Dilly Takes Everyone Home Asleep
Dilly was the guard on the night train of the Long Valley. She was a dormouse, and she was always very nearly asleep. Her cap was always sliding over one ear. Because she was so tired herself, she was sorry for anybody else who was tired. That was the whole of Dilly, more or less, and it turned out to be plenty.
The night train stopped at every farm in the valley, all forty-two of them. For the last few stops it ran along a cloud bank above the valley, where the wheels did not go clackety-clack. They went hush, hush.
Its whistle was the gentlest whistle on any railway. It sounded exactly like a yawn, and anybody who heard it yawned back, because they could not help it. Once a cow in a field by the line yawned so wide that she had to sit down. Dilly always yawned first, and longest.
The driver was a heron called Mr. Stilts. He stood at the controls on one leg, and he swapped legs only at the stops, and he said very little.
Now, you might think a guard who is always nearly asleep is the wrong sort of guard for a night train. Listen to what she did with it.
Years ago, when Dilly was new, an old ewe called Mrs. Wool fell asleep in the second carriage with her knitting in her lap. Her stop was coming. Dilly stood over her with one paw up, ready to tap her shoulder, and could not do it.
“I know just how she feels,” Dilly said.
So she tucked a blanket over Mrs. Wool. She took the lid off the jam jar from her supper, wrote MEADOW FARM on it, and pegged it to the blanket with a clothes-peg. When the train stopped at Meadow Farm, Dilly and Mr. Stilts rolled Mrs. Wool very gently onto the luggage barrow and wheeled her up the path to her own doorstep. She was still asleep. She was still holding her knitting.
“Nobody on my train,” Dilly said, “has to stay awake for their stop.”
That was her one good idea, and she kept it up, every night, for years.
Soon tired folk all over the Long Valley rode the night train on purpose, just to be carried home. Everybody saved their jam-jar lids for her in a box at the station. And at bedtime, mothers pegged a lid that said HOME to the corner of the blanket and said, “There. Dilly’s taking you.”
Tonight Dilly went down the carriages with her jam-jar lids, counting the stops on her whiskers. She pegged OLD MILL on a pig, and LOW FORD on a hen, and TOP GATE on a farmer’s wife.
In the corner of the third carriage she found a very small bear cub, curled up tight in a blanket, fast asleep. Nothing was pegged to his blanket. He had no ticket. Dilly had not seen him get on, which was not really surprising, because she had been a little bit asleep for some of the evening herself.
She bent down. “Where’s home, little one?” she said, very quietly.
“Home,” said the cub, in his sleep, and put a paw over his nose.
That was perfectly true, and no help at all. Somebody had stitched BUN on one corner of the blanket. That told Dilly his name, but not where he lived.
Dilly could have woken him, of course. She would sooner have eaten her cap.
She went up to the engine. “There’s a cub with no label,” she said.
Mr. Stilts looked at her. Then he looked down the long line of the valley. Then he looked at her again.
“Ride it all, then,” he said. That was a great deal, for Mr. Stilts.
So Dilly sat down beside Bun to watch. At every stop she would look for a lit window with somebody waiting in it, somebody who might be missing a bear.
The trouble was that the carriage was warm, and the wheels were slow, and Dilly was a dormouse. Her eyes kept closing. But every time they closed, Bun gave a small snore, like a kettle just starting to think about it, and Dilly’s eyes opened again.
At Low Ford three hens sat in a row on the windowsill, waiting up for their sister. Dilly wheeled her up the path on the barrow.
“Have you lost a bear?” she asked.
The hens looked at each other. “We’ve never had one,” said the eldest.
Mr. Stilts swapped legs and blew the whistle. The hens yawned, all three, and Dilly yawned, and Bun yawned in his sleep. No bears there.
At Top Gate a farmer in his nightcap stood at the window, waiting for his wife. It took Dilly and Mr. Stilts together to get her onto the barrow, because she would not let go of a very large cheese.
“Have you lost a bear?” said Dilly.
“I’ve lost a slipper,” said the farmer. “Not a bear.”
The whistle blew. The farmer yawned so hard that his nightcap fell off. No bears there.
Dilly ran out of whiskers and started again from the left.
At Far Hollow a goat sat in the window with a book and a lamp, waiting for nobody at all. Dilly leaned out.
“Have you lost a bear?”
The goat turned a page. “Not that I know of. Bears live up top, mostly.”
The whistle blew, and the goat yawned over the book. No bears there.
Then the train climbed out of the valley and onto the cloud bank, and the wheels went hush, hush. Up here the houses were round, with round windows. One by one the round windows went past, all of them dark, because everybody up here was asleep. Dilly was on her last whisker.
At the forty-second stop, the very last stop, there was a round house with a lamp in the window. And on the step, in her dressing gown, stood a mother bear.
Dilly put Bun on the barrow, blanket and all. Mother Bear came down the path in her slippers to meet them.
“Oh, there’s Bun,” she said, very quietly. “He went down to his auntie’s for the day. She was to put him on the train at the bottom.”
She lifted Bun off the barrow, and something dropped out of his paw. It was a jam-jar lid, and on the back, in big letters, it said HOME.
“That’s his auntie,” said Mother Bear. “She pegs one on all of hers at bedtime.”
“It’s quite right,” said Dilly. “It just isn’t very useful on a train.”
Through the round window Dilly watched Mother Bear carry Bun to a small bed, tuck the quilt up to his chin, and smooth his ears flat. Bun did not wake. He said “Home” once more and turned over, and this time he was in the right place to say it.
Mother Bear came back out and gave Dilly the lid. “For your box,” she said. “I’ve missed him all day. Thank you for not waking him.”
Mr. Stilts blew the whistle. Mother Bear yawned, and Dilly yawned so wide that her cap slid down over both eyes.
Dilly climbed back into the train and up into the luggage rack, which is a dormouse’s idea of a comfortable seat. She meant to sit there for one minute. She was asleep before Mr. Stilts had swapped legs.
Mr. Stilts came down the carriage and looked at her. He said nothing, which was usual. Then he tucked a blanket round her, took the jam-jar lid out of her pocket, and pegged it to the corner of the blanket. It said HOME. On a train, that is no use to anybody, unless the driver knows the way. Mr. Stilts knew the way.
He drove her off the cloud bank and down the whole Long Valley, past all forty-two stops, and he did not stop once. He went past the goat, asleep on the book. He went past the farmer, asleep in his chair. He went past the hens, asleep in a row on the sill. And because he never stopped, he never swapped legs, so he drove the whole valley on one leg. No heron had ever done that before, and he never mentioned it to anyone.
At the bottom of the valley, under the station platform, there is a small round door, and that is where Dilly lives. Mr. Stilts lifted her down, blanket and label and all, and put her into her own bed. Then he went back to the engine and blew the whistle once, very softly. All down the Long Valley, everybody yawned in their sleep and turned over.
Dilly slept until teatime the next day, which is nothing for a dormouse. When she woke, she read the label on her blanket, and it was quite right.
So here is the moral, and it is a short one: let a tired one sleep, and carry them home.
The end.