Page:Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales (1888).djvu/409

 the window-frame, when they are not thinking of me. It gives me pleasure to see them dress and undress. First, a little white round shoulder comes creeping out of the frock, then an arm; or a stocking is drawn off, and a plump little white leg appears, and a little foot fit to be kissed, and I kiss it too. But about what I was going to tell you. This evening I looked through a window before which no curtain was drawn, for no one lives opposite. I saw a whole troop of little ones, all of one family: among them was a little sister only four years old, who had been taught to say ‘Our Father,’ as well as the rest. The mother sits by her bedside every night to hear her say her prayers; and after she has said them she gives her a kiss, and stays by her till she is asleep, which is generally as soon as ever her eyes are closed. This evening the two elder children were rather inclined for play. One of them hopped about the room on one leg, and the other stood on a chair, surrounded by the clothes of all the other children, and said he was a living statue. The third and fourth were placing the clean linen from the wash in the drawers, which is a thing that must be done; and the mother sat by the bed of the youngest, and desired the others to be quiet, as their little sister was going to say her prayers. I looked in over the lamp on to the little maiden’s bed, where she lay under the white quilt, her little hands folded, and her face quite grave and serious. Then she repeated the Lord’s Prayer aloud. ‘What is it you say to yourself?’ asked her mother, when she got into the middle of the prayer. ‘When you say, “give us this day our daily bread,” you always add something which I cannot understand; you must tell me what it is.’ The little one lay silent, and looked at her mother rather confused. ‘What is it you say after, “Give us our daily bread,”—tell me.’ ‘Don’t be angry, dear mother,’ said the child; ‘I only say, “and plenty of butter on it!”’”

“I will now give you a picture from Frankfort,” said the moon, “I noticed one building there especially. It was not the house in which Goethe was born, nor the old council chamber, through the grated windows of which there peers forth the horns of the oxen which were roasted and distributed among the people at the crowning of an emperor. No; this was a private house, plain in appearance, and painted green. It stood near the old Jews’ quarter, and it was Rothschild’s house. I looked through the open door. The staircase was brilliantly lighted—servants bearing wax tapers in heavy silver candlesticks stood by, and bowed low before an old woman, who was being brought downstairs in a litter. The master of the house stood bareheaded, and respectfully kissed the old woman’s hand: she was his mother. She nodded in a friendly way to him, and to the servants; and then they carried her through a narrow, dark street into a small house, which was her dwelling. Here her children had been born, and from this house they had gone forth to fortune. If she deserted the despised street, and the little forsaken house, then fortune would also desert her family: such was her firm belief.”