“He is only a small fellow, after all,” he thought; “I can take a good run and jump over him.” He took the run and gave the jump, but the little man shot up high into the air, and he might as well have tried to jump over the moon.
“It is a most singular thing!” said Gaspar to himself; “a little gray man, not much larger than I am, and yet he seems to be every where at once, like sheet lightning. There is no getting by him, and all the time he looks at me with those bright eyes and that quiet smile, as if he were really very much amused. Well, he must go to sleep by and by, and then I can step over him and walk off.”
So he lay down, pretending to sleep, and the little man lay down also, with his face turned to the sky. When Gaspar thought him fast asleep, he arose very softly, believing he could now surely escape; but at his very first step up came a sly hand, catching him by the foot, so that down he fell at the old man's side, and there saw the bright eyes gazing up at the stars, without a wink of sleep in them. But Gaspar soon forgot his travels, with all his bold intentions, and fell asleep himself, to dream of skewers and cimeters.
In the morning the little man said, “Come now, it is foolish for you to go trudging about over the world. You will never see any thing more than polywogs and sandflies, and those you can find in your native village. Give me a drink from your flask, and a bite of your apple, and I can show you more wonders in a day in my show box here, than you would find wandering about for a lifetime.”
Then he drew from the pocket of his gray coat a neat box, carved of ivory, and having taken a bit of the apple and a sip of the water, which Gaspar never thought of refusing, he touched a spring, up flew the lid, and Gaspar peeped in. Ah, but it was a wondrous sight; for on and on moved a procession of all imaginable things. Lions and elephants seemed mere puppies, for here were mastodons and ichthyosauri, and animals that lived before the flood was ever dreamed of; and as for Turks and turbans, why, there were people with headdresses that towered up into the skies, and ladies who made rainbows pale. There were queens whose thrones were all one driven pearl, and warriors whose swords were a flash of sunbeams.
“Ah, yes!” exclaimed Gaspar; “this is better than travelling. But how shall I remember all these enchanting sights? I must make a note of them.” And seizing his wooden sword, he began to draw in the sandy road each figure as it appeared.
Hour after hour the procession passed on in the little ivory box. Hour after hour he drew it in the sand, and that little man stood by, with his quiet smile and great politeness. At length a loud hallooing was heard, and they saw all the boys from the village running towards them.
“What is going on here?” they called out. “Never were such clouds seen as have been sailing over the village to-day. Whales and astronomers, kings and crocodiles, and nobody knows what. They all sail from this direction, and we have come to see what is going off here. Can it be you, Gaspar, who are raising such a wind? Did you draw all these lively things in the sand, and blow them up into clouds?”
Gaspar said he knew nothing about the clouds, but he thought it was getting rather dark, and was as much surprised as any of the boys, to see what grand figures he had thrown up into the sky. He begged his new friend to show the boys his box; but he said, “No, it was not for them,” and put it into his pocket.
They all laughed at it, and said such great creatures never came out of that little paint box.