Chapter VIII: The Sand Man’s Scare

Mrs. Blue was busy in her kitchen one August morning when she heard a racket in the cornfield.

“At it again,” she murmured and ran out to the side fence.

“Little Boy Blue,” she called loudly, “come blow your horn. The sheep’s in the meadow, the cow’s in the corn.”

No answer from the little boy, lying under a near-by haystack. Mrs. Blue opened her mouth to call again when up popped Farmer Tom from behind the barn. Farmer Tom was the Blues’ neighbor, and it was Farmer Tom’s cornfield that the cow was in.

“Where’s the boy that looks after the sheep?” demanded the farmer.

“He’s under the haystack fast asleep,” admitted poor Mrs. Blue.

Farmer Tom snorted.

“Well, he must get them animals out of my corn,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” answered Mrs. Blue nervously, and then called again, “LITTLE BOY BLUE!” so loudly that you would have thought any fellow might have waked up. Little Boy Blue did almost wake up too. He grunted, stirred, rubbed his eyes, but then if he didn’t curl down deeper in the hay and go straight back to sleep.

What could Mrs. Blue do? She could do nothing but climb the fence, skirts and all--for the gate was a long way off--and go after Little Boy Blue, so that’s what she did. She climbed the fence, marched over to the haystack and shook--yes, shook--her sleeping son until at last he was awake. Then he scuttled away and led the sheep and cow into the pasture where they belonged.

This was the way things were always going with the Blues. Boy Blue was forever falling asleep, the cows were forever getting in the corn, Farmer Tom was always scolding and fussing and Mrs. Blue was always worrying. Of course, it was worse in summer, when the warm air was drowsy and the haystack was soft and inviting. But even in winter it was bad enough, for then Little Boy Blue went to sleep over his books, over his supper, over his games. He had actually been caught at it during an exciting game of Hide-and-Go-Seek, when he had hidden behind the hedge in Mistress Mary’s garden and then promptly gone to sleep there.

But you cannot sleep all of the time, even if you’re a Little Boy Blue, and so it was that Little Boy Blue found that he was not sleeping very well of nights, because he slept all day. It was a dull business too, lying awake in the dead of the night, with nothing to see except perhaps a streak of moonlight or the shadow of the pear tree, nothing to hear except the dickery, dickery, dock, of the kitchen clock, nothing to do but wait for daylight to come.

And so on this same night, as usual, Little Boy Blue lay stark awake, even starker awake than he sometimes was, for his naps had been more frequent and longer that day. It was early still, about eight o’clock, and although Little Boy Blue had been in bed only half an hour, it seemed to him that he had been there exactly one hundred years, he was so tired of it.

He twisted and turned and rolled and kicked. He propped himself up on his elbows and stared up at the stars: “Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are,” and then he almost did go to sleep wondering just exactly what stars were--fire or silver or flowers or what. Little Boy Blue had not studied astronomy yet. But just as he almost fell asleep, clink, clank came a noise, and he came to with a jerk. What was that noise? It sounded like a milk pail, clink, clank. He listened hard, but no further sound came. He squirmed and turned some more. Finally he sat up straight in bed.

“I’m going to get up,” he said to himself. “Right up.”

Which he did. He groped in the dim light for his clothes and put them on--his blue suit, his shoes and stockings, his favorite blue cap with the red button on top. Then he tiptoed softly out of his room, through the kitchen and into the yard.

Oh, Little Boy Blue, what would your mother say if she knew you were not in bed and asleep? What would your father say if somebody should tell him that his little boy was out in the middle of the night like this, walking around? But they didn’t know it, those two good souls nodding by their candle in the second-best parlor, which is probably a good thing, as it would have distressed them. Not that Little Boy Blue meant the least harm in the world. He had just thought he’d take “a bit of a turn” and try that way to get sleepy. He had heard the candlestick-maker say once that he always took “a bit of a turn” before he went to bed, which made him sleep like a top. As if tops did sleep--the funny old candlestick-maker.

Little Boy Blue had hardly taken three steps when clink, clank, his foot bumped against something which made that same noise he had heard a few moments before in bed. He stooped down. It looked like a bucket, but it wasn’t one of his mother’s milk pails. What could it be? He put his hands into it. There was something inside that felt gritty and sticky and damp. He looked closer and felt it again. It was sand.

But what on earth was a bucket of sand doing on the Blues’ side stoop, and who in the world had left it there? Little Boy Blue did not know. Perhaps his father had forgotten it, he thought. Perhaps Farmer Tom had put it there. He and Mr. Blue were always lending each other things--bags of gravel, baskets of chips, nails and bridles and chicken feed.

Well, whatever it was, this was not the place for it, Little Boy Blue knew that. So he picked it up and carried it back to the tool house, and there he put it in a corner out of harm’s way, like the careful little boy that he was. And then he went away to take his bit of a turn.

Little did Boy Blue know what he had really done by hiding that bucket of sand, though the fact was that he had done something epoch-making in Pudding Lane. Epoch-making is a big word, but then Little Boy Blue had done a big thing. For whom do you suppose that sand belonged to?

It belonged to the Sand Man, that fellow who slips along by our windows at night, throws his handfuls of sand in our eyes and makes us feel heavy in our eyelids and sleepy all over. He had left his sand for the least little while on the Blues’ side stoop, while he went up to the palace to put the King and Queen to sleep, and now Boy Blue had hidden it. Think of it! The Sand Man without his sand!

Do you wonder that when he came back, he wrung his sandy hands and beat his breast in frenzied despair? Do you wonder that he trembled all over? Poor Sand Man! It did look bad for him. Never before had he failed to do his work. Every single night, for years and years and years, he had gone on his circuit from house to house, and put folks to sleep, first the children, then the grandfathers, and after that, sometimes quite late, the mothers and fathers and big sisters in the parlor.

And now on this night, his sand was gone, everybody would stay wide awake, and goodness knows what angry message Old King Cole would send him. That merry old soul might even deprive him of his job, and then what would he do for a living, and what would the Sand Woman do, and all the little Sand Children? It was a sad thought, and the Sand Man shuddered as he stood there in the shadow of the Blues’ house, wondering what to do next.

As Little Boy Blue walked down Pudding Lane, he wondered why the Shoe was lighted up so brilliantly, and as he passed the Dumpties’ he thought it strange indeed that the candle in Humpty’s room was still burning. It was late. What should children be doing awake at such an hour? They hadn’t slept all day to make them wakeful, like Boy Blue himself. The Clauses’ house was brightly lighted too, and he could see the Flinderses’ fine new lamp from London burning gayly in Polly’s room.

Now, of course, we know exactly what was happening, even though Little Boy Blue did not. We know and the Sand Man knew, but Little Boy Blue did not know, and certainly the distracted mothers of Pudding Lane did not know what was the matter with their children that night. And how exasperated they were too, those mothers.

“What does _ail_ you, Santa Claus?” asked his mother of that little boy, who was sitting up in bed with not a sign of sleep about him.

“I don’t know,” answered Santa Claus, much puzzled himself. “Only I just can’t sleep, and I don’t believe I ever will sleep again.”

“Mercy on us!” breathed Mrs. Claus fearfully.

“Humpty, darling, are you ill?” asked Mrs. Dumpty anxiously. “You’ve never been wakeful like this before.”

“No, not ill, just wide awake,” answered Humpty.

“Children, will you get into your beds and go to sleep?” demanded the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, beside herself with impatience at all these dozens of children scampering around the Shoe at the impossible hour of nine o’clock.

“But we’re not a bit sleepy,” spoke up Judy.

“Not a single bit!” echoed Polly and Jumbo and Jocko and all the rest.

That was the way it was in every house in Pudding Lane that night. The mothers tried spanking, and it didn’t work. Spanking really doesn’t make you sleepy, though sometimes it makes you try harder to get sleepy. They tried bread and milk. They tried lullabies. They tried everything, and still the children of Pudding Lane were as wide awake as could be until finally, when they all begged their mothers to let them go out and play, those frantic women, wondering what Old King Cole would say to such a performance, consented. And with a whoop loud enough to be heard in Banbury Cross, the children of Pudding Lane rushed outdoors for a glorious romp in the moonlight.

What a night that was! Everybody was up, even Humpty Dumpty, looking on from his window. Little Boy Blue had joined them, of course. Polly Flinders, Little Bo-Peep, all the Old Woman’s children, Jack Horner--not a single child in Pudding Lane was missing, for even that baby, The Little Girl Who Had a Little Curl, was brought out and dumped in the midst of the fun. You know her. She was only three, but already she was a well-known character in the village. A changeable child. One minute she would be very good indeed, and the next she would be--simply horrid. But she was very pretty, and she had a little curl right down in the middle of her forehead.

Unless you have played outdoors in the moonlight yourself, you can never imagine how much fun it is. There’s something about it that makes mere playing in the daylight and sunshine seem very ordinary. Perhaps it’s the shadows. You’re always mistaking them for something else, which is very funny. Little Bo-Peep actually tagged the shadow of the Clauses’ gate once, thinking it was Jumbo! Perhaps it’s the moonlight itself, thin and gleaming and rare. Perhaps it’s the jolly little stars, kicking up their heels there in the sky. Anyway, it’s pure delight to be out on such a night, and the children of Pudding Lane thought they simply never had had such a good time as they were having that night.

They played Tag and Blind Man’s Buff and Ring-Around-a-Rosy. Oh, yes, I forgot to say that singing on such a night seems to be music of a special sort. Even Simple Simon’s poor cracked voice did not sound bad that night as they sang “Ring Around a Rosy, Pocket Full of Posies.” They played Drop-the-Handkerchief, too, which is particularly good at night, for the handkerchief is so hard to see.

Well, they played on and on, while the mothers looked at them round-eyed from the windows and wondered if their darling children would ever, ever, ever get sleepy and come in to bed like good and law-abiding citizens. They played on and on and on, while the Sand Man crouched in a corner of the Blues’ side stoop and pondered desperately on his fate. And they might have been playing yet if the Little Girl with the Curl had not suddenly cut up one of her capers.

But she did. She cut up a terrible caper. She cried and kicked and jumped up and down. She screamed and howled and made faces. Oh, she was _horrid_!

At first, the children tried to pacify her by ordinary means.

“Come ride on my back, Little Girl,” invited Santa Claus. “I’ll be the horse and you can be the rider.”

But the Little Girl only stamped her foot at him.

“Little Girl, look here, I’ve got a top!” called out Tom, Tom, the piper’s son.

But the Little Girl only stuck out her tongue at him!

“Little Girl, look at me!” cried Jack-Be-Nimble, jumping over a candlestick for her benefit.

But the Little Girl only lay down on the ground and kicked and screamed some more.

The Little Girl’s mother came out, and the Little Girl’s father came out, and they spanked her. But even that did not do any good on this terrible night.

They were all perfectly desperate. What could they do with such a child? The party was spoiled. The fun was over. The beautiful midsummer night’s dream was broken. And all because of that horrid Little Girl.

At last, however, in the midst of her caper, Little Boy Blue had a sudden idea. He didn’t say a word to anybody, but he ran back to his father’s tool house, picked up the pail of sand and brought it to the Little Girl. And lo, when the Little Girl saw that bucketful of lovely sand, she stopped right in the middle of a howl, sat down and began to dig in it as hard as she could dig. She dug with both fists and sent the sand flying. She loved sand to play in, the Little Girl did, and Pudding Lane had so little sand, being far from the sea.

The children, breathing sighs of relief, began to play again.

But the next moment, the games and the night and the whole beautiful party began to seem rather stupid. First it was Jill who yawned.

“Oh, dear, I’m really getting sleepy,” she confessed.

Whereupon Jack said that he was really getting sleepy too. Humpty Dumpty was seen nodding at the window. The Little Girl with the Curl had fallen over on her pail, fast asleep. Simple Simon had one eye closed. Santa Claus had both eyes closed. The Old Woman’s children were blinking like lazy little pussy cats and Little Boy Blue had gone to sleep standing up.

And the next thing they knew it was to-morrow. How surprised they were to find themselves in bed exactly as if nothing had happened.

“What did happen?” they asked their mothers.

“Why, you just got sleepy,” answered the mothers.

But of course, that really wasn’t it at all, and I think it’s funny that nobody guessed that the sand belonged to the Sand Man. Nobody did, however, and they don’t know it to this day.

And one thing you may be sure of and that is that the Sand Man was never so careless as to leave his sand bucket around any place again. That night, when the children had all been carried in to their beds, he sneaked quietly down from the Blues’, snatched his precious bucket quickly under his arm and, after putting the grown-ups to sleep, ran for home.

“Look here,” he said to the Sand Woman, after he had told her his exciting story, “I want you to sew a button on my jacket for me to hang the sand pail on, so that I shall never, never, never forget and leave it any place again.”

So the Sand Woman sewed a large button on the Sand Man’s coat, and ever after that the Sand Man kept his pail right with him wherever he was, and never, never, never forgot and left it any place again.