Page:The fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen (c1899).djvu/293

 "Do you hear the cock crowing, Little Tukky? Cock-a-doodle-doo! The hens are flying hither from Kiöge! And you shall have a farmyard, such a large one too! you shall never know hunger nor want! And the golden goose shall be yours, and you shall become a rich and happy man. Your house shall rise like King Waldemar's tower, and be richly adorned with marble pillars, like those that come from Prästoe. You understand me. Your name shall travel round the earth like the ship that was to sail from Corsor, and in Roeskilde—"

"Do not forget the provinces!" said King Hroar—"and there will you speak wisely and well. Little Tukky; and when at length you sink into your grave, you will sleep in peace—"

"As if I lay in Soröe," interrupted Tuk, and then he awoke.

It was a bright morning, and he could not recollect his dream. But it was not necessary he should; for one has no need of knowing that which one will live to see.

And he now jumped out of bed, and read his book, and immediately knew his whole lesson by heart.

And the old washerwoman popped her head in at the door, and said with a friendly nod: "Thank you, my good boy for your kind help. May the Lord fulfil your brightest dreams!"

Little Tukky no longer knew what he had dreamt; but the Almighty did.

AM an artist, as my own eyes tell me, and as those admit who have seen the creations of my fancy. But here is a strange thing. Just hen my feelings are deepest and fullest, hands and tongue alike seem languid, and my thoughts refuse to shape themselves either in words or in pictures.

Young I am, and poor I am, and I live in a little narrow street. Not that I want for light, for my room is the attic, with a glorious view of roofs and gables. After I came to live in the city I was depressed and lonely at first as one could be. Hitherto I had had forest and hill to look at: here only a thicket of chimney-stacks I Not a friend, not even a face I knew! So it was gloomily enough that I was sitting one night at my window, and gloomily, by-and-by, I opened it and looked out. My heart just leapt! A friendly face at last—a round, pleasant face, the face of an old home-friend! There was the Moon looking in at me, not a bit changed, with just the same countenance that I had often seen peeping at me through the trees that line the moor. I kissed my hand to her, as she cast her beams right into my garret, and in return she pre mised to give me a glance, though a brief one, every night that she was out. And every night possible she has come since then, though for only a few moments, I am sorry to say, and every visit she has told me of something or other seen by her that night or before. If I did what she told me, she said, and let my pencil draw the scenes she described for me, I should have a delightful sketch-book, and so I have; why, I could make another " Arabian Nights " out of them, if the number were not too great. Evening after evening I have put down the Moon's stories, and those here given are just as they were told me. Some genius in painting or poetry or music may make works of art out of them if he will. These are only the outlines, rough jottings with my own thoughts cropping up every now and then, the evenings when the Moon did not visit me.

Night the First

"Last n.ght," said the Moon, " I was gliding through the cloudless eastern sky. The waters of Ganges miriored my orb; my light struggled to find a way through the dense leafage of the banana^ curved like the plates of a tortoise. A Hindoo girl stole from the grove, her step like the