Wonderful Stories for Children

by H. C. Andersen

"Yes, that thou mayst believe! He came one morning down into his garden, and saw a tall yellow nettle pantomiming to a beautiful red carnation, and it was all the same as if it had said, 'Thou art so handsome, that I am very fond of thee!' The professor was not pleased with that, and struck the nettle upon its leaves, which are its fingers; but they stung him so, that from that time he has never meddled with a nettle again."

"That is delightful!" said little Ida, and laughed.

"Is that the stuff to fill a child's mind with!" exclaimed the tiresome chancellor, who was come in on a visit, and now sat on the sofa. He could not bear the student, and always grumbled when he saw him cutting out the beautiful and funny pictures,—now a man hanging on a gallows, with a heart in his hand, because he had stolen hearts; and now an old lady riding on a horse, with her husband sitting on her nose. The cross old chancellor could not bear any of these, and always said as he did now, "Is that the stuff to cram a child's head with! It is stupid fancy!"

But for all that, little Ida thought that what the student had told her about the flowers was so charming, that she could not help thinking of it. The flowers hung down their heads, because they had been at the ball, and were quite worn out. So she took them away with her, to her other playthings, which lay upon a pretty little table, the drawers of which were all full of her fine things. In the doll's bed lay her doll, Sophie, asleep; but for all that little Ida said to her, "Thou must actually get up, Sophie, and be thankful to lie in the drawer to-night, for the poor flowers are ill, and so they must lie in thy bed, and, perhaps, they will then get well."

With this she took up the doll, but it looked so cross, and did not say a single word; for it was angry that it must be turned out of its bed.

So Ida laid the flowers in the doll's bed, tucked them in very nicely, and said, that now they must lie quite still, and she would go and get tea ready for them, and they should get quite well again by to-morrow morning; and then she drew the little curtains close round the bed, that the sun might not blind them.

All the evening long she could not help thinking about what the student had told her; and then when she went to bed herself, she drew back the curtains from the windows where her mother's beautiful flowers stood, both hyacinths and tulips, and she whispered quite softly to them, "I know that you will go to the ball to-night!" but the flowers looked as if they did not understand a word which she said, and did not move a leaf—but little Ida knew what she knew.

When she was in bed, she lay for a long time thinking how delightful it would be to see the beautiful flowers dancing in the king's castle.

"Can my flowers actually have been there?" and with these words she fell asleep. In the night she woke; she had been dreaming about the flowers, and the student, who the chancellor said stuffed her head with nonsense. It was quite silent in the chamber where Ida lay; the night lamp was burning on the table, and her father and her mother were asleep.

"Are my flowers now lying in Sophie's bed?" said she to herself; "how I should like to know!" She lifted herself up a little in bed, and looked through the door, which stood ajar, and in that room lay the flowers, and all her playthings. She listened, and it seemed to her as if some one was playing on the piano, which stood in that room, but so softly and so sweetly as she had never heard before.