What the First Little Mouse Saw and Heard on Her Travels
When I first went out into the world,” said the little mouse, “I fancied, as so many of my age do, that I already knew everything, but it was not so. It takes years to acquire great knowledge. I went at once to sea in a ship bound for the north. I had been told that the ship’s cook must know how to prepare every dish at sea, and it is easy enough to do that with plenty of sides of bacon, and large tubs of salt meat and mouldy flour. There I found plenty of delicate food, but no opportunity for learning how to make soup from a sausage skewer. We sailed on for many days and nights; the ship rocked fearfully, and we did not escape without a wetting. As soon as we arrived at the port to which the ship was bound, I left it, and went on shore at a place far towards the north. It is a wonderful thing to leave your own little corner at home, to hide yourself in a ship where there are sure to be some nice snug corners for shelter, then suddenly to find yourself thousands of miles away in a foreign land. I saw large pathless forests of pine and birch trees, which smelt so strong that I sneezed and thought of sausage. There were great lakes also which looked as black as ink at a distance, but were quite clear when I came close to them. Large swans were floating upon them, and I thought at first they were only foam, they lay so still; but when I saw them walk and fly, I knew what they were directly. They belong to the goose species, one can see that by their walk. No one can attempt to disguise family descent. I kept with my own kind, and associated with the forest and field mice, who, however, knew very little, especially about what I wanted to know, and which had actually made me travel abroad. The idea that soup could be made from a sausage skewer was to them such an out-of-the-way, unlikely thought, that it was repeated from one to another through the whole forest. They declared that the problem would never be solved, that the thing was an impossibility. How little I thought that in this place, on the very first night, I should be initiated into the manner of its preparation.
“It was the height of summer, which the mice told me was the reason that the forest smelt so strong, and that the herbs were so fragrant, and the lakes with the white swimming swans so dark, and yet so clear. On the margin of the wood, near to three or four houses, a pole, as large as the mainmast of a ship, had been erected, and from the summit hung wreaths of flowers and fluttering ribbons; it was the Maypole. Lads and lasses danced round the pole, and tried to outdo the violins of the musicians with their singing. They were as merry as ever at sunset and in the moonlight, but I took no part in the merry-making. What has a little mouse to do with a Maypole dance? I sat in the soft moss, and held my sausage skewer tight. The moon threw its beams particularly on one spot where stood a tree covered with exceedingly fine moss. I may almost venture to say that it was as fine and soft as the fur of the mouse-king, but it was green, which is a color very agreeable to the eye. All at once I saw the most charming little people marching towards me. They did not reach higher than my knee; they looked like human beings, but were better proportioned, and they called themselves elves. Their clothes were very delicate and fine, for they were made of the leaves of flowers, trimmed with the wings of flies and gnats, which had not a bad effect. By their manner, it appeared as if they were seeking for something. I knew not what, till at last one of them espied me and came towards me, and the foremost pointed to my sausage skewer, and said, ‘There, that is just what we want; see, it is pointed at the top; is it not capital?’ and the longer he looked at my pilgrim’s staff, the more delighted he became. ‘I will lend it to you,’ said I, ‘but not to keep.’
“‘Oh no, we won’t keep it!’ they all cried; and then they seized the skewer, which I gave up to them, and danced with it to the spot where the delicate moss grew, and set it up in the middle of the green. They wanted a maypole, and the one they now had seemed cut out on purpose for them. Then they decorated it so beautifully that it was quite dazzling to look at. Little spiders spun golden threads around it, and then it was hung with fluttering veils and flags so delicately white that they glittered like snow in the moonshine. After that they took colors from the butterfly’s wing, and sprinkled them over the white drapery which gleamed as if covered with flowers and diamonds, so that I could not recognize my sausage skewer at all. Such a maypole had never been seen in all the world as this. Then came a great company of real elves. Nothing could be finer than their clothes, and they invited me to be present at the feast; but I was to keep at a certain distance, because I was too large for them. Then commenced such music that it sounded like a thousand glass bells, and was so full and strong that I thought it must be the song of the swans. I fancied also that I heard the voices of the cuckoo and the black-bird, and it seemed at last as if the whole forest sent forth glorious melodies—the voices of children, the tinkling of bells, and the songs of the birds; and all this wonderful melody came from the elfin maypole. My sausage peg was a complete peal of bells. I could scarcely believe that so much could have been produced from it, till I remembered into what hands it had fallen. I was so much affected that I wept tears such as a little mouse can weep, but they were tears of joy. The night was far too short for me; there are no long nights there in summer, as we often have in this part of the world. When the morning dawned, and the gentle breeze rippled the glassy mirror of the forest lake, all the delicate veils and flags fluttered away into thin air; the waving garlands of the spider’s web, the hanging bridges and galleries, or whatever else they may be called, vanished away as if they had never been. Six elves brought me back my sausage skewer, and at the same time asked me to make any request, which they would grant if in their power; so I begged them, if they could, to tell me how to make soup from a sausage skewer.
“‘How do we make it?’ said the chief of the elves with a smile. ‘Why you have just seen it; you scarcely knew your sausage skewer again, I am sure.’
“They think themselves very wise, thought I to myself. Then I told them all about it, and why I had travelled so far, and also what promise had been made at home to the one who should discover the method of preparing this soup. ‘What use will it be,’ I asked, ‘to the mouse-king or to our whole mighty kingdom that I have seen all these beautiful things? I cannot shake the sausage peg and say, Look, here is the skewer, and now the soup will come. That would only produce a dish to be served when people were keeping a fast.’
“Then the elf dipped his finger into the cup of a violet, and said to me, ‘Look here, I will anoint your pilgrim’s staff, so that when you return to your own home and enter the king’s castle, you have only to touch the king with your staff, and violets will spring forth and cover the whole of it, even in the coldest winter time; so I think I have given you really something to carry home, and a little more than something.’”
But before the little mouse explained what this something more was, she stretched her staff out to the king, and as it touched him the most beautiful bunch of violets sprang forth and filled the place with perfume. The smell was so powerful that the mouse-king ordered the mice who stood nearest the chimney to thrust their tails into the fire, that there might be a smell of burning, for the perfume of the violets was overpowering, and not the sort of scent that every one liked.
“But what was the something more of which you spoke just now?” asked the mouse-king.
“Why,” answered the little mouse, “I think it is what they call ‘effect;’” and thereupon she turned the staff round, and behold not a single flower was to be seen upon it! She now only held the naked skewer, and lifted it up as a conductor lifts his baton at a concert. “Violets, the elf told me,” continued the mouse, “are for the sight, the smell, and the touch; so we have only now to produce the effect of hearing and tasting;” and then, as the little mouse beat time with her staff, there came sounds of music, not such music as was heard in the forest, at the elfin feast, but such as is often heard in the kitchen—the sounds of boiling and roasting. It came quite suddenly, like wind rushing through the chimneys, and seemed as if every pot and kettle were boiling over. The fire-shovel clattered down on the brass fender; and then, quite as suddenly, all was still,—nothing could be heard but the light, vapory song of the tea-kettle, which was quite wonderful to hear, for no one could rightly distinguish whether the kettle was just beginning to boil or going to stop. And the little pot steamed, and the great pot simmered, but without any regard for each; indeed there seemed no sense in the pots at all. And as the little mouse waved her baton still more wildly, the pots foamed and threw up bubbles, and boiled over; while again the wind roared and whistled through the chimney, and at last there was such a terrible hubbub, that the little mouse let her stick fall.
“That is a strange sort of soup,” said the mouse-king; “shall we not now hear about the preparation?”
“That is all,” answered the little mouse, with a bow.
“That all!” said the mouse-king; “then we shall be glad to hear what information the next may have to give us.”
HERE was an old country-house which belonged to young, wealthy people. They had riches and blessings, they liked to enjoy themselves, but they did good as well, they wished to make everybody as happy as they were themselves.
On Christmas Eve a beautifully decorated Christmas tree stood in the old hall, where the fire burned in the chimney, and fir branches were hung round the old pictures. Here were assembled the family and their guests, and there was dancing and singing.
Earlier in the evening there had been Christmas gaiety in the servants’ hall. Here also was a great fir-tree with red and white candles, small Danish flags, swans and fishing-nets, cut out of coloured paper, and filled with goodies. The poor children from the neighbourhood were invited, every one had his mother with him. The mothers did not look much at the Christmas-tree, but at the Christmas table, where there lay linen and woollen cloth—stuff for gowns and stuff for trousers. They and the bigger children looked there, only the very little ones stretched out their hands to the candles, and the tinsel and flags.
The whole party came early in the afternoon and got Christmas porridge and roast goose with red cabbage. Then when the Christmas-tree was seen and the gifts distributed, each got a little glass of punch with apple fritters. Then they went back to their own poor homes and talked of the good living, that is to say good things to eat; and the gifts were once more inspected. There were now Garden Kirsten and Garden Ole. They were married, and had their house and daily bread for weeding and digging in the garden of the big house. Every Christmas festival they got a good share of the gifts; they had five children, and all of them were clothed by the family.
“They are generous people, our master and mistress,” said they, “but they have the means to be so, and they have pleasure in doing it.”
“Here are good clothes for the four children to wear,” said Ole; “but why is there nothing for the cripple? They used to think about him too, although he was not at the festival.”
It was the eldest of the children they called “The Cripple”, he was called Hans otherwise.
As a little boy, he was the smartest and liveliest child, but he became all at once “loose in the legs”, as they call it, he could neither walk nor stand, and now he had been lying in bed for five years.
“Yes, I got something for him too,” said the mother, “but it is nothing much, it is only a book to read.”
“He won’t get fat on that,” said the father.
But Hans was glad of it. He was a very clever boy who liked to read, but used his time also for working, so far as one who must always lie in bed could he useful. He was very handy, and knitted woollen stockings, and even bedcovers. The lady at the big house had praised and bought them. It was a story-book Hans had got; in it there was much to read and much to think about.
“It is not of any kind of use here in the house,” said his parents, “but let him read, it passes the time, he cannot always be knitting stockings!”
The spring came; flowers and green leaves began to sprout-the weeds also, as one may call the nettles, although the psalm speaks so nicely of them:
Though kings in all their power and might
Came forth in splendid row
They could not make the smallest leaf
Upon a nettle grow.
There was much to do in the garden, not only for the gardener and his apprentice, but also for Kirsten and Ole.
“It is perfect drudgery,” said they. “We have no sooner raked the paths and made them nice, than they are just trodden down again. There is such a run of visitors up at the house. How much it must cost! But the family are rich people!”
“Things are badly divided,” said Ole; “the priest says we are all our Father’s children, why the difference then?”
“It comes from the Fall!” said Kirsten
They talked about it again in the evening, where cripple Hans lay with his story-book.
Straitened circumstances, work, and drudgery, had made the parents not only hard in the hands, but also in their opinions and judgements; they could not grasp it, could not explain it, and made themselves more peevish and angry as they talked.
“Some people get prosperity and happiness, others only poverty! Why should our first parents’ disobedience and curiosity be visited upon us? We would not have behaved ourselves as they did!”
“Yes, we would!” said cripple Hans, all at once. “It is all here in the book.”
“What is in the book?” asked the parents.
And Hans read for them the old story of the wood-cutter and his wife. They also scolded about Adam’s and Eve’s curiosity, which was the cause of their misfortune. The king of the country came past just then. “Come home with me,” said he, “then you shall have it as good as I; seven courses for dinner and a course for show. That is in a closed tureen, and you must not touch it; for if you do, it is all over with your grandeur.” “What can there be in the tureen?” said the wife. “That does not concern us,” said the man. “Yes, I am not inquisitive,” said the wife, “but I would only like to know why we dare not lift the lid; it is certainly something delicate!” “If only it is not something mechanical,” said the man such as a pistol, which goes off and wakens the whole house.” “O my!” said the wife, and did not touch the tureen. But during the night she dreamt that the lid lifted itself, and from the tureen came a smell of the loveliest punch, such as one gets at weddings and funerals. There lay a big silver shilling with the inscription, “Drink of this punch, and you will become the two richest people in the world, and everybody else will become beggars!”—and the wife wakened at once and told her husband her dream. “You think too much about the thing!” said he. “We could lift it gently,” said the wife. “Gently,” said the man, and the wife then lifted the lid very gently. Then two little active mice sprang out, and ran at once into a mouse-hole. “Good night,” said the king. “Now you can go home and lie in your own bed. Don’t scold Adam and Eve any more, you yourselves have been as inquisitive and ungrateful!”
“From where has that story come in the book?” said Ole. “It looks as if it concerned us. It is something to think about!”
Next day they went to work again; they were roasted by the sun, and soaked to the skin with rain; in them were fretful thoughts, and they ruminated on them.
It was still quite light at home after they had eaten their milk porridge.
“Read the story of the wood-cutter to us again,” said Ole.
“There are so many nice ones in the book,” said Hans, “so many, you don’t know.”
“Yes, but I don’t care about them,” said Ole, “I want to hear the one I know.”
And he and his wife listened to it again.
More than one evening they returned to the story.
“It cannot quite make everything clear to me,” said Ole.
“It is with people as with sweet milk, which sours; some become fine cheese, and others the thin, watery whey; some people have luck in everything, sit at the high-table every day, and know neither sorrow nor want.”
Cripple Hans heard that. He was weak in the legs, but clever in the head. He read to them from his story-book, read about “The man without sorrow or want”. Where was he to be found, for found he must be!
The king lay sick and could not be cured, except by being dressed in the shirt which had been worn on the body of a man who could truthfully say that he had never known sorrow or want.
Messages were sent to all the countries in the world, to all castles and estates, to all prosperous and happy men, but when it was properly investigated, every one of them had experienced sorrow and want.
“That I have not!” said the swineherd who sat in the ditch and laughed and sang, “I am the happiest man!”
“Then give us your shirt,” said the king’s messengers. “You shall be paid for it with the half of the kingdom.”
But he had no shirt, and yet he called himself the happiest man.
“That was a fine fellow,” shouted Ole, and he and his wife laughed as they had not laughed for a year and a day. Then the schoolmaster came past.
“How you are enjoying yourselves!” said he, “that is something new in this house. Have you won a prize in the lottery?”
“No, we are not of that kind,” said Ole. “It is Hans who has been reading his story-book to us, about ‘The man without sorrow or want’, and the fellow had no shirt. One’s eyes get moist when one hears such things, and that from a printed book. Every one has his load to draw, one is not alone in that. That is always a comfort.”
“Where did you get that book?” asked the schoolmaster.
“Our Hans got it more than a year ago at Christmastime. The master and mistress gave it to him. They know that he likes reading so much, and he is a cripple. We would rather have seen him get two linen shirts at the time. But the book is wonderful, it can almost answer one’s thoughts.”
The schoolmaster took the book and opened it.
“Let us have the same story again!” said Ole, “I have not quite taken it in yet. Then he must also read the other about the wood-cutter!”
These two stories were enough for Ole. They were like two sunbeams coming into the poor room, into the stunted thought which made him so cross and ill-natured. Hans had read the whole book, read it many times. The stories carried him out into the world, there, where he could not go, because his legs would not carry him.
The schoolmaster sat by his bed: they talked together, and it was a pleasure for both of them. From that day the schoolmaster came oftener to Hans, when the parents were at work. It was a treat for the boy, every time he came. How he listened to what the old man told him, about the size of the world and its many countries, and that the sun was almost half a million times bigger than the earth, and so far away that a cannon-ball in its course would take a whole twenty-five years to come from the sun to the earth, whilst the beams of light could come in eight minutes.
Every industrious schoolboy -knew all that, but for Hans it was all new, and still more wonderful than what was in the story-book.
The schoolmaster dined with the squire’s family two or three times a year, and he told how much importance the story-book had in the poor house, where two stories in it alone had been the means of spiritual awakening and blessing. The weakly, clever little boy had with his reading brought reflection and joy into the house.
When the schoolmaster went away, the lady pressed two or three silver dollars into his hand for the little Hans.
“Father and mother must have them!” said Hans, when the schoolmaster brought the money.
And Ole and Kirsten said, “Cripple Hans after all is ,a profit and a blessing.”
Two or three days after, when the parents were at work at the big house, the squire’s carriage stopped outside. It was the kind-hearted lady who came, glad that her Christmas present had been such a comfort and pleasure for the boy and his parents. She brought with her fine bread, fruit, and a bottle of fruit syrup, but what was still more delightful she brought him, in a gilt cage, a little blackbird., which could whistle quite charmingly. The cage with the bird was set up on the old clothes-chest, a little bit away from the boy’s bed; he could see the bird and hear it; even the people out in the road could hear its song.
Ole and Kirsten came home after the lady had driven away; they noticed how glad Hans was, but thought there would only be trouble with the present he had got.
“Rich people don’t have much foresight!” said they. “We shall now have that to look. Cripple Hans cannot do it. The end will be that the cat will take it!”
Eight days passed, and still another eight days: the cat had in that time been often in the room without frightening the bird, to say nothing of hurting it. Then a great event happened. It was afternoon. The parents and the other children were at work, Hans was quite alone; he had the story-book in his hand, and read about the fisherwoman who got everything she wished for; she wished , to be a king, and that she became; she wished to be an emperor, and that she became; but when she wished to become the good God, then she sat once more in the muddy ditch she had come from.
The story had nothing to do with the bird or the cat, but it was just the story he was reading when the incident happened: he always remembered that afterwards.
The cage stood on the chest, the cat stood on the floor and stared at the bird with his greeny-gold eyes. There was something in the cat’s face which seemed to say, “How lovely you are! How I should like to eat you!”
Hans could understand that; he read it in the cat’s face.
“Be off, cat!” he shouted, “will you go out of the room?” It seemed as if it were just about to spring. Hans could not get at him, and he had nothing else to throw at him but his dearest treasure, the story-book. He threw that, but the binding was loose, and it flew to one side, and the book itself with all its leaves flew to the other. The cat went with slow steps a little back into the room, and looked at Hans as much as to say,
“Don’t mix yourself up in this affair, little Hans! I can walk, and I can spring, and you can do neither.”
Hans kept his eye on the cat and was greatly distressed; the bird was also anxious. There was no one there to call; it seemed as if the cat knew it: it prepared itself again to spring. Hans shook the bed-cover at him; his hands he could use; but the cat paid no attention to the bed-cover; and when it was also thrown at him without avail, he sprang upon the chair and into the window-sill, where he was nearer to the bird. Hans could feel his own warm blood in himself, but he did not think of that, he thought only about the cat and the bird; the boy could not help himself out of bed, could not stand on his legs, still less walk. It seemed as if his heart turned inside him when he saw the cat spring from the window, right on to the chest and push the cage so that it was upset. The bird fluttered wildly about inside.
Hans gave a scream; something gave a tug inside him, and without thinking about it, he jumped out of bed, flew across to the chest, tore the cat down, and got hold of the cage, where the bird was in a great fright. He held the cage in his hand and ran with it out of the door and out on to the road.
Then the tears streamed out of his eyes; he shouted with joy, “I can walk! I can walk!”
He had recovered his activity again; such things can happen, and it had happened to him.
The schoolmaster lived close by; Hans ran in to him with his bare feet, with only his shirt and jacket on, and with the bird in the cage.
“I can walk!” he shouted. “My God” and he sobbed and wept with joy.
And there was joy in the house of Ole and Kirsten. “A more joyful day we could not see,” said both of them. Hans was called up to the big house; he had not gone that way for many years; it seemed as if the trees and the nut-bushes, which he knew so well, nodded to him and said, “Good day, Hans, welcome here!” The sun shone on his face as well as in his heart. The master and mistress let him sit with them, and looked as glad as if he had belonged to their own family.
Gladdest of all was the lady, who had given him the story-book, given him the singing-bird, which was now as a matter of fact dead, dead of fright, but it had been the means of restoring him to health, and the book had brought the awakening of the parents: he had the book still, and he would keep it and read it if he were ever so old. Now he could be a benefit to those at home. He would learn a trade, by preference a bookbinder, “because,” said he, “I can get all the new books to read!”
In the afternoon the lady called both parents up to her. She and her husband had talked together about Hans; he was a wise and clever boy: had pleasure in reading, and ability.
That evening the parents came home joyfully from the farm, Kirsten in particular, but the week after she wept, for then little Hans went away: he was dressed in good clothes; he was a good boy; but now he must go away across the salt water, far away to school, and many years would pass before they would see him again.
He did not get the story-book with him, the parents kept that for remembrance. And the father often read in it, but nothing except the two stories, for he knew them.
And they got letters from Hans, each one gladder than the last. He was with fine people, in good circumstances, and it was most delightful to go to school; there was so much to learn and to know; he only wanted to remain there a hundred years and then be a schoolmaster.
“If we should live to see it!” said the parents, and pressed each other’s hands, as if at communion.
“To think of what has happened to Hans!” said Ole.
Our Father thinks also of the poor man’s child! And that it should happen just with the cripple! Is it not as if Hans were to read it for us out of the story-book?
Contoh paragraf Simple Futre Tense :
- The soup will come
- I will anoint your pilgrim’s staff
- Staff, and violets will spring forth and cover the whole of it
4. We shall be glad to hear what information the next may have to give us.
5. You will become the two richest people in the world
6. Everybody else will become beggars
7. You shall be paid for it with the half of the kingdom.
8. We shall now have that to look.
9. The cat will take it
10. I shall meet you tomorrow
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