The Steadfast Tin Soldier

Part One · The Table of Toys

Once there were twenty-five tin soldiers, and they were all brothers, because they had been made from the same old tin spoon. Each one stood straight, in a red and blue coat, with a gun on his shoulder. On a boy's birthday, the lid came off their box. The first words they heard in this world were "Tin soldiers!" The boy clapped his hands and tipped them out onto the table.

He set them in a row, and they were all exactly alike but one. This soldier was made last, and by then the tin had run short, so he had only one leg. But he stood as firmly on his one leg as the others did on two. And he is the soldier this story is about.

The table was crowded with other toys, but the finest of all was a castle made of paper. It had little windows and a front door, and before it lay a small lake made from a bit of looking glass. Wax swans floated on the lake, gazing at their own reflections. In the open doorway of the castle stood a dancer, who was cut from paper too.

She wore a skirt of white cloth and a blue ribbon over her shoulder, and in the middle of the ribbon shone a spangle as big as her face. She held both arms out, and she stood on one toe, with the other leg raised so high behind her that the soldier could not see it at all. "She has only one leg, just like me!" he thought.

"I wish I could meet her," thought the soldier. "But she lives in a castle, and I live in a box with twenty-four others." Still, he lay down behind a snuffbox on the table, where he could see the little dancer. She went on standing on one toe, and she never lost her balance.

Part Two · The Gutter

When evening came, the other soldiers were packed into their box, and the people of the house went to bed. Then the toys began to play. They played at visiting, and at soldiers, and at dancing. They made such a noise that the canary woke up and sang along. Only the tin soldier and the dancer did not move. She stayed on her toe, and he stayed on his leg, and neither of them looked away.

Then the clock struck twelve, and pop! The lid flew off the snuffbox. There was no snuff inside, but a little black goblin jumped out like a jack-in-the-box. "Tin soldier," said the goblin, "keep your eyes to yourself!" The tin soldier pretended not to hear. "Just you wait until tomorrow," said the goblin.

In the morning, the children set the tin soldier in the window. Whether it was the goblin or the wind, nobody knows, but all at once the window flew open, and out fell the soldier, headfirst, three floors down to the street. He landed with his cap and gun stuck fast between two paving stones, and there he stood, upside down, with his one leg in the air.

The maid and the little boy ran down to look for him. They nearly stepped on him, but they did not see him. If the soldier had called out, "Here I am!" they would have found him in a moment. But he thought it was not right for a soldier in uniform to cry out for help. So he said nothing at all.

Then it began to rain, harder and harder, until it poured. When the shower was over, two boys came along the street. "Look, a tin soldier!" said one. "Let's send him sailing!" They folded a boat out of newspaper, set the soldier in the middle, and put it in the gutter. Away he went, with the boys running beside him and clapping their hands.

What waves there were in that gutter, and what a rushing stream! The paper boat bobbed up and down, and sometimes it whirled round so fast that the soldier trembled. But he stayed steady. He did not blink an eye, he looked straight ahead, and he kept his gun on his shoulder. All at once the boat shot under a long plank, and it grew as dark as his box.

"Where am I going now?" he thought. "This is the goblin's doing, I am sure. Oh, if only the little dancer were here in the boat with me, I would not mind if it were twice as dark!" Just then a big water rat popped out of a hole under the plank. "Have you a passport?" asked the rat. "Hand it over!" But the soldier said not a word, and held his gun tighter.

The boat rushed on, and the rat swam after it, gnashing his teeth and shouting to the sticks and straws, "Stop him! He has not shown his passport!" But the stream grew stronger and stronger, and soon the soldier could see daylight ahead. Then he heard a roaring that would have frightened the bravest man. At the end of the plank, the gutter poured into a great canal.

Part Three · The Fish

The boat spun round three times, then four, and it filled with water to the brim. Down it sank, deeper and deeper, until the paper came apart. The water closed over the soldier's head, and he thought of the pretty little dancer whom he would never see again. Then a big fish opened its mouth and swallowed him up in one gulp.

How dark it was inside the fish! It was darker than under the plank, and very narrow. But the tin soldier was as steadfast as ever. He lay at full length with his gun on his shoulder, while the fish darted this way and that and made the most dreadful twists. At last it grew quite still.

Part Four · Home Again

Then something flashed like lightning, and it was daylight, and somebody cried, "The tin soldier!" The fish had been caught and taken to market, and a cook had bought it and carried it home. Now she held the soldier up between two fingers, and took him into the sitting room. Everyone wanted to see the wonderful man who had traveled inside a fish.

They stood him on the table, and what a wonderful world it is! The soldier was in the very same room where he had been before. There were the same children and the same toys, and the same fine castle, and in its doorway stood the same little dancer on one toe. She was steady too. The soldier was so moved that he could have wept tin tears.

The boy set him down right beside her. The snuffbox stayed shut, and the little goblin did not say a word. The soldier had come all the way through the gutter, the dark, the canal and the fish, and he had never once cried out or run away. Now he stood on his one leg beside the dancer on her one toe, and he looked at her, and she looked at him.