Now it so happened that Hans came by and by to the land of a very wicked king who broke his promises as easily as if they were made of spun glass and who never thought of anybody but himself.
No sooner had Hans come into the land than the king stopped him and would not let him go on.
"No one shall pass through my kingdom," he said, "till he has done one piece of work for me."
Hans was not afraid of work. "Show it to me that I may do it at once," he said; "for I am hastening to see my mother."
Then the king took Hans into a room as large as a meadow where some of all the seeds in the world was stored. There were lettuce-seeds, and radish-seeds, flax-seeds and grains of rice, fine seeds of flowers and small seeds of grass, all mixed and mingled till no two alike lay together.
Hans had never seen so many seeds in all his life before; and when he had looked at them the king bade him sort them, each kind to itself.
"The lettuce-seed must be here, and the radish-seed there; the flax-seed in this corner and the grains of rice in another; the fine seeds of flowers must be in their place, and the small seeds of grass all ready for planting before you can pass through my kingdom and go on your way," he said; and when he had spoken he went out of the room and locked the door behind him.
Poor Hans! He sat down on the floor and cried—the tears rolled down his cheeks I do assure you—for he said to himself:
"If I live to be a hundred years old I can never do this thing that the king requires. I shall never see my mother or the good king, my master, again."
How long he sat there, neither I nor anybody else can tell you, but by and by he saw a little black ant creeping in through a crack in the floor. Behind it came another and another, like soldiers marching; one by one they came, till the whole floor was black with hundreds and hundreds of the ant people.