In the street stood an old, very old house—almost three hundred years old. The date was carved on a great beam, along with tulips, hop-binds, and verses in old-fashioned spelling. Over each window, a distorted face was cut into the wood. The upper story jutted far out over the lower one, and under the eaves hung a leaden spout with a dragon's head. The rainwater should have run from its mouth, but it ran from its belly instead, for there was a hole in the spout.
All the other houses in the street were new and neat, with large window panes and smooth walls. They seemed to have nothing to do with the old house. They certainly thought, "How long must that old, decayed thing stand here as a spectacle? Its projecting windows block our view! Its steps are as broad as a palace's and as high as a church tower. Its iron railings look like the door to a family vault, with those stupid brass tops!"
On the other side of the street were also new, neat houses, and they thought the same. But in a window opposite the old house sat a little boy with rosy cheeks and bright, beaming eyes. He liked the old house best, both in sunshine and moonshine. Gazing at its crumbling wall, he could imagine the strangest figures—the street as it once was, with steps, projecting windows, and pointed gables. He saw soldiers with halberds and spouts shaped like dragons and serpents. That was a house worth looking at!
An old man lived there, wearing plush breeches, a coat with large brass buttons, and a wig that was clearly real. Every morning, an old servant came to tidy his rooms and run errands. Otherwise, the old man was quite alone. Now and then, he came to the window and looked out. The little boy nodded to him, and the old man nodded back. So they became acquaintances, then friends, though they never spoke a word. The boy heard his parents say, "The old man opposite is very well off, but he is so very, very lonely!"
The following Sunday, the boy wrapped something in paper, went downstairs, and stood in the doorway. When the errand-man passed, the boy said, "Master! Will you give this to the old man across the way from me? I have two pewter soldiers—this is one of them. He shall have it, for I know he is so very, very lonely."
The old servant looked pleased, nodded, and took the pewter soldier to the old house. Later, a message came inviting the boy to visit. With his parents' permission, he went over.
The brass balls on the iron railings shone brighter than ever, as if polished for the occasion. The carved trumpeters on the door—standing in tulips—seemed to blow with all their might, their cheeks rounder than before. Yes, they blew—"Trateratra! The little boy comes! Trateratra!"—and the door opened.
The passage was hung with portraits of knights in armor and ladies in silken gowns. The armor rattled, and the gowns rustled! Then came a flight of stairs that went up a good way and down a little, leading to a dilapidated balcony full of holes and long crevices. Grass and leaves grew there, for the whole balcony, yard, and walls were overgrown with green, making it look like a garden—though it was only a balcony. Old flower-pots with faces and asses' ears stood about, the flowers growing as they pleased. One pot was overrun with pinks (the green part, that is). Shoot stood by shoot, and it said distinctly, "The air has cherished me, the sun has kissed me, and promised me a little flower on Sunday!"
They entered a chamber where the walls were covered with hog's leather, printed with gold flowers.
"The gilding decays,
But hog's leather stays!"
said the walls.
Easy-chairs with high, carved backs and arms stood about. "Sit down! sit down!" they said. "Ugh! how I creak; now I shall certainly get the gout, like the old clothespress, ugh!"
The boy entered the room with the projecting windows, where the old man sat.
"I thank you for the pewter soldier, my little friend!" said the old man. "And I thank you for coming to see me."
"Thankee! thankee!" or "cranky! cranky!" sounded from all the furniture. There was so much of it that each article got in the other's way to look at the boy.
In the middle of the wall hung a picture of a beautiful lady, young and glad, but dressed in old-fashioned clothes, with stiff garments and powdered hair. She said neither "thankee" nor "cranky" but looked at the boy with mild eyes. He asked the old man, "Where did you get her?"
"Yonder, at the broker's," said the old man. "Where so many pictures hang. No one knows or cares about them, for they are all buried. But I knew her in bygone days. She has been dead these fifty years!"
Under the picture, in a glazed frame, hung a bouquet of withered flowers, almost fifty years old. They looked so very old!
The pendulum of the great clock swung to and fro, the hands turned, and everything in the room grew still older, though no one noticed.
"They say at home that you are so very, very lonely!" said the boy.
"Oh!" said he. "Old thoughts, with what they may bring, come to visit me, and now you come too! I am very well off!"
He took a picture book from the shelf, showing long processions and pageants with strange characters no longer seen: soldiers like the knave of clubs, citizens with waving flags. The tailors' flag had a pair of shears held by two lions; the shoemakers' had a two-headed eagle (for shoemakers must have everything in pairs!). Yes, it was a picture book!
The old man went to fetch preserves, apples, and nuts. It was delightful there in the old house.
"I cannot bear it any longer!" said the pewter soldier on the drawers. "It is so lonely and melancholy here! When one has known a family circle, one cannot get used to this life! The days are long, the evenings longer! It's not like your home, where your parents speak pleasantly and you children make a delightful noise. Nay, how lonely the old man is! Do you think he gets kisses? Mild looks? A Christmas tree? He will get nothing but a grave! I cannot bear it!"
"You must not grieve so," said the boy. "I find it delightful here, and all the old thoughts come to visit."
"Yes, but I see nothing of them, and I don't know them!" said the soldier. "I cannot bear it!"
"But you must!" said the boy.
Then the old man returned with a pleased face and delicious preserves, apples, and nuts, so the boy thought no more of the soldier.
The boy returned home happy. Weeks passed, with nods exchanged between the houses. Then the boy visited again.
The carved trumpeters blew, "Trateratra! There is the little boy! Trateratra!" The swords and armor rattled, the silk gowns rustled; the hog's leather spoke, and the old chairs complained of gout and rheumatism. It was exactly like the first time, for there one day was just like another.
"I cannot bear it!" said the pewter soldier. "I have shed pewter tears! It is too melancholy! I'd rather go to war and lose limbs—at least that's a change. Now I know what it means to be visited by old thoughts! I've had a visit from mine, and it's no pleasant thing. I was about to jump down.
"I saw you all at home so clearly, as if you were here. It was that Sunday morning again; you children stood before the table singing your Psalms, devoutly, with folded hands. Father and mother were just as pious. Then the door opened, and little sister Mary, not yet two, who always dances to music, was brought in. She began to dance but couldn't keep time because the tones were so long. She stood first on one leg, bending her head forward, then on the other—but it was no use. You all stood seriously, though it was hard. I laughed to myself, then fell off the table and got a bump I still have—for it was wrong to laugh. But it all passes before me again—these are the old thoughts.
"Tell me, do you still sing on Sundays? Tell me about little Mary! And how is my comrade, the other pewter soldier? He is happy enough, I'm sure! I cannot bear it!"
"You were given as a present!" said the boy. "You must stay. Can't you understand?"
The old man came with a drawer containing "tin boxes," "balsam boxes," old cards, large and gilded, unlike any seen now. He opened several drawers and the piano, which had landscapes inside its lid and sounded hoarse when he played. Then he hummed a song.
"Yes, she could sing that!" he said, nodding to the portrait from the broker's. His eyes shone brightly.
"I will go to the wars! I will go to the wars!" shouted the pewter soldier, throwing himself off the drawers onto the floor. What became of him? The old man and the boy searched, but he was gone.
"I shall find him!" said the old man, but he never did. The floor was too open—the soldier had fallen through a crevice and lay as in an open tomb.
That day passed, and the boy went home. Weeks passed. The windows frosted over, and the boy had to breathe on them to peek at the old house. Snow filled the carvings and inscriptions, covering the steps as if no one lived there—and no one did. The old man was dead!
That evening, a hearse stood before the door. The old man was borne out in his coffin, driven to the country to lie in his grave. No one followed; all his friends were dead. The boy kissed his hand to the coffin as it drove away.
Days later, there was an auction at the old house. From his window, the boy saw the old knights and ladies, the flower-pots with long ears, the old chairs and clothes-presses carried away. Something went here, something there. The portrait from the broker's returned to the broker's and hung there, for no one knew her anymore—no one cared for the old picture.
In spring, they pulled the house down, for people said it was a ruin. From the street, one could see into the room with the slashed and torn hog's-leather hanging. The green grass and leaves on the balcony hung wild about the falling beams. Then the site was cleared.
"That was a relief," said the neighboring houses.
A fine house was built there, with large windows and smooth white walls. But where the old house had stood, a little garden was laid out. A wild grapevine ran up the neighboring wall. Before the garden was a large iron railing with an iron door, looking quite splendid. People stopped to peep in. Sparrows hung by scores in the vine, chattering away, but not about the old house—they could not remember it.
So many years had passed that the little boy had grown into a man, clever and a pleasure to his parents. He had just married and, with his wife, come to live in the house with the garden. He stood by her as she planted a pretty field-flower, pressing the earth around it with her fingers. Oh! What was that? She had stuck herself. Something pointed sat straight out of the soft mould.
It was—yes, guess! It was the pewter soldier, lost at the old man's, who had tumbled among timber and rubbish and lain for years in the ground.
The young wife wiped the dirt off the soldier with a green leaf, then with her fine handkerchief—it smelled so delightful that to the soldier it was like awaking from a trance.
"Let me see him," said the young man. He laughed and shook his head. "Nay, it cannot be he, but he reminds me of a story about a pewter soldier I had as a boy!" He told his wife about the old house, the old man, and the pewter soldier he sent over because the man was so very lonely. He told it correctly, so that tears came to his young wife's eyes for the old house and the old man.
"It may be the same pewter soldier!" she said. "I will take care of it and remember your story. But you must show me the old man's grave!"
"I do not know it," said he. "No one knows it! All his friends were dead, no one tended it, and I was just a little boy then."
"How very, very lonely he must have been!" said she.
"Very, very lonely!" said the pewter soldier. "But it is delightful not to be forgotten!"
"Delightful!" shouted something close by. Only the soldier saw it was a piece of the hog's-leather hangings. It had lost all its gilding and looked like wet clay, but it had an opinion:
"The gilding decays,
But hog's leather stays!"
The pewter soldier did not believe it.