Fairy Tales

The flea sat on the princess’s hand and watched. The balloon was filled. It billowed and could hardly be held, it was so wild.

“I must have it up in the air to cool it down,” said the professor and got into the basket that hung under it. “I can’t steer it by myself. I have to have a knowledgeable companion along to help me. No one here can do it except the flea.”

“I’ll allow it but not willingly,” said the princess and handed the flea to the professor who set it on his hand.

“Let go of the ropes and cords,” he said. “Up goes the balloon!”

They thought he said, “Let’s make a boom.”

And the balloon rose higher and higher, up over the clouds, away from the uncivilized country.

The little princess, her mother and father, and all the people stood and waited. They are still waiting, and if you don’t believe it, then travel to that uncivilized country. Every child there talks about the flea and the professor and believes that they will come again when the cannon has cooled off. But they won’t come; they are home with us. They’re in their native land, riding on the trains, first class, not fourth. They have good earnings and a big balloon, and no one asks how or where they got it. They are well-to-do folks, honorable folks—the flea and the professor.

THE SNOWMAN

“I’M CREAKING ALL OVER in this delightfully cold weather!” said the snowman. “The wind bites life into you, that’s for sure. And how that glowing one is glowering!” He meant the sun that was just about to set. “She won’t get me to blink. I know how to hang on to my bits and pieces!” These were two big triangular pieces of roof tile that he had for eyes. His mouth was a piece of an old rake, and so he had teeth. He had been born to the shouts of “hurrah” from the boys, and greeted by the ringing bells and cracking whips of the sleighs.

The sun went down, and the full moon came up, round and huge, clear and lovely in the blue sky.

“There she is again from a different direction,” said the snowman. He thought it was the sun again. “I’ve broken her of glaring! Now she can just hang there and give some light so I can see myself. If I only knew how one goes about moving. I would so dearly like to move! If I could do that, I would go down and slide on the ice like I saw the boys doing. But I don’t know how to run!”

“Be gone! Gone!” barked the old watchdog. He was a little hoarse and had been ever since he was a house dog and lay under the stove. “The sun will teach you how to run, I’m sure. I saw that with your predecessor last year and his predecessor too. Gone! Gone! And they’re all gone.”

“I don’t understand you, buddy,” said the snowman. “Shall that thing up there teach me how to run?” He meant the moon. “Well she ran before, it’s true, when I stared at her. Now she’s sneaking up from another direction.”

“You don’t know anything,” said the watchdog, “but, of course, you’ve just been slapped up. The one you see there is called the moon. The one who went was the sun. She’ll come back tomorrow and certainly teach you to run down to the moat. There’ll soon be a change in the weather. I can tell by my left hind leg—it has a shooting pain in it. We’ll have a weather change!”

“I don’t understand him,” said the snowman, “but I have the impression that he’s saying something unpleasant. The one who glared and went away, the one he calls the sun—she’s not my friend. I have a feeling about that!”

“Be gone! Gone!” barked the watchdog, turned around three times, and went into his kennel to sleep.

There actually was a change in the weather. A fog, thick and dank, lay over the whole neighborhood in the early hours, and at dawn a wind came up. The wind was so icy, and there was a heavy frost. But what a sight to see when the sun came up! All the trees and bushes were covered with hoar-frost. It was like an entire forest of white coral, as if all the branches were heaped with gleaming white flowers. Each and every one of the countless fine little branches that you couldn’t see in the summer because of the leaves, now stood out. It looked like lace, and was so shiny white that it was as if every branch shone with a dazzling white radiance. The weeping birch stirred in the wind. There was life in it, as there is in the trees in summer. It was all incomparably beautiful. And when the sun shone, how everything sparkled as if it were powdered with diamond dust, and across the snow-cover big diamonds glittered, or you could have imagined that there were innumerable tiny little candles burning, whiter even than the white snow.

“What matchless beauty!” said a young girl, who stepped out into the garden with a young man. They stopped right by the snowman and looked at the brilliant trees. “There’s no more beautiful sight in the summer,” she said, her eyes shining.

“And you wouldn’t find such a fellow as that either,” said the young man, pointing at the snowman. “He’s splendid.”

The young girl laughed, nodded to the snowman, and danced with her friend across the snow, that crunched under their feet as if they were walking on starch.

“Who were those two?” the snowman asked the watchdog. “You’ve been here longer than I have. Do you know them?”

“Yes, I do,” said the watchdog. “She has petted me, and he gave me a bone. I wouldn’t bite them!”

“But what are they doing here?” asked the snowman.

“They’re sweethearrrrrrts,” growled the watchdog. “They are going to move into a doghouse and gnaw bones together. Be gone! Gone!”

“Are those two as important as you and I?” asked the snowman.

“Well, they belong to the family,” said the watchdog. “You sure don’t know much when you’re born yesterday! I can see that from you. I have age and wisdom and know everyone here! And I knew a time when I didn’t stand here in the cold in chains. Gone! Gone!”

“The cold is lovely,” said the snowman. “Tell me, tell me! But don’t rattle your chain because it makes me queasy.”