Short Stories for Children

by Walter De la Mare

  For Aunt Sarah was one of the modestest of poets and had refused, though the silversmith suggested it, to have her poem engraved round the mug’s margin.

  Apart from all this – for Mr Such had no Infants’ Department – his sisters-in-law bestowed on their minute nephew a triple-complete outfit of woollen mits, woollen boots, woollen over-breeches, bibs, caps, veils and shawls. If Sam had been a prince his christening gifts might have been more expensive, but they could not have been of purer wool.

  Sam’s Aunt Lollie, on his father’s side, brought him her little present too – a long large German meerschaum pipe beautifully painted with woodland scenes and peasants dancing. It was a peculiar gift for one so young and tender, but, then, Aunt Lollie was a little peculiar herself, and stood up drinking Sam’s health a long time after the others had all sat down, even though she had only been given lemonade in her glass.

  With so many aunts to consider, the question of who should be godmother had been a difficult one for Sam’s father and mother. To prevent the faintest tinge of jealousy they had at last chosen a Miss Catten, who wore the most charming little gold belfries in her ears for earrings. She was not so much as even a relative of the family’s by marriage, only a very old friend. Sam’s godfathers were easier (for he had no uncles). One was Mr Hobble, Mr Such’s partner in the haberdashery business, the other Mr Slant, a neighbour in the wine trade. And Mr Slant’s christening present had been rather to the company in general than to little Sam in particular. It was six old cobwebby bottles of a rich crusted port. Nonetheless, and very much to the amusement of the company, Sam’s nurse insisted on just dipping her littlest finger into her glass and moistening Sam’s underlip with the wine. He lapped it up like a blind kitten over its first taste of cream; and yet – strangely enough – he became in afterlife a strict teetotaller.

  Silver linings, alas, are apt to be at the edge of the darkest of clouds. And the cloud at Sam’s christening was his great-aunt Keren-Happuch (so called because her father’s name had been Job). How Sam’s great-aunt Keren-Happuch came to hear of his christening or even of his coming into the world at all, is a mystery. She lived in a crooked old country cottage miles away from Mr Such’s shop and even well outside the town. She was lame and walked with two sticks. She hated the streets; she hated the people in them; she hated everything and everybody; and she had long since quarrelled with every relative she had.

  But just like the wicked fairy godmother in the old stories, she came stumping into the house long after the ceremony was over, and in such a rage and fury she did not so much as say thank you to Mr Hopper, who having spied her from the shop-window ran out (with George) to help her in at the door. And she sat in a corner of the parlour glowering out of her horn spectacles at the merry party, and eyeing little Sam in his nurse’s arms as if he were some horrid little wild animal.

  She refused cold pork, she refused veal pie, and she scowled at the lobster. She told poor Aunt Lollie to mind her own business, laughed like a hyaena at Mr Hobble’s christening speech, and then – at last – on leaving the house, turned back an instant on her two sticks in the porch and muttered a few words into Sam’s mother’s ear.

  There couldn’t have been more than half a dozen of them altogether; and yet on hearing them poor little Mrs Such turned a ghastly greenish white. ‘Oh no, oh no,’ she cried; sat down on a hard mahogany chair in the hall; and burst into tears.

  Fortunately by this time only a few of the guests invited to the christening were still in the house. These gathered round her, some with smelling-salts, some with cold water and some with feathers, all of them fearing that she was just about to faint. But try as she might, she couldn’t. Her heart ceased to palpitate at last, and a little pink crept back into her cheek. But though she was still shaken and horrified, nothing would induce her to breathe even a whisper of what the cantankerous old woman had said. Not until she was alone with her husband did she manage to share her dreadful news with another human soul. ‘Oh, Samuel, Samuel,’ she cried, ‘how can I bear it? What will you say? How can I bear it? That wicked old woman says that our poor little Sam’s nose is made of wax.’

  ‘Of wax!’ cried her husband, ‘of wax!’ his face turning a deep mulberry red instead of ashen white. ‘The old collop, the old ragbag! For goodness’ sake, Matilda, pull yourself together. Don’t carry on like this! You are spoiling the whole day for me. Wax indeed! Why – why your own sister Sarah’s very last words to me were that the child has all the family features. You must be dreaming Matilda – or the – the – what did you say she actually said?’

  ‘She said,’ replied Mrs Such, ‘“I’ve looked and I’ve seen; I’ve been where I’ve been; though it grows where it grows – the brat has a wax nose.” Oh, Samuel, I feel I shall never recover from it.’

  The curious thing was that Mr Such had never up to that moment really examined his infant son’s nose. He had taken only a bird’s-eye view of its tiny face. Nor was he an expert in noses. He blew his own like a trumpet and had admired Matilda’s when she was a girl. But he was no nose knower, and when he stooped over his cradle and gazed down at Sam’s, he discovered first, that it was exceedingly minute; next, that it had no bridge to speak of; and last, that it was not a deep cherry-pink, as he had supposed it would be, but as colourless as a candle. Indeed, the tip of it that stuck up out of Sam’s face was scarcely larger than the seed of a bean.

  When, then, Sam’s mother turned her imploring round brown eyes on him and besought him, ‘Oh, Samuel, what do you think?’ Mr Such had turned as white as Sam’s own small sheets. He could only look away. He groaned inside him. ‘Think, Matilda,’ he blurted at last, ‘think! – I think it’s all stuff and nonsense! all bosh, Matilda. The old harridan! The collop! The trollop! The witch!’

  At this poor Mrs Such burst out crying. The more names Mr Such called her great-aunt Keren-Happuch, the more firmly she believed that what she had said was true. It looked true. Indeed, as if poor little Sam, seeing his father’s rage and his mother’s tears, had realized what was amiss, he began twisting and contorting his features as though he were trying to explore his own face. But his nose remained central and immovable. There was no doubting it, Mrs Such moaned to herself, it was wax. It was wax. With tears streaming down her face, she there and then made Mr Such swear and vow for ever and ever that he would never never mention this dreadful secret even to the doctor, even to the nurse – not to a living soul in the whole wide world. And he – poor Mr Such – to save her feelings, took out his large handkerchief, dried her eyes, and vowed his vow. It was a dreadful noment, but he did his best.

  This did not, however, prevent him at the first opportunity from asking the nurse one or two innocent round-about questions. ‘For his age, now, Nurse, he has remarkably blue eyes, Nurse, don’t you think? – blue blue, I mean,’ he said to her that evening after Sam’s bath.

  ‘Blue, sir! I never before see in a hinfant’s face what I should call such hazure eyes, sir – they remind me of Mr Gladstone’s, sir, if his portricks are anything to go by.’

  Mr Such recalled Mr Gladstone’s face with ease, for in politics he was an ardent Tory, and his next remark was in even fainter tones. ‘Ay, and he looks healthy, don’t he, Matilda?’

  Sam’s mother hid her face in her handkerchief; but the nurse replied with alacrity: ‘Healthy, sir, why bless his ’eart, the very bloom of it’s all hover of ’im.’

  ‘I have heard say,’ said Mr Such, thrusting his thumbs into the openings of his waistcoat, ‘that what you may call character in the human face comes foremost out in the nose – I’ve heard say, I mean.’

  ‘Oh, Samuel,’ moaned poor Matilda, ‘it’s just like asking for the Evil Eye.’

  ‘Why no, mum,’ said the nurse, ‘asking your pardon, mum. Truth’s truth, mum, all the world over. I’ve proved it on the face. And what I should say, sir, is that that there nose there is what you might call the finishing feature of the hangel’s ’ole face. Bless his heart! there’s c
haracter, if you like. My first ’usband had a nose the very twin of it, though he never lived, poor man, to make it good. That nose might have been carved out of a piece of hally-blaster, it might, sir, it’s so, as you might say, conspictious.’

  It seemed to Mr Such as if at this the very floor of his inside had fallen in. The rich colour on his round face faded to a dim purple as he led Matilda, lost to all knowledge of the world, in a tempest of sobs from the room.

  Now if only Sam’s mother had had a tinge more courage; if only Sam’s father had not been so easily led by his own far from wax-like nose, they might have been wiser parents; they might have treated Sam’s trouble with a little more simple common-sense.

  But no. Poor little Sam, from his very earliest days, grew up in the belief that there was something amiss with him; that he had been somehow set apart by ill-fortune from all other small creatures of his age. Far beyond the time during which most babies survey the world in perfect freedom, he wore a thick fleecy veil over his young face. Visitors were never allowed to look close at him and never even to see him in full daylight. Not even his aunts who of their generous natures continued to shower presents upon him at every opportunity – on his birthday, at Christmas and Michaelmas, on St Valentine’s, St Swithin’s, St George’s, St Patrick’s and Oak Apple days, and on any other day in between for which they could find the least excuse.

  By hook or by crook it was always towards evening when he was brought down to be inspected even by the doctor. And when the doctor asked for lamp or gaslight there were no matches to be found. Nor could his mother resist from just seeing if her great-aunt Keren-Happuch’s miserable visit had been anything more than a dream. Hardly an hour went by but betwixt finger and thumb she very very gently and cautiously stroked, pressed and pinched the tiny nose just in the hope of discovering for good and all whether it was not as other noses are. And on every occasion she became more and more convinced that there was no hope at all, that it was the same in substance and consistency as it had been the day before and the day before that and the day before that; that, in fact, it was of wax.

  The consequence was that even at the age of six this particular feature in Sam’s rather long and sallow face was the very first object you noticed when you glanced at him. And why not? – a stranger might enquire. The Duke of Marlborough had a famous nose; so had most of the Roman Emperors; so had Queen Elizabeth; so had Cyrano de Bergerac; so had Mr Gladstone (between his blue eyes); so had poor Long-Nose in the fairy tale. But then all these noses were real, all were human; all were their owner’s … Poor little Sam!

  Not that Sam’s actually resembled Master Long-Nose’s. It was in no sense a funny nose, a laughable nose. It stood out bravely from his face like the bows of a brig. It was not excessively long, or unpleasingly wide or broad, nor had it a bump in the middle, or a hump at the tip. It did not turn up, or down, or sideways, or wag at all. Even though it was a trifle over-prominent, it was a fine nose, for his mother had caressed it every day with the gentlest of maternal fingers. Such a nose indeed might have been the pride of any human being, boy or man. Whatsoever it was made of, it might in Sam’s later years have become the world’s admiration, if only his parents had let well alone.

  But, alackaday, when Sam was seven, they came to the decision that the dreadful news could be kept from him no longer. They let his actual birthday go happily by. ‘It’s the last he will have, Samuel, with a nose that seems his own,’ Mrs Such had pleaded. And then, one September evening – the leaves of the tree outside Mr Such’s shop were beginning to fall, and the lamp of the lamp-post had been lit – after Sam’s prayers had been said, and Sam was in his flannel nightshirt, the secret was disclosed. He was told that though his heart was of gold, and all the rest of him of the blessedest description, that though mamma and papa loved him twice as dearly for it – his poor nose was of wax. He mustn’t grieve. He mustn’t brood over his nose. He must try and forget he even had one; and yet must take every possible care of it and of his miserable secret, and keep both closely and continually guarded from the thousand and one risks that might await them in the cold careless world of men.

  Little Sam cried himself to sleep that night, not so much because he fully realized what this news meant as because his tender heart was torn by seeing his mother so much grieved about him. He hid his nose in his wet pillow, and dreamed he was a fish. He woke, cried himself to sleep again, and dreamed he was a pelican. The very next morning, as soon as he came downstairs, he changed his place at the breakfast-table to a chair behind the aspidistra so as to be even further than usual from the heat of the fire, and he waited not only until his bread and milk had a skin on it but was cold. And the moment the meal was over he begged from the maid-servant a stub of candle – having first of all asked her if there was anything in the house made of wax – and this being a very warm and sunny day for the time of year, he was able to experiment with it at once, and all by himself.

  Having fixed the stub to the prongs of a toasting-fork, he held it for some minutes an inch or two from the hot window glass, and was horrified to discover how rapidly it responded to the beams of the autumnal sun – even in England. In a minute or two, indeed, it was as plastic as a piece of putty. With ashen cheek averted he at once climbed up on to a stool, pulled the blind of his nursery window two-thirds of the way down, and retired, poor lamb, in this gloaming, into its remotest corner to read his book. From that day on he wore, autumn and winter and till June was out, two layers of underclothes, for nothing would persuade him even to look at a fire; and on highly sunny days he lived behind his mother’s drawn red damask window-curtains, and on Dog Days read his book in the cellar.

  Now, if, perhaps, his father had been less occupied in his trade and could have had entirely his own way with his small son, Sam would have led a less solitary life. But being an only child his mother treasured him beyond words. And above all things she was anxious, of course, that not only his nose but also his feelings should be protected from all possible hurt. She would have burned at the stake rather than reveal this minute portion of a family skeleton-in-the-cupboard to a living soul. Sam was therefore kept as close at home as a bullfinch in its cage.

  Again and again his anxious aunts – with housed-in little Sam pulling at their heart-strings – came all four of them to afternoon tea and did their utmost to persuade Mrs Such to let little Sam be and do as do and are other small boys of his age. They reasoned and argued with her, they said this and they said that until Dorinda, the youngest, almost lost her temper. And Mrs Such, poor soul, had no more words in her mouth than a fish.

  ‘He’s so timid,’ said one. ‘He’s in the cellar now,’ said another. ‘He daren’t even follow his own nose,’ said a third. And as for devil-may-care Dorinda, she broke out in grim earnest. ‘He’s so pale and quiet, Matilda, the darling mite, he might as well be a wax dummy in Samuel’s shop,’ she said. ‘You don’t seem to see that he is growing up,’ she said. ‘And like a potato in a cellar!’ she said. ‘I see little boys wherever I go, sailing their painted boats, playing at bat-and-ball, leap-frogging, tip-in-the-ringing, hop-scotching. They go out with their aunts and have a “tuck-in” and a “blow-out” in a pastry-cook’s – ices and jam-puffs and cream-tarts and bull’s-eyes. They eat green apples and stickjaw. They bowl their hoops. They “swap,” what they call, the dears, their alley-tors and their conkers. They scuffle and quarrel over their whip-tops and knuckle bones. What does a black eye matter now and then, or – or a patch on their breeches? Surely, Matilda, you cannot want our poor little Sam to become like a bearded hermit in his cavern, or a rabbit in its hutch. He will! mark my words, he will! Give us only one rational reason why you coop him up like this, never even allowing that poor wan face to look out of the window and wave its hand to us as he used to do when we came out of the door – only one, and we shall be satisfied.’

  ‘Only one!’ cried her three sisters as if at a signal. ‘Only one!’ they cried, sitting there like eager lions w
aiting to be fed.

  And Mrs Such, driving back the tears that were pricking her eyelids, not only made the most absurd replies to all such arguments, but could not bring herself to confess in the smallest degree what was amiss with her Sam. ‘Sammie is naturally a quiet boy,’ she would say. ‘He was not made for horrid rough games. He would hate to bite and scuffle and go patched. He loves his books. Why, you know perfectly well, Dorinda, he learnt to read in half the time you took to learn your alphabet. Please leave me alone to bring up my own son in my own way. You’ll drive me clean distracted, you will.’

  At this, Dorinda’s heart would instantly melt in her kind angular body. She would toss her head – and, with her fine nose, she was remarkably like a pale brown horse – and take Matilda to her bosom while the others gathered round their small married sister and dabbed at her eyes with their pocket-handkerchiefs, and brought out their lavender water and vinaigrettes.

  When indeed, if only in gratitude for all his aunts’ generosity and kindness, Sam’s mother gave way so far as to send him at the age of eight to a Dame School, it was with the saddest possible results. In a neat pepper-and-salt suit, a black-speckled straw-hat on his head, button-boots on his feet, a green satchel strapped tight to his back, he set out hand in hand with his mother.

  He arrived at the school at half-past eight. By a quarter-to-nine half the pupils had pulled his hair, and by 8.55 the whole school was dancing around him like a tribe of Chocktaws or Cherokees to the tune of ‘Nosey Such’. All the way home that morning he was followed by horrid little urchins – many of them not even his own schoolfellows – chanting in catlike chorus:

  Peacock, peacock, there he goes!

  Mammie’s Sam from So-and-Soes;

  Nosey, Nosey, Nosey, Nose!

  He stumbled across the threshold, trembling and shaking, scuttled in through the shop instead of knocking at the private door, and scurried up to his old nursery at the very top of the house. There his mother found him, sitting in a chair before the empty grate, his chin on his hands and his eyes tight shut.