Annie Carries the Hushing Song
Once there was a village of crooked houses at the edge of a wide, flat marsh, and in one of them lived a girl called Annie.
Annie had a very good memory. She knew there were eleven steps up to the loft. She knew what everybody had for supper last Tuesday. But songs fell out of her head like buttons off an old coat.
One night Annie’s baby cousin, Baby Nell, came to stay. And Baby Nell would not go to sleep. Would not, would not, would not.
Mom rocked the cradle. Mom walked up and down. Mom sang every song she knew. Baby Nell kicked off the blanket and said, “Ba!”
Baby Nell was not one bit sad. Baby Nell was wide awake and very pleased about it.
“We need Granny’s hushing song,” said Mom. “It sends every baby on the marsh to sleep.”
“How does it go?” said Annie.
Mom thought hard. “Hush now,” she said. “Then something about boats. And a cup, I think.”
Granny Moss lived across the marsh. Her knees were too stiff for walking at night, and Mom could not leave Baby Nell.
“I’ll go,” said Annie. “I’ll learn it. I’ll remember it so hard.”
So Annie pulled her boots on under her nightie. Mom watched her from the door. “Straight there and straight back,” said Mom.
It was not far. The moon was up, and there was a lamp in every window the whole way.
Annie walked very fast, because she was worried. When Annie walked fast, she stomped. Stomp, stomp, stomp, all the way to the water.
Old Tom was waiting at the landing. Old Tom rowed with one oar and one soup ladle. Splosh went the oar, and splosh went the ladle. Every fourth stroke the ladle won, and the boat went round in a slow circle.
“Gets there in the end,” said Old Tom.
Granny Moss laughed when she heard about Baby Nell.
“Sit close,” said Granny Moss, and she sang:
“Hush now, the marsh is sleeping, hush now, the boats are in, the blue cup’s on the dresser, hmm-hmm, hmm-hmm, hmm.”
She sang it three times, and Annie sang along.
“Why is there a blue cup?” said Annie.
“Nobody knows,” said Granny Moss. “My granny didn’t know either.”
Then she did up the top button of Annie’s nightie. “That’s to keep the song in,” she said. She kissed Annie and sent her home.
Annie sang the song over and over. But she walked very fast, and she stomped, and the song began to fall out, one line at a time, like buttons.
At the landing she sang, “Hush now, the, um.” The first line had gone.
“Hush now, the marsh is sleeping,” said Old Tom. “Your granny sang me that when I was no bigger than this ladle.”
They sang it together all the way across. Splosh, splosh, splosh, and round.
On the reedy path, Annie sang it again. She had the words, but the tune had dropped out. The song went up where it should go down, and down where it should go up. It sounded like a cow trying to sing.
Annie stopped stomping.
On a clump of reeds sat a big grey goose. It lifted its head. Then it hummed the tune back to her, just right, the way geese do.
Annie hummed along until the tune was back where it belonged.
“Thank you, Goose,” said Annie. The goose tucked its head under its wing.
Annie stomped past the mill and sang, “Hush now, the marsh is sleeping, hush now, the boats are in, the, um.”
The third line had gone. Was it a red cup? A cup in the bath? A cup that went to sea?
A window opened, yellow with lamplight. The miller’s wife leaned out with flour on her nose. She was setting the dough to rise for the morning bread.
“The blue cup’s on the dresser,” sang the miller’s wife. “That’s my favourite line, that is.”
“Why a blue cup?” said Annie.
“Nobody knows,” said the miller’s wife. “That’s why it’s my favourite.”
The fourth line was only humming, and Annie had never once forgotten that.
Mom opened the door. “Ba!” said Baby Nell from the cradle.
Annie sat down in the rocking chair. She undid her top button to let the song out. She sang, “Hush now, the marsh is sleeping,” and Baby Nell yawned.
She sang, “Hush now, the boats are in,” and Baby Nell’s eyes closed, and stayed closed.
Annie kept going, because a song should be finished. She sang, “The blue cup’s on the dresser,” and the rocking chair rocked, and her own eyes grew heavy.
“Hmm-hmm, hmm-hmm, hmm,” sang Annie, very softly. And then she was asleep too, with her boots still on.
Mom tucked a blanket over Baby Nell, and another over Annie, boots and all. “Thank you, Annie,” she said. Then, just in case, she put her blue cup on the dresser.
She turned the lamp down low. All along the marsh the lamps went out, one window at a time. The moon shone on the crooked roofs, and the whole house slept until morning.
And that is why, on the marsh, nobody has to remember all of Granny Moss’s song. Old Tom knows the first line. The goose knows the tune. The miller’s wife knows the bit about the blue cup. And everybody knows the humming.
Hmm-hmm, hmm-hmm, hmm.