you who look at us with your severe, soapsud eyes, think a
moment what our place in nature is: we are born upon the roses, we die
in roses--our whole life is a rose poem. Do not, I beg you, give us a
name which you yourselves think so despicable--the name I cannot bear to
pronounce. If you wish to speak of us, call us 'the ants' milch
cows--the rose-tree regiment--the little green things.'" "And I, the man, stood looking at the tree and at the little Greenies
(whose name I shall not mention, for I should not like to wound the
feelings of the citizens of the rose tree), a large family with eggs and
young ones; and I looked at the soapsuds I was going to wash them in,
for I too had come with soap and water and murderous intentions. But now
I will use it for soap bubbles. Look, how beautiful! Perhaps there lies
in each a fairy tale, and the bubble grows large and radiant and looks
as if there were a pearl lying inside it. The bubble swayed and swung. It flew to the door and then burst, but the
door opened wide, and there stood Dame Fairytale herself! And now she
will tell you better than I can about (I will not say the name) the
little green things of the rosebush. "Plant lice!" said Dame Fairytale. One must call things by their right
names. And if one may not do so always, one must at least have the
privilege of doing so in a fairy tale. [Illustration]




OLE-LUK-OIE THE DREAM GOD


THERE is nobody in the whole world who knows so many stories as
Ole-Luk-Oie, or who can relate them so nicely. In the evening while the children are seated at the tea table or in
their little chairs, very softly he comes up the stairs, for he walks in
his socks. He opens the doors without the slightest noise and throws a
small quantity of very fine dust in the little ones' eyes (just enough
to prevent them from keeping them open), and so they do not see him. Then he creeps behind them and blows softly upon their necks till their
heads begin to droop. But Ole-Luk-Oie does not wish to hurt them. He is very fond of children
and only wants them to be quiet that he may tell them pretty stories,
and he knows they never are quiet until they are in bed and asleep. Ole-Luk-Oie seats himself upon the bed as soon as they are asleep. He is
nicely dressed; his coat is made of silken stuff, it is impossible to
say of what color, for it changes from green to red and from red to blue
as he turns from side to side. Under each arm he carries an umbrella. One of them, with pictures on the inside, he spreads over good children,
and then they dream the most charming stories. But the other umbrella
has no pictures, and this he holds over the naughty children, so that
they sleep heavily and wake in the morning without having dreamed at
all. Now we shall hear how Ole-Luk-Oie came every night during a whole week
to a little boy named Hjalmar, and what it was that he told him. There
were seven stories, as there are seven days in the week. MONDAY

"Now pay attention," said Ole-Luk-Oie in the evening, when Hjalmar was
in bed, "and I will decorate the room." Immediately all the flowers in the flowerpots became large trees with
long branches reaching to the ceiling and stretching along the walls, so
that the whole room was like a greenhouse. All the branches were loaded
with flowers, each flower as beautiful and as fragrant as a rose, and
had any one tasted them he would have found them sweeter even than jam. The fruit glittered like gold, and there were cakes so full of plums
that they were nearly bursting. It was incomparably beautiful. At the same time sounded dismal moans from the table drawer in which lay
Hjalmar's schoolbooks. "What can that be now?" said Ole-Luk-Oie, going to the table and pulling
out the drawer. It was a slate, in such distress because of a wrong figure in a sum that
it had almost broken itself to pieces. The pencil pulled and tugged at
its string as if it were a little dog that wanted to help but could not. And then came a moan from Hjalmar's copy book. Oh, it was quite terrible
to hear! On each leaf stood a row of capital letters, every one having
a small letter by its side. This formed a copy. Under these were other
letters, which Hjalmar had written; they fancied they looked like the
copy, but they were mistaken, for they were leaning on one side as if
they intended to fall over the pencil lines. "See, this is the way you should hold yourselves," said the copy. "Look
here, you should slope thus, with a graceful curve." "Oh, we are very willing to do so," said Hjalmar's letters, "but we
cannot, we are so wretchedly made." "You must be scratched out, then," said Ole-Luk-Oie. "Oh, no!" they cried, and then they stood up so gracefully that it was
quite a pleasure to look at them. "Now we must give up our stories, and exercise these letters," said
Ole-Luk-Oie. "One, two--one, two--" So he drilled them till they stood
up gracefully and looked as beautiful as a copy could look. But after
Ole-Luk-Oie was gone, and Hjalmar looked at them in the morning, they
were as wretched and awkward as ever. TUESDAY

As soon as Hjalmar was in bed Ole-Luk-Oie touched with his little magic
wand all the furniture in the room, which immediately began to chatter. And each article talked only of itself. Over the chest of drawers hung a large picture in a gilt frame,
representing a landscape, with fine old trees, flowers in the grass, and
a broad stream which flowed through the wood past several castles far
out into the wild ocean. Ole-Luk-Oie touched the picture with his magic wand, and immediately the
birds began to sing, the branches of the trees rustled, and the clouds
moved across the sky, casting their shadows on the landscape beneath
them. Then Ole-Luk-Oie lifted little Hjalmar up to the frame and placed his
feet in the picture, on the high grass, and there he stood with the sun
shining down upon him through the branches of the trees. He ran to the
water and seated himself in a little boat which lay there, and which was
painted red and white. The sails glittered like silver, and six swans, each with a golden
circlet round its neck and a bright, blue star on its forehead, drew the
boat past the green wood, where the trees talked of robbers and witches,
and the flowers of beautiful little elves and fairies whose histories
the butterflies had related to them. Brilliant fish with scales like silver and gold swam after the boat,
sometimes making a spring and splashing the water round them; while
birds, red and blue, small and great, flew after him in two long lines. The gnats danced round them, and the cockchafers cried "Buzz, buzz." They all wanted to follow Hjalmar, and all had some story to tell him. It was a most delightful sail. [Illustration: On the balconies stood princesses.]