SOUP ON A SAUSAGE-PEG. 161

bird, and at last the whole forest seemed to join in. I heard chil-
dren’s voices, the sound of bells, and the song ot birds ; the most
glorious melodies—and all came from the elves’ maypole, namely,
my sausage-peg. I should never have believed that so much could
come out of it; but that depends very much upon the hands into
which it falls.. I was quite touched. I wept, asa little mouse
may weep, with pure pleasure.

“ The night was far too short ; but it is not longer up yonder at
that season. In the morning dawn the breeze began to blow, the
mirror of the forest lake was covered with ripples, and all the deli-
cate veils and flags fluttered away in the air, The waving gar-
lands of spider’s web, the hanging bridges and balustrades, and
whatever else they are called, flew away as if they were nothing
atall. Six elves brought me back my sausage-peg, and asked me
at the same time if I had any wish that they could gratify ; so I
asked them if they could tellme how soup was made on a sausage-

eg.
“¢ How we do it?’ asked the chief of the elves, with a smile.
‘Why, you have just seen it. I fancy you hardly know your
sausage-peg again?’

“¢Vou only mean that as a joke, I replied. And then I told
them in so many words why I had undertaken a journey, and what
great hopes werefounded on the operation at home. ‘ What advan-
tage,’ I asked, ‘ can accrue to our Mouse King, and to our whole
powerful state, from the fact of my having witnessed all this festi-
vity? I cannot shake it out of the sausage-peg, and say, “ Look,
here is the peg, now the soup will come.” That would be a dish
that could only be put on the table when the guests had dined.’

“Then the elf dipped his little finger into the cup of a blue
violet, and said to me,

“See here! I will anoint your pilgrim’s staff ; and when you
go back to your country, and come to the castle of the Mouse
King, you have but to touch him with the staff, and violets will
spring forth and cover its whole surface, even in the coldest
winter-time. And so I think I’ve given you something to carry
home, and a little more than something !’”

But before the little Mouse said what this “ something more”
was, she stretched her staff out towards the King, and in Very
truth the most beautiful bunch of violets burst forth ; and the
scent was so powerful that the Mouse King incontinently ordered
the mice who stood nearest the chimney to thrust their tails into
the fire and create a smell of burning, for the odour of the violets
was not to be borne, and was not of the kind he liked.

“But what was the ‘something more,’ of which you spoke?”
asked the Mouse King. -

“ Why,” the little Mouse answered, “I think it is what they call
effect !” and herewith she turned the staff round, and lo! there
was not a single flower to be seen upon its she only held the

Il