Page:Fairy tales from Hans Christian Andersen (Walker).djvu/166

130 will give you my red shoes if you will bring him back to me again."

She thought the little ripples nodded in such a curious way, so she took off her red shoes, her most cherished possession, and threw them both into the river. They fell close by the shore, and were carried straight back to her by the little wavelets; it seemed as if the river would not accept her offering, as it had not taken little Kay.

She only thought she had not thrown them far enough, so she climbed into a boat which lay among the rushes, then she went right out to the farther end of it, and threw the shoes into the water again. But the boat was loose, and her movements started it off, and it floated away from the shore; she felt it moving and tried to get out, but before she reached the other end, the boat was more than a yard from the shore, and was floating away quite quickly.

Little Gerda was terribly frightened, and began to cry, but nobody heard her except the sparrows, and they could not carry her ashore, but they flew alongside twittering as if to cheer her, "We are here, we are here." The boat floated rapidly with the current; little Gerda sat quite still with only her stockings on; her little red shoes floated behind, but they could not catch up the boat, which drifted away faster and faster.

The banks on both sides were very pretty with beautiful flowers, fine old trees, and slopes dotted with sheep and cattle, but not a single person.

"Perhaps the river is taking me to little Kay," thought Gerda, and that cheered her; she sat up and looked at the beautiful green banks for hours.

Then they came to a big cherry garden; there was a little house in it, with curious blue and red windows, it had a thatched roof, and two wooden soldiers stood outside who presented arms as she sailed past. Gerda called out to them; she thought they were alive, but of course they did not answer;