This amusing little poem may be made to seem even funnier if we stop to think what an absurd little milkmaid she really was! Let us ask ourselves a few questions:
How many quarts of milk were probably in the pail? How many dozen eggs in a hundred? What is milk worth a quart? What are eggs worth a dozen? Was she carrying enough milk to buy a hundred, or even fourscore, good eggs?
Does a farmer count on having sixty out of eighty eggs hatch successfully? If he has sixty chickens hatched, can he count with certainty on fifty growing big enough to boil or roast?
Is it true that the cost of the grain to feed them is a mere trifle?
How much is an English shilling in our money? Is a dollar and a half a pair too much to expect for good chickens? Is eighty-seven and a half cents too small a price for a pair? Is twenty pounds too much or too little for twenty-five pairs of chickens at three shillings and sixpence per pair?
If she could get twenty pounds for her chickens, could she buy a cow, thirty geese, two turkeys and a sow with a litter of eight pigs for the money?
HOLGER DANSKE
By Hans Christian Andersen
NOTE.—The first paragraphs of this story contain an old Danish legend which Hans Christian Andersen uses very skilfully. We can imagine that the story would mean a great deal more to boys of Denmark than it does to us, for they would be a great deal more familiar with the people referred to than we are; but there is so much in the story that is not confined to Denmark, and it is told in such a fascinating way, that even the boys of the United States will find it interesting.
In Denmark there lies a castle named Kronenburgh. It lies close by the Oer Sound, where the ships pass through by hundreds every day—English, Russian, and likewise Prussian ships. And they salute the old castle with cannons—'Boom!' And the castle answers with a 'Boom!' for that's what the cannons say instead of 'Good day' and 'Thank you!' In winter no ships sail there, for the whole sea is covered with ice quite across to the Swedish coast; but it has quite the look of a highroad. There wave the Danish flag and the Swedish flag, and Danes and Swedes say 'Good day' and 'Thank you!' to each other, not with cannons, but with a friendly grasp of the hand; and one gets white bread and biscuits from the other—for strange fare tastes best.