ou
will give him back to me." And it seemed as if the waves nodded to her
in a strange manner. Then she took off her red shoes, which she
liked better than anything else, and threw them both into the river,
but they fell near the bank, and the little waves carried them back to
the land, just as if the river would not take from her what she
loved best, because they could not give her back little Kay. But she
thought the shoes had not been thrown out far enough. Then she crept
into a boat that lay among the reeds, and threw the shoes again from
the farther end of the boat into the water, but it was not fastened.
And her movement sent it gliding away from the land. When she saw this
she hastened to reach the end of the boat, but before she could so
it was more than a yard from the bank, and drifting away faster than
ever. Then little Gerda was very much frightened, and began to cry,
but no one heard her except the sparrows, and they could not carry her
to land, but they flew along by the shore, and sang, as if to
comfort her, "Here we are! Here we are!" The boat floated with the
stream; little Gerda sat quite still with only her stockings on her
feet; the red shoes floated after her, but she could not reach them
because the boat kept so much in advance. The banks on each side of
the river were very pretty. There were beautiful flowers, old trees,
sloping fields, in which cows and sheep were grazing, but not a man to
be seen. Perhaps the river will carry me to little Kay, thought Gerda,
and then she became more cheerful, and raised her head, and looked
at the beautiful green banks; and so the boat sailed on for hours.
At length she came to a large cherry orchard, in which stood a small
red house with strange red and blue windows. It had also a thatched
roof, and outside were two wooden soldiers, that presented arms to her
as she sailed past. Gerda called out to them, for she thought they
were alive, but of course they did not answer; and as the boat drifted
nearer to the shore, she saw what they really were. Then Gerda
called still louder, and there came a very old woman out of the house,
leaning on a crutch. She wore a large hat to shade her from the sun,
and on it were painted all sorts of pretty flowers. "You poor little
child," said the old woman, "how did you manage to come all this
distance into the wide world on such a rapid rolling stream?" And then
the old woman walked in the water, seized the boat with her crutch,