e no oars
to be found in the boat. The oars were locked up in the boat-house, and
Little Lasse had not noticed that the boat was empty. It is not so easy
as one thinks to row to Asia without oars.

What could Little Lasse do now? The boat was already some distance out
on the sea, and the wind, which blew from land, was driving it still
further out. Lasse was frightened and began to cry. But there was no
one on the shore to hear him. Only a big crow perched alone in the birch
tree; and the gardener's black cat sat under the birch tree, waiting to
catch the crow. Neither of them troubled themselves in the least about
Little Lasse, who was drifting out to sea.

Ah! how sorry Little Lasse was now that he had been disobedient and got
into the boat, when father and mother had so often forbidden him to do
so! Now it was too late, he could not get back to land. Perhaps he would
be lost out on the great sea. What should he do?

When he had shouted until he was tired and no one heard him, he put
his two little hands together and said, 'Good God, do not be angry with
Little Lasse.' And then he went to sleep. For although it was daylight,
old Nukku Matti was sitting on the shores of the 'Land of Nod,' and was
fishing for little children with his long fishing rod. He heard the low
words which Little Lasse said to God, and he immediately drew the boat
to himself and laid Little Lasse to sleep on a bed of rose leaves.

Then Nukku Matti said to one of the Dreams, 'Play with Little Lasse, so
that he does not feel lonesome.'

It was a little dream-boy, so little, so little, that he was less than
Lasse himself; he had blue eyes and fair hair, a red cap with a silver
band, and white coat with pearls on the collar. He came to Little Lasse
and said, 'Would you like to sail round the world?'

'Yes,' said Lasse in his sleep, 'I should like to.'

'Come, then,' said the dream-boy, 'and let us sail in your pea-shell
boats. You shall sail in Hercules and I shall sail in The Flea.'

So they sailed away from the 'Land of Nod,' and in a little while
Hercules and The Flea were on the shores of Asia away at the other end
of the world, where the Ice Sea flows through Behring Straits into the
Pacific Ocean. A long way off in the winter mist they could see the
explorer Nordenskiold with his ship Vega trying to find an opening
between the ice. It was so cold, so cold; the great icebergs glittered
strangely, and the huge whales now lived under the i