THURSDAY.
"Dost thou know what?" said Olé Luckoiè. "Now do not be afraid, and thou shalt see a little mouse!" and with that he held out his hand with the pretty little creature in it.
"It is come to invite thee to a wedding," said he. "There are two little mice who are going to be married to-night; they live down under the floor of thy mother's store-closet; it will be such a nice opportunity for thee."
"But how can I get through the little mouse-hole in the floor?" asked Yalmar.
"Leave that to me," said Olé Luckoiè; "I shall make thee little enough!" And with that he touched Yalmar with his wand, and immediately he grew less and less, until at last he was no bigger than my finger.
"Now thou canst borrow the tin soldier's clothes," said Olé Luckoiè; "I think they would fit thee, and it looks so proper to have uniform on when people go into company."
"Yes, to be sure!" said Yalmar; and in a moment he was dressed up like the most beautiful new tin soldier.
"Will you be so good as to seat yourself in your mother's thimble," said the little mouse; "and then I shall have the honor of driving you!"
"Goodness!" said Yalmar; "will the young lady herself take the trouble?" and with that they drove to the mouse's wedding.
First of all, after going under the floor, they came into a long passage, which was so low that they could hardly drive in the thimble, and the whole passage was illuminated with touchwood.
"Does it not smell delicious?" said the mouse as they drove along; "the whole passage has been rubbed with bacon-sward; nothing can be more delicious!"
They now came into the wedding-hall. On the right hand stood the little she-mice, and they all whispered and tittered as if they were making fun of one another; on the left hand all the he-mice, and stroked their mustachios with their paws. In the middle of the floor were to be seen the bridal pair, who stood in a hollow cheese-paring; and they kept kissing one another before everybody, for they were desperately in love, and were going to be married directly.
And all this time there kept coming in more and more strangers, till one mouse was ready to trample another to death; and the bridal pair had placed themselves in a doorway, so that people could neither go in nor come out. The whole room, like the passage, had been smeared with sward of bacon; that was all the entertainment: but as a dessert a pea was produced, on which a little mouse of family had bitten the name of the bridal pair,—that is to say, the first letters of their name; that was something quite out of the common way.
All the mice said that it was a charming wedding, and that the conversation had been so good!
Yalmar drove home again; he had really been in very grand society, but he must have been regularly squeezed together to make himself small enough for a tin soldier's uniform.