flight of tumbledown stone steps that corkscrewed up to one of the Castle turrets, stood what seemed to be an old wizened pygmy hunched-up old man.

  He was of the height of a child of five; he had pointed ears, narrow shoulders, and a hump on his back. And he wore a coat made of a patchwork of moleskins. He stood there – as stock-still as the stones themselves – his bright colourless eyes under his moleskin cap fixed on her, as if Griselda was as outlandish an object to him as he was to Griselda.

  She shut her own for a moment, supposing he might have come out of her fancy; then looked again. But already, his crooked staff in his hand, this dwarf had come rapidly shuffling along over the turf towards her. And yet again he stayed – a few paces away. Then, fixing his small bright gaze on her face, he asked her in a shrill, cracked, rusty voice why she was crying. In spite of their lightness, his eyes were piercingly sharp in his dried-up face. And Griselda, as she watched him, marvelled how any living creature could look so old.

  Gnarled, wind-shorn trees – hawthorn and scrub oak – grew here and there in the moorland above the sea, and had stood there for centuries among the yellow gorse and sea-pinks. He looked older even than these. She told him she had nothing to cry about, except only that the mice had been at her oatmeal, the milk had turned sour, and she didn’t know where to turn next. He asked her what she had to do, and she told him that too.

  At this he crinkled up his pin-sharp eyes, as if he were thinking, and glanced back at the turret from which he had come. Then, as if he had made up his mind, he shuffled a step or two nearer and asked Griselda what wages she would pay him if he worked for her for nine days. ‘For three days, and three days, and three days,’ he said, ‘and that’s all. How much?’

  Griselda all but laughed out loud at this. She told the dwarf that far from being able to pay anyone to work for her, there wasn’t a farthing in the house – and not even food enough to offer him a taste of breakfast. ‘Unless,’ she said, ‘you would care for a cold potato. There’s one or two of them left over from supper.’

  ‘Ay, nay, nay,’ said the dwarf. ‘I won’t work without wages, and I can get my own food. But hark now: if you’ll promise to give me a penny a day for nine days, I will work here for you from dawn to dark. Then you yourself will be able to be off to the farms and the fields. But it must be a penny a day and no less; it must be paid every evening at sunset before I go to my own parts again; and the old woman up there must never see me, and shall hardly know that I have come.’

  Griselda sat looking at him – as softly and easily as she could; but she had never in all her days seen any human being like this before. Though his face was wizened and cockled up like a winter apple, yet it seemed as if he could never have been any different. He looked as old as the stones around him and yet no older than the snapdragons that grew in them. To meet his eyes was like peering through a rusty keyhole into a long empty room. She expected at any instant he would vanish away, or be changed into something utterly different – a flowering thistle or a heap of stones!

  Long before this very morning, indeed, Griselda had often caught sight of what looked like living shapes and creatures – on the moorland or the beach – which, when she had looked again, were clean gone; or, when she had come close, proved to be only a furze-bush, or a rock jutting out of the turf, or a scangle of sheep’s wool caught on a thorn. This is the way of these strangers. While then she was not in the least afraid of the dwarf, she felt uneasy and bewildered in his company.

  But she continued to smile at him, and answered that though she could not promise to pay him a penny until she had a penny to pay, she would do her best to earn some. Now nothing was left. And she had already made up her mind to be off at once to a farm along the sea-cliffs, where she would be almost sure to get work. If the dwarf would wait but one day, she told him, she would ask the farmer to pay her her wages before she came home again. ‘Then I could give you the penny,’ she said.

  Old Moleskins continued to blink at her. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘be off then now. And be back before sunset.’

  But first Griselda made her grandmother a bowl of water-porridge, using up for it the last pinch of meal she had in the house. This she carried up to the old woman, with a sprig of apple blossom in a gallipot to put beside it and make it taste better. Since she had so promised him, and felt sure he meant no harm, she said nothing to her grandmother about the dwarf. She tidied the room, tucked in the bedclothes, gave the old woman some water to wash in, beat up her pillow, pinned a shawl over her shoulders, and, having made her as comfortable as she could manage, left her to herself, promising to be home again as soon as she could.

  ‘And be sure, Grannie,’ she said, ‘whatever happens, not to stir from your bed.’

  By good fortune, the farmer’s wife whom she went off to see along the sea-cliffs was making butter that morning. The farmer knew Griselda well, and when she had finished helping his wife and the dairymaid with the churning, he not only paid her two pennies for her pains, but a third, ‘For the sake,’ as he said, ‘of your goldilocks, my dear; and they’re worth a king’s ransom!… What say you, Si?’ he called to his son, who had just come in with the calves. Simon, his face all red, and he was a good deal uglier (though pleasant in face) than his father, glanced up at Griselda, but the gold must have dazzled his eyes, for he turned away and said nothing.

  At this moment the farmer’s wife came bustling out into the yard again. She had brought Griselda not only a pitcher of new milk and a couple of hen’s eggs to take to her grandmother, but some lardy-cakes and a jar of honey for herself. So Griselda, feeling ten times happier than she had been for many a long day, hurried off home.

  Now there was a duck-pond under a willow on the way she took home, and there, remembering what the farmer had said, she paused, stooped over, and looked at herself in the muddy water. But the sky was of the brightest blue above her head; and there were so many smooth oily ripples on the surface of the water made by the ducks as they swam and preened and gossiped together that Griselda couldn’t see herself clearly, or be sure from its reflection even if her hair was still gold! She got up, laughed to herself, waved her hand to the ducks and hastened on.
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  When, carrying her pitcher, she had come in under the high snapdragon-tufted gateway of the Castle, and so home again, a marvel it was to see. The kitchen was as neat as a new pin. The table had been scoured; the fire-irons twinkled like silver; the crockery on the dresser looked as if it had been newly painted; a brown jar of wallflowers bloomed sweet on the sill, and even the brass pendulum of the cuckoo-clock, that hadn’t ticked for years, shone round as the sun at noonday, and was swinging away as if it meant to catch up before nightfall all the time it had ever lost.

  Beside the hearth, too, lay a pile of broken driftwood, a fire was merrily dancing in the grate, there was a fish cooking in the pan in the brick oven, the old iron kettle hung singing from its hook; and a great saucepan, brimful of peeled potatoes, sat in the hearth beneath it to keep it company. And not only this, for there lay on the table a dish of fresh-pulled salad – lettuces, radishes, and young sorrel and dandelion leaves. But of Old Moleskins, not a sign.

  Griselda herself was a good housewife, but in all her days she had never seen the kitchen look like this. It was as fresh as a daisy. And Griselda began to sing – to keep the kettle company. Having made a custard out of one of the eggs and the milk she had brought home with her, she climbed upstairs again to see her grandmother.

  ‘Well, Grannie,’ she said, ‘how are you now? I’ve been away and come back. I haven’t wasted a moment; but you must be nearly starving.’

  The old woman told her she had spent the morning between dozing and dreaming and looking from her bed out of the window at the sea. This she could do because immediately opposite her window was the broken opening of what had once been a window in the walls of the Castle. It was a kind of spy-hole into the world for the old woman.

  ‘And what else were you going to tell me, Grannie?’ said Griselda.

  The old woman spied about her from her pillow as if she were afraid she might be overheard. Then she warned Griselda that next time she went out she must make sure to latch the door. Some strange animal must have been prowling about in the house, she said. She had heard it not only under her open window, but even stirring about in the room below. ‘Though I must say,’ she added, ‘I had to listen pretty hard!’

  Griselda glanced up out of the lattice window and, since her head was a good deal higher than her grandmother’s pillow, she could see down into the green courtyard below. And there stood Old Moleskins, looking up at her.

  An hour or two afterwards, when the sun was dipping behind the green hills beyond the village, and Griselda sat alone, beside the fire, her sewing in her lap, she heard shuffling footsteps on the cobbles outside, and the dwarf appeared at the window. Griselda thanked him with all her heart for what he had done for her, and took out of her grandmother’s old leather purse one of the three pennies she had earned at the farm.

  The dwarf eyed it greedily, then, pointing with his thumb at an old pewter pot that stood on the chimneyshelf, told Griselda to put the penny in it and to keep it safe for him until he asked for it.

  ‘Nine days,’ he said, ‘I will work for you – three and three and three – and no more, for the same wages. And then you must pay me all you owe me. And I will come every evening to see it into the pot.’

  So Griselda tiptoed on the kitchen fender, put the penny in the pot, and shut down the lid. When she turned round again Old Moleskins was gone.

  Before she went to bed that night, she peeped out of the door. There was no colour left in the sky except the dark blue of night; but a slip of moon, as thin as an egg-shell, hung in the west above the hill, and would soon be following the sun beyond it. Griselda solemnly bowed to the moon seven times, and shook the old purse in her pocket.

  When she came down the next morning, the kitchen had been swept, a fire was dancing up the chimney, her mug and plate and spoon had been laid on the table, and a smoking bowl of milk-porridge was warming itself on the hearth. When Griselda took the porridge up to her grandmother, the old woman’s eyes nearly popped out of her head, for Griselda had been but a minute gone. She took a sup of the porridge, smacked her lips, tasted it again, and asked Griselda what she had put in it to flavour it. It was a taste she had never tasted before. And Griselda told the old woman it was a secret.

  That day the farmer gave Griselda some old gold-brown Cochin-China hens to pluck for market. ‘They’ve seen better days, but will do for the pot,’ he said. And having heard that her grandmother was better, he kept her working for him till late in the afternoon. So Griselda plucked and singed busily on, grieved for the old hens, but happy to think of her wages. Then once more the farmer paid her her twopence; and, once more, a penny over; this time not for the sake of her bright gold hair, but for her ‘glass-grey eyes’. So now there was fivepence in her purse, and as yet there had been no need, beyond last night’s penny for the dwarf, to spend any of them.

  When Griselda came home, not only was everything in the kitchen polished up brighter than ever, but a pot of broth was simmering on the hob, which, to judge by the savour of it, contained not only carrots and onions and pot-herbs but a young rabbit. Besides which, a strip of the garden had been freshly dug; three rows of brisk young cabbages had been planted, and, as Griselda guessed, two more each of broad beans and peas. Whatever the dwarf had set his hand to was a job well done.

  Sharp to his time – the sun had but that very moment dipped beneath the hills – he came to the kitchen door for his wages. Griselda smiled at him, thanked him, and took out a penny. He gazed at it earnestly; then at her. And he said, ‘Put that in the pot, too.’ So now there were two pennies in his pewter pot and four pennies in Griselda’s purse.

  And so the days went by. Her grandmother grew steadily better, and on the next Sunday – muffled up in a shawl like an old tortoiseshell cat – she sat up a little while beside her window. On most mornings Griselda had gone out to work at the farm or in the village; on one or two she had stayed in the house and sat with her grandmother to finish her sewing and mending or any other work she had found to do.

  While she was in the cottage she never saw the dwarf, though he might be hidden away in the garden. But still her grandmother talked of the strange stirrings and noises she heard when Griselda was away. ‘You’d have thought,’ the old woman said, ‘there was a whole litter of young pigs in the kitchen, and the old sow, too!’

  On the eighth day, the farmer not only gave Griselda her tuppence for her wages and another for the sake of ‘the dimple in her cheek’, but the third penny had a hole in it. ‘And that’s for luck,’ said the farmer. She went home rejoicing. And seeing no reason why she shouldn’t share her luck with the dwarf, she put the penny with the hole in it into the pewter pot when he came that evening. And as usual he said not a word. He merely watched Griselda’s face with his colourless eyes while she thanked him for what he had done, and then watched her put his penny into the pot. Then in an instant he was gone.

  ‘That maid Griselda, from the Castle yonder,’ said the farmer to his wife that night as, candlestick in hand, the two of them were going up to bed, ‘she seems to me as willing as she’s neat and pretty. And if she takes as good care of the pence as she seems to, my dear, there’s never a doubt, I warrant, but as she will take as good care of the pounds!’

  And he was right. Griselda had taken such good care of the pence that at this very moment she was sitting alone in the kitchen in the light of her solitary candle and slowly putting down on paper every penny that she had been paid and every penny that she had spent:

  Acounts

  receeved Spent

  from Farmer for wages 10 oatmeel 2

  prezants 5 bones for soop 2

  wages for Missus Jakes 2 shuger 2

  wages for piggs 1 hair ribon 1

  — wole 1

  18 doll 1

  money for Moalskins 8

  —

  17

  The doll had been a present for the cowman’s little daughter. And though Griselda had made many mistakes before she got her sum ri
ght, it was right now; and here was the penny over in her purse to prove it.

  The next evening, a little before sunset, Griselda sat waiting for the dwarf to come. Never had she felt so happy and light-hearted. It was the last of his nine days; she had all his nine pennies ready for him – one in her purse and eight in the pewter pot; the farmer had promised her as much work as she could manage; her old grandmother was nearly well again; the cupboard was no longer bare, and she was thankful beyond all words. It seemed as if her body could not possibly contain her happiness.

  The trees stood in the last sunshine of evening as though they had borrowed their green coats from Paradise; the paths were weeded; the stones had a fresh coat of whitewash; there was not a patch of soil without its plants or seedlings. From every clump of ivy on the old walk of the Castle a thrush seemed to be singing; and every one of them seemed to be singing louder than the rest.

  Her sewing idle in her lap, Griselda sat on the doorstep, drinking everything in with her clear grey eyes, and at the same time she was thinking too. Not only of Moleskins and of all he had done for her, but of the farmer’s son also, who had come part of the way home with her the evening before. And then she began to day-dream.

  But it seemed her spirit had been but a moment gone out of her body into this far-away when the tiny sound of stone knocking on stone recalled her to herself again, and there – in the very last beam of the setting sun – stood the dwarf on the cobbles of the garden path. He told Griselda that his nine days’ work for her was done, and that he had come for his wages.

  Griselda beckoned him into the kitchen, and there she whispered her thanks again and again for all his help and kindness. She took her last penny out of her purse and put it on the table, then tiptoeing, reached up to the chimney-shelf and lifted down the pewter pot. Even as she did so, her heart turned cold inside her. Not the faintest jingle sounded when she shook it. It seemed light as a feather. With trembling fingers she managed at last to lift the lid and look in. ‘Oh!’ she whispered. ‘Someone…’ A dark cloud came over her eyes. The pot was empty.