ngs.

"The human beings do not like us. They pursue and murder us with
soapsuds. Oh, it is a horrid drink! I seem to smell it even now. You
cannot think how dreadful it is to be washed when one was not made to be
washed. Men! you who look at us with your severe, soapsud eyes, think a
moment what our place in nature is: we are born upon the roses, we die
in roses--our whole life is a rose poem. Do not, I beg you, give us a
name which you yourselves think so despicable--the name I cannot bear to
pronounce. If you wish to speak of us, call us 'the ants' milch
cows--the rose-tree regiment--the little green things.'"

"And I, the man, stood looking at the tree and at the little Greenies
(whose name I shall not mention, for I should not like to wound the
feelings of the citizens of the rose tree), a large family with eggs and
young ones; and I looked at the soapsuds I was going to wash them in,
for I too had come with soap and water and murderous intentions. But now
I will use it for soap bubbles. Look, how beautiful! Perhaps there lies
in each a fairy tale, and the bubble grows large and radiant and looks
as if there were a pearl lying inside it.

The bubble swayed and swung. It flew to the door and then burst, but the
door opened wide, and there stood Dame Fairytale herself! And now she
will tell you better than I can about (I will not say the name) the
little green things of the rosebush.

"Plant lice!" said Dame Fairytale. One must call things by their right
names. And if one may not do so always, one must at least have the
privilege of doing so in a fairy tale.

[Illustration]

OLE-LUK-OIE THE DREAM GOD

THERE is nobody in the whole world who knows so many stories as
Ole-Luk-Oie, or who can relate them so nicely.

In the evening while the children are seated at the tea table or in
their little chairs, very softly he comes up the stairs, for he walks in
his socks. He opens the doors without the slightest noise and throws a
small quantity of very fine dust in the little ones' eyes (just enough
to prevent them from keeping them open), and so they do not see him.
Then he creeps behind them and blows softly upon their necks till their
heads begin to droop.

But Ole-Luk-Oie does not wish to hurt them. He is very fond of children
and only wants them to be quiet that he may tell them pretty stories,
and he knows they never are quiet until they are in bed and asleep.
Ole-Luk-Oie seats himself upon the bed