he desert on tall camels;
the lions roared with thirst, and the great crocodiles with their grey
lizard heads and sharp white teeth gaped up out of the river.

'Shall we land here?' asked the dream-boy.

'No,' said Little Lasse. 'The sun would burn us, and the lions and the
crocodiles would eat us up. Let us travel to another part of the world.'

'We can travel back to Europe,' said the dream-boy with the fair hair.
And with that they were there.

They came to a shore where it was all so cool and familiar and friendly.
There stood the tall birch tree with its drooping leaves; at the top sat
the old crow, and at its foot crept the gardener's black cat. Not far
away was a house which Little Lasse had seen before; near the house
there was a garden, and in the garden a pea bed with long pea shells.
An old gardener with a green coat walked about and wondered if the
cucumbers were ripe. Fylax was barking on the steps, and when he saw
Little Lasse he wagged his tail. Old Stina was milking the cows in the
farmyard, and there was a very familiar lady in a check woollen shawl
on her way to the bleaching green to see if the clothes were bleached.
There was, too, a well-known gentleman in a yellow summer coat, with a
long pipe in his mouth; he was going to see if the reapers had cut the
rye. A boy and a girl were running on the shore and calling out, 'Little
Lasse! Come home for bread-and-butter!'

'Shall we land here?' asked the dream-boy, and he blinked his blue eyes
roguishly.

'Come with me, and I shall ask mother to give you some bread-and-butter
and a glass of milk,' said Little Lasse.

'Wait a little,' said the dream-boy. And now Little Lasse saw that the
kitchen door was open, and from within there was heard a low, pleasant
frizzling, like that which is heard when one whisks yellow batter with a
wooden ladle into a hot frying-pan.

'Perhaps we should sail back to Polynesia now?' said the happy
dream-boy.

'No; they are frying pancakes in Europe just now,' said Little Lasse;
and he wanted to jump ashore, but he could not. The dream-boy had tied
him with a chain of flowers, so that he could not move. And now all
the little dreams came about him, thousands and thousands of little
children, and they made a ring around him and sang a little song:

The world is very, very wide,
Little Lasse, Lasse,
And though you've sailed beyond the tide,
You can never tell how wide