Have you ever seen a very old chest; black with age, and covered with outlandish carved ornaments and curling leaves? Well, in a certain parlour there was just such a chest, handed down from some great-grandmother. Carved all up and down it ran tulips and roses, odd-looking flourishes, and from fanciful thickets little stags stuck out their antlered heads.
Right in the middle of the chest a whole man was carved. He would make you laugh to look at him grinning away, though one couldn’t call his grinning laughing. He had hind legs like a goat’s, a little horn on his forehead, and a long beard. All his children called him “General Headquarters-Hindquarters-Gives-Orders-Front-and-Rear-Sergeant-Billygoat-Legs.” It was a difficult name to pronounce and not many people get to be called by it, but he must have been very important or why should anyone have taken trouble to carve him at all?
However, there he stood, forever eyeing a delightful little china shepherdess on the table top under the mirror. The little shepherdess wore golden shoes, and looped up her gown fetchingly with a red rose. Her hat was gold, and even her crook was gold. She was simply charming!
Close by her stood a little chimney-sweep, as black as coal, but made of porcelain too. He was as clean and tidy as anyone can be, because you see he was only an ornamental chimney-sweep. If the china-makers had wanted to, they could just as easily have turned him out as a prince, for he had a jaunty way of holding his ladder, and his cheeks were as pink as a girl’s. That was a mistake, don’t you think? He should have been dabbed with a pinch or two of soot.
He and the shepherdess stood quite close together. They had both been put on the table where they stood and, having been placed there, they had become engaged because they suited each other exactly. Both were young, both were made of the same porcelain, and neither could stand a shock.
Near them stood another figure, three times as big as they were. It was an old China-man who could nod his head. He too was made of porcelain, and he said he was the little shepherdess’ grandfather - but he couldn’t prove it. Nevertheless he claimed that this gave him authority over her, and when General Headquarters-Hindquarters-Gives-Orders-Front-and-Rear-Sergeant-Billygoat-Legs asked for her hand in marriage, the old China-man nodded consent.
“There’s a husband for you!” The old China-man told the shepherdess. “A husband who, I am inclined to believe, is made of mahogany. He can make you Mrs. General-Headquarters-Hindquarters-Gives-Orders-Front-and-Rear-Sergeant-Billygoat-Legs. He has the whole chest full of silver, and who knows what else he’s got hidden away in his secret drawers?”
“But I don’t want to go and live in the dark chest,” said the little shepherdess. “I have heard people say he’s got eleven china wives in there already.”
“Then you will make twelve,” said the China-man. “Tonight, as soon as the old chest commences to creak I’ll marry you off to him, as sure as I’m a China-man.” Then he nodded off to sleep. The little shepherdess cried and looked at her true love, the porcelain chimney-sweep.
“Please let’s run away into the big, wide world,” she begged him, “for we can’t stay here.”
“I’ll do just what you want me to,” the little chimney-sweep told her. “Let’s run away right now. I feel sure I can support you by chimney-sweeping.”
“I wish we were safely down off this table,” she said. “I’ll never be happy until we are out in the big, wide world.”
He told her not to worry, and showed her how to drop her little feet over the table edge, and how to step from one gilded leaf to another down the carved leg of the table. He set up his ladder to help her, and down they came safely to the floor. But when they glanced at the old chest they saw a great commotion. All the carved stags were craning their necks, tossing their antlers, and turning their heads. General Headquarters-Hindquarters-Gives-Orders-Front-and-Rear-Sergeant-Billygoat-Legs jumped high in the air, and shouted to the old China-man, “They’re running away! They’re running away!”
This frightened them so that they jumped quickly into a drawer of the window seat. Here they found three or four decks of cards, not quite complete, and a little puppet theatre, which was set up as well as it was possible to do. A play was in progress, and all the diamond queens, heart queens, club queens, and spade queens sat in front row and fanned themselves with the tulips they held in their hands. Behind them the knaves lined up, showing that they had heads both at the top and at the bottom, as face cards do have. The play was all about two people, who were not allowed to marry, and it made the shepherdess cry because it was so like her own story.
“I can’t bear to see any more,” she said. “I must get out of this drawer at once.” But when they got back to the floor and looked up at the table, they saw the old China-man was wide awake now. Not only his head, but his whole body rocked forward. The lower part of his body was one solid piece, you see.
“The old China-man’s coming!” Cried the little Shepherdess, who was so upset that she fell down on her porcelain knees.
“I have an idea,” said the chimney-sweeper. “We’ll hide in the pot-pourri vase in the corner. There we can rest upon rose petals and lavender, and when he finds us we can throw salt in his eyes.”
“It’s no use,” she said. “Besides, I know the pot-pourri vase was once the old China-man’s sweetheart, and where there used to be love a little affection is sure to remain. No, there’s nothing for us to do but to run away into the big wide world.”
“Are you really so brave that you’d go into the wide world with me?” Asked the chimney-sweep. “Have you thought about how big it is, and that we can never come back here?”
“I have,” she said.
The chimney-sweep looked her straight in the face and said, “My way lies up through the chimney. Are you really so brave that you’ll come with me into the stove, and crawl through the stovepipe? It will take us to the chimney. Once we get there, I’ll know what to do. We shall climb so high that they’ll never catch us, and at the very top there’s an opening into the big wide world.”
He led her to the stove door.
“It looks very black in there,” she said. But she let him lead her through the stove and through the stovepipe, where it was pitch black night.
“Now we’ve come to the chimney,” he said. “And see! See how the bright star shines over our heads.”
A real star, high up in the heavens, shone down as if it wished to show them the way. They clambered and scuffled, for it was hard climbing and terribly steep - way, way up high! But he lifted her up, held her safe, and found the best places for her little porcelain feet. At last they reached the top of the chimney, where they sat down. For they were so tired, and no wonder!
Overhead was the starry sky, and spread before them were all the housetops in the town
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