Wonderful Stories for Children. Hans Christian Andersen
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behind them; and, at last, he sank lower and lower, with his outspread wings: he still flapped his wings, now and then, but that did not help him; now his feet touched the cordage of the ship; now he glided down the sail, and, bounce! down he came on the deck.
A sailor-boy then took him up, and set him in the hencoop among hens, and ducks, and turkeys. The poor stork stood quite confounded among them all.
"Here's a thing!" said all the hens.
And the turkey-cock blew himself up as much as ever he could, and asked the stork who he was; and the ducks they went on jostling one against the other, saying, "Do thou ask! do thou ask!"
The stork told them all about the warm Africa, about the pyramids, and about the simoom, which sped like a horse over the desert: but the ducks understood not a word about what he said, and so they whispered one to the other, "We are all agreed, he is silly!"
"Yes, to be sure, he is silly," said the turkey-cock aloud. The poor stork stood quite still, and thought about Africa.
"What a pair of beautiful thin legs you have got!" said the turkey-cock; "what is the price by the yard?"
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed all the ducks; but the stork pretended that he did not hear.
"I cannot help laughing," said the turkey-cock, "it was so very witty; or, perhaps, it was too low for him! – ha! ha! he can't take in many ideas! Let us only be interesting to ourselves!" And with that they began to gobble, and the ducks chattered, "Gik, gak! gik, gak!" It was amazing to see how entertaining they were to themselves.
Yalmar, however, went up to the hencoop, opened the door, and called to the stork, which hopped out to him on the deck. It had now rested itself; and it seemed as if it nodded to Yalmar to thank him. With this it spread out its wings and flew away to its warm countries; but the hens clucked, the ducks chattered, and the turkey-cocks grew quite red in the head.
"To-morrow we shall have you for dinner!" said Yalmar; and so he awoke, and was lying in his little bed.
It was, however, a wonderful voyage that Olé Luckoiè had taken him that night.
"Dost thou know what?" said Olé Luckoiè. "Now do not be afraid, and thou shalt see a little mouse!" and with that he held out his hand with the pretty little creature in it.
"It is come to invite thee to a wedding," said he. "There are two little mice who are going to be married to-night; they live down under the floor of thy mother's store-closet; it will be such a nice opportunity for thee."
"But how can I get through the little mouse-hole in the floor?" asked Yalmar.
"Leave that to me," said Olé Luckoiè; "I shall make thee little enough!" And with that he touched Yalmar with his wand, and immediately he grew less and less, until at last he was no bigger than my finger.
"Now thou canst borrow the tin soldier's clothes," said Olé Luckoiè; "I think they would fit thee, and it looks so proper to have uniform on when people go into company."
"Yes, to be sure!" said Yalmar; and in a moment he was dressed up like the most beautiful new tin soldier.
"Will you be so good as to seat yourself in your mother's thimble," said the little mouse; "and then I shall have the honor of driving you!"
"Goodness!" said Yalmar; "will the young lady herself take the trouble?" and with that they drove to the mouse's wedding.
First of all, after going under the floor, they came into a long passage, which was so low that they could hardly drive in the thimble, and the whole passage was illuminated with touchwood.
"Does it not smell delicious?" said the mouse as they drove along; "the whole passage has been rubbed with bacon-sward; nothing can be more delicious!"
They now came into the wedding-hall. On the right hand stood the little she-mice, and they all whispered and tittered as if they were making fun of one another; on the left hand all the he-mice, and stroked their mustachios with their paws. In the middle of the floor were to be seen the bridal pair, who stood in a hollow cheese-paring; and they kept kissing one another before everybody, for they were desperately in love, and were going to be married directly.
And all this time there kept coming in more and more strangers, till one mouse was ready to trample another to death; and the bridal pair had placed themselves in a doorway, so that people could neither go in nor come out. The whole room, like the passage, had been smeared with sward of bacon; that was all the entertainment: but as a dessert a pea was produced, on which a little mouse of family had bitten the name of the bridal pair, – that is to say, the first letters of their name; that was something quite out of the common way.
All the mice said that it was a charming wedding, and that the conversation had been so good!
Yalmar drove home again; he had really been in very grand society, but he must have been regularly squeezed together to make himself small enough for a tin soldier's uniform.
"It is incredible how many elderly people there are who would be so glad of me," said Olé Luckoiè, "especially those who have done any thing wrong. 'Good little Olé,' say they to me, 'we cannot close our eyes; and so we lie all night long awake, and see all our bad deeds, which sit, like ugly little imps, on the bed's head, and squirt hot water on us. Wilt thou only just come and drive them away, that we may have a good sleep!' and with that they heave such deep sighs – 'we would so gladly pay thee; good-night, Olé!' Silver pennies lie for me in the window," said Olé Luckoiè, "but I do not give sleep for money!"
"Now what shall we have to-night?" inquired Yalmar.
"I do not know whether thou hast any desire to go again to-night to a wedding," said Olé Luckoiè; "but it is of a different kind to that of last night. Thy sister's great doll, which is dressed like a gentleman, and is called Herman, is going to be married to the doll Bertha; besides, it is the doll's birthday, and therefore there will be a great many presents made."
"Yes, I know," said Yalmar; "always, whenever the dolls have new clothes, my sister entreats that they have a birthday or a wedding; that has happened certainly a hundred times!"
"Yes, but to-night it is the hundred and first wedding, and when a hundred and one is done then all is over! Therefore it will be incomparably grand. Only look!"
Yalmar looked at the table; there stood the little doll's house with lights in the windows, and all the tin soldiers presented arms outside. The bridal couple sat upon the floor, and leaned against the table-legs, and looked very pensive, and there might be reason for it. But Olé Luckoiè, dressed in the grandmother's black petticoat, married them, and when they were married, all the furniture in the room joined in the following song, which was written in pencil, and which was sung to the tune of the drum: —
Our song like a wind comes flitting
Into the room where the bride-folks are sitting;
They are partly of wood, as is befitting:
Their skin is the skin of a glove well fitting!
Hurrah, hurrah! for sitting and fitting!
Thus sing we aloud as the wind comes flitting!
And now the presents were brought, but they had forbidden any kind of eatables, for their love was sufficient for them.
"Shall we stay in the country, or shall we travel into foreign parts?" asked the bridegroom; and with that they begged the advice of the breeze, which had travelled a great deal, and of the old hen, which had had five broods of chickens. The breeze told them about the beautiful, warm countries where the bunches of grapes hung so large and so heavy; where the air was so mild, and the mountains had colors of which one could have no idea "in this country."
"But there they have not our green cabbage!" said the hen. "I lived for one summer with all my chickens in the country; there was a dry, dusty ditch in which we could go and scuttle, and we had admittance to a garden where there was green cabbage! O, how green it was! I cannot fancy any thing more beautiful!"
"But one cabbage-stalk looks just like another," said the breeze; "and then there is such wretched weather here."
"Yes,