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’