Year: 1872

|
! Andersen.


Thore was IA little flsh--a saltwater
fsh-0f good family. / don't recall
the name--you will have TO get thai
from the learned people. This little
fish had eighteen hundred brothers
and sisters all just as old as he; they
did not know their father and mother
and were obliged to look out Tor them.
selves at the very beginning, and
swim round, but that was great sport
They had water enough to drink, the
ocean; thought nothing about their
food, ii came when they wanted it.
Each did as it pleased. each was To
make out it's own story-aye, rather
none Of them thought at all about
that. The sun shone down on the
water that was light about them, sc
clear was it. 1t was a world with the
strangest creatures, and some very
horrid and big, with great gaping
mouths that could gulp down all the
eighteen hundred brOthors and sis
ters, but neither did they think OF
that, for none of them as yet had
been swallowed. The small ones
swan side by side, close together, as
herrings and mackerel swim. But
rs they were swimming their pretti-
est in the water, and thinking OF
nothing, there sank with prodigious
noise, from above, right down through
them, a long heavy thing that looked
ma if it never would come to an end ;
it stretched out farther and farther,
and every one Of the little fishes that
scampercd Off was either crushed or
got a crack that it could not stand.
All the little fishes, and the great
ones with them, from the level Of the
sea to the hottom, were thrown into
a panic. The great horrid thing sank
deeper and deeper, and grew longer
and longer, miles and miles long.
The fishes and snails, everything that
swims, or creeps, or Is driven by the
current, saw this fearful thing, this
enormous, incomprehensible sea-eel
which had come down upon them in
this fashion.


What was the thing, anyway? All,
we know; it was the great intermin-
ablo telegraph cable that people were
laying between Europe and America?
There was confusion and COM
motion among all the right tful oc-
eupants of the sea where the cable
was laid. The flying fishes shot up
above the surface as high as they
could fling themselves; the blow-fish
took a leap an entire gunshot in
length over the water, for it can do
that ; the other fish made for the bot
tom Of the sea, and went down with
such haste that they reached it long
before the teleghaph was seen or
known about down there they pour
ed in on the cod and founders that
lived peaceably at the bottom Of the
sea and ate their neighbors. One or
two OF the sea-anemones were so agi-
tated that they threw up their stom-
achs; but they lived after it just the
same, for they can do that. A good
many Holsters and crabs got out Of
their excellent shells, and wero OBJ
liged to wait for their bones to grow
back again.


In all this fright and confusion, the
tlXIllGtH anu
ters became separated, and never
again met or even knew each other
after that T.; only some ten Of them re-
manned still in the same place, and SO
in few hours they got over the first
fright and began to be curious about
the affair. They looked about them,
they looked up, and they looked
down, and down in tho depths they
fancied they saw the fearful thing
that had scared them--yes that had
scared all, great and small, lying at
the bottom Of the sea, rs far as their
eyes could reach it was quite thin,
but they did not know how thick 1t
might be able to make itself, or how
strong 1t was; it lay very quiet, but
then that might be part Of Its cum
ming, they thought.


"Let it lie; it does not come near
us!" said the most cautious Of the lit
tie fishes; but the smallest one Of all
would not give up trying to find out
what tho thing could be. 1t had
come down from above, 40 1t was up
above that one could best flnd ont
about ii. So they swan up to the
surface. 1t was perfectly still. They
met dolphin there. The dolphin is
sprghtly fellow that can turn SOM
ersaults on the water, and 1t has eyes
to see with, 80 1t must have seen this
and known all about 1t. They asked
him. but he had only been thinking
about himself and his somersaults,
he'd seen nothing, had no answer
for them, and looked high and
mighty.


Then they turned to the seal, which
was just plungins in; it was more
civil, for all that 1t eats small fish
but to-day it had had enough. 1t
| knew little more than the dolphin.


"Many a night have lain upon a
wet stone and looked far into the
country, miles away from here; there
are crafty creatures called in their
speech men-folk. They plot against
us, but usually we slip away from
them that ! know well, and the sea
eel too, that you are asking about, he
knows it. He has been under their
sway, up there on the earth, time out
of mind, and it was from there that
they were carrying him off on ship
to a distant land. | saw what q
trouble they had, but they could
manage him, because he had become
weak on earth. They laid him in
coils and circles. | heard how he
ringled and rangled when they held
him down and when he slipped away
from them out here. They held on
to him with all their might-ever so
many hands had bold of him, but he
kept slipping away from them down
to the bottom there he is lying now
till further notice, rather think "


"He is quito thin" said the small
fishes. .,,,


"They have starved him." said the
seal. "but he will come to himself,
and get his old size and cOrpulence
again. suppose he is the great sea,
serpent that men are so afraid OF, and
l.lk 80 much about. I-never saw him
before. and never. believed in a sea
serpent" and with that, down went
the seal. -


"How much he knew! how he talk
ed!I said the small fishes II never
was so wise before If 1t only isn't all
an untruth."


"We can, anyway, swim down and
gee for ourselves" said the littlest
fish ION the way we can hear what
l. 4