Ole-Luk-Oie, the Dream-God Page #2

								

acting as sentinels. They presented arms, and had golden swords, and
made it rain plums and tin soldiers, so that they must have been
real princes.

Hjalmar continued to sail, sometimes through woods, sometimes as
it were through large halls, and then by large cities. At last he came
to the town where his nurse lived, who had carried him in her arms
when he was a very little boy, and had always been kind to him. She
nodded and beckoned to him, and then sang the little verses she had
herself composed and set to him,--

  "How oft my memory turns to thee,
    My own Hjalmar, ever dear!
  When I could watch thy infant glee,
    Or kiss away a pearly tear.
  'Twas in my arms thy lisping tongue
    First spoke the half-remembered word,
  While o'er thy tottering steps I hung,
    My fond protection to afford.
  Farewell! I pray the Heavenly Power
  To keep thee till thy dying hour."

And all the birds sang the same tune, the flowers danced on their
stems, and the old trees nodded as if Ole-Luk-Oie had been telling
them stories as well.


WEDNESDAY

How the rain did pour down! Hjalmar could hear it in his sleep;
and when Ole-Luk-Oie opened the window, the water flowed quite up to
the window-sill. It had the appearance of a large lake outside, and
a beautiful ship lay close to the house.

"Wilt thou sail with me to-night, little Hjalmar?" said
Ole-Luk-Oie; "then we shall see foreign countries, and thou shalt
return here in the morning."

All in a moment, there stood Hjalmar, in his best clothes, on
the deck of the noble ship; and immediately the weather became fine.
They sailed through the streets, round by the church, and on every
side rolled the wide, great sea. They sailed till the land
disappeared, and then they saw a flock of storks, who had left their
own country, and were travelling to warmer climates. The storks flew
one behind the other, and had already been a long, long time on the
wing. One of them seemed so tired that his wings could scarcely
carry him. He was the last of the row, and was soon left very far
behind. At length he sunk lower and lower, with outstretched wings,
flapping them in vain, till his feet touched the rigging of the
ship, and he slided from the sails to the deck, and stood before them.
Then a sailor-boy caught him, and put him in the hen-house, with the
fowls, the ducks, and the turkeys, while the poor stork stood quite
bewildered amongst them.

"Just look at that fellow," said the chickens.

Then the turkey-cock puffed himself out as large as he could,
and inquired who he was; and the ducks waddled backwards, crying,
"Quack, quack."

Then the stork told them all about warm Africa, of the pyramids,
and of the ostrich, which, like a wild horse, runs across the
desert. But the ducks did not understand what he said, and quacked
amongst themselves, "We are all of the same opinion; namely, that he
is stupid."

"Yes, to be sure, he is stupid," said the turkey-cock; and
gobbled.

Then the stork remained quite silent, and thought of his home in
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