THE LITTLE MATCH MAN

“I LIKE THIS FUR”

THE LITTLE MATCH MAN

BY LUIGI BARZINI

Illustrations by HATTIE LONGSTREET

THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY—PHILADELPHIA 1917

COPYRIGHT 1917 THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY

1917

The Little Match Man

THE LITTLE MATCH MAN

Translated from the Italian of Luigi Barzini by S. F. Woodruff

[7]

ILLUSTRATIONS

[11]

THE LITTLE MATCH MAN

My Surprise

[13]

CHAPTER I MY SURPRISE

I am going to tell you something that you must never tell any one. Stupid people wouldn’t believe it, anyway; and there are so many stupid people that I should seem like the greatest fibber in the world. But if you will keep still I will confide in you.

Once on a time, I was in Japan in a city called Takoshima. It rained buckets full. I was thoroughly disgusted, and not being able to walk about the streets, decorated with lanterns and weathercocks, and through the gardens full of flowers, I had to stay shut up in a [14] little room sitting on the floor, for in Japan they don’t use chairs.

I kept yawning like a dog in front of a fire.

Trying to forget how tedious it was I began to poke into all the corners of the room, hoping to discover something with which to amuse myself. After a thorough search, all I found was a box of matches. For lack of anything else to do they might help me to pass the time, as I could place them in all sorts of positions, and make any number of interesting designs.

In the box, however, there were only three, and you know with three matches even a genius can’t make anything but a triangle, the simplest of all the figures in geometry.

After all, I might try to make a little man. I had learned that game long ago when I wore short trousers and went to school, and always had my pockets stuffed full of marbles, pens, peach stones, buttons, twine and other precious things—sometimes even matches.

With patience and a little string I used to tie them together and make arms and legs, and so transform them into a very slim person that seemed to me altogether lovely.

[15]

I began to work, and in a quarter of an hour the three matches had become the little man that I remembered; and I can assure you, he still looked to me extremely fine.

First he was very bold, with arms and legs stretched out in the position of a fierce warrior. Then I changed him into a calm and civilized person, and made him sit down on his box, and then began to hold an old time conversation with him.

“Good-morning, little match[1]; how are you?”

I suppose that you are surprised that a man of my age could still amuse himself with this game. But you know a man is always a boy when he is all by himself and lonely. If you look over the manuscripts of illustrious scientists and celebrated writers, you will see here and there the same kind of scribbling and the same little drawings that they made in their copy books when they were boys and didn’t want to write their compositions.

The little match naturally greeted my advances with dignified silence. When I was young and talked to my toys, I made up their answers too, and so it was [16] possible to hold long and animated discussions. But in these days my imagination is worn out. After a few minutes, my little man looked to me like nothing but a match, and I thought I had better use him in the way I was accustomed to. I put a cigarette in my mouth and holding out my hand I said to him:

“Dear little match, I will now strike your head and....”

[17]

But I got no further. The little man moved, and falling on his knees held out his hands as if in prayer.

I was very much surprised, and examined him carefully on every side. I had made a great many little men just like him, but I had never seen any one of them move by himself. I looked to see if there was anywhere a bit of string that I had pulled without meaning to. But no, I found nothing. The little man remained quite still in his new position, until at last I was reassured. I thought the jar of some one passing outside, or a puff of air had thrown him from the box, he was so slim and light. I sat him up again and watched him closely.

After a few minutes I saw distinctly that he moved himself. For some time he trembled very slightly, then he held out his arms, and slowly rose to his feet. I could hear a tiny voice, which seemed to come from him, but it was so feeble that compared with it the voice of a cricket would sound like a trombone.

[19]

The First Adventure

[21]

CHAPTER II THE FIRST ADVENTURE

I leaned toward him, so that I almost touched I him with my ear and, still uncertain, I said to him:

“Did you speak?”

“Yes,” said the voice, about as loud as a needle piercing a cork.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“I was so afraid you might burn me up.”

I was stupefied. You understand why. It was all so unexpected. I didn’t in the least know what to say to him, but the idea of a match that was afraid of being burned up made me laugh.

“Don’t laugh,” he exclaimed. “I am a Haji.”

“A Haji!” I repeated.

“Yes, I was the Haji of an old willow.”

Ah! now I understood. Everything was explained. Certain trees in Japan are inhabited by Genii which are like our fairies, and are called Haji. Only we [22] have no more fairies, and Hajis still exist, because Japan is much younger than our countries. When a country grows old it loses all its fairies, magicians and incantations. But how could a Haji ever leave his woods, and his flowers, and become a match, with the risk of being destroyed to light the cigarette of a foreigner?

“Why are you here?” I asked.

“Oh, I lived so happily for two hundred and fifty years on the mountain Karniyama in the province of Noto! Now they have cut down the woods up there.”

“Why?”

“Judging from the conversations I overheard, they needed the wood for railroads. From the soft wood of trees like me they made matches. Look at all that remains of my beautiful willow! Look at me! Just to think, I once had branches ten arms long; and with my roots I could drink from the fountain of Tashira, which was fifty feet away.”

[23]

“What shall I call you, poor Haji?” I asked impetuously.

“Call me by the name you have already given me.”

“Fiammiferino?”

“Yes, Fiammiferino.”

“Let’s say Fiam then, for short.”

With this he put out the little sticks of which his arms were made, and caressed the lobe of my ear and asked timidly:

“You are my friend, aren’t you?”

“Certainly,” I replied, much moved.

“You won’t burn me, will you?”

“Never.”

“If you take care of me, I will live with you, and serve you—and I am able to.”

“Yes, I will take care of you.”

“I was powerful, respected, and venerated in the woods. I had a beautiful voice, and sang when the wind swayed my branches. Now I am so different—but I can be useful to you and help you. I know many things. I can see a long distance, and I know the world, and can give you advice and information, and tell you old stories when you are sad. I promise [24] to be affectionate and faithful. Now I will try to walk.”

With a stiff step and unsteadily, as if he were walking on stilts, Fiam took a trip around the room and then returned and climbed up on my knee.

“Is it all right?” I asked.

“Tighten up the joint of the left leg. The knot is loose so the leg is trembly.”

With the help of my teeth I tightened the knot, and placed Fiam on the floor. He tried again, and this time stepped more quickly and steadily.

“Thank you,” he said to me, as he came back. “Now, listen to me. You must carry me always with you; you must never leave me; you must never give me to any one else.”

[25]

“Don’t be afraid. I shall put you in your little box. That will be your home. Does it please you?”

“Yes, although I have suffered so much in there, constantly afraid of being put to death. If I hadn’t been found by you....”

“Thank you, my friend.”

“And when you put me in there wrap up my head in cotton; have you any?”

“No. Let me see; wait. I will take some from the quilt. Will that be all right?”

“Yes; I’m so afraid of taking fire, you see. Imagine how scared you would be if your head were covered with phosphorus like mine.”

“Don’t speak of it. I can imagine it very well. It makes me shudder to think of it.”

“Look out for fire, then. Don’t mix me up with others; I mean with ordinary matches. Never smoke in my presence.”

“No, no, I promise you, I won’t.”

“Now put me away; I need a little rest. All this has made me tired. Good-night.”

“Good-night, little match.”

I covered his head with a tuft of cotton which I [26] took from the quilt on my bed, and placed my friend in the wooden box, on which was printed the picture of a dragon surrounded by Chinese words which meant “Matches made in Sweden.”

[27]

He Confides in Me

[29]

CHAPTER III HE CONFIDES IN ME

In this way I came to have a new companion and dear confidant with whom I lived happily for many months. I soon became accustomed to him, but I must own to you that during the first two or three days, when I wasn’t looking at him, I still thought it all a dream. As soon as I had put him to rest I went to sleep myself (the noise of the rain was so soothing), and when I awoke I was so sure that Fiam was a dream that I forgot him entirely. But the little boy was near me on the floor and before long I heard rapid tapping on the thin wooden sides. Fiam was knocking.

I opened his prison, and out he came. He took the cotton from his head carefully, so as not to break the phosphorus, and sat down on top of a slipper that was near him.

“Glad to see you,” I said.

[30]

“Thank you,” he replied in his feeble voice.

As I leaned toward him he shouted at me:

“Put me on your white wall; we can talk then more easily.”

“What wall?” I asked, looking all around me. “I don’t see any.”

“I mean the battlement that defends your neck. Put me on top of that. I shall be near your ear.”

Then I understood what the little match meant. The walls of the Japanese fortresses are painted white, and he had taken my collar for a bulwark to defend my neck. I explained, and put him astride of the collar.

“You are right,” he said to me as he sat serenely on the edge. “I find now that it isn’t a wall. But you see I don’t know what is little and what is big. I am so small myself that I can’t make things out. You [31] seem to me larger than Fuji-Yama, the sacred mountain.”

We began to chat. He talked so well that I listened enchanted. I already loved him. It gave me pleasure to feel on my neck the light touch of his little leg and the caress of his wooden arms on my ear calling my attention when he had something important to tell me. This little trick of his was the cause of some unfortunate incidents.

Occasionally when I was absent-minded and thinking of something else, I would feel my ear being tickled and I would wave my hand as if brushing away an insect, and that would throw poor Fiam to the floor from a height that was really dangerous to him.

That first day, sitting astride the “battlement,” he gave me some confidences. He told about his past so sorrowfully that it made me very sad. It was the only time Fiam ever entertained me with the story of his life in the tree; but if I should live a thousand years I could never forget a single word of it.

[33]

About a Stork and a Battle

[35]

CHAPTER IV ABOUT A STORK AND A BATTLE

This is what he told me.

“My father was the geni of a maple tree. My mother was the spirit of a birch tree. They died of old age when their trees withered. I was lively and vigorous. My tree was the first one to get its leaves in the spring and the last one to lose them in the autumn. I always tried to be faithful, and after a hundred years I hadn’t a single dry branch, so attentive had I been in keeping my tree in good condition.”

“Isn’t it tiresome to be a tree and always stay still and be quiet?” I interrupted.

“Oh, no. I played with the wind, which would swing my branches, and I amused myself with the birds that came to me by the hundreds, and made their nests among my leaves. I was just a hundred and fifty years old when the quiet of the woods was broken by a great event. But I am afraid I am tiring you.”

“No, no, go on, please tell me.”

[36]

“Listen, then. One evening in May, a wonderful evening, my friend the stork arrived. He was always traveling around, and when he passed by the mountain Hamiyama he never failed to rest himself on my third branch toward the east. He was called To. He brought a lot of news from the other mountains and from the plains across which he had flown in his travels. This evening while he was still far off, he stopped in the air, poising on his wings, and looking about for his favorite branch began to cry, ‘Mikara! terrible things are happening. It is a miracle that I am still alive.’

“‘What is the matter?’ I asked.

[37]

“He sat down, arranging the feathers on his breast, smoothing them with his beak, and all out of breath replied, ‘Horrors, I have escaped from the midst of a cloud of arrows which flew hissing about me. Brrrr...!’”

Fiam paused, absorbed in his thoughts. Anxious to hear the rest, I said earnestly:

“And who shot the arrows?”

“Exactly the question I asked To.

“‘Who? The men!’ replied To. ‘The valley is full of soldiers, who are fighting with bows and arrows, with lances and spears. There is war! They are killing each other; they pursue, they shout, they gallop on horseback; they are covered with shining armour. A great castle is burning, and all around the ground is covered with the dead. Listen,’ added To, as he scratched his head with one of his long claws, as he always did when he was thinking. ‘I must leave you. Don’t be offended if I don’t pass the night with you. I must go farther on. Not that I am afraid, you know, quite otherwise, but it is best to be careful. Lances and spears don’t frighten me, but arrows—you never know. Adieu, Mikara,’ and he drew in his [38] claws and stretched his wings and swept away into the air just like an arrow himself, without giving me time to say good-bye. He said he wasn’t afraid, but really he was trembling. Never believe in the courage of any one who boasts of not being afraid.”

“And weren’t you afraid?” I asked Fiam.

“To tell the truth, I wasn’t any too brave. I kept thinking about the castle on fire. My father had often told me, when I was a little tree, that in war men burned the woods in order to drive out the enemy. If the war came near me and the woods were burned, poor me! You can imagine how anxiously I waited. I listened all night. When the wind blew I held my branches still so they wouldn’t make a noise. At midnight a cuckoo came. As he was a good friend I begged him to keep quiet.

“‘I can’t,’ he said; ‘it is my duty to call “Cuckoo, cuckoo” a thousand times every night. That is my work. But if it will give you any pleasure I will go to another part of the mountain,’ and so he did. The night passed peacefully. The dawn came, and then....”

“I beg of you, don’t stop. What happened at dawn?”

[39]

“At dawn I heard some noises here and there. I raised my leaves to listen better and heard the sound of animals in flight.

“I waited to see some of them and to ask questions, and pretty soon out of a hole came a family of boars; father, mother and two sons. I didn’t love wild boars; they are worthless and badly educated beasts that often came around to clean their tusks on my trunk, stripping off all my bark, but this time I forgot all about my hatred and tried to welcome them by holding out a branch. The father boar tore off some leaves and went on without even saying thank you, and all the family followed grunting.

“By good luck, soon after, a roebuck came along. ‘What is happening?’ I whispered to him. He turned panting, and held up one ear, all anxiety, and replied:

“‘They are coming here.’

“‘Who?’

“‘Armed men,’ he said and scampered away.

“‘And I must stay here,’ I thought.”

“Poor little match man!”

“Oh, yes. If I had only been able to fly. Even a [40] mosquito can defend himself, but a willow, even if he is large and has lived a hundred and fifty years, can’t protect himself from any peril. It is terrible!”

“Indeed it is.”

“But to go on. Not long after I heard a cautious step and a rustling among the shrubs. My leaves shivered all over when I saw approaching—guess what!”

“A ferocious wild beast.”

“Worse! I saw a man coming.

“‘This is the first,’ I said to myself. ‘Now others will come—they will set fire to the woods, and I shall die tortured in the flames.’ And my leaves shook even harder, as if there had been I don’t know what kind of a wind.

“But no more men came, and I began to calm myself and to look about coolly. This man was very handsome, and dressed all in silver armour. He was so exhausted he could hardly walk. It seemed to me he left drops of blood behind him. He breathed hard. He stumbled over tufts of grass, he fell and rose again and went on staggering. Where he fell the grass was covered with blood. I am telling the truth when I [41] say I forgot my own danger, I was so full of pity for him.”

“Good for you, Fiam!”

“At last he fell, close to my trunk. I looked at him. He was very young. The armour on his breast was broken. He took off his helmet, which was tied with a red cord under his chin, and laid his head against me to rest better. The sun had risen and I gave some shade to the wounded man. Some time passed, but I don’t know how long it was when I heard a distant noise.”

“Was it the others?”

“Wait. I heard the sound of arms, of steps, of voices. Little by little the tumult drew nearer. It came from all sides. It filled the woods. And the young warrior also heard it. He rose slowly to his feet, and stood immovable, leaning against me listening.

“Suddenly a voice shouted, ‘Haiya, Hay!’ a kind of hurrah. A hundred voices from every side called ‘Haiya!’ and the first said, ‘Come, I have found traces of his blood! Let us follow it! Hay!’

“The other voices howled, ‘Haiya’ with so much eagerness and satisfaction that I thought they were all [42] friends and followers of this unfortunate young man, happy to find him to save him, and care for him. So little did I know about men.”

“And weren’t they friends?”

“Far from it! The first voice said, ‘He can’t escape us any longer! He is our prisoner!’ The others echoed, ‘He is ours. Haiya!’ They were enemies looking for him, do you understand? He heard them. He knelt down and bowed his head calling on Amaterasu, the god of the sun, the god who made Japan. Then he took off his armour and bared his chest, which was covered with blood, and put his hand to his side to find the hilt of his sword. I saw at once that he didn’t wish to fall alive into the hands of his enemies, and I decided to save him.”

[43]

The Haji Saves the Warrior

[45]

CHAPTER V THE HAJI SAVES THE WARRIOR

I was so astonished at what Fiammiferino said that I threw up my hand in amazement, and came near sending him flying with his legs in the air.

“You,” I cried. “How could you save him?”

“I twisted the end of one of my branches around the hilt of his sword to attract his attention, and then I spoke to him.”

“How could you speak to him?”

“You know each Haji is allowed to reveal himself three times during his life. This was my first time. I whispered:

“‘Wait.’

“The young man turned and bowing politely exclaimed, ‘Honorable Willow! may you live ten thousand years! I perceive that you are a Haji and my friend, although I have done nothing to deserve your kindness. Thank you for it, but you must let me die. You know what a disgrace it would be for a [46] soldier to fall alive into the hands of his enemies. I must conquer or cease to live. You would not wish to have me dishonored.’