Compositions: A Random Collection

The Snow Queen

STORY THE SECOND

A Little Boy and a Little Girl

In the big town, where there are so many houses and people that there isn't room enough for everybody to have a little garden, and where in consequence most people have to content themselves with flowers in pots, there were two poor children who had a garden somewhat bigger than a flower-pot. They weren't brother and sister, but they were as fond of each other as if they had been. Their parents were near neighbours, living in two attics, where the roof of the one house touched the other, and the gutter ran along the eaves: a small window in each house faced the other; you had only to step across the gutter and you could get from one window to the other.

The parents had, each of them, a large wooden box outside the window, and in it grew kitchen herbs which they used, and also a little rose tree; there was one in each box, and they flourished wonderfully. Then the parents thought of putting the boxes across the gutter in such a way that they reached almost from the one window to the other and really looked like two bunches of flowers. The pea plants hung down over the boxes, and the rose trees put out long branches and twined about the windows and bent over to meet each other, and made almost a triumphal arch of leaves and blossoms. The boxes were very high up, and the children knew they must not climb up into them, but they were often allowed to get out to meet each other and sit on their little stools beneath the roses, and there they used to play very happily.

In winter, of course, that pleasure was gone. The windows were often quite frozen over; but then they would heat copper pennies on the stove, and then put the hot pennies on the frosty pane, and there came a beautiful peep-hole, as round as round, behind which peeped out a blessed little kind eye, one out of each window; the little boy's and the little girl's. He was called Kay and she Gerda. In summer they could get to each other with a single jump, in winter they had first to go down a lot of stairs and then up a lot of stairs, while the snow came drifting down outside.

"Those are the white bees swarming," said the old grandmother.

"Have they got a queen too?" asked the little boy-for he knew that the real bees have one. "Indeed, they have," said grandmother, "she flies where they swarm thickest; she is the biggest of them all, and she never stays still on the ground, but flies up again into the black cloud. Many a winter night she flies through the streets of the town and peeps in at the windows, and then they freeze into wonderful patterns like flowers."

"Yes, I've seen that," said both the children; and they knew it was true. "Can the Snow Queen get in here?" asked the little girl.

"Let her come!" said the boy, "and I'll put her on the hot stove and she'll melt." But grandmother stroked his hair and told them stories about other things.

In the evening, when little Kay was at home, and half undressed, he climbed up on the stool by the window and peeped through the little hole. A few snowflakes were falling outside, and one of them, the biggest of them all, remained lying in a corner of one of the flower-boxes. This flake grew larger and larger, and at last turned into the complete shape of a lady, dressed in the finest white gauze, which seemed to be made out of millions of star-shaped flakes. She was very pretty and delicate, but she was of ice, blinding, dazzling ice; yet she was alive. Her eyes gazed out like two bright stars, but there was no rest or quietness in them. She nodded towards the window and beckoned with her hand. The little boy was frightened and jumped down off the stool; and then it seemed as if a large bird flew past the window.

Next day was clear and frosty, and then came a thaw, and after that came spring-time, and the sun shone and the green buds peeped forth; the swallows built their nests, the windows were open, and the children sat once more in their little garden high up in the gutter in the topmost story.