There was once a Darning-needle who thought herself so fine that she believed she was an embroidery needle. "Take great care to hold me tight!" she said to the Fingers. "Don't let me fall! If I fall, I shall never be found again, I am so fine!"
"It is all right!" said the Fingers, seizing her. "Look, I am coming with my train!" said the Darning-needle, drawing a long thread after her. The Fingers used her to sew a cook's shoe. "This is common work!" she complained. "I shall never get through it. I am breaking!" And she did break.
"Now she is good for nothing!" said the Fingers. The cook then dropped sealing-wax on the broken needle and stuck it in her dress. "Now I am a breast-pin!" said the Darning-needle proudly. "I always knew I should be promoted." She sat up proudly and spoke to a Pin beside her: "May I ask if you are gold? You have a peculiar head, but it is too small!" Raising herself up too proudly, she fell out of the dress into the sink.
"Now I am off on my travels!" she said, ending up in a gutter. "I am too fine for this world! But I know who I am." She watched shavings, straw, and newspaper scraps float by, criticizing their pride while maintaining her own.
One day, she saw something glittering and thought it a diamond. It was a piece of bottle-glass. Each believed the other was costly and boasted of their worth. The Darning-needle spoke of coming from a cook's work-box and described the proud Fingers—five brothers named Thumb, Dip-into-everything, Longman, Goldband, and Playman. "There was too much ostentation, so I came away."
Water washed the bottle-glass away. "Ah! He has been promoted! I remain; I am too fine," said the needle. She imagined herself born a sunbeam, too fine for even her mother to find.
One day, street urchins found her. One pricked himself and cried, "He is a fine fellow!" "I am not a fellow; I am a young lady!" she retorted, unheard. The wax was gone, and she was black. "Black makes one look slim," she thought, feeling finer. The boys stuck her into an egg-shell boat. "White walls and I, black—what a pretty contrast!"
The egg-shell was crushed by a wagon-wheel. "Oh! I am breaking!" she cried. But she did not break. She lay there at full length, and there she may lie.