Sculptor's Daughter by Tove Jansson Page B

age was and why she had reached it, no one would tell me, but in any case life wasn’t easy for her and the steps were all she cared about. That’s why we admired what she was doing so much.
    When we came out on the veranda she shouted No! no! no! no! wait a moment! She jumped to her feet quickly and began to haul up a plank and lifted one end of it onto the threshold and the other end onto a box. While we were balancing ourselves on the plank she looked terrified and implored: I’ve only just cemented it! Do be careful and please don’t tread anywhere near it!
    Then Daddy picked up the plank so she could go on cementing and she thanked him much too profusely for his help.
    Day after day she was on her knees trying to fit stones into the cement and round her she had buckets of cement and water, and sand and rags and trowels and small sticks and spades. The stones had to be flat and smooth and pretty in colour. They lay there arranged in piles according to a very well thought-out plan and on no account were they to get mixed up. The smallest stones were red and white and were kept separately in a box.
    She cemented and thought and then worked away and made a mistake and then thought again and sometimes she just sat and stared at the whole thing.
    We started to get out through the bedroom window, but only when she wasn’t looking. Once when Mummy was carrying some pails of water over the plank, she spilled a few drops and a very important part of the concrete was spoiled. Then we started lifting the pails of water through the window too.
    I knew that I wasn’t allowed to help her because she wanted to play on her own. So I just stood and looked on.
    She had begun with the small red and white stones and was poking a long row of them into the cement. It was supposed to be some kind of saying, and every time a little stone got into the wrong place she gave a little wail.
    Don’t you like playing? I asked.
    She didn’t understand what I meant. It’s so difficult, she said. You mustn’t look! So I went away.
    She had thought that she would put Bless All Those Who Cross This Threshold on the steps but she forgot to measure it. So when at last she got to the end there wasn’t enough room for Threshold. Thresh was all that she could fit in.
    You ought to have measured it before you started, Daddy said. And used a bit of string to keep it straight. I could have shown you how to do it.

    It’s easy to say that when it’s too late! She cried. I don’t think you care one bit about my steps! I know you climb in the window just to show me I’m in the way!
    Dammit, what other way should we go with your pots and pans all over the place, Daddy said. Then she started to cry and rushed up to the attic. Daddy was left standing there looking miserable and said, oh damn!
    The steps never really got finished. She lost interest in them and moved all her things down to the big rock instead in order to cement stones in the big tub. The plank was taken away. But the hole in the concrete where she had started to cry was still there staring at us.
    All the next day she emptied the big tub with buckets. When she had almost reached the bottom she borrowed the scoop. Then she used a tea cup and a sponge. But right at the bottom there were nasty creepy-crawly things living in the slime and she was afraid of them although she felt sorry for them. It was so awful getting them up from the bottom she was on the point of screaming but she said, it’s got to be done, and she carried them over to another tub and in between tea cups she put her arms in the sea and waved them about while her tears fell into the water.
    When the tub was quite empty she started to put rows of stones at the bottom and then cemented them. She twisted and turned each stone in orderto get it to fit but she couldn’t do it. She tried one stone after another but none of them would fit. Then she noticed that I was standing by