could
come to life again.

Then it commenced to dawn. The boy was glad that everything began to
look like itself once more; although the chill was even sharper than it
had been during the night.

Finally, when the sun got up, it wasn't yellow but red. The boy thought
it looked as though it were angry and he wondered what it was angry
about. Perhaps it was because the night had made it so cold and gloomy
on earth, while the sun was away.

The sunbeams came down in great clusters, to see what the night had been
up to. It could be seen how everything blushed--as if they all had
guilty consciences. The clouds in the skies; the satiny beech-limbs; the
little intertwined branches of the forest-canopy; the hoar-frost that
covered the foliage on the ground--everything grew flushed and red. More
and more sunbeams came bursting through space, and soon the night's
terrors were driven away, and such a marvellous lot of living things
came forward. The black woodpecker, with the red neck, began to hammer
with its bill on the branch. The squirrel glided from his nest with a
nut, and sat down on a branch and began to shell it. The starling came
flying with a worm, and the bulfinch sang in the tree-top.

Then the boy understood that the sun had said to all these tiny
creatures: "Wake up now, and come out of your nests! I'm here! Now you
need be afraid of nothing."

The wild-goose call was heard from the lake, as they were preparing for
flight; and soon all fourteen geese came flying through the forest. The
boy tried to call to them, but they flew so high that his voice couldn't
reach them. They probably believed the fox had eaten him up; and they
didn't trouble themselves to look for him.

The boy came near crying with regret; but the sun stood up
there--orange-coloured and happy--and put courage into the whole world.
"It isn't worth while, Nils Holgersson, for you to be troubled about
anything, as long as I'm here," said the sun.

GOOSE-PLAY

_Monday, March twenty-first_.

Everything remained unchanged in the forest--about as long as it takes a
goose to eat her breakfast. But just as the morning was verging on
forenoon, a goose came flying, all by herself, under the thick
tree-canopy. She groped her way hesitatingly, between the stems and
branches, and flew very slowly. As soon as Smirre Fox saw her, he left
his place under the beech tree, and sneaked up toward her. The wild
goose didn't avoid the fox, but flew very close