Page:The fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen (c1899).djvu/169

 The winter set in severely, the lakes were covered with thick ice, the birds and forest creatures found it hard to get food. The little bird flew out in the highroad, and there, in the tracks of the sledges, looked for and found here and there a grain of corn; at baiting-places it found a few crumbs. It only ate a single one of these, and called on all the other starving sparrows that they might find food here. Then it flew to the towns, and looked carefully round about; and wherever a kind hand had scattered bread for the birds outside the window, there it ate only a single crumb and gave all to the others.

In the course of the winter the bird had collected and given away so many crumbs that together they weighed as much as the whole of the loaf which little Inger had trodden on lest she should soil her shoes, and when the last crumb of bread was found and given away the bird's grey wings became white and spread themselves out.

"There is a sea-swallow flying away over the sea!" said the children who saw the white bird. At one instant it plunged into the sea, at another it soared aloft in the clear sunshine; it shone so that it was not possible to see where it had gone to—they said that it flew straight into the sun.

The Constant Tin Soldier

HERE were once five-and-twenty tin soldiers that were all brothers, for they were all made out of the same old tin spoon. They all shouldered their muskets, looked stiff, and wore a smart red and blue uniform. The first thing they heard in this world, when the lid was taken off the box in which they lay, were the words "Tin soldiers!" spoken by a little boy, who was clapping his hands with joy. They had been given him on his birthday, and he now set them up on the table. Each soldier was exactly the image of the other, except one that was a little different to the rest; and he had only one leg, having been melted the last of the batch, when there was not enough tin left. Yet he stood as firmly on his one leg as the others on their two legs; and it was precisely he, who became a remarkable character.

The table on which they were placed was strewed with a number of other toys, the most attractive amongst them being a pretty little paper castle. One might see through the tiny win- dows into the rooms. In front of the castle stood little trees, round a small piece of looking-glass, that was meant to represent a transparent lake. Wax swans were swimming on its surface, that reflected back their image. This was all very pretty; but the prettiest of all was a diminutive lady, who stood at the castle's open door. She, too, was cut out of paper; but she wore a dress of the clearest muslin and a narrow blue ribbon over her shoulders, like a scarf; and in the middle of this was placed a tinsel rose, as big as her whole face. The little lady stretched out both her arms, for she was a dancer; and then she lifted her leg so high that the tin soldier lost sight of it, and therefore concluded that she had only one, like himself.

"She would make a fit wife for me," thought he; "only she is very genteel, and lives in a castle; while I have nothing but a box to live in, and we are five-and-twenty of us in . It would be no place for a lady! Still I must try and scrape