Page:Fairy tales and stories (Andersen, Tegner).djvu/380

 348 "Yes, and the wedding to-night will be the hundred and first, and when one hundred and one is reached then everything comes to an end, and therefore this will be a grand affair. Just look!"

And Hjalmar looked at the table: there stood the little cardboard house with lights in all the windows, and all the tin soldiers outside presenting arms. The bride and the bridegroom sat on the floor leaning against the leg of the table, both looking quite thoughtful, which was only reasonable, while Daddy Dustman, dressed in grandmother's black skirt, performed the marriage ceremony. When it was over, all the furniture in the room joined in singing the following pretty song, which was written by the lead-pencil, and set to the tune of the military tattoo:

And now came the presents; but the bride and bridegroom had requested that no eatable should be sent, as they had sufficient of love to live upon.

"Shall we go somewhere in the country or go abroad?" asked the bridegroom. The swallow, who had traveled a great deal, and the old farm-hen, who had hatched five broods of chickens, were consulted on the subject. The swallow told about lovely countries, where the air was mild and the mountains a color of which we have no idea.

"But you don't find our spring cabbage there," said the hen. "I went into the country one summer with all my chickens. We had a gravelpit there, all to ourselves, where we could go and scratch up the ground all day; and we also had leave to go into a garden where there was spring cabbage. Oh, how green it was! I cannot think of anything more delightful."

"But one cabbage stalk looks very much like another," said the swallow; "and then you have often such bad weather here."

"Yes, but one gets accustomed to that," said the hen.

"But you have so much frost and cold in this country."

"That's good for the cabbages," said the hen. "Besides, we have warm weather as well. One summer it was so hot one could scarcely breathe. And then we have none of the poisonous creatures that are found abroad. And we are free from robbers. He is a wretch who doesn't think our country the most beautiful. He doesn't deserve to be allowed to live here," said the hen, with tears in her eyes. "I, too, have traveled. I once drove over fifty miles in a tub! There is no pleasure at all in traveling."

'Yes, the hen is a sensible person," said Bertha, the bride. "Nor do I like traveling over mountains either. It is always up and down. No, let us be off to the gravel-pit and take our walks in the cabbage garden."

And that settled it.