Page:Fairy tales and stories (Andersen, Tegner).djvu/447

Rh said he. "I want to amuse others as well as myself, for I have the shortest time to live of the whole family. I can become only twenty-eight. Sometimes they put on an extra day, but that makes no difference. Hurrah!"

"You must n't shout so loud," said the sentry.

"Of course I must," said the man. "I am Prince Carnival, and travel under the name of February."

Now came the third. He looked the image of Lent, but carried his head high, for he was related to "the forty knights," and was a weather prophet; but it is not a very fat living, and that's why he praised the lenten time. His decoration was a bunch of violets in his button-hole, but the flowers were very small.

"March! March!" cried the fourth, and gave the third a push. "March! March! Let's go into the guard-room; there's punch there; I can smell it." But it wasn't true; he wanted to make an April fool of him; that's how the fourth began. He seemed to be a smart fellow; he didn't do much work, but kept a lot of holidays. "It makes one's temper very changeable," he said. "Rain and sunshine, moving in and moving out. I am also agent for furniture removals. I go round and ask people to funerals; I can both laugh and cry. I have my summer clothes in the portmanteau, but it would be foolish to begin to wear them. Here I am. For show I go out in silk stockings, and carry a muff."

Then a lady stepped out of the coach. "Miss May," she said, announcing herself. She was dressed in summer clothes, and had galoshes on her feet. She wore a silk dress the color of the green beech leaves, and anemones in her hair, and she brought such a perfume of sweet woodruff with her that the sentry began to sneeze. "God bless you!" she said; that was her greeting. How lovely she was! She was a singer: not at the theaters, but in the woods; not at fairs, but in the fresh green woods, where she wandered about and sang for her own amusement. In her work-bag she carried Christian Winter's "Woodcuts," for they are just like the beechwood, and Richardt's "Minor Poems," which are like woodruff.

"Now our young mistress is coming!" they cried in the coach, and then Mistress June stepped out. She was young and delicate, proud and charming. One could see at once she was born to keep the feast of the Seven Holy Sleepers. She gave a party on the longest day of the year, so that the guests might have time to partake of all the dishes on her table. She could well afford to drive in her own carriage, but she traveled by the mail-coach like the rest, for she wanted to show she was not proud. She did not travel alone, for she was accompanied by her younger brother, July.