96 OLE LUK-OIE. Hen wept, and went on: “I have also travelled. 1 rode in a coop about twelve miles; and there is no pleasure at all in travelling !” “Yes, the Hen is a sensible woman!” said the doll Bertha. “T don’t think anything of travelling among mountains, for you only have to go up, and then down again. No, we will go into the sand-pit beyond the gate, and walk about in the cabbage garden.” And so it was settled. SATURDAY. ‘Am I to hear some stories now?” asked little Hjalmar, as soon as Ole Luk-Oie had sent him to sleep. “ This evening we have no time for that,” replied Ole Luk-Oie; and he spread his finest umbrella over the lad. ‘“ Only look at these Chinamen !” And the whole umbrella looked like a great China dish, with blue trees and pointed bridges with little Chinamen upon them, who stood there nodding their heads. “We must have the whole world prettily decked out for to- morrow morning,” said Ole Luk-Oie, “ for that will be a holiday —it will be Sunday. I will go to the church steeples to see that the little church goblins are polishing the bells, that they may sound sweetly. I will go out into the field, and see if the breezes are blowing the dust from the grass and leaves ; and, what is the greatest work of all, I will bring down all the stars, to polish them. I take them in my apron; but first each one must be numbered, and the holes in which they are to be placed up there must be numbered likewise, so that they may be placed in the same grooves again; otherwise they would not sit fast, and we should have too many shooting stars, for one after another would fall down.” : “Hark ye! Do you know, Mr. Ole Luk-Oie,” remarked an old Portrait which hung upon the wall where Hjalmar slept, “I am Hjalmar’s great-grandfather! I thank you for telling the boy stories; but you must not confuse his ideas. The stars cannot come down and be polished! The stars are world-orbs, just like our own earth, and that is just the good thing about them.” “YT thank you, old great-grandfather,” said Ole Luk-Oie, “I thank you! You are the head of the family; you are the ancestral head. But Iam older:‘than you! I am an old heathen: the Romans and Greeks called me the Dream God. I have beenin the noblest houses, and am admitted there still! 1 know how to act with great people and with small! Now you may tell your own story!” And Ole Luk-Oie took his umbrella, and went away. “Well, well! May one not even give an opinion now-a-days?” grumbled the old Portrait. . And-Hjalmar awoke.