THE WOODEN SPOON
Once upon a time there was a wooden spoon that was as fine and neat as ever could be, made of fine juniper wood with carved foliage on the handle. You never could see anything neater than the pretty wooden spoon with its veins flaming between white, yellow, and red, and every one praised the spoon saying: Oh, how pretty you are!
Then the spoon grew proud, for pride clings to all created things, and therefore a wooden spoon can also be proud in its heart, which is in the midst of its crooked waist — in the handle.
"Oh, that I was a silver-spoon," the wooden spoon thought, "for now there are only servants who handle me; but were I a silver-spoon I dare say the king himself might eat rice-milk with me out of a silver-dish. Being only wooden I will have nothing but meal-porridge to wet myself in."
But the spoon said to its mistress, "Dear Mistress, I am rather too good to be a mere wooden spoon; I just feel I am not fitted for the life down-stairs, I ought to be up-stairs. I cannot bear servants, they are so clumsy and use me so badly. Dear Mistress, help me to be a silver spoon."
Wishing to do as the little spoon wanted the mistress took it to a silversmith, who promised to silver it. And he laid it over with silver, so that it shone as bright as the sun and it felt so happy, that you almost could feel its little heart beat in the handle. When at home again it was laid in the plate-basket and was allowed to call the silver-spoons by name, the tea-spoons calling it aunt and the silver-forks cousin. Moreover, it counted kindred with a soup-ladle, calling it grannie, although it never saw it before.
But when the spoons were to be used, it always was left in the plate-basket, though it put itself on the top not to be forgotten, so it was not its fault that it was not taken out with the others.
This having happened many times and it always was left, it complained to the mistress saying, "Please tell the maid that I am silver-spoon just as good as anybody else. I can't understand why she makes any difference between me and the others, as I look much brighter than all of them." "Well," replied the mistress, "from the weight she knows you to be only a silver-plated wooden pin." "The weight, the weight," stammered the wooden spoon, "so it is not only from the brightness outside a real silver-spoon is distinguished from a wooden one?" "No, my dear, silver is much heavier than wood, that's the matter." "Well, make me heavier then, I insist on being as good as the others. I can't bear this shame."
Wishing to help her little spoon the mistress took it again to the silversmith. "Oh, dear," she said, "please make this spoon as heavy as a silver-spoon." "That's impossible without casting lead into the handle," said the smith. "Ah," the wooden spoon thought, "then he is obliged to pierce my heart . . . but we must suffer everything for the glory. He may pierce my heart and cast it full with lead, can I only be regarded as a real silver-spoon." And the silversmith bored deeply through the poor wooden spoon's heart, it felt great pain, but it was silent and suffered. He cast lead into the bored hole, it ran through the heart and stiffened within, but it suffered that too — everything for the glory.
At last it was ready, and new-silvered it returned into the plate-basket. But now the maid took it for a real silver-spoon, and it would have enjoyed it, were there not a lump of lead in its heart, but that prevented it from being happy with its glory.
For a year it was thought to be a real silver spoon, so well was it silvered and so well was the weight weighed out. But then the mistress died.
The mistress being the only one who knew the truth the spoon nearly enjoyed her death. "Now nobody knows anything else but my being a silver spoon," it thought; "now my glory is strengthened."
But all the silver was sold and was to be recast. The poor wooden spoon, seeing the melting-furnace, and knowing it had to be thrown in it, got quite frightened and began speaking to the other spoons about the tyranny they exercised against the poor defenseless things.
"To be sure, they will burn us up, they will kill us," it said.
"Oh no, they may very well melt us," said the silver spoons, "sorry to say, we have a little copper within us, that we should like to have burnt away. After that we will be purer and better than we were before."
But the poor wooden spoon would not be consoled, and when they were going to throw it into the melting-pot it said with trembling voice:
"Dear Sir, certainly I am a silver spoon, that's clear, and that you can see outside and feel from the weight too, but still I am not of the same kind of silver as the others, I am of a finer sort, which can't stand the fire but ends in smoke."
"Are you quicksilver then?"
"Yes, quicksilver, as I am very quick to understand."
"Oh no, you are not quicksilver, but tin perhaps?"
"Oh dear, what do you think of me?"
"Or lead perhaps?"
"Good Gracious, surely you can see that I am not lead."
"Well, I will see," said the master and would have bent the handle; but crash! it broke, and the lump of lead fell out of it.
"Only a wooden spoon then."
"Yes," said the wooden spoon, which getting rid of the lead felt quite light and happy; "yes, I am a wooden spoon, and now only wish to be so.
Take away the silvering, dear sir, glue me together and put me downstairs together with the other spoons, then I will tell them how foolish it is of a wooden spoon wishing to be of silver."