Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse

by Ursula Moray Williams

  When Black Jakey arrived at his tiny camp the three donkeys laid their ears back and immediately attacked Caliban with their hoofs. Black Jakey hit them all round, and tied Caliban up out of their reach, with a piece of cord between his front legs for greater safety. Then with a weary grunt he crawled into his tiny tent to sleep till morning. His own three donkeys also settled down to sleep, while Caliban, a little lonely in his new surroundings, and finding no more carrots or sugar, began to tramp foolishly round the stake to which he was tied and shake his forefeet in perplexity.

  When all was quiet the little wooden horse, who had been hovering in the shadows, crept silently through the furze till he came to Caliban’s side. He had no liking for the donkey, who was greedy and lazy, but he did not mean to allow Black Jakey to steal him from the donkey man. Caliban, he saw, had no idea he had been stolen: he would go anywhere for food.

  When Caliban saw the little wooden horse trundling silently through the furze bushes towards him his eyes nearly popped out in his astonishment.

  “So it was you behind us all the time!” he exclaimed. “Well, well, well! I would have dropped a carrot for you if I had believed it, for there seem to be plenty about.”

  “Plenty about!” scoffed the little wooden horse. “You won’t sing that song tomorrow! I don’t expect you’ll ever see a carrot again, so long as you stay with Black Jakey. Not that you are going to stay,” he added determinedly. “For I have come to take you home.”

  As he spoke he was carefully unfastening Caliban’s rope from the stake where he was tied.

  “Take me home! Whatever next?” blustered the donkey. “I suppose I can stay where I please, can’t I? I suppose I can serve whichever master treats me best? And as for the carrots, Black Jakey still has a great bag of them, for I saw them with my own eyes.”

  “Well, you won’t see any more of them,” said the little wooden horse, holding the end of the rope firmly between his teeth. “Come along, and step quietly.”

  “I’m not coming!” said Caliban angrily, sticking all his feet obstinately into the ground. “I’ve been a long walk already tonight, and I’m not going all that way back again just to please you. You go back to my old master if you want to, and leave me alone. I know when I’m well off.”

  “Ah!” said the little wooden horse. “You won’t say that tomorrow. Everyone knows how Black Jakey treats his donkeys. No food, no bedding, no shelter at night! Haven’t you seen them on the shore? Haven’t you noticed how their ribs poke and stare? How will you enjoy sharing the life of three such bad-tempered brutes as those which kicked at you tonight?”

  “That’s different,” said Caliban. “Black Jakey is good to me. He gives me delicate things to eat. Run home, little wooden horse, but before you go be so good as to unfasten the rope between my two front legs, for Black Jakey need not be afraid. I shall not attempt to run away.”

  “Here, you new animal down there!” one of the other donkeys brayed suddenly. “Stop your muttering and complaining. We can’t go to sleep, and if Black Jakey hears you he’ll come out and flay the skin off your back, and ours too, and besides that he’ll kick you to death in the morning.”

  In spite of himself Caliban could not help shivering when he heard these fierce words.

  “There, you see!” said the little wooden horse, pulling more firmly than ever at Caliban’s rope. “What do you think of your new life now? Would your old master flay you alive, or your old friends kick you to death?”

  “They didn’t mean it,” said Caliban, still trembling. And to hide his fear he called out boldly, “All right, you poor knock-kneed sheep! Black Jakey is my friend. If he takes off your skins he will spare mine. And if you raise your hoofs against me Black Jakey will break all your legs.”

  There was a sudden roar of indignation from the little tent as Black Jakey came lumbering out, his eyes dazed with sleep.

  “Can’t you let a man sleep, you good-for-nothing brute?” he shouted at Caliban, hurling his heavy cudgel with all his strength at the donkey’s head. “I’ll take it out of you tomorrow if you don’t stop your braying!”

  Now Caliban’s legs shook until he could hardly stand upright. The little wooden horse could feel him trembling right down to the shoes on his feet, as he worried at the knots with his little wooden teeth and tried vainly to unfasten the rope that joined Caliban’s forelegs.

  Black Jakey had tied them too securely, and the little wooden horse had to give it up. He was a little shaken himself, for the cudgel had grazed both their heads and landed in a furze bush a few feet away.

  “Very well,” he said coldly. “I will go back alone and leave you here.”

  But now Caliban was far too terrified to stay behind.

  “Take me too!” he pleaded. “You were quite right, my little wooden horse. I can’t possibly stay in such a terrible place with so wicked a man and such bad-tempered donkeys. I should die in a week. Take me back to my old master, my little wooden horse. Oh, do!”

  “How will you walk with that rope around your legs?” asked the little wooden horse severely.

  “Oh, I’ll limp! I’ll hobble! I’ll limp a hundred miles to leave this horrible spot!” said Caliban piteously. “Only take me away directly, my little wooden horse, before Black Jakey comes out to find his cudgel and belabours me with it!”

  The little wooden horse began to lead the way carefully through the furze, away from the tent, with Caliban shuffling in the rear. Every other moment they stopped to listen, but all they could hear were the snores of Black Jakey and the deep sighing of the sleeping donkeys tethered behind the tent.

  “Oh, what a fool I am!” sighed the donkey Caliban, hobbling and stumbling behind the little wooden horse. “Why did I ever let myself be taken out of my nice warm stable? I shall never get home with my legs tied up so that I can hardly take a step without falling.”

  Suddenly in the darkness behind them arose a shrill bray.

  “Where are you going, stranger donkey? Where has the stranger donkey gone?”

  Two more donkey voices joined in the braying chorus.

  “Where has the stranger donkey gone?”

  The next moment there were grunts, blows, and shouts, as Black Jakey left the tent and laid about him with his second stick.

  The little wooden horse pulled the shivering Caliban deep into a furze bush, and made him lie as still as a mouse while they listened to Black Jakey saddling one of the donkeys and following them at a canter.

  “More fool you to wake him!” the two donkeys that were left jeered, as the donkey Black Jakey rode grunted and complained at being ridden across the heath at such an hour of the night.

  Poor Caliban was so terrified he could not move or breathe. Close beside him the little wooden horse crouched, listening to Black Jakey’s threats as he galloped round and round the tiny camp in an ever wider circle.

  “I’ll thrash him! I’ll flay him when I catch him! I’ll work him fourteen hours a day! I’ll starve him for a week! I’ll clip his coat till his own master won’t know him!”

  “I’ll bite him!” the donkey joined in, grunting, as he galloped. “I’ll kick him! Between us we’ll make his life a burden! That will teach him to keep us awake at night, and take us out galloping all over the moor, spoiling the only bit of peace we get in the day!”

  The more they threatened the more Caliban shook, till he might have trotted out and given himself up in sheer terror, but the little wooden horse kept him still and told him not to be afraid. Three times Black Jakey passed so close to their hiding place that it seemed they were bound to be discovered, but at last he gave it up as a bad job, and trotted back to camp, still muttering threats and curses under his breath.

  Caliban would have tried to escape at once, but it was a long while before the little wooden horse would let him go. He was afraid Black Jakey might be listening, or the donkeys would hear and tell tales again.

  At last they crept out of the bush, stiff, sore, and full of prickles, and
began to make their painful way back to the seashore.

  Caliban could only hobble so slowly that it was long past sunrise when they limped into the stable, to find the donkey man sitting in the empty stall with his head in his hands, for he had arisen with the lark as usual, and had found both his best donkey and his friend the little wooden horse had disappeared.

  When he saw them come in tears of joy ran down his ruddy cheeks, and as he listened to their story he kept interrupting them to kiss one or the other upon the nose.

  They both slept far into the day, by which time Black Jakey, afraid of being caught and punished, had taken his tent and donkeys away to a far seashore where nobody would be likely to find them.

  16

  The Little Wooden Horse Swims the Ocean

  Day after day passed, but no boats came, till at last the little wooden horse grew pale and sad. He worked his best, as ever, but soon the donkey man noticed that his spirits were lacking, while now and then tears stood in his painted eyes and rolled on to the sand.

  “Don’t cry, my little wooden horse,” he begged. “Sooner or later a ship is sure to come, and then you can return to your master over the sea. But meanwhile think of the fortune that you are making and the riches you will be able to take home with you!”

  It was true that the little wooden horse had earned a great deal of money. Working for the donkey man on the seashore, he had saved enough to keep himself and Uncle Peder in moderate comfort for a long time to come. But the summer was drawing to an end, soon there would be no more children staying on the shore, the donkey man and his little wife would take their donkeys into the country for the winter, and if no boat came then, what would become of the little wooden horse?

  One afternoon the little wooden horse saw a large crowd of people following a tall man down to the shore. The tall man shone all over like a fish in his swimming suit as he entered the water. The people beside him did not go into the water: they gathered round the edge, cheering and waving their hands as the tall, shining man swam out to sea.

  Three men got into a boat and rowed beside him: they rowed and rowed till the boat was just a little speck on the water, while the tall and shining man could not be seen at all.

  “What a lot of fuss to make about one man swimming out to sea!” said the little wooden horse in surprise, when the people on the shore had finished shouting and waving and had gone home.

  “Ah,” said Caliban, who had seen it happen before, “that is not an ordinary swimmer, like those you see in the water every day. He means to swim to the other side of the sea. That is why his body shines like a fish: he is covered with oil, so that he can stay in the water for a long time and not feel the cold. The people whom you saw in the boat will feed him when he gets hungry, and some time he will arrive at the other side.”

  The little wooden horse’s heart bounded with sorrow. Here was a little boat going right across the sea, and he had not so much as asked to be taken too. He had mistaken it for an ordinary fishing boat, going a little way out to sea and coming back in the evening.

  “Oh, what a foolish little horse I am!” said he. Then he became very thoughtful, and for the rest of the day and night he said very little, but his mind worked all the time.

  In the morning he went to find the donkey man.

  “Dear master,” he said, “as you know, I have been waiting a very long time for a boat to take me home across the sea, and no boat has come. Now I don’t think I can wait any longer. Yesterday a man entered the water and swam out of sight across the sea. I can do that too. I am only a little wooden horse, but I am a strong one, and I have already been many hours in the water without harm. Tomorrow morning, if you will forgive me, I shall try and swim across the ocean.”

  The donkey man and his wife both shed tears when they heard that the little wooden horse was going to leave them, and in so dangerous a manner, but they did not try to stop him, for they knew how long and patiently he had waited, and how anxious he was to get back to Uncle Peder, who had made him.

  When the morning came the donkey man’s little wife covered him all over with her best hot dripping, till he was as greasy as a pancake, and gave him a drink of hot soup to set him on his way.

  Then, accompanied by Caliban and the other donkeys, all very sad and tearful, the donkey man and his wife went down to the seashore with the little wooden horse and watched him trundle into the water.

  All the donkeys brayed, the little wife sobbed, and the donkey man blew his nose loudly. The little wooden horse himself could not suppress a sob as he turned for a farewell toss of his head, which gleamed in the sun like a silver image, the donkey man’s wife had so plastered him with dripping.

  When the little wooden horse looked round again he was a long way from the shore, and his friends had gone back to their work. He could just see the little brown stable standing on the seashore, and he felt rather lonely when he found himself so far from his friends, with such a long distance ahead of him to swim. He could not see any shore ahead, only sea – green, blue, and silver, immeasurably wide.

  The little wooden horse swam on and on till the morning sky turned hot and blue with midday heat. Then, very slowly, the sun began to disappear.

  “What can this mean?” said the little wooden horse. “Can it be night already?”

  But it was not night. He could still see the sun shining palely above him through a thick haze that seemed to be settling on the sea all about him.

  “Whatever can it be?” said the little wooden horse.

  Now the sea changed colour as slowly as the sky. The clear green lights faded out of the waves, which rose and fell in an ominous swell that lifted the little wooden horse high at one moment, only to dash him into black and grey valleys of water the next. He became a little frightened.

  He could see no land ahead of him, or behind him or on either side.

  “I am right in the middle of the ocean,” said the little wooden horse.

  Blacker and blacker grew the weather. Great clouds rolled up behind the haze, piled like mountains in the sky. The sea was a terrible colour.

  The little wooden horse swam bravely on, trying to imagine that all was sunshine and blue water as before. He shut his painted eyes and pretended that ahead of him lay a golden shore, opening out into a road that led straight to the forest and Uncle Peder. But when he opened his eyes the sky was blacker than ever, while the sea flung him about in a manner that gave him strange and peculiar feelings in his inside.

  All of a sudden he was surprised to hear a familiar sound. That is to say, almost familiar, for the noise that he heard was not quite like the noise that he was accustomed to. It sounded like the whinnying of a great many ponies, and yet not quite ordinary ponies, for the noise was bound up with the whistle of the wind and the roar of the sea, so that it had a new note, and the little wooden horse wondered what on earth it could be.

  He was so lonely and so glad to hear anyone else alive in this tremendous waste of sea that he forgot to be cautious, and whinnied back at the top of his little wooden voice. All the coins in his inside rattled as he whinnied, and the gulls overhead flew away screaming with fear. Almost immediately a whole peal of shrill neighs answered him, as swimming over the crest of the next wave came a dozen beautiful little white horses.

  The little wooden horse had never seen such beautiful, fairylike creatures. Their manes and tails streamed in the wind like silken banners, their proud little heads tossed and bowed, spray flew from their nostrils. They skimmed over the tops of the waves with such ease that the little wooden horse felt awkward beside them.

  These beautiful little creatures swam round and round him, uttering their high, piercing whinnies, whether friendly or indignant it was hard to tell. The little wooden horse felt quite humble, and wondered how he had dared to reply to them.

  “What are you, you funny little thing?” one of them cried at last, when the whole herd of them had swum three or four times round the little wooden horse.

&n
bsp; “Oh, please, I’m just a little wooden horse, swimming back home to my master over the sea. I’m a quiet little horse, I am; I don’t want to disturb anybody. I only want to return to my master’s side and stay there quietly for ever and ever.”

  “A horse, did he say?” cried one of the lovely little creatures, tossing its white mane as it reared up on the crest of a wave. “But we are horses! How dare you call yourself a horse! Look at you! Are you like a horse, I’d like to know? How dare you come and swim in our sea!”

  “Uncle Peder told me I was a horse when he made me,” replied the little wooden horse, very humbly. “So a horse I suppose I am. After all, I have two ears –”

  “Painted wooden ears!” jeered the sea horses, tossing their lovely heads.

  “I have two eyes –”

  “Painted round eyes!” laughed the sea horses.

  “A mane and tail −”

  “Made of black wool!” sang the sea horses, as their own silken manes streamed in the wind.

  “Then I have a body –”

  “Painted with blue stripes!” jeered the sea horses, curving their graceful bodies to the waves.

  “I have four strong wooden legs –”

  “Legs!” screamed all the sea horses together. “Whoever heard of a horse with legs? Why, horses have fins!”

  “And I have four strong wooden wheels,” added the little wooden horse desperately.

  “Wheels!” the beautiful creatures cried. “What are wheels? What does a horse want but a tail to swim with?”

  And as the next wave lifted them high every sea horse reared up against the darkening sky and showed, in place of legs and wheels, their graceful fins and silver tails.