The Old House

In the street, up there, stood an old, very old house. It was almost three hundred years old. You could tell that from the big beam where the year was carved, along with tulips and hop vines.

There were even whole verses spelled out like in old times, and over every window a funny face was cut into the beam. The first floor stuck out far over the one below, and right under the roof was a leaden spout with a dragon's head.

The rainwater was supposed to run out of its mouth, but it ran out of its belly instead, because there was a hole in the spout.

All the other houses in the street were so new and neat, with big windowpanes and smooth walls. You could easily see that they wanted nothing to do with the old house. They probably thought, "How long is that old, crumbling thing going to stand here and be an eyesore? And those windows stick out so far that we can't see what's happening down the street! The steps are as wide as a palace and as high as a church tower. The iron railings look just like the door to an old tomb, and they have brass knobs on top—how ridiculous!"

On the other side of the street, there were also new and clean houses, and they thought the same. But at the window opposite the old house sat a little boy with rosy cheeks and bright, shining eyes. He liked the old house best, both in sunshine and moonlight.

When he looked across at the wall where the plaster had fallen off, he could sit and find the strangest pictures. It was just like the street had looked in the old days, with steps, windows sticking out, and pointed roofs.

He could see soldiers with spears, and spouts shaped like dragons and snakes. That was a house to look at! And an old man lived there, who wore velvet pants and a coat with big brass buttons, and a wig that you could tell was a real wig.

Every morning an old man came to clean and run errands for him. Otherwise, the old man in the velvet pants was all alone in the old house. Now and then he came to the window and looked out, and the little boy nodded to him.

The old man nodded back, and so they became acquaintances, and then friends, even though they never spoke to each other. That didn't matter. The little boy heard his parents say, "The old man across the street is very rich, but he is so, so lonely!"

Next Sunday, the little boy took something, wrapped it in paper, and went downstairs. He stood in the doorway, and when the errand man came past, he said, "Hey, sir! Will you give this to the old man across the street? I have two pewter soldiers.

This is one of them, and he can have it, because I know he is so, so lonely." The errand man looked pleased, nodded, and took the pewter soldier to the old house. Later, a message came asking if the little boy himself would like to come over and visit.

He got permission from his parents and went over to the old house.

The brass knobs on the iron railings shone brighter than ever, as if they had been polished for the visit. And it seemed like the carved trumpeters on the door—there were trumpeters standing among tulips carved in the wood—blew with all their might. Their cheeks looked rounder than before. Yes, they blew, "Trateratra! The little boy is coming! Trateratra!" Then the door opened.

The hallway was hung with portraits of knights in armor and ladies in silk gowns. The armor rattled and the silk gowns rustled! And then there was a staircase that went up quite a way, then down a little, and then you came to a balcony that was very old and broken, with big cracks and holes.

But grass and leaves grew out of them, because the whole balcony, the yard, and the walls were so overgrown with green things that it looked like a garden, except it was only a balcony. There stood old flowerpots with faces and donkey ears, and the flowers grew just as they liked.

One pot was completely covered with pinks, at least the green parts. Stem stood by stem, and it said quite clearly, "The air has loved me, the sun has kissed me, and promised me a little flower on Sunday! A little flower on Sunday!"

Then they entered a room where the walls were covered with pigskin leather, printed with gold flowers.

"The gilding decays, But pigskin stays!" said the walls.

And there were armchairs with such high backs, so carved, with armrests on both sides. "Sit down! Sit down!" they said. "Ugh! How I creak! Now I'll surely get the gout, like the old wardrobe! Ugh!"

Then the little boy came into the room where the bay windows were, and where the old man sat.

"Thank you for the pewter soldier, my little friend!" said the old man. "And thank you for coming to see me."

"Thankee! Thankee!" or "Creaky! Creaky!" came from all the furniture. There was so much of it that each piece stood in the way of the others to get a look at the little boy.

On the wall in the middle hung a picture of a beautiful lady, so young, so happy, but dressed in old-fashioned clothes that stood stiff, with powder in her hair. She didn't say "thankee" or "creaky," but looked with her gentle eyes at the little boy, who asked the old man, "Where did you get her?"

"Over there, at the secondhand shop," said the old man. "There are so many pictures hanging there. No one knows or cares about them, because they're all buried. But I knew her in days gone by, and now she's been dead and gone for fifty years!"

Under the picture, in a glazed frame, hung a bunch of dried flowers. They were almost fifty years old. They looked so old!

The pendulum of the big clock swung back and forth, and the hands turned, and everything in the room became even older, but no one noticed.

"They say at home," said the little boy, "that you are so, so lonely."

"Oh," said the old man. "The old thoughts, with whatever they bring, come and visit me, and now you come too! I am very well off!"

Then he took a picture book down from the shelf. There were long processions and parades with the strangest characters that you never see nowadays. Soldiers like the knave of clubs, citizens with waving flags, tailors with a pair of shears held by two lions, and shoemakers without boots but with a double-headed eagle, because shoemakers have to have everything so they can say it's a pair! Yes, that was a picture book!

Now the old man went into the other room to get treats, apples, and nuts. Yes, it was lovely over there in the old house.

"I can't stand it anymore!" said the pewter soldier, who sat on the chest of drawers. "It's so lonely and dreary here! When you've been part of a family, you can't get used to this life! I can't stand it anymore!

The whole day is so long, and the evenings are even longer! Here it's not at all like at your home, where your mother and father talked so nicely, and you and all your sweet children made such a happy noise. Oh, how lonely the old man is!

Do you think he gets kisses? Do you think he gets kind eyes or a Christmas tree? He'll get nothing but a grave! I can't bear it anymore!"

"You mustn't be so sad," said the little boy. "I find it so lovely here, and then all the old thoughts, with whatever they bring, come and visit."

"Yes, that's all very well, but I don't see them and I don't know them!" said the pewter soldier. "I can't stand it!"

"But you must!" said the little boy.

Then the old man came back with the happiest face, the most delicious treats, apples, and nuts, and the little boy forgot about the pewter soldier.

The little boy went home happy and pleased. Weeks and days passed. They nodded to each other from across the street, and then the little boy went over again.

The carved trumpeters blew, "Trateratra! The little boy is coming! Trateratra!" The swords and armor on the knights' portraits rattled, the silk gowns rustled. The pigskin spoke, and the old chairs had the gout in their legs and rheumatism in their backs. Ugh! It was exactly like the first time, because over there one day and one hour were just like another.

"I can't stand it!" said the pewter soldier. "I've shed pewter tears! It's too miserable! Let me go to war and lose my arms and legs instead! That would be a change. I can't stand it anymore! Now I know what it's like to be visited by old thoughts with whatever they bring. I've had a visit from mine, and you can be sure it's not a nice thing in the end. I almost jumped off the chest of drawers.

"I saw you all at home so clearly, as if you were right here. It was that Sunday morning again. All you children stood at the table and sang your psalms, as you do every morning. You stood with folded hands, looking devoted. Father and mother were just as devout.

Then the door opened, and little sister Mary, who isn't two years old yet and who always dances when she hears music or singing, was brought in—even though she shouldn't have been there. And she started to dance, but she couldn't keep time because the songs were so long.

She stood first on one leg, bending her head, then on the other leg, bending her head. But it wasn't working. You all stood very seriously together, even though it was hard enough. But I laughed to myself, and then I fell off the table and got a bump that I still have—because it wasn't right of me to laugh.

But now it all passes before me again, everything I've ever seen, and these are the old thoughts, with whatever they bring.

"Tell me, do you still sing on Sundays? Tell me about little Mary! And how is my friend, the other pewter soldier? Yes, he is happy, I'm sure! I can't stand it anymore!"

"You've been given away!" said the little boy. "You have to stay. Don't you understand?"

The old man came with a drawer full of things to see—tin boxes and balsam boxes, old, large, gold-rimmed cards that you never see nowadays. They opened several drawers. They opened the piano, which had landscapes painted on the inside of the lid. It sounded so hoarse when the old man played, and he hummed a song.

"Yes, she could sing that," he said, and nodded to the portrait he had bought at the secondhand shop. The old man's eyes shone brightly!

"I will go to war! I will go to war!" shouted the pewter soldier as loud as he could, and he threw himself off the chest of drawers down onto the floor. What happened to him? The old man looked, the little boy looked. He was gone, and he stayed gone.

"I will find him!" said the old man, but he never found him. The floor had too many cracks. The pewter soldier had fallen through a crack, and there he lay as in an open grave.

That day passed, and the little boy went home. That week passed, and several weeks too. The windows were frozen. The little boy had to sit and breathe on them to make a little peephole to look at the old house. Snow had blown into all the carvings and writings. It piled up on the steps, as if no one was home. And no one was home—the old man was dead!

In the evening, a hearse was seen outside the door. He was carried in his coffin. Now he was to be taken out to the country to lie in his grave. He was driven away, but no one followed. All his friends were dead. The little boy kissed his hand to the coffin as it drove away.

A few days later, an auction was held at the old house. From his window, the little boy saw them carry away the old knights and the old ladies, the flowerpots with long ears, the old chairs, and the old wardrobes. Some things went here, some went there. The portrait of the lady from the secondhand shop went back to the secondhand shop. And there it hung, because no one knew her anymore. No one cared about the old picture.

In the spring, they tore down the house, because people said it was a ruin. You could see right into the room with the pigskin wallpaper, which was slashed and torn. The green grass and leaves on the balcony hung wildly over the falling beams. And then they cleaned everything up.

"What a relief," said the neighboring houses.

A fine house was built there, with large windows and smooth white walls. But in front, where the old house had stood, they made a little garden. A wild grapevine grew up the wall of the neighboring house. In front of the garden was a big iron gate with an iron door.

It looked splendid. People stopped and peeked in. The sparrows hung in the vine by the dozens and chattered at each other as best they could, but not about the old house, because they couldn't remember it.

So many years had passed—so many that the little boy had grown up to be a grown man, yes, a clever man, and a joy to his parents. He had just gotten married, and he and his young wife had come to live in the house with the garden.

He stood by her while she planted a wildflower that she thought was pretty. She planted it with her little hand and pressed the soil around it with her fingers. Oh! What was that? She pricked herself. Something sharp was sticking up straight out of the soft earth.

It was—yes, guess! It was the pewter soldier. He who was lost at the old man's house, who had tumbled and turned among the timber and rubble, and had lain in the ground for many years.

The young wife wiped the dirt off the soldier, first with a green leaf and then with her fine handkerchief. It smelled so lovely that the pewter soldier felt as if he had woken from a dream.

"Let me see him," said the young man. He laughed and shook his head. "No, it can't be him. But he reminds me of a story about a pewter soldier that I had when I was a little boy." And then he told his wife about the old house, and the old man, and the pewter soldier that he had sent over because the old man was so, so lonely. He told it exactly as it had happened, so that tears came to his young wife's eyes, for the old house and the old man.

"It could be the same pewter soldier, though," she said. "I will take care of it and remember everything you have told me. But you must show me the old man's grave."

"But I don't know where it is," he said. "And no one knows. All his friends were dead. No one took care of it. I was only a little boy then."

"How very, very lonely he must have been!" she said.

"Very, very lonely!" said the pewter soldier. "But it's wonderful not to be forgotten!"

"Wonderful!" shouted something nearby, but no one except the pewter soldier saw that it was a piece of the pigskin wallpaper. It had lost all its gilding and looked like a piece of wet clay, but it had an opinion, and it said:

"The gilding decays, But pigskin stays!"

This the pewter soldier did not believe.