Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse

by Ursula Moray Williams

  Pirate Jacky stared at him, and then chuckled.

  “You’ve a long way to go before you get home, my little wooden horse,” he said, not unkindly. “Do you really want to swim again so soon? Don’t you know that this is not the other side of the ocean, but a little island in the middle of the sea? I know it well, for I have been here before.”

  When the little wooden horse heard Pirate Jacky’s words he thought his wooden heart would break. He followed the sailor along the shore till they had walked round the whole island, when he saw that it was indeed true. It was only a very small island after all; there was nothing to be seen on either side but water.

  “Never mind,” said Pirate Jacky when he saw the tears pouring out of the painted eyes of the little wooden horse. “Perhaps, after all, you will be glad one day that you came to this island. For I am going to reward you for saving my life. Come with me.”

  Trying hard to control his sobs, the little wooden horse followed Pirate Jacky up the steep rocks of the little hill in the centre of the island. Through bushes and long, thick grass they stumbled and pushed their way, till they came out of the trees, and when they were nearly at the top Pirate Jacky dived into a cranny between two rocks.

  “Follow me!” he told the little wooden horse.

  The little wooden horse followed Pirate Jacky down the cranny till they came to a flat rock at the end. This rock was marked with a cross. Pirate Jacky pushed the rock with his hand, and it swung back into darkness.

  “Whatever can this be?” thought the little wooden horse when he saw Pirate Jacky squeeze through the space and disappear inside the mountain. He felt as though he were going down the mines again, but he did not want to be left behind, so he squeezed through the crack after Pirate Jacky, and found himself in an enormous cave.

  Inside the cave the little wooden horse blinked, gasped, and rubbed his painted eyes in astonishment. The blue stripes on his round little body paled with wonder, while his four wooden wheels set up such a tremble and rattle of excitement that Pirate Jacky turned round and sharply told him to be quiet.

  For all about the cave, in piles and heaps, in caskets, in crates, and in boxes, was such a treasure as the little wooden horse had never dreamed of. Piles of golden coins, sparkling jewels, emeralds, pearls, rubies, diamonds – all flashing out of the darkness at the little wooden horse, winking at him with their sparkling eyes, saying, “Take us! Fill yourself with us! We are yours!”

  Pirate Jacky nodded to the little wooden horse to help himself. The sailor sat down on a cask and gazed around the treasure chamber, while the little wooden horse without more ado whipped off his head and scuttled round the golden heaps, picking here diamonds, there pearls, there golden coins, till his little body was filled to bursting point, and he felt so rich he could hardly contain himself. How Uncle Peder’s eyes would pop out of his head at the sight of such a fortune! They would never be in want again!

  Pirate Jacky sat smiling kindly as the little wooden horse crammed himself with treasure, and told him to go on till he could carry no more.

  “You will never get such a chance again,” said he. “Only one more fellow knows of this cave, and that’s a rascally sailor called Bill Blackpatch, who is no friend of mine. We found it together when we were on the same ship, a long while ago, and stopped at this island for water. We didn’t want to tell the rest of the crew about it, or to be seen with diamonds and pearls in our pockets, so we left it alone; but each of us vowed we would come back one day and collect the treasure before the other could get at it. Then we signed on different ships, and till yesterday I have not been able to return to the island. I have lain awake at night thinking of Blackpatch coming back and stealing the treasure from under my nose, so when the ship went down I decided to dodge the lifeboats and swim for the island, which I knew was hereabouts. As you know, my strength gave out quickly, and if it had not been for you, my little wooden horse, I would never have arrived at all. When I opened my eyes and found myself on the shore last night, and saw you asleep beside me, I staggered up the hill to this cave to see if Bill Blackpatch had been here before me. Luckily for me he has not, so you and I will make our fortunes. I mean to cut down trees, and make a boat and enough boxes to hold all the treasure safely. Then, when a fine day comes and we are ready, we will row across to the farther shore, and then if you wish it, my little wooden horse, we can part company, and you can take your part of the treasure back to your Uncle Peder.”

  The little wooden horse was overjoyed with this idea. He promised to help his utmost with the making of the boat and the chests, so that they would soon be ready to carry the treasure away across the sea. Pirate Jacky and the little wooden horse worked night and day making the boat and the chests. Pirate Jacky cut down trees; the little wooden horse dragged them to the shore and went back for more. He knocked in the pegs with his strong wooden wheels, and was more useful than ten sailors.

  Presently they had made a beautiful brown boat, called the Treasure Trove, and two strong oars with which to row her. Pirate Jacky cut down more trees with his sailor’s knife, and made twelve strong chests, which the little wooden horse carried down to the boat.

  Then they had to fill them with the treasure – they were too heavy to carry up and down the mountain when they were full – so the little wooden horse emptied himself of his own fortune, which he hid carefully in the prow of the boat, and scuttled up and down, filling his little wooden body from the heaps in the cave, and taking the treasure thus down to the shore to be emptied into the chests. Pirate Jacky did the same thing, filling his pockets, his boots, and his red cap with the coins and jewels on his journeys up and down.

  Presently the cave was empty, but all the chests were full. On the rocky door at the end of the cranny Pirate Jacky wrote, “Pirate Jacky, his mark”, with the picture of a dagger, as a sign for Bill Blackpatch when he should come.

  Underneath the little wooden horse drew the picture of a wheel, with “The little wooden horse, his mark”, because he thought it looked fine and daring.

  Now Pirate Jacky had to make lids for the chests, and strong pegs to peg them down.

  The little wooden horse dreamed day and night of the surprise he was going to bring to Uncle Peder. One day, when the lids were nearly finished, the little wooden horse saw the sailor, as he thought, some way off among the trees.

  “Pirate Jacky! Pirate Jacky!” he cried to make himself known, but to his surprise the sailor immediately began to run, and soon disappeared into the wood.

  By and by, when they met upon the shore, the little wooden horse, very puzzled, asked, “Why did you run away from me in the woods just now, Pirate Jacky, when I called out to you among the trees?”

  Pirate Jacky looked at him in great surprise.

  “Why, my little wooden horse, I wouldn’t run away from you! And I wasn’t in the woods just now. I was up on the mountain cutting pegs.”

  “Well, that is funny,” said the little wooden horse, “for I felt sure I saw you – red cap, blue coat, and all!”

  “You must have dreamed it, my little wooden horse,” said Pirate Jacky.

  Now the chests were finished, and until the moon rose they worked hard loading the boat, for the weather was fine, and they meant to start the next day. The little wooden horse went to bed so happy he could scarcely sleep.

  But when they went down to the shore in the morning what should they find but a great hole in the bottom of the boat – a hole that had not been there when they went to bed!

  “Oh, dear! Oh, dear! How unfortunate we are!” cried Pirate Jacky. “The tide lifted the boat in the night and dashed her on a rock. Now we shall not be able to start till I have mended it, and that will take me three whole days!”

  He set to work directly, while the little wooden horse fetched and carried, and made himself as useful as he knew how.

  When he had done all he could and Pirate Jacky was still at work the little wooden horse wandered round the island, saying goodbye to his
favourite places, for after all he had worked hard and been very happy there.

  He was wandering down the shore at the far end of the island when something under the bushes of a tiny creek caught his painted eye. He went up to see what the strange object could be, pushed away under the bushes as though somebody wanted to hide it. It was a boat!

  The little wooden horse examined the boat all over very curiously. It was green, with two green oars, and it looked as though it had been used quite lately.

  “Now whoever can it belong to?” wondered the little wooden horse, trundling pensively back along the shore.

  When he reached Pirate Jacky’s side he found the sailor had finished mending the boat. Everything was ready to start the next day.

  The little wooden horse decided to say nothing about the strange little green boat that he had found, but to keep a sharp look out all that night. So he never closed his painted eyes at all, but lay with his wooden ears a-prick, his attention fixed on the seashore.

  Just before dawn he heard a slight noise outside, near the boat, as though somebody were trying to walk very silently, carrying something heavy at the same time.

  The little wooden horse got up quietly, and trundled down to the shore to see what could be happening.

  There he saw a very strange thing – Pirate Jacky in his red cap and blue jersey carrying chest after chest away from the Treasure Trove and dumping it in the little green boat, which was pulled up on the shore a few yards away.

  “Now that is a very funny thing!” said the little wooden horse. “For whatever can Pirate Jacky want with two boats? And why did he hide the first and say nothing about it? And why is he putting away all the chests that we packed so carefully into the green boat? Does he mean to go away in the dark and leave me behind?”

  But at that moment the sailor turned round, and the little wooden horse saw that it was not Pirate Jacky after all, in spite of his red cap and blue jersey, but a sailor with a black patch over one eye and a big red moustache!

  This strange sailor did not see the little wooden horse: he was far too busy taking the chests out of the brown boat and putting them into the green one.

  The little wooden horse hurried back up the shore, and soon found Pirate Jacky asleep and snoring under a bush.

  “Pirate Jacky! Pirate Jacky! Wake up!” he told him. “A strange sailor has come and is stealing all the treasure!”

  Pirate Jacky was up in a moment and running down to the shore, where the strange sailor had just lifted the last chest out of the Treasure Trove and was struggling with it towards his own little green boat.

  “Bill Blackpatch!” roared Pirate Jacky.

  “Pirate Jacky!” shouted the other sailor, dropping the chest in his fright, and they fell upon each other like two wolves.

  The little wooden horse had never seen such a fight. He kept well out of the way as the two punched and tore and bit and buffeted at each other. The sand flew in all directions. Now they wallowed in the sea, trying to push each other into deep water, now they struggled far up the shore; and all the while their shouts and arguments could have been heard from the other side of the island.

  “The treasure is mine, I tell you! I came first!”

  “But we found it together!”

  “I claimed it!”

  “I claimed it too! It’s mine, not yours!”

  “Yours! It belongs to me, I tell you!”

  As there was nothing else he could do while he waited for them to stop, the little wooden horse made himself busy fetching the chests from Bill Blackpatch’s boat and putting them back into the Treasure Trove. When he had fetched six, however, he became thoughtful, and carried no more.

  The two sailors fought until the sun rose, when they were so sore and bruised and battered that by common consent they agreed to stop and rest for a little while before going on. But they did not stop arguing, each claiming that the treasure was his alone, although neither of them had any good reason for saying so.

  At last the little wooden horse could bear it no longer.

  “Oh, my dear sirs,” he began, “I know I am only a little wooden horse, and a quiet one, and I do not like quarrelling at all. But it seems to me that the treasure belongs as much to Bill Blackpatch as it does to Pirate Jacky, and as much to Pirate Jacky as it does to Bill, seeing that you both found it together at the same time. Now with six chests each you will both make your fortunes ten times over, and I suggest that we get into our different boats with six chests each aboard and row away wherever we will, for, as for myself, I am very anxious to find my way back to my dear master, Uncle Peder, and stay for ever at his side.”

  When the two pirates heard this very sensible argument they agreed at last to do as the little wooden horse had said, so they picked themselves up off the sand and got into their boats, each with six chests; and while Bill Blackpatch rowed round the back of the island and away over the sea from where he had come, Pirate Jacky and the little wooden horse left the island behind and rowed in the direction that they believed the farther shore to be.

  18

  The Little Wooden Horse Goes Home

  Pirate Jacky rowed for a night and a day, till at last they reached the shore of which the little wooden horse had dreamed for so long. His wooden heart beat fiercely with excitement when the boat touched the shore and he found himself quite close to the port where he had begun his journey across the ocean with the elephant so long ago.

  “Well, I am sorry that we are to part, my little wooden horse,” said Pirate Jacky when they stood side by side on firm ground. “Good luck to your journeys! Perhaps we shall meet again one day!”

  “Perhaps we shall,” said the little wooden horse, though he did not think it likely, for he meant to stay by Uncle Peder’s side for ever and ever. However, he wished Pirate Jacky good luck and farewell, waved his wooden legs in turn, and trundled away to find the road by the canal that would lead him home.

  He avoided the port this time: he did not want the sailors to play any more tricks on him, lifting him high up in the air on cranes and setting him down on strange ships that took him over the sea, away from Uncle Peder. So he trundled round the outside of the port till he came to the canal, and there he set out along the towpath that he remembered so well from his race to the port many long months ago.

  The little wooden horse was happy as he hurried along. His wooden body was crammed too full of treasure even to rattle, but his four wooden wheels made a cheerful noise that was pleasant to hear.

  Presently he saw ahead of him a familiar sight – a great barge that had finished its business in the port swinging up the canal, towed by a strong black horse on the bank. The little wooden horse’s heart warmed as he saw it, and he thought of the great race he had run with the Marguerita and Farmer Max behind him.

  He had never seen the black horse before, but something about the lines of the barge made him look and look again to make certain – for it was – it was – the Marguerita!

  The little wooden horse quickened his pace, till he was trundling along side by side with the big black horse, and all of a sudden there came a cry from the people on board the barge.

  “See there! See! It’s our little wooden horse!”

  The horse drew the Marguerita close in to the bank, and in a moment the little wooden horse was on board among his friends of the canal, who were all talking at once, all petting him and asking him questions.

  “What happened to you that day?” they asked. “We waited for you all that evening, and the next, but you never came. Every journey we have made since we have searched the whole port for you, but nobody could tell us where you had gone.”

  They insisted on paying him the money they had owed him, and although the little wooden horse was rich now, he did not like to hurt their feelings by refusing to accept it. So instead he gave the barge man’s wife a very beautiful sparkling ruby, and she cried with joy at receiving such a handsome present.

  The little wooden horse offered to g
o and help the black horse pull the barge, but the barge people would not hear of it.

  “You must ride with us this time,” they insisted, “and tell us all your adventures. Besides, that is the strongest horse on the river. We bought him with the money we got for the timber the day you pulled the Marguerita first into port. He never tires.”

  So the little wooden horse stayed with the barge people and told them his adventures, till they were far up the canal and his road to the forest branched away through the fields out of sight of the canal.

  There he said goodbye to his friends, and asked them whether, if Uncle Peder should send a load of wooden horses to be sold across the sea, the Marguerita would very kindly see them down the canal and put them safely on to a ship in the port.

  The barge people promised they would do this without fail, so the black horse drew them away up the towpath, while the little wooden horse struck out across the fields towards the forest.

  “How pleasant this is, to be going home to my dear master with such treasure!” said the little wooden horse.

  He trundled all through the night, and in the morning found himself on roads that he remembered very well.

  “Why,” said the little wooden horse, “I must be quite close beside Farmer Max’s farm! Yes! Here are the fields I trundled through on my way to the canal. There is the ditch I hid in, and heard him go galloping by. And there – yes, there is the farm itself – more tumbledown than ever, with holes in all the roofs!

  “What a poor little fellow I was then!” said the little wooden horse. “So scared and bullied and afraid, with scarcely a penny to my name! Now that I am going home full of riches I am not afraid any more. I almost believe I feel brave enough to have a look round the farm and risk meeting Farmer Max himself.”

  So saying, the little wooden horse left the safe high road and trundled into Farmer Max’s farm.

  The ducks in the pond saw him first. They stood on their heads and waved their feet at him. The little wooden horse prowled round the corners he remembered best.