nstead of the stick. But one day Ib succeeded so well in his
carving that he made two pieces of wood look really like two little
wooden shoes, and he determined to give them as a present to Little
Christina.

"And who was Little Christina?" She was the boatman's daughter,
graceful and delicate as the child of a gentleman; had she been
dressed differently, no one would have believed that she lived in a
hut on the neighboring heath with her father. He was a widower, and
earned his living by carrying firewood in his large boat from the
forest to the eel-pond and eel-weir, on the estate of Silkborg, and
sometimes even to the distant town of Randers. There was no one
under whose care he could leave Little Christina; so she was almost
always with him in his boat, or playing in the wood among the
blossoming heath, or picking the ripe wild berries. Sometimes, when
her father had to go as far as the town, he would take Little
Christina, who was a year younger than Ib, across the heath to the
cottage of Jeppe Jans, and leave her there. Ib and Christina agreed
together in everything; they divided their bread and berries when they
were hungry; they were partners in digging their little gardens;
they ran, and crept, and played about everywhere. Once they wandered a
long way into the forest, and even ventured together to climb the high
ridge. Another time they found a few snipes' eggs in the wood, which
was a great event. Ib had never been on the heath where Christina's
father lived, nor on the river; but at last came an opportunity.
Christina's father invited him to go for a sail in his boat; and the
evening before, he accompanied the boatman across the heath to his
house. The next morning early, the two children were placed on the top
of a high pile of firewood in the boat, and sat eating bread and
wild strawberries, while Christina's father and his man drove the boat
forward with poles. They floated on swiftly, for the tide was in their
favor, passing over lakes, formed by the stream in its course;
sometimes they seemed quite enclosed by reeds and water-plants, yet
there was always room for them to pass out, although the old trees
overhung the water and the old oaks stretched out their bare branches,
as if they had turned up their sleeves and wished to show their
knotty, naked arms. Old alder-trees, whose roots were loosened from
the banks, clung with their fibres to the bottom of the stream, and
the tops of the branches above th