Page:Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales (1888).djvu/258

 still held it fast, and the cook dropped some sealing-wax on the needle, and fastened her handkerchief with it in front.

“So now I am a breast-pin,” said the darning-needle; “I knew very well I should come to honor some day: merit is sure to rise;” and she laughed, quietly to herself, for of course no one ever saw a darning-needle laugh. And there she sat as proudly as if she were in a state coach, and looked all around her. “May I be allowed to ask if you are made of gold?” she inquired of her neighbor, a pin; “you have a very pretty appearance, and a curious head, although you are rather small. You must take pains to grow, for it is not every one who has sealing-wax dropped upon him;” and as she spoke, the darning-needle drew herself up so proudly that she fell out of the handkerchief right into the sink, which the cook was cleaning. “Now I am going on a journey,” said the needle, as she floated away with the dirty water, “I do hope I shall not be lost.” But she really was lost in a gutter. “I am too fine for this world,” said the darning-needle, as she lay in the gutter; “but I know who I am, and that is always some comfort.” So the darning-needle kept up her proud behavior, and did not lose her good humor. Then there floated over her all sorts of things,—chips and straws, and pieces of old newspaper. “See how they sail,” said the darning-needle; “they do not know what is under them. I am here, and here I shall stick. See, there goes a chip, thinking of nothing in the world but himself—only a chip. There’s a straw going by now; how he turns and twists about! Don’t be thinking too much of yourself, or you may chance to run against a stone. There swims a piece of newspaper; what is written upon it has been forgotten long ago, and yet it gives itself airs. I sit here patiently and quietly. I know who I am, so I shall not move.”

One day something lying close to the darning-needle glittered so splendidly that she thought it was a diamond; yet it was only a piece of broken bottle. The darning-needle spoke to it, because it sparkled, and represented herself as a breast-pin. “I suppose you are really a diamond?” she said.

“Why yes, something of the kind,” he replied; and so each believed the other to be very valuable, and then they began to talk about the world, and the conceited people in it.

“I have been in a lady’s work-box,” said the darning-needle, “and this lady was the cook. She had on each hand five fingers, and anything so conceited as these five fingers I have never seen; and yet they were only employed to take me out of the box and to put me back again.”

“Were they not high-born?”

“High-born!” said the darning-needle, “no indeed, but so haughty. They were five brothers, all born fingers; they kept very proudly together, though they were of different lengths. The one who stood first in the rank was named the thumb, he was short and thick, and had only one joint in his back, and could therefore make but one bow; but he said that if he were cut off from a man’s hand, that man would be unfit for a soldier. Sweet-tooth, his neighbor, dipped himself into sweet or sour, pointed