Page:Fairy tales and stories (Andersen, Tegner).djvu/374

 342 Daddy Dustman now lifted little Hjalmar up into the frame, and Hjalmar put his feet into the painting, right on the high grass, and there he stood, the sun shining down upon him through the branches of the trees. He ran to the lake and sat down in a little boat which was lying there. It was painted red and white and the sails shone like silver, while six swans, all with golden crowns round their necks and a bright blue star on their foreheads, towed the boat past the green forests, where the trees talked about robbers and witches, and the flowers about the little elves and about what the butterflies had told them.

The most beautiful fishes with silver and gold scales swam after the boat. Now and then they would make a spring out of the water and, with a splash, fall back into it, while the birds, red and blue, large and small, flew after the boat in two long rows. The gnats danced and the cockchafers sang "Boom, boom!" All wanted to follow Hjalmar and all had a story to tell.

What a splendid sail! In some places the forests were thick and dark, in others they looked like the most beautiful gardens, with sunshine and flowers. Along the shore lay large palaces of glass and marble, and on the balconies stood princesses, all of whom were little girls that Hjalmar knew well and had played with. They held out to him in their hands the nicest sugar-pigs that any sweet-stuff woman ever sold, and Hjalmar, as he sailed, seized hold of one end of the sugar-pigs, while the princesses held tightly on to the other, so that all got a piece, the princesses the smallest, and Hjalmar all the biggest. At every palace little princes kept guard. They presented arms with golden swords, and let it rain with raisins and tin soldiers. They must be real princes!

At one moment Hjalmar sailed through forests, at another through large halls or through the middle of a town. He also passed through the town where his nurse lived, the nurse who had been so fond of him, and she nodded and beckoned to him, while she sang the pretty verse she herself had written and sent to Hjalmar:

And all the birds joined in, the flowers danced on their stalks, and the old trees nodded, just as if Daddy Dustman were telling stories to them also.