left and went back down to the grocer. And it’s a good thing he returned because the trash bin had almost used up the mistress’
But the little pixie didn’t sit still any longer and listen to all the wisdom and knowledge down there. No, as soon the light went on in the garret, it was as if the rays were strong cables pulling him up there, and he had to go peek through the keyhole. Then a feeling of grandeur encompassed him, like how we feel when God moves over the rolling sea in a storm, and the pixie burst into tears. He didn’t know himself why he cried, but there was something blessed in the tears. How wonderful it would be to sit under that tree with the student, but that could never happen. He was happy just to look through the keyhole. He even stood there in the cold hallway when the autumn winds blew down from the attic vent, and it was so cold, so terribly cold. But the little fellow didn’t feel it until the light went out in the garret, and the strains of music died in the wind. Brrrr—then he froze and crept down to his cozy corner again. It was comfortable and pleasant!—And then when Christmas came with the big lump of butter —well, then the grocer was the tops!
One evening the pixie was awakened in the middle of the night by a dreadful racket at the window shutters. People were pounding on them. The watchman was blowing his whistle. There was a big fire, and the whole street was lit up by flames. Was it here in the house or at the neighbor’s? Where? It was horrifying! The grocer’s wife became so bewildered that she took her gold earrings out of her ears and put them in her pocket in order to save something. The grocer ran to get his bonds, and the servant the silk cape she had saved for. Everyone wanted to rescue the best they had, and so did the little pixie. He ran up the stairs and into the student’s room. The student was standing calmly by the window looking out at the fire. It was at the neighbor’s house across the street. The little pixie grabbed the wonderful book from the table, put it inside his red cap, and held on to it with both hands. The greatest treasure in the house was saved! Then he ran off, way out onto the roof and up on the chimney, where he sat illuminated by the burning house across the street, and with both hands he held onto his red cap that held the treasure. Now he knew his own heart and knew to whom he really belonged. But when the fire had been extinguished, and he thought about it; well—“I’ll divide myself between them,” he said. “I can’t completely give up the grocer, because of the porridge.”
And that was quite human of him! The rest of us go to the grocer too, for the sake of the porridge.
IB AND LITTLE CHRISTINE
CLOSE TO THE GUDEN River in Silkeborg forest,1 there is a ridge that rises up like a big bank. It’s just called “the ridge,” and below it on the west side there lay—and still lies—a little farm house with some poor land. You can see the sand through the thin rye and barley crops. It happened quite a few years ago now. The people who lived there cultivated their little plot, and they also had three sheep, a pig, and two oxen. In short, they were able to make a living on what the farm could produce, if they were careful to take things as they came. They probably could have kept a couple of horses too, but they said, as did the other farmers there, that “a horse eats itself’—it eats as much as it produces. Jeppe-Jens, the farmer, worked his little plot in the summer, and in the winter he was a diligent clog maker. He also had a helper, a fellow who knew how to carve clogs that were both strong, light-weight, and shapely. They also made spoons and ladles, which brought in some money. No one could say that the Jeppe-Jenses were poor people.
Little Ib, seven years old and the only child in the house, watched and whittled a stick. He also cut his fingers, but one day he had carved two pieces of wood that looked like little wooden shoes. He said he was giving them to little Christine, the bargeman’s daughter. She was as delicate and lovely as a child of the gentry. If her clothes had been made as well as she was, no one would think she was from the heather thatched cottage on the heath. That’s where her father lived. He was a widower who made his living by hauling wood from the forest down to the Silkeborg eel works and often further up to Randers. He didn’t have anyone to take care of little Christine, who was a year younger than Ib, and so she was almost always with him on the barge and among the heather and lingonberries. When he went all the way to Randers, little Christine stayed at the jeppe-jenses.
Ib and little Christine got along well together, both at play and at mealtimes. They dug and rummaged, they crawled and they wandered around, and one day they dared to go almost to the top of the ridge and deep into the woods by themselves. They found snipe eggs there one day, and that was a great event.
Ib hadn’t been up on the high heath yet, had never gone on the barge between the lakes on the Guden, but now he was going. He had been invited by the bargeman, and the evening before, Ib went home with him.
Early in the morning the two children sat high on the piles of firewood on the barge eating bread and raspberries. The bargeman and his helper poled the barge along with the current, rapidly down the river, through the lakes that always seemed to be closed up with woods and reeds. But there was always a way through, even though the old trees leaned way out, and the oak trees stretched their peeling branches as if they had tucked-up sleeves and wanted to show their lumpy naked arms. Old Alder trees, that the current had torn from the slope, held themselves by their roots on the bottom, and looked like small wooded islands. Water lilies rocked on the water. It was a lovely ride, and then they came to the eel works, where the water roared through the sluices. That was really something for Ib and Christine to watch!
At that time there was neither a factory nor a town there, just the old breeding farm, and there weren’t many people. The water rushing through the sluices, and the cry of the wild ducks—those were the most constant sounds at that time. After the wood was unloaded, Christine’s father bought himself a big bundle of eels and a little slaughtered pig, which were placed in a basket in the stern of the barge. They sailed against the current on the way home, but the wind was with them, and when they added a sail, it was just as good as having two horses pulling them.
After they reached the point in the woods where the helper only had a short distance to walk home, he and Christine’s father went ashore and told the children to remain there quietly and behave themselves, but they didn’t do that for long. They had to look in the basket where the eels and pig were hidden. Then they had to pick up the pig and hold it, and since they both wanted to hold it, they dropped it, and it fell into the water and drifted away on the current. Oh, what a terrible thing!
Ib jumped on shore and ran a short distance. Then Christine came too. “Take me with you!” she shouted, and soon they were in the bushes. They couldn’t see the barge or the river any longer. They ran a short way further, and then Christine fell down and started crying. Ib helped her up.
“Come with me,” he said. “The house is that way!” But it wasn’t that way at all. They walked and walked, over withered leaves and dry fallen branches that crackled under their feet. Then they heard a loud cry—they stood still and listened. An eagle screamed. It was an awful sound, and they became frightened, but ahead of them in the woods were growing enormous amounts of the most beautiful blueberries. It was much too inviting not to stay. So they stayed and ate. Their mouths and cheeks turned quite blue. Then they heard a cry again.
“We’ll get spanked because of the pig,” said Christine.
