Page:Fairy tales and other stories (Andersen, Craigie).djvu/37

 Rh 'Can the professor understand these signs?' asked Ida.

'Yes, certainly. He came one morning into his garden, and saw a great stinging-nettle standing there, and making signs to a beautiful red carnation with its leaves. It was saying, "You are so pretty, and I love you so much." But the professor does not like that kind of thing, and he directly slapped the stinging -nettle upon its leaves, for those are its fingers; but he stung himself, and since that time he has not dared to touch a stinging-nettle.'

'That was funny,' cried little Ida; and she laughed.

'How can any one put such notions into a child's head?' said the tiresome privy councillor, who had come to pay a visit, and was sitting on the sofa. He did not like the student, and always grumbled when he saw him cutting out the comical funny pictures—sometimes a man hanging on a gibbet and holding a heart in his hand, to show that he stole hearts; sometimes an old witch riding on a broom, and carrying her husband on her nose. The councillor could not bear this, and then he said, just as he did now, 'How can any one put such notions into a child's head? Those are stupid fancies!'

But to little Ida, what the student told about her flowers seemed very entertaining; and she thought much about it. The flowers hung their heads, for they were tired because they had danced all night; they were certainly ill. Then she went with them to all her other toys, which stood on a pretty little table, and the whole drawer was full of beautiful things. In the doll's bed lay her doll Sophy, asleep; but little Ida said to her,

'You must really get up, Sophy, and manage to lie in the drawer for to-night. The poor flowers are ill, and they must lie in your bed; perhaps they will then get well again.'

And she at once took the doll out; but the doll looked cross, and did not say a single word; for she was angry because she could not keep her own bed.

Then Ida laid the flowers in the doll's bed, pulled the little coverlet quite up over them, and said they were to lie still and be good, and she would make them some tea, so that they might get well again, and be able to get up to-morrow. And she drew the curtains closely round the