Once upon a time, there was a little sweater. His name was Norman. He was very melancholy, and the color of canned peas. He was rained upon, and he began to smell strongly of wet sheep. This development did not make him any less melancholy, as you might imagine. He drifted along in a miasma of lanolin, brooding.

The rain turned into a wet, wet fog, and scraps of plaintive bagpipe music could be heard, here and there, along the darkening streets. The cumulative effect of all this atmosphere was too much for Norman. He was not a drinking kind of sweater, but on this occasion he thought that maybe he might just stop in a public house, if he saw one that didn't look too rough.

Eventually, through what was a truly remarkably thick fog, he could see a bright, cheerful rectangle of light, and he could hear, mixed in with the sad, sad bagpipe playing, the sound of convivial laughter. Thus encouraged, he brooded along with greater haste in that direction. At last he came to the doorway of the pub, which was called the Black Bile (the sign was illustrated with a rather ominous dark blob).

Eagerly, though with a worried glance at the blob, he entered. Inside all was merriment and mirth. Norman approached the bar. About halfway between door and barstool, he nearly ran into a pretty young girl.

"Eeeeeeeeeeee!" she exclaimed. "Tis a sweater with no one inside it! Uncanny!" She hurried away, and Norman felt more melancholy than ever. The conversation dropped to a murmur as everyone turned to look at him.

Norman realized for the first time just how odd it was for a small, melancholy, pea-green sweater to venture into the city alone, especially in these uncertain times. He dripped, miserably, onto the dark wood floor. Slowly, he began to back toward the door. The hush was palpable, and chillier even than the fog.

But just as Norman was reaching one soggy sleeve to the door handle, a bright and hearty voice rang out. "Oh, ach!" it said. "What a poor, wet sweater!" And a smiling, pink-faced woman strode out and took him firmly in hand. The next thing he knew, he was in a bustling kitchen, stretched out by the fire. Steam billowed off his back. The smell of drowned sheep was replaced with vanilla and sugar.

In fact, the situation was so very hospitable that Norman wondered if he would cease to be melancholy altogether. This prospect alarmed him. It threatened the very core of his being. For a moment, he was filled with a perfect existential terror. However, as he recovered from this shock, he found that his fears were groundless. His melancholy did not depart, but merely became somehow pleasant. And occasionally he was trod upon by a heavy boot, to help him feel that all was right in the world.

He shrank considerably in the heat of the fire, which saddened him (but pleasantly), and the woman gave him to an underfed seven-year-old girl named Maisie. This girl made frequent unflattering remarks about his color, and he took solace in the fact that he was not particularly flattering to her, either. Indeed, they made one another each just as ugly as the other, which was just and appropriate. So that was all right.

The End.