The Blue Fairy hesitated, she fingered the gold spangles of her dress, she shook back her curls. Then she began:
‘Germany is a wonderful country. It is very big as you know, and very different in places; the parts I like best are the large forests which extend uphill and downhill for many many miles. We all hope to go back to Fairyland some day, but next to going there we could not do better than settle in one of these German forests; with the squirrels playing about, and the birds singing, and the little streams bubbling between the moss-grown rocks, I really felt quite at home there. The folk live in the queerest of houses, and are dressed in the queerest of clothes; and there can be nothing funnier than the dear little children, who come a long distance over the hills to school, walking barefoot, and who sit down outside the schoolhouse and put on their stockings and shoes before they go in, as if wearing shoes and stockings were part of doing lessons. Well, I went to stay in the Black Forest first; Gogul Mogul told me it was there I must go to hear about the Little Glass Man. I believe he knew him as a boy when the Little Glass Man used to visit in Fairyland. But I travelled about on coaches painted a bright yellow, I stayed about in old-fashioned sunny village inns, I heard about many wonderful things, but I could not find out anything about the Little Glass Man. Had he left those parts, had people forgotten about him?
‘One afternoon I had been in a saw-mill watching the saw go up and down through the long pine-wood trunk which slowly moved along to meet it, to the sound of the splashing wheel outside going round and round. Every time the saw had cut through the length of the trunk it stopped, there was a great rush of water outside, a little bell was set tinkling, and then the sawyer, or the saw-miller, as they call him over there, wound the trunk back and set the saw so as to cut the next plank, and then the whole thing was again set going. It was curious watching the sawdust jerked up, and the huge block of timber cut lengthwise into so many planks, and the miller going in and out over the sawdust. I felt quite sorry when at last he stopped the little bell without setting the saw going again, and came and stood by me.
‘Then we talked about this and that, and I asked him about the Little Glass Man; he must know so many woodmen who felled the trees and brought the timber to the mill; had they ever met him?
‘The miller was a big rough man with a stubbly beard; I don’t know if he was at all deaf, but when he spoke it was so loud that he must have thought me dull of hearing.
‘“Take my advice,” he said, “if you want to know about the country go into the town. Don’t expect us to know about Little Glass Men, or other little men; we don’t care for such things. But in the town you are sure to find all about it stored away in some book. Take my advice, go into a town; it is there that you find out about things in the country.”
‘Was he right? I wondered as I walked home that night. I could not believe it, so I stayed on in the Black Forest till it was time to come home, but without ever hearing of the Little Glass Man. I was on the railroad again. It was early one morning when we stopped at a station; there was no train for two hours, so I took a walk into the town. There was a clear, fast-flowing river below, and in the distance again such wonderful wooded hills. I went into a shop and asked for some writing-paper.
‘The gentleman who brought it out had on the shabbiest of coats, but on his head there was an embroidered velvet cap, and his slippers too were embroidered. Only his toes were stuck inside these, and he moved about the shop slowly so as not to leave them behind.
‘“And what is the name of that wood yonder?—those hills, I mean?—those wooded heights?—that mountain range?” I asked, trying word after word, and at last standing in the doorway and pointing at the hills opposite, while he blankly stared at me.
‘“Where can you be from that you should not know?” he said at last.