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8
When it was nine o’clock, his mother would say,
“Off
to bed! The Sandman is coming!”
Nathanael always heard a strange sound when she
said this. It sounded like slow, heavy steps.
He asked his mother,
“Who is this mean Sandman?”
She would laugh and say,
“There is no Sandman. I
only mean that you are sleepy and can’t keep your eyes
open. It is like someone put sand in them.”
Nathanael did not believe this answer.
One day, he asked an old woman he knew. She told
him,
“He is a bad man! He goes to little children who
won’t go to bed. The Sandman throws sand in their eyes.
Some children jump out of bed. Then he puts them in a
bag. He takes them to the moon to feed them to his little
ones. The Sandman’s children have beaks like owls. They
pick out the eyes of bad boys and girls!”