"GOOD-DAY, KNUT SPELEVINK," SAID THE SNOW KING.
Knut himself was so overcome by laughter that it was only by the strongest effort he could hold his lips together on the pipe and keep on blowing.
While the snow still whirled about him, he suddenly noticed that he was again upon the forest path. And lo! the next instant the air cleared, the last of the snow disappeared in swift-running streams, and summer, high summer, ruled once more.
"Now I will look out for myself," thought Knut as he tramped steadily forward; and he began again to pick out from his memory an answer to the question, "What does that mean?"
He had not walked far before he found himself beside the most beautiful little wooded hill, where strawberries gleamed red all through the grass. It could not be dangerous to pick a few strawberries to eat, when one was not to have dinner until four o'clock in the afternoon, thought hungry Knut; and he climbed a little way up the hill.
No sooner was he there than he saw that what he had taken for strawberries was nothing else than many thousand charming little elves in red clothing. They were no taller than a strawberry stem, and were dancing merrily around a green hillock upon which sat their queen who was about three inches tall.
"Good-day, Knut Spelevink," said the elf-queen. "Why do you look so poorly to-day?"
"Why shouldn't I look poorly when I have had nothing to eat since yesterday noon except Catechism and bar iron and frozen quicksilver? I thought that you people were strawberries."