DITTE VISITS FAIRYLAND
Ditte was now big enough to venture out alone, and would often run
away from home, without making Maren uneasy. She needed some one to
play with, and sought for playmates in the hamlet and the huts at
the edge of the forest. But the parents would call their children in
when they saw her coming. Eventually the children themselves learned
to beware of her; they would throw stones at her when she came near,
and shout nicknames: bastard and witch's brat. Then she tried
children in other places and met the same fate; at last it dawned
upon her that she stood apart. She was not even sure of the children
at home; just as she was playing with them on the sandhills, making
necklaces and rings of small blue scabious, the mother would run out
and tear the children away.
She had to learn to play alone and be content with the society of
the things around her; which she did. Ditte quickly invested her
playthings with life; sticks and stones were all given a part and
they were wonderfully easy to manage. Almost too well behaved, and
Ditte herself sometimes had to put a little naughtiness into them;
or they would be too dull. There was an old wornout wooden shoe of
Soeren's; Maren had painted a face on it and given it an old shawl as
a dress. In Ditte's world it took the part of a boy--a rascal of a
boy--always up to mischief and in some scrape or other. It was
constantly breaking things, and every minute Ditte had to punish it
and give it a good whipping.
One day she was sitting outside in the sun busily engaged in
scolding this naughty boy of a doll, in a voice deep with motherly
sorrow and annoyance. Maren, who stood inside the kitchen door
cleaning herrings, listened with amusement. "If you do it once
more," said the child, "we'll take you up to the old witch, and
she'll eat you all up."
Maren came quickly out. "Who says that?" asked she, her furrowed
face quivering.
"The Bogie-man says it," said Ditte cheerfully.
"Rubbish, child, be serious. Who's taught you that? Tell me at
once."
Ditte tried hard to be solemn. "Bogie-doggie said it--tomorrow!"
bubbling over with mirth.
No-one could get the better of her; she was bored, and just invented
any nonsense that came into her head. Maren gave it up and returned
to her work quietly and in deep thought.
She stood crying over her herrings, with the salt tears dropping
down into the pickle. She often cried of late, over herself and over
the world in general; the people treated her as if she were
infected with the plague, poisoning the air round her with their
meanness and hate, while as far as she knew she had always helped
them to the best of her ability. They did not hesitate in asking her
advice when in trouble, though at the same time they would blame
_her_ for having brought it upon them--calling her every name they
could think of when she had gone. Even the child's _innocent_ lips
called her a witch.
Since Soeren's death sorrow and tears had reddened Maren's eyes with
inflammation and turned her eyelids, but her neighbors only took it
as another sign of her hardened witchcraft. Her sight was failing
too, and she often had to depend upon Ditte's young eyes; and then
it would happen that the child took advantage of the opportunity and
played pranks.
Ditte was not bad--she was neither bad nor good. She was simply a
little creature, whose temperament required change. And so little
happened in her world, that she seized on whatever offered to
prevent herself from being bored to death.
One day something did happen! From one of the big farms, lying at
the other side of the common, with woods bounding the sandhills,
Maren had received permission to gather sticks in the wood every
Tuesday. There was not much heat in them, but they were good enough
for making a cup of coffee.
These Tuesdays were made into picnics. They took their meals with
them, which they enjoyed in some pleasant spot, preferably by the
edge of the lake, and Ditte would sit on the wheelbarrow on both
journeys. When they had got their load, they would pick berries
or--in the autumn--crab-apples and sloes, which were afterwards
cooked in the oven.
Now Granny was ill, having cried so much that she could no longer
see--which Ditte quite understood--but the extraordinary part of it
was that the water seemed to have gone to her legs, so that she
could not stand on them. The little one had to trudge all alone to
the forest for the sticks. It was a long way, but to make up for it,
the forest was full of interest. Now she could go right in, where
otherwise she was not allowed to go, because Granny was afraid of
getting lost, and always kept to the outskirts. There were singing
birds in there, their twittering sounded wonderful under the green
trees, the air was like green water with rays of light in it, and it
hummed and seethed in the darkness under the bushes.
Ditte was not afraid, though it must be admitted she occasionally
shivered. Every other minute she stopped to listen, and when a dry
stick snapped, she started, thrilled with excitement. She was not
bored here, her little body was brimming over with the wonder of it;
each step brought her fresh experiences full of unknown solemnity.
Suddenly it would jump out at her with a frightful: pshaw!--exactly
as the fire did when Granny poured paraffin over it--and she would
hurry away, as quickly as her small feet would carry her, until she
came to an opening in the wood.
On one of these flights she came to a wide river, with trees bending
over it. It was like a wide stream of greenness flowing down, and
Ditte stood transfixed, in breathless wonder. The green of the river
she quickly grasped, for this was the color poured down on all
trees--and the river here was the end of the world. Over on the
other side the Lord lived; if she looked very hard she could just
catch a glimpse of his gray bearded face in a thicket of thorns. But
how was all this greenness made?
She ran for some distance along the edge of the river, watching it,
until she was stopped by two ladies, so beautiful that she had never
seen anything like them before. Though there was no rain, and they
were walking under the trees in the shadow, they held parasols, on
which the sun gleamed through the green leaves, looking like glowing
coins raining down on to their parasols. They kneeled in front of
Ditte as if she were a little princess, lifting her bare feet and
peeping under the soles, as they questioned her.
Well, her name was Ditte. Ditte Mischief and Ditte Goodgirl--and
Ditte child o' Man!
The ladies looked at each other and laughed, and asked her where she
lived.
In Granny's house, of course.
"What Granny?" asked the stupid ladies again.
Ditte stamped her little bare foot on the grass:
"Oh, Granny! that's blind sometimes 'cos she cries so much. Ditte's
own Granny."
Then they pretended to be much wiser, and asked her to go home with
them for a little while. Ditte gave her little hand trustingly to
one of them and trotted along; she did not mind seeing if they lived
on the other side of the river--with the Lord. Then it would be
angels she had met.
They went along the river; Ditte, impatient with excitement, thought
it would never end. At last they came to a footbridge, arched across
the river. At the end of the bridge was a barred gate with railings
on each side, which it was impossible to climb over or under. The
ladies opened the gate with a key and carefully locked it again, and
Ditte found herself in a most beautiful garden. By the path stood
lovely flowers in clusters, red and blue, swaying their pretty
heads; and on low bushes were delicious large red berries such as
she had never tasted before.
Ditte knew at once that this was Paradise. She threw herself against
one of the ladies, her mouth red with the juice of the berries,
looking up at her with an unfathomable expression in her dark blue
eyes and said: "Am I dead now?"
The ladies laughed and took her into the house, through beautiful
rooms where one walked on thick soft shawls with one's boots on. In
the innermost room a little lady was sitting in an armchair. She was
white-haired and wrinkled and had spectacles on her nose; and wore
a white nightcap in spite of it being the middle of the day. "This
is our Granny!" said one of the ladies.
"Grandmother, look, we have caught a little wood goblin," they
shouted into the old lady's ear. Just think, this Granny was
deaf--her own was only blind.
Ditte went round peeping inquisitively into the different rooms.
"Where's the Lord?" asked she suddenly.
"What is the child saying?" exclaimed one of the ladies. But the one
who had taken Ditte by the hand, drew the little one towards her and
said: "The Lord does not live here, he lives up in Heaven. She
thinks this is Paradise," she added, turning to her sister.
It worried them to see her running about barefooted, and they
carefully examined her feet, fearing she might have been bitten by
some creeping thing in the wood. "Why does not the child wear
boots?" said the old lady. Her head shook so funnily when she spoke,
all the white curls bobbed--just like bluebells.
Ditte had no boots.
"Good Heavens! do you hear that, Grandmother, the child has no
boots. Have you nothing at all to put on your feet?"
"Bogie-man," burst out Ditte, laughing roguishly.
She was tired now of answering all their questions. However, they
dragged out of her that she had a pair of wooden shoes, which were
being kept for winter.
"Then with the help of God she shall have a pair of my cloth ones,"
said the old lady. "Give her a pair, Asta; and take a fairly good
pair."
"Certainly, Grandmother," answered one of the young women--the one
Ditte liked best.
So Ditte was put into the cloth boots. Then she was given different
kinds of food, such as she had never tasted before, and did not care
for either; she kept to the bread, being most familiar with
that--greatly to the astonishment of the three women.
"She is fastidious," said one of the young ladies.
"It can hardly be called that, when she prefers bread to anything
else," answered Miss Asta eagerly. "But she is evidently accustomed
to very plain food, and yet see how healthy she is." She drew the
little one to her and kissed her.
"Let her take it home with her," said the old lady, "such children
of nature never eat in captivity. My husband once captured a little
wild monkey down on the Gold Coast, but was obliged to let it go
again because it refused to eat."
Then Ditte was given the food packed into a pretty little basket of
red and white straw; a Leghorn hat was put upon her head, and a
large red bow adorned her breast. She enjoyed all this very
much--but suddenly, remembering her Granny, wanted to go home. She
stood pulling the door handle, and they had to let this amusing
little wood goblin out again. Hurriedly a few strawberries were put
into the basket, and off she disappeared into the wood.
"I hope she can find her way back again," said Miss Asta looking
after her with dreaming eyes.
Ditte certainly found her way home. It was fortunate that in her
longing to be there, she entirely forgot what was in the basket.
Otherwise old Maren would have gone to her grave without ever having
tasted strawberries.
After that Ditte often ran deep into the forest, in the hope that
the adventure would repeat itself. It had been a wonderful
experience, the most wonderful in her life. Old Maren encouraged her
too. "You just go right into the thicket," she said. "Naught can
harm you, for you're a Sunday child. And when you get to the charmed
house, you must ask for a pair of cloth boots for me too. Say that
old Granny has water in her legs and can hardly bear shoes on her
feet."
The river was easily found, but she did not meet the beautiful
ladies again, and the footbridge with the gate had disappeared.
There were woods on the other side of the river just as on this, the
Lord's face she could no longer find either, look as she might;
Fairyland was no more.
"You'll see, 'twas naught but a dream," said old Maren.
"But, Granny, the strawberries," answered Ditte.
Ay, the strawberries--that was true enough! Maren had eaten some of
them herself, and she had never tasted anything so delicious either.
Twenty times bigger than wild strawberries, and satisfying too--so
unlike other berries, which only upset one.
"The dream goblin, who took you to Fairyland, gave you those so that
other folks might taste them too," said the old one at last.
And with this explanation they were satisfied.