Page:The fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen (c1899).djvu/56

 Now we are going to hear how Olé Luk-Oie came every evening, for a whole week, to a little boy named Hjalmar, and what he told him. There were seven stories, as there are seven days in the week.

ISTEN to me,” said Olé Luk-Oie at night, after he had sent Hjalmar to bed; “I am going to deck out the room.” Accordingly all the flowers in the flower-pots shot up into large trees, that spread their wide branches beneath the ceiling and along the walls, so that the whole room looked an enchanting summer-house; and all the branches were loaded with blossoms, and each blossom was lovelier than a rose, and smelt most deliciously, and if you had tasted them you would have said they were sweeter than sweetmeats! The fruit sparkled like gold, and there were, besides, cakes literally bursting with plums. It was a rare sight indeed! But at the same moment a woeful groan arose from the box that stood on the table, and contained Hjalmar’s school-books.

“What is that?” said Olé Luk-Oie, going to the table and opening the box. It was the slate that was all up in arms because there was a wrong figure in a sum, and threatened to fall to pieces. The pencil was hopping about and leaping as far as its string would allow, just as if it had been a little dog trying to help the sum, but not able to manage it. And then there came a groan from Hjalmar’s copy-book—and an ugly one it was too. On each leaf stood the capital letters according to order, and every one had a small letter by its side—these formed the copy. Next to them stood other letters that thought they looked like the former, and these had been penned by Hjalmar, but they lay very much as if they had fallen over the pencil line on which they ought to have stood upright.

“Look! this is the way you ought to stand upright,” said the copy; “you seem as if you had been bent double by a violent blow.”

“Oh, we should be willing enough to stand upright,” said Hjalmar’s letters, “only we can’t. We are such deplorable things.”

“Then you must take physic,” said Olé Luk-Oie. “Oh, no!” cried they, placing themselves as straight as could be.

“There, now—we shan’t be able to have any stories!” said Olé Luk-Oie; “for I must drill them. One, two—one, two!” and he drilled the letters till they all stood as slim and as straight as ever copy could be. But when Olé Luk-Oie was gone, and Hjalmar looked at them next morning, they were just as deplorable as ever.

S soon as Hjalmar was in bed, Olé Luk-Oie touched all the pieces of furniture in his room with his little magic wand, and they immediately began to talk, and each talked of nothing but itself.

Over the chest of drawers hung a large picture in a gilt frame, that represented a landscape. In it might be seen old trees, flowery meadows, and a broad river skirting a forest and flowing past a number of castles, till it reached the open sea.

Olé Luk-Oie touched the picture with his magic wand, and immediately the birds began to sing, the branches to rustle, and the clouds to sail; even the shadows of the latter might be seen gliding over the landscape.

Olé Luk-Oie now lifted little Hjalmar up to the frame, and placed his feet in the tall grass inside the picture; and there he stood, with the sun shining upon him through the branches of the trees. He then ran to the water’s edge, and got into a little boat that was lying there; the