Page:Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales (1888).djvu/83

 both fancied it very much like their own story, especially in some parts which they liked the best.

“Well, and so it is,” said the little maiden in one tree. “Some call me Elder-mother, others a dryad, but my real name is ‘Memory.’ It is I who sit in the tree as it grows and grows, and I can think of the past and relate many things. Let me see if you have still preserved the flower.”

Then the old man opened his hymn-book, and there lay the elder-flower as fresh as if it had only just been placed there, and “Memory” nodded, and the two old people with the golden crowns on their heads sat in the red glow of the evening sunlight, and closed their eyes, and—and—the story was ended.

The little boy lay in his bed and did not quite know whether he had been dreaming or listening to a story. The teapot stood on the table, but no elder-bush grew out of it, and the old man who had really told the tale was on the threshold, and just going out at the door.

“How beautiful it was,” said the little boy. “Mother, I have been to warm countries.”

“I can quite believe it,” said his mother. When any one drinks two full cups of elder-flower tea, he may well get into warm countries;” and then she covered him up that he should not take cold. “You have slept well while I have been disputing with the old man as to whether it was a real story or a fairy legend.”

“And where is the Elder-tree mother?” asked the boy.

“She is in the teapot,” said the mother, “and there she may stay.”