THE SHEPHERDESS AND THE CHIMNEY SWEEP
HAVE YOU EVER SEEN a really old wooden cabinet,
the kind that’s dark with age and carved with scrolls and leaves?
One just like this was standing in the living room. It had been
inherited from Great Grandmother and carved with roses and tulips
from top to bottom. It had the strangest flourishes, and in between
them little stag heads with many antlers stuck out, but in the
middle of the cabinet an entire man was carved. He was really funny
to look at, and he made a funny face, but you couldn’t call it a
laugh. He had goat’s legs, small horns on his forehead, and a long
beard. The children in the house called him
GeneralBillyGoatlegs-OverandUnderWarSergeantCommander
because it was a hard name to say, and not many people have that
title. To have carved him must have been hard too, but there he was
now! He was always looking at the table under the mirror because
there was a lovely little porcelain shepherdess standing there. Her
shoes were gilded, and her dress was beautifully held up with a red
rose. She had a golden hat and a shepherd’s crook. She was
beautiful. Right beside her stood a little chimney sweep, black as
coal, but made of porcelain too. He was as clean and attractive as
anyone; the fact that he was a chimney sweep was just how he was
cast, of course. The porcelain manufacturer could just as easily
have cast him as a prince—it wouldn’t have made any
difference.
He stood there so nicely with his ladder and with a
face as white and red as a girl, and that was actually a mistake
because it could have been a little black. He stood quite close to
the shepherdess. They had both been positioned where they were, and
because of their positions they had gotten engaged. They were well
suited for each other: they were young, they were of the same kind
of porcelain, and they were both equally fragile.
Close by stood yet another figure who was three
times as large. He was an old bobble-head Chinaman. He was also
made of porcelain and said that he was the little shepherdess’
grandfather, but although he couldn’t prove it, he insisted that he
had power over her, and therefore he had nodded his assent to
GeneralBillyGoatlegs-OverandUnderWarSergeantCommander, when
the general had proposed to the little shepherdess.
“There’s a husband for you!” said the old Chinaman.
“A husband who I think is made of mahogany. He will make you Mrs.
GeneralBillyGoatlegs-OverandUnderWarSergeantCommander. He
has a whole cabinet full of silver, not to mention what he has
hidden away.”
“I don’t want to go into that dark cabinet!” said
the little shepherdess. “I’ve heard that he has eleven porcelain
wives in there!”
“Then you can be the twelfth!” said the Chinaman.
“Tonight, as soon as the old cabinet creaks, there’ll be a wedding,
as sure as I’m a Chinaman.” And then he nodded off’ to sleep.
But the little shepherdess cried and looked at her
dearest sweetheart, the porcelain chimney sweep.
“I believe I’ll ask you,” she said, “to go with me
out into the wide world, for we can’t stay here.”
“I’ll do whatever you want,” said the little
chimney sweep. “Let’s go right now. I am sure I can support you by
my trade.”
“If only we were safely off the table,” she said.
“I won’t be happy until we’re out in the wide world.”
And he consoled her and showed her where to place
her little foot in the carved corners and the gilded foliage of the
table leg. He used his ladder too, and they made it down to the
floor. But when they looked over at the old cabinet, what a
commotion they saw! All the carved stags stuck their heads further
out, raised their antlers, and twisted their heads.
GeneralBillyGoatlegs-OverandUnderWarSergeantCommander leaped
into the air and shouted to the old Chinaman, “They’re running
away! They’re running away!”
That scared them, and they jumped quickly up into
the drawer of the window niche.
Three or four incomplete decks of cards were in
there, as well as a little toy theater that was put together as
well as possible. There was a play going on, and all the
queens—diamonds, hearts, clubs, and spades—sat in the front row and
fanned themselves with their tulips. Behind them stood all the
jacks and used their heads both at the top and the bottom, the way
cards do. The play was about two star crossed lovers, and the
shepherdess cried about that, because it was like her own
story.
“I can’t stand it!” she said, “I have to get out of
this drawer!” But when they reached the floor and looked up at the
table, they saw that the old Chinaman had woken up and was rocking
his entire body back and forth because his body was one big clump,
of course.
“Here comes the old Chinaman!” screamed the little
shepherdess, and she fell right down on her porcelain knees; that’s
how miserable she was.
“I’ve got an idea,” said the chimney sweep. “Let’s
crawl into that big potpourri jar in the corner. We can lie there
on the roses and lavender and throw salt in his eyes when he
comes.”
“That won’t work,” she said. “Besides I know that
the old Chinaman and the potpourri jar were engaged at one time,
and there’s always a little goodwill left over when you’ve been in
such a relationship. No, we have no choice but to go out into the
wide world.”
“Do you really have the courage to go out into the
wide world with me?” asked the chimney sweep. “Have you thought
about how big it is, and that we can never come back here
again?”
“Yes I have,” she said.
And the chimney sweep looked steadily at her, and
then he said, “My way goes through the chimney. Do you really have
the courage to crawl with me through the stove and through the flue
and pipes? We’ll come into the chimney, and I know my way around
there! We’ll climb so high that they won’t be able to reach us, and
at the very top there’s a hole out to the wide world.”
And he led her over to the door of the wood-burning
stove.
“It looks awfully dark in there,” she said, but she
went with him, both through the flue and the pipes, where it was
pitch black night.
“Now we’re in the chimney,” he said “And look! Look
up there—the most beautiful star is shining!”
“Do you really have the courage to go out
into the wide world with me?” asked the chimney sweep.
And it was a real star in the sky that shone right
down to them, as if it wanted to show them the way. And they
crawled and they crept—such a dreadful distance. Up, high up. But
he hoisted and helped her and made it easier. He held her and
showed her the best places to set her little porcelain feet, and
they reached the top of the chimney and sat down on the edge
because they were very tired and no wonder.
The sky with all its stars was above them and all
the town roofs below. They looked all around, way out into the
world. The poor shepherdess had not thought it would be like this.
She put her little head on her chimney sweep’s shoulder and cried
and cried until the gold washed off her belt.
“It’s just too much!” she said. “I can’t stand it!
The world is much too big! I wish I were back on the little table
under the mirror. I’ll never be happy until I’m back there again.
Now I’ve followed you out into the wide world—you can certainly
follow me home again, if you care about me at all!”
And the chimney sweep spoke reasonably to her,
talked about old Chinamen and about the
GeneralBillyGoatlegs-OverandUnderWarSergeantCommander, but
she sobbed so terribly and kissed her little chimney sweep so he
couldn’t do other than yield to her, even though he thought it was
a mistake.
So then they crawled with great difficulty back
down the chimney, and they crept through the damper and the pipe.
It wasn’t at all pleasant. And then they were standing in the dark
stove. They stood listening behind the door to hear what was
happening in the living room. It was completely quiet. They peeked
out—Oh! There in the middle of the floor lay the old Chinaman. He
had fallen off the table when he had tried to chase them. He was
broken into three pieces. His whole back had fallen off in one
clump, while his head had rolled into a comer.
GeneralBillyGoatlegs-OverandUnderWarSergeantCommander was
standing where he always did, thinking things over.
“This is terrible!” said the little shepherdess.
“Old grandfather is broken to pieces, and it’s our fault! I’ll
never survive this!” and she wrung her tiny little hands.
“He can be mended,” said the chimney sweep. “He can
certainly be mended. Don’t get so excited! After they glue his back
and give him a good rivet in his neck, he’ll be as good as new and
as unpleasant to us as ever.”
“Do you think so?” she said, and then they crept up
on the table again where they had stood before.
“So that’s as far as we got,” said the chimney
sweep. “We could have saved ourselves all that trouble!”
“If only old grandfather were mended!” said the
shepherdess. “Will it be very expensive?”
And he was mended. The family had his back glued,
and he got a good rivet in his neck. He was as good as new, but he
couldn’t nod any longer.
“You have gotten stuck-up since you were smashed,”
said GeneralBillyGoatlegs-OverandUnderWarSergeantCommander.
“But I don’t think that is anything to be so proud of. Shall I have
her or not?”
And the chimney sweep and the little shepherdess
looked so pleadingly at the old Chinaman. They were so afraid he
was going to nod, but he couldn’t, and it was unpleasant for him to
tell a stranger that he always had a rivet in his neck. So the
porcelain couple remained together. They blessed grandfather’s
rivet and loved each other until they broke apart.