Tags Source: And so they went and fetched little Miss Snail. It was a whole week before she
arrived; but therein was just the very best of it, for one could thus see that
she was of the same species.
And then the marriage was celebrated. Six earth-worms shone as well as they
could. In other respects the whole went off very quietly, for the old folks
could not bear noise and merriment; but old Dame Snail made a brilliant
speech. Father Snail could not speak, he was too much affected; and so they
gave them as a dowry and inheritance, the whole forest of burdocks, and
said--what they had always said--that it was the best in the world; and if
they lived honestly and decently, and increased and multiplied, they and their
children would once in the course of time come to the manor-house, be boiled
black, and laid on silver dishes. After this speech was made, the old ones
crept into their shells, and never more came out. They slept; the young couple
governed in the forest, and had a numerous progeny, but they were never
boiled, and never came on the silver dishes; so from this they concluded that
the manor-house had fallen to ruins, and that all the men in the world were
extinct; and as no one contradicted them, so, of course it was so. And the
rain beat on the dock-leaves to make drum-music for their sake, and the sun
shone in order to give the burdock forest a color for their sakes; and they
were very happy, and the whole family was happy; for they, indeed were so.
THE STORY OF A MOTHER
A mother sat there with her little child. She was so downcast, so afraid that
it should die! It was so pale, the small eyes had closed themselves, and it
drew its breath so softly, now and then, with a deep respiration, as if it
sighed; and the mother looked still more sorrowfully on the little creature.
Then a knocking was heard at the door, and in came a poor old man wrapped up
as in a large horse-cloth, for it warms one, and he needed it, as it was the
cold winter season! Everything out-of-doors was covered with ice and snow, and
the wind blew so that it cut the face.
As the old man trembled with cold, and the little child slept a moment, the
mother went and poured some ale into a pot and set it on the stove, that it
might be warm for him; the old man sat and rocked the cradle, and the mother
sat down on a chair close by him, and looked at her little sick child that
drew its breath so deep, and raised its little hand.
"Do you not think that I shall save him?" said she. "Our Lord will not take
him from me!"
