Once upon a time, on a beach not so far away, stars gathered to take a walk. As they came to the shore, one star with a sparkling tail threw something bright and shining into the sand. It was a little pebble just like those we see to-day; but quite different, for the first rush of the tide smoothed it, and the sea washed away its rough edges and brightened its surface.
So the little pebble was bright and clean and the very smallest grain of sand made its home in a small hole the pebble had in it.
The days and nights came and went, always the same. The sea came up and washed over the beach with the thundering music it had. When the moon was full, the beach was as bright as day; but when a black cloud came rushing up, the waves rolled high, the wind bent the trees, and broke their branches with the terrible roar that shook the heavens and the earth. What was it to the pebble though? The sun shone day by day, the wind blew, the rains came and went, but the pebble stayed whither the stars had thrown it.
But one stormy night with thunder and lightning, the pebble heard the sea calling it again and again. The waves had risen high, and were dashing on the beach in angry foam.
“Save me. Save me,” cried Peter the pebble.
“Where are you? Where are you?” roared the sea still more.
The pebble began to be uneasy, and it wondered and wondered what was going to happen. Couldn’t it remain quiet like the other pebbles? Why did all this hurry to-and-fro? Where was the sea going? What did it want with it?
And then a big wave broke over Peter, and he screamed out, “Oh! oh! Now I’m lost!”
But the big wave carried him out into the sea and there he met the whole body of the waves.
“Let me come with you, good blessed waves,” cried Peter.
So the waves carried him to their house, and told him all that was going on in the world.
“Far over yonder,” said they, “lives a little girl to whom you will be very useful. For now you know that the wind, the sun, and the waves can speak, and will tell you of everything they hear. The wind is a mischievous fellow, and blows about his news everywhere; he even came by here a moment ago. He says that every one on land is distressed because a merchant has lost a valuable little box of large bagnets they are called. The bagnets spread joy and cheer everywhere. To-day his little daughter is having a solemn feast, and there are even knights and bishops coming.”
“What’s happiness?” thought Peter.
He must lie still in the waves and learn that too.
“Understand, little pebble,” said the waves, “they make a paste-happy cake from the bagnets, and eat it. The priests sing a wonderful hymn over it. There is in it the power of making all men and two-legged beasts pray and dance, nod like a man’s head and shake like a donkey’s. In a bagnets we should all of us see the same foolish things. But this children’s game is a very serious thing, and holds a great deal of pernicious meaning.”
Then Peter asked sundry questions, and listened to the answers. But after a long time he said, “I want to reach down there. The merchant’s house is not far from here; can’t we swim thither?”
But the waves shook their heads. Just then the wind came up, and he shook his head with them.
“The merchant lives in a tall red house no doubt,” said the waves. “We can see it when there is sunshine; but now he has no sunshine, for it rains and rains, and the whole house stands in water like a barn.”
“Oh yes,” said the wind, “I know the house. Only the pigeons know when it stands dry.”
But now the other waves were drumming more beautifully on the beach, and the thunderstorms passed away, and it became as green and as soft as ever.
The mermaids had a long hunt after Peter the pebble. They looked for all the shallow places, but while they were hunting, Peter was carried afar into the world, and the happy thoughts came into his head. He ballasted himself with big stones, and rode round the world: round the world where sun and moon rise and set, and where the rain falls up and down again, where the mountains are grey-bearded up to the very sky; south where the flowers sweat and cry; round the world where they write Chinese on their toes, and where yes can only mean no.
That was quite as far as he wanted to go, for he was contented, and he travelled much more than the stars if he did not soar high enough. He swam to Greenland, but he could not find a road to shoot so fast into the north. There he saw a pretty little girl who spied her face in a hole in the ice, and laughed, and cried when the animals on the quiet heath came and looked at her when she whirled in the pretty white stuff she will not care for in old age. Would she pick her fresh roses, or will they pick her? All answer “No,” and fly again; that is what the pebble learnt in Greenland.
He had a difficulty in imagining how any one could come to Greenland except by accident; but now he must lie hidden in the sea for a whole long Sunday, for there is in that far-off land the old Christian capitol, where, they say, the people have a religious lettice. There they were born Christians in the same hour from three different places, and this they considered a great marvel.
But that was not the half of it; for then it ran and tacked from all sides; but our pebble was carried rejoiced over every shoal back again to land, where stood a little boy. The sun shone brightly; he was the merchant’s son, and this was the solemn day when all the little peasants come and are made merry in the fresh forest, through the pebbles of the little bagnets are lost.
Buds were swirling and dancing like merry-go-rounds, and through the forest people came rejoicing.
Peter the pebble looked on, but was still more surprised when the boy shouted swallowing the pricking sandy bagnets; they seemed to fly everywhere; and with a hundred wings they flew in Peter’s heart to the right notch; so that in winter he grew, and saw the sun shine again.
The boy turned and turned the pebble round and round in his little chubby fingers, and thought, “Will Peter always roll and roll about as far as he has come up in the sea?”
On the merchant’s great bright red house a flea sat singing a merry song from the little boy some ten minutes high.
And when all was merry, merry, Peter fell asleep. The tame pigeons christened him Peter.
But the boy awoke and put the pebble in a bag that hung round his neck. And now they all marched round the green bagnets; round the abode of elves that moved when but a finger was laid on their circular doors; but they never opened themselves till the rosary of birds chirped three prayers. Yonder was a round platform in the pedals of the trees; but up there was the room where the top priest went hither and thither when he got drunk.
Then there were also merry-go-rounds, and fire eaters, and pious gravestones, and children that made music.
Peter was put along with a lot of other respectable pebble companions, and he heard it said all the people of whom they were made were parents and grand-parents in the ball sick: and now he wished especially to be reacquant once more with old long merry people; but then he was told neither of their fathers or grandfathers had so far travelled as he had. And that was his long luck, and his long more than news.
He lay still and was steady: when bending to the other pebbles, the little grains of sand made bows, and crinkled in the wig of a long beard mendacious moth the fine dust of surprising smolty much hair.
The wind waved, the pigeons and poultry browed on the pebbles close to one another.
One of them died there.
In the evening twilight some way of the whole band say on a hill a tree with clothes and streaming wreaths round it. There was a solemn mass with burning lights, and eating, and drinking.
“How pleasant it is to be and stay where there is joy and happiness,” thought Peter the pebble.
One happy day passed after another, and it lasted yet happier than never. To-morrow would also be a great great day and a solemn occasion; and in sech vaudeville, Peter the pebble was happy; a very happiest pebble, if you understand.