Page:Fairy tales from Hans Christian Andersen (Walker).djvu/125

Rh "Yes, certainly it is Zephyr, but he is not so little as all that. He used to be a pretty boy once, but that's gone by!"

He looked like a wild man of the woods, but he had a padded hat on so as not to come to any harm. He carried a mahogany club cut in the American mahogany forests. It could not be anything less than that.

"Where do you come from?" asked his mother.

"From the forest wildernesses!" he said, "where the thorny creepers make a fence between every tree, where the water-snake lies in the wet grass, and where human beings seem to be superfluous!"

"What did you do there?"

"I looked at the mighty river, saw where it dashed over the rocks, in dust, and flew with the clouds to carry the rainbow. I saw the wild buffalo swimming in the river, but the stream carried him away; he floated with the wild duck, which soared into the sky at the rapids; but the buffalo was carried over with the water. I liked that and blew a storm, so that the primeval trees had to sail, too, and they were whirled about like shavings."

"And you have done nothing else?" asked the old woman.

"I have been turning somersaults in the savannahs, patting the wild horse, and shaking down cocoanuts! Oh, yes, I have plenty of stories to tell! But one need not tell everything. You know that very well, old woman!" and then he kissed his mother so heartily that she nearly fell backward: he was indeed a wild boy.

The Southwind appeared now in a turban and a flowing bedouin's cloak.

"It is fearfully cold in here," he said, throwing wood on the fire; "it is easy to see that the Northwind got here first!"

"It is hot enough here to roast a polar bear," said the Northwind.

"You are a polar bear yourself!" said the Southwind.