Four Hundred Dry Crossings

At the edge of the Long Marsh, in a cottage with a green door, there lived a young hare called Hattie, who carried the post. Every day she took the letters across the marsh to the market on the far side, and brought the market’s letters back. The only way over was a line of flat grey stepping stones, and Hattie hopped them with her post bag bouncing.

“Four hundred and twelve,” she said, landing on the market bank one morning in high summer, and she looked at her boots. Dry. “Four hundred and thirteen,” she said that evening, landing on her own bank. Dry again.

Hattie had never once got her feet wet, and she was prouder of this than of anything. For every dry crossing she cut a notch in her walking stick. By then the notches had climbed all the way to the handle, so the new ones had to go round the top, like a crown.

“When I get to five hundred,” she told Granny, “I’m having a cake with a boot on it. A dry one.”

Now, there was something about those stones that Hattie did not know, and you had better know it. Every night they sank a little into the soft mud, one tipping this way and one tipping that. And every morning they were back in their places, level and straight. Nobody had ever seen who did it. Hattie had never even wondered. She thought stones were simply like that, the way she thought her feet were simply clever.

Granny Hare was slow at breakfast. She yawned into her porridge and she yawned into her tea. “I’m not as young as I was,” she would say. “I never go further than the garden gate these days.” She said it rather more often than anybody asked. And every morning, on the washing line, there hung a pair of Granny’s stockings, wet to exactly the knee and not a hair higher.

* * *

One evening at the end of summer, Hattie was hopping home with “four hundred and ninety-three” ready in her mouth when she stopped short. The twelfth stone had tipped sideways in the mud and sat crooked under a skin of brown water. Hattie looked at it. She looked at her boots. Then she took the longest hop of her life, clean over it, and landed on the thirteenth with one foot waving.

“Four hundred and ninety-three,” she said on the bank, rather out of breath. Dry. Just.

In the morning the twelfth stone was level and straight and as dry as a doorstep, and Hattie’s ears went slowly up.

“Somebody fixes you,” she told the stones. “Every single night. And I’ve never once said thank you.”

That evening she told Granny she was going to sit up and catch whoever it was, and thank them properly.

“Are you, now,” said Granny, and yawned. “Well, I shan’t be any use. I never go further than the gate these days.”

The first night, Hattie sat at the window with her chin on the sill and watched the stones. She watched them sit there in the moonlight. She watched them sit there some more. Then it was morning, the sill had left a long dent in the fur of her chin, and every stone was straight. Granny was yawning into the teapot, and her stockings were on the line.

“Your stockings are wet again,” said Hattie.

“Dew,” said Granny. “Very heavy dew this time of year.”

“Only up to the knee?”

“It’s a short sort of dew,” said Granny, and buttered her toast.

The next evening Hattie asked Mr. Puddock, the old toad who kept the market gate and the worst gossip in the Long Marsh. He knew whose nephew had sneezed on the buns. He did not know anything useful, but he was always happy to guess.

“The moon,” he said, puffing out his throat. “It pulls the sea about, I’m told. A few stones would be nothing to it.”

Hattie wrote that down.

“Or a beaver. My cousin knew a beaver. Or a badger. Something with a B.”

Hattie wrote that down too.

“Or,” said Mr. Puddock, “the general public. Lot of them about. Somebody’s always doing something.” Then he shut the gate and went home to bed. He had never once seen the marsh after dark.

That night Hattie watched the moon very hard, in case it was the moon. The moon did nothing at all except be round, and Hattie fell asleep watching it. In the morning the stones were straight, the stockings were on the line, and Granny was asleep at the table with a piece of toast in her paw. She woke with a jump. “I never go further than the gate,” she said, though nobody had asked.

* * *

On the third night Hattie took the lantern off its hook, put on her boots, took her stick and let herself out of the green door very quietly, so as not to wake Granny.

“This one will be five hundred,” she thought, and hopped onto the first stone.

She had never been out on the marsh at night, and it was not dark at all. The moon was big and white, the water was as flat as a tray, and beside every stone floated a little moon of its own. A row of moorhens slept on a log with their heads tucked in, like tea cosies.

Halfway across, she heard a scrape, and a splash, and somebody humming. It was the song about the goose with the umbrella. Hattie knew it very well, though for a moment she could not think where from.

She held up the lantern.

First she saw the end of a broom, pushing at a stone under the water. Then she saw a dressing gown, hitched up and tucked into a belt. Then she saw two legs in stockings, standing in the marsh up to exactly the knee and not a hair higher. And at the top of it all she saw two long grey ears with a nightcap between them.

“Granny?” said Hattie.

“Oh, bother,” said Granny Hare. “Hold that lantern still, would you, love? I can’t see the edge of this one.”

Hattie held it still. Granny set her broom against the sunken stone and leaned. The mud gave a gulp, up came the stone, level and straight, and Granny patted it.

“You said you never go further than the gate,” said Hattie.

“I don’t,” said Granny. “Not in the daytime.” She yawned. “Every night since you started on the post, and for years before that, for whoever was crossing. I did mean to tell you. But you were so pleased about your feet.” She leaned on her broom. “It’s like this, Hattie. Somebody is always standing in the water, so that somebody else can keep their feet dry.”

“Thank you,” said Hattie. “For all four hundred and ninety-nine.”

“You’re very welcome,” said Granny. “Mind the next one. It’s a wobbler.”

Hattie looked at her boots, which were dry. She looked at the water, which was not. Then she sat down, took her boots off and stood them side by side on the stone. She kept her stockings on, because Granny had, and it seemed the proper way to do it.

And she stepped into the Long Marsh.

“Oh!” said Hattie. “It’s cold!”

“It is,” said Granny.

“Does it get warmer?”

“No,” said Granny.

The mud came up between Hattie’s toes and the water came up to exactly her knee, and she began to laugh. She laughed so hard she had to hold on to Granny’s dressing gown, and Granny laughed too, and the moorhens woke up and went back to sleep in disgust.

Then they got to work. Granny showed her how to lean instead of push, and Hattie did the wobbler with her walking stick. They took turns with the lantern and set every stone straight, all the way to the far side and back. On the way home they picked up Hattie’s boots, which were still perfectly dry.

Before bed Hattie cut the five hundredth notch into the crown of her stick. It came out crooked, because her paws were cold and she had not quite stopped laughing.

In the morning there were two pairs of stockings on the line, both wet to exactly the knee. Granny made the cake anyway. She iced a boot on the top, as promised, and then, without a word, a blue puddle all round it.

Mr. Puddock had heard the whole story by lunchtime. “The general public,” he said. “I said so.”

After that, Hattie and Granny went out together every night, with one lantern, one broom and one walking stick, and Granny stopped yawning at breakfast, mostly. She still told people she never went further than the garden gate, and Hattie let her.

The notches went round the crown twice more, all of them straight and neat but one. The crooked one was the five hundredth, and it was Hattie’s favourite. She said so to anyone who asked, and to quite a few who didn’t.