Short Stories for Children

by Walter De la Mare

‘There was first the Sandy One that was my father’s son, and at home with his mother in the high, oblong box of a house, standing up high on the hill with its neighbours, all in a row. This was the nervous, timid, stuttering Sandy, the Sandy who did not know where he kept his own tongue, the skulker, the dunderhead whom my father could not make head or tail of. There was next the Sandy who when alone did more or less what he liked and went where he pleased – desert islands, Red Indians, lions and tigers, castaways, cannibals, bonum omens – all that kind of thing. Ay, and the whole world over. He pined for freedom. He wanted to do and dare things. He wanted to eat his cake and chance the stale crusts afterwards. This happy-go-lucky, scatter-brained, dare-devil creature boxed up inside me was Sandy Two. We’ll call him, as I say, Sandy Two: and, Here’s good luck to him! – for he needed it!

  ‘Now, do you see, my mother knew something of both Sandies, though more of One than Two. My father never so much as dreamt of Two and saw not much more of One than his worst. And Sandy Two, at his darndest and daringest, was at present inside my head and kept for myself and my books alone.

  ‘Now Schooling …’

  Mike took a long slow look at this word before going any further. He was already a little tired of reading. He wanted to get to the jacket. Still, he had promised the old gentleman, who seemed to be an old gentleman who expected his promises to be kept, that he would do his best, and he had had an uncommonly good breakfast. So he swallowed another gulp of his tepid cocoa, took another huge bite of his door-step, and plodded on.

  ‘Now Schooling. Well, I went to school like most boys of my age. It was what is called a Private School, and the headmaster’s name was Smiles; and his name was not only where his smiles began but also ended. From the instant my father led me into his stuffy back-room, this Mr Smiles took me for a Dunce. One glance at my sheepish mottled face – Sandy One’s – was enough for that. And as dunce he treated me almost until we parted. Dunce was his chief dish with me, from beginning to end – and plenty of cane sauce.

  ‘I hated school. I hated learning. And as I was told to go straight home the moment my lessons were over, I was never much of a favourite with the other boys. They took me for a molly-coddle, and called me Tallow-candy. Which was true of course of Sandy One. And for some little time they never caught sight of Sandy Two. That came later. Still, whenever Sandy One warmed up so much in a scrap as to bring Sandy Two into it, it wasn’t the other fellow that left off last!

  ‘Well now, to make a long story short, my father’s heart, as I have been saying, was in groceries. And you can take my word for it that there is one thing at least worse than a quick profit on pickles, and that is a dead loss on ’em. His business was growing; he pulled his weight wherever he went; he was soon to be Mayor; and having only one son, he hoped and meant that that son should go into groceries too, and perhaps some day double his fortune, keep a carriage, and become Lord Mayor. He wanted his son to “get on”, and what father doesn’t?

  ‘So in the old days, just to polish my wits, he would ask me such questions as what raisins are, or where currants come from, or why peel is called candied; and then – with a flicker of his eyelids – who discovered the Macaroni Tree, or how much fresh there is to a pound of salt butter, or where the natives dig up nutmegs, or what is the temperature of Cayenne pepper, or what is the cost of a hogshead of treacle at 2¾d. an ounce. The point is, I never even wanted to know such things. And worse, I couldn’t even laugh at them!

  ‘If my father had asked me what kind of birds you’d be likely to see flitting about in the craters of the moon; or what the war-whoop and scalping habits of the Objibwas or the Cherokees were; or how many brothers riding on white asses Abimelech had; I believe Sandy Two would have consented to answer. But Sandy Two (apart from toffee) had no interest whatever in Demerara or Barbados sugar; and Sandy One was no better than a blockhead at any questions whatsoever, except when his mother asked them, or when he was alone.

  ‘One Sunday morning, after I had first said I couldn’t answer, and then refused to try to answer, some such questions as these, I looked up and told my father that I hated grocery shops. I said of all shops I hated grocery shops the most. I said I detested school, and that the only thing in the world I wanted was to run away to sea. Then I burst out crying. At this moment my mother came in, so I never got the thrashing I richly deserved.

  ‘But my father must have thought things over; for after that, Dr Smiles paid very particular attention to the grocery side of history, geography, arithmetic and dictation. Even of French: “Has your neighbour’s gardener the oranges from Jaffa, the tapioca from Brazil, and the chicory for the coffee of his aunt?” – that kind of thing.

  ‘Then one night I overheard my mother and father talking. Sandy Two had come stealing downstairs about half-past nine to see what he could find in the larder. The door of the drawing-room was ajar, and I heard my father say: “He is not only half-witted, but as limp and flabby as a rag doll – and what’s more, here’s that bladder-of-lard, schoolmaster Smiles, saying exactly the same thing. And yet you …” At these words Sandy One at once fled back to bed – taking Sandy Two with him. And I awoke next morning remembering what my father had said as distinctly as if it had been tattooed into my skin. For days together after that Sandy Two never so much as showed the tip of his nose in the house.

  ‘Then, one afternoon, on my way home from school, I ventured down a shabby side-street, because at the far end of it I had caught the noise of a Punch-and-Judy Show. I could hear the children roaring with laughter, and the squeaking and the thumping and cockadoodle-ing of Mr Punch. Sandy Two told Sandy One he would like to go and see it. So he went.

  ‘Coming back, we passed a dingy little shop I had never noticed there before, and we stopped to look in at the window. Marine Store was printed up in white letters over the green front. There was some queer junk behind that window: old shoes and shawls and old hats, a ship in a bottle, a green glass rolling-pin, a telescope that must have belonged to Noah, a ship’s compass, a brass cannon, a bed-warmer, a picture made of humming-birds’ feathers – such old curios as they call ’em as that. They looked as if they had been there for centuries – verdigris, mould, fluff, dust. Most of these articles had their prices marked on scraps of paper: “Grate Bargin, 3s. 6d.” and so on.

  ‘And hanging up on a nail in a corner of the window and almost out of sight, was a kind of garment I couldn’t quite put name to. But a piece of paper was pinned to it, and on that was scrawled the words: Majick Jacket. Just that and nothing more. But it was enough. I had already gloated on the telescope and the ship and the brass cannon. But those two words, Majick Jacket, fairly took my breath away. They stirred me up as if with a ladle – me myself, Sandy Two, and even Sandy One. At last I could bear the strain no longer.

  ‘I pushed open the crack-paint little door – I can hear even now the jingle of its rusty bell – and in I went. The place smelt like an old cellar. It was as soundless as a vault. For what seemed hours nothing happened, except that I heard a far-away canary singing; then Sandy One began to be alarmed, and I tiptoed off towards the door.

  ‘Just as I was about to whip it open and bolt out into the street again, an old man, with thick magnifying spectacles on his nose and a beard like a goat, came shuffling out of the back parts of the shop, and asked me what I wanted.

  ‘I said would he please tell me the price of the brass cannon – though I knew it already. Then I asked to see the ship in the bottle. And then, at last, with hardly any breath left in my body, I managed to point to the jacket.

  ‘“That,” he said, looking first at it and then at me, “that’s ten shillin’.”

  ‘I got as red as a turkey-cock, coughed, turned about, and opened the door.

  ‘“I say! I say, Mister!” he called after me. “What are you running away for? Come back and see it. Come back and look at it – feel it. No harm in that!” He was already climbing up on to a stool. Then he thrust his head in among the rags and dr
abs in the window, brought down the jacket, and laid it on the counter. And close-to, like this, it was nothing much, I must say, to look at.

  ‘It was made of some kind of foreign dark Chinese-looking stuff, with a faint wavy pattern on it, and it had flat stone buttons with green crocodiles curled round on them. The braid was frayed at the neck and cuffs. I looked hard at it on the counter, but didn’t touch it. Then I blurted out: “Who made it?”

  ‘“Made it?” snapped the old man, “that’s a magic jacket. That’s come from Pekin and Madagascar and Seringapatam and I don’t know what, and if once you get inside of it you’ll never want to get out again.”

  ‘I swallowed. “Have you ever put it on?” I enquired.

  ‘“Me?” he almost bellowed at me. “Me! with all these old slops hanging round! Where should I be if I put ’em all on? Where’s the sale?”

  ‘Now I wanted that jacket with the crocodiles on the buttons more than anything else past, present or future in the whole wide world. But I had only two-and-ninepence in my pocket – and that was riches for me. To be on the safe side, I told the old man this. He stared at me through his rusting spectacles.

  ‘“See here!” he said, as if in a violent temper, and whisking out a piece of newspaper from under the counter: “See here now, snap it!” And he wrapped up the jacket in a flash. “Give me all you’ve got, and come back with the rest. There’s a summat in your eye, young man, that never went with a cheat.”

  ‘Then I knew that the old man was charging me at least double what he had meant to ask for the jacket. But I gave him my two-and-ninepence all the same, and went out of the shop. Before his door bell had stopped clanging I had pushed the parcel up under my waistcoat, and walked off, keeping my stomach in, because I didn’t want anybody to ask questions.

  ‘Once safely home, I crept upstairs and slipped the parcel in at the back of a drawer, and for that night there it stayed. I didn’t dare to meddle with it, partly for fear of what might happen, but mostly of what might not!

  ‘All the next morning I was in torture. I was afraid my mother might find the jacket – and give it away to some tramp for a fern or a pot of geraniums. Every time I thought of it I could scarcely breathe, and that didn’t help much in my school-work. I was kept in. And when I came home I told my mother I had a headache – which was true – but persuaded her at last to go out and leave me to myself. Then I stole up to my bedroom, shut the door, opened the drawer, and with my heart in my mouth felt for the parcel. All safe! All safe! I took it out, undid the string, opened the paper, and there was the jacket – wavy pattern, crocodile buttons, frayed braid and all.

  ‘With a last wild look towards the window I took off my own coat and put it on. I put it on. And nothing happened. Nothing whatever. At first blush, I mean. Except that I suddenly noticed that the room was full of sunshine and that a thrush was singing in a pear tree at the bottom of the garden. I noticed it because he sang so clear and shrill, and as though straight at me. If you could put sound for sight, it was as if I were listening to him through a telescope. I could see him, too, the speckles on his breast, and his bill opening and shutting – singing like an angel.

  ‘And as I listened I noticed in the sunlight through the window the colours of my faded rose-patterned carpet and an old boot. It sounds silly, but I had never before seen an old boot look like that. I don’t want to mince words, and maybe I didn’t realize it then, but the fact of the matter is that that old boot on the carpet looked astonishingly beautiful – the light on the old leather, the tongue coming out, and the gleam of the metal eyelets. A landshark’s word that – beautiful – but there you are.

  ‘Well, I was soon a little impatient with all this – a new life seemed to have edged into things, or at least into me. Very peculiar. So, to get back to common sense again, I began Sandy One’s Physical Exercises. Exercises! Why, it was as though all of a sudden I had become nothing but a twist of wire and catgut. I skipped through those jimminasticals as if I were half out of my senses. Then I tried tricks never so much as dreamt of before – hopping along my bedrail; standing on my head, first on the bedpost, then on my water-jug; balancing myself – two hands, then one hand – on the back of a chair. Whatever, within the bounds of reason, or thereabouts, I gave myself to do, I did – and with ease. Like the thrush singing. Nothing very much perhaps, but new to me! Mind you, I had never been quite the mollie my father thought me. And Sandy Two hadn’t been idle, body or wits. But a little confidence, though not too much, is what you want. After a while I began to be a little bit alarmed at the effects of the jacket. I began, so to speak, to suspect my own company!

  ‘So, hot and breathless, I sat down at the table where I always did (or didn’t do) my homework, and began my “composition”. The subject was the Battle of Trafalgar. Before I had finished I had written about fourteen pages on the Battle of Trafalgar! I had described how the Victory went to sea, and what Lord Nelson felt like – that last day coming, and why he kept his medals on, and all about Captain Hardy. And I put the weather in, and didn’t forget old Froggy Villeneuve either – a gallant sailor and a bad end. When I looked up from page fourteen I could hardly see. It was as if I had come out of the heavenly Jerusalem! And then, almost at that moment, I heard my mother come in down below, and the front door shut.

  ‘I felt like a keg of quicksilver, and yet dead beat. I undressed in less time than a lizard takes to slough its tail, and tumbled into bed, slipping my Chinese jacket in under the bedclothes.

  ‘And no doubt I looked headachy enough when my mother came up to say good-night. She felt my forehead; it was burning hot. And she murmured faintly in a very small voice something about castor oil. Even Sandy One could put his foot down when it came to castor oil! But this time I didn’t make the least fuss about it. I said, “Right you are. Warm the glass, mother, and put plenty of lemon juice in.” I swigged it down, and even smacked my lips over it. Then I began to talk – so fast, and with such nonsense mixed up with the sense, that my mother was on the point of calling in the doctor. At that I sobered down again.

  ‘The next day all was well, but I didn’t go to school. The next day after that saw me back in my place again, though not in the magic jacket! But I had cut off one of the pale-green crocodile buttons to carry about in my waistcoat pocket for a kind of charm or amulet. I got a caning for the French I hadn’t done, and another caning for the arithmetic which I had. Mr Schoolmaster Smiles himself read my Essay on the Battel of Trafalger then and there. He hauled me out again before the class, and asked me what help I had had. I said none. He glared at me: “Are you positively sure, sir? Not even in the spelling?”

  ‘I said, “No, sir; none, sir.” What was queer, he believed me.

  ‘Still, he had talked to me once or twice about the sea and the Navy. And I too had asked him questions, because while I was wrapped up in the thought of them, I wasn’t so frightened of him. Besides, on looking back, I don’t believe he really cottoned to groceries much more than I did. Anyhow, he gave me full marks and a bit over for my Trafalgar, but warned me another time I mustn’t “spread” myself out like that.

  ‘I went home feeling like a turkey-cock, marched straight upstairs, sat down at my open window, and – put on the jacket again. But I had hardly got my arms into the sleeves when I heard my mother calling me. I hustled on my own jacket over the top of the other – which was not difficult, because my Chinese one was a very tight fit, especially at the armpits – and met her on the landing. She was as white as a sheet and could scarcely speak. She said my father wanted to see me at once, and that he had a friend with him, a Mr Turner.

  ‘“And, oh, my dear,” she implored me, “do try and answer your father’s questions. Just listen, Sandy. Then perhaps you’ll hear. And speak up to Mr Turner, too, if he speaks to you. Think it’s me. Don’t be frightened; don’t be sulky. Nobody can eat you. Fancy it’s only just you and me talking. For my sake, Sandy.”

  ‘I said, “Right, mother!” and slid from
top to bottom down the banisters of the three flights of stairs almost before she had stirred foot to follow me. At the dining-room door I pulled myself together, and went in.

  ‘My father was sitting on the other side of the fireless hearth, talking to a stranger. I liked the look of this stranger. He was short and broad; his face was burnt with the sun; he had a fringe of reddish hair round his head, and wore thick-soled shoes. “Here he is,” said my father to the stranger, then turned to me. “This gentleman is Mr Turner, Andrew. If you want to know anything about the sea, he’ll tell you.” I put out my hand.

  ‘“I hear you’ve no stomach for dry goods,” said Mr Turner, staring at me, but in a friendly fashion. “Have a hankering after salt water, eh?”

  ‘“Yes,” I said, “the Navy.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw my father start at this. He had never before heard me answer so direct a question without stammering or flushing or just goggling like a red herring with its mouth open.

  ‘“And what do you know about the sea?” said Mr Turner, looking at me steadily. “It’s pretty deep!”

  ‘I looked back at him no less steadily. I liked him more and more, and thought I would try him with a few tit-bits out of my fourteen pages on the Battle of Trafalgar. There was a queer silence when I had finished. And I realized that my mother had at that moment stolen away after listening at the door. As for my father, he sat in his chair dumb with amazement. He shut his eyes for an instant and then began to explain that I was not perhaps so backward in some things as in others. But, apart from mere book-learning, did Mr Turner think that I had the framework, the grit, the health for a life in the open? “You see, his mother …”

  ‘“He looks a bit pasty,” said Mr Turner, still quietly grinning at me. “But you can’t always tell by the skin. What about those biceps, young man?”

  ‘I put out my arm, and he gripped it hard above the elbow, not noticing, perhaps, that I had two jackets on. And he said, “Pretty good. Do they drill you much at school? Or is it nothing but book-learning?” I nodded, and said, “Yes; and things at home, too.”