door-jamb

The sequence of faint marks ran up the paintwork at uneven intervals, together with the numbers which had been scratched with a penknife to indicate the month and year and her son's height. Sometimes they were in the Baron's handwriting, which was bigger, and sometimes in her own, smaller, hand, and sometimes in Aunt Lison's, which was rather shaky. And at once it was as though the child of old was standing there in front of her, with his blond hair, pressing his little forehead to the wall so that they could measure his height.

-- Guy de Maupassant A Life
Translated by Roger Pearson