The boy--who had become a youth,
and who had gone as a sailor out into the wide world and sailed to warm
countries where the coffee grew, and to whom the little girl had given
an elder blossom from her bosom for a keepsake, when she took leave of
him--placed the flower in his hymn book; and when he opened it in
foreign lands he always turned to the spot where this flower of
remembrance lay, and the more he looked at it the fresher it appeared. He could, as it were, breathe the homelike fragrance of the woods, and
see the little girl looking at him from between the petals of the flower
with her clear blue eyes, and hear her whispering, "It is beautiful here
at home in spring and summer, in autumn and in winter," while hundreds
of these home scenes passed through his memory. Many years had passed, and he was now an old man, seated with his old
wife under an elder tree in full blossom. They were holding each other's
hands, just as the great-grandfather and grandmother had done, and
spoke, as they did, of olden times and of the golden wedding. The little
maiden with the blue eyes and with the elder blossoms in her hair sat in
the tree and nodded to them and said, "To-day is the golden wedding." [Illustration: As she placed them on the heads of the old people, each
flower became a golden crown.] And then she took two flowers out of her wreath and kissed them, and
they shone first like silver and then like gold, and as she placed them
on the heads of the old people, each flower became a golden crown. And
there they sat like a king and queen under the sweet-scented tree,
which still looked like an elder bush. Then he related to his old wife
the story of the Elder-tree Mother, just as he had heard it told when he
was a little boy, and they both fancied it very much like their own
story, especially in parts which they liked the best. "Well, and so it is," said the little maiden in the tree. "Some call me
Elder Mother, others a dryad, but my real name is Memory. It is I who
sit in the tree as it grows and grows, and I can think of the past and
relate many things. Let me see if you have still preserved the flower." Then the old man opened his hymn book, and there lay the elder flower,
as fresh as if it had only just been placed there, and Memory nodded. And the two old people with the golden crowns on their heads sat in the
red glow of the evening sunlight and closed their eyes, and--and--the
story was ended. The little boy lay in his bed and did not quite know whether he had been
dreaming or listening to a story. The teapot stood on the table, but no
elder bush grew out of it, and the old man who had really told the tale
was on the threshold and just going out at the door. "How beautiful it was," said the little boy. "Mother, I have been to
warm countries." "I can quite believe it," said his mother. "When any one drinks two full
cups of elder-flower tea, he may well get into warm countries"; and then
she covered him up, that he should not take cold. "You have slept well
while I have been disputing with the old man as to whether it was a real
story or a fairy legend." "And where is the Elder-tree Mother?" asked the boy. "She is in the teapot," said the mother, "and there she may stay." [Illustration]




THE SNOW QUEEN


STORY THE FIRST

WHICH DESCRIBES A LOOKING-GLASS AND ITS BROKEN FRAGMENTS

YOU must attend to the beginning of this story, for when we get to the
end we shall know more than we now do about a very wicked hobgoblin; he
was one of the most mischievous of all sprites, for he was a real demon. One day when he was in a merry mood he made a looking-glass which had
the power of making everything good or beautiful that was reflected in
it shrink almost to nothing, while everything that was worthless and bad
was magnified so as to look ten times worse than it really was. The most lovely landscapes appeared like boiled spinach, and all the
people became hideous and looked as if they stood on their heads and had
no bodies. Their countenances were so distorted that no one could
recognize them, and even one freckle on the face appeared to spread over
the whole of the nose and mouth. The demon said this was very amusing. When a good or holy thought passed through the mind of any one a wrinkle
was seen in the mirror, and then how the demon laughed at his cunning
invention. All who went to the demon's school--for he kept a school--talked
everywhere of the wonders they had seen, and declared that people could
now, for the first time, see what the world and its inhabitants were
really like. They carried the glass about everywhere, till at last there
was not a land nor a people who had not been looked at through this
distorted mirror. They wanted even to fly with it up to heaven to see the angels, but the
higher they flew the more slippery the glass became, and they could
scarcely hold it. At last it slipped from their hands, fell to the
earth, and was broken into millions of pieces. But now the looking-glass caused more unhappiness than ever, for some of
the fragments were not so large as a grain of sand, and they flew about
the world into every country. And when one of these tiny atoms flew into
a person's eye it stuck there, unknown to himself, and from that moment
he viewed everything the wrong way, and could see only the worst side of
what he looked at, for even the smallest fragment retained the same
power which had belonged to the whole mirror. Some few persons even got a splinter of the looking-glass in their
hearts, and this was terrible, for their hearts became cold and hard
like a lump of ice. A few of the pieces were so large that they could be
used as windowpanes; it would have been a sad thing indeed to look at
our friends through them. Other pieces were made into spectacles, and
this was dreadful, for those who wore them could see nothing either
rightly or justly. At all this the wicked demon laughed till his sides
shook, to see the mischief he had done. There are still a number of
these little fragments of glass floating about in the air, and now you
shall hear what happened with one of them. SECOND STORY

A LITTLE BOY AND A LITTLE GIRL

In a large town full of houses and people there is not room for
everybody to have even a little garden. Most people are obliged to
content themselves with a few flowers in flowerpots. In one of these large towns lived two poor children who had a garden
somewhat larger and better than a few flowerpots. They were not brother
and sister, but they loved each other almost as much as if they had
been. Their parents lived opposite each other in two garrets where the
roofs of neighboring houses nearly joined each other, and the water pipe
ran between them. In each roof was a little window, so that any one
could step across the gutter from one window to the other.