“If you please,” he said in a timid voice, “I’m——”
“Give him a drink of something hot,” advised the fat Teapot, and that reminded the youngest Geranium, who began screaming:
“I want a drink! I want a drink! I want a drink!”
“I’ll be delighted to oblige with some nice warm milk,” Nanna offered, so Goran milked a bowlful. But the Snowman could not drink it, and the tears ran faster and faster down his face.
“If you please——” he began again, faintly.
“We must put him to bed,” the Queen interrupted, with a stern look at Gustava who was sitting on her darling Egg in the center of Grandmother’s feather bed. “Your turn next!”
Grandmother’s bed was built into the wall, like a cupboard. It was all carved with harebells and pinecones and kobolds and nixies. The kobolds are the elves who live in the mountain forests, and the nixies are water fairies who sit under the waterfalls playing upon their harps and making the sweetest music in the world. There was a big white feather bed on Grandmother’s bed, and a big red feather bed on top of that, and two fat pillows stuffed with goose feathers. And above all this was a little shelf with two smaller feather beds and two smaller pillows, and that was Goran’s bed. On dreadfully cold nights they pulled two little wooden doors shut, and there they were, quite warm and cozy—even quite stuffy, you and I might think! The doors of the bed were painted with pink tulips and red hearts, and Grandmother said it made her feel quite young and warm to look at them, and Goran said it made him feel quite young and warm too. And Gustava the Hen thought they were beautiful, so there she sat on her darling Egg, and as she could never think of more than one thing at a time, she had forgotten all about the Snowman, and was happily clucking this song to her Egg:
“Make a wreath, I beg,
For my darling Egg!