The stars cannot be taken
down and polished. They are spheres, just like our earth, and that is
just the best thing about them."
"I thank you, old grandfather," said Ole Luk-Oie, "I thank you! You
are the head of the family, the ancestral head: but I am older than
you! I am an old heathen; the Romans and Greeks called me the Dream
God. I have been in the noblest houses, and am admitted there still. I
know how to act with great people and with small. Now you can tell
your story!"
Ole Luk-Oie took his umbrella, and went away.
And Hjalmar awoke.
THE FAMILY
WHAT FATHER DOES IS ALWAYS RIGHT
I have no doubt that you have been out in the country, and have seen a
real old farm-house, with a thatched roof, and moss, and plants
growing wild upon it. There is a stork's nest on the ridge, for one
cannot very well do without the stork; the walls are sloping, the
windows low, and the baking-oven projects from the wall like a fat
little body. The elder-tree hangs over the fence, and there is a
little pool of water, with a duck and her ducklings, beneath some old
willow-trees. There is, also, a dog that barks at everybody who passes
by.
Just such an old farm-house stood out in the country, and there lived
an old couple, a peasant and his wife.
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