How the rain did pour down! Yalmar could hear it in his sleep! and
when Olé Luckoiè opened the casement, the water stood up to the very
window-sill. There was a regular sea outside; but the most splendid
ship lay close up to the house.
"If thou wilt sail with me, little Yalmar," said Olé Luckoiè, "thou
canst reach foreign countries in the night, and be here again by
to-morrow morning!"
And with this Yalmar stood in his Sunday clothes in the ship, and
immediately the weather became fine, and they sailed through the
streets, tacked about round the church, and then came out into a great,
desolate lake. They sailed so far, that at last they could see no more
land, and then they saw a flock of storks, which were coming from home,
on their way to the warm countries; one stork after another flew on,
and they had already flown such a long, long way. One of the storks was
so very much tired that it seemed as if his wings could not support him
any longer; he was the very last of all the flock, and got farther and
farther behind them; and, at last, he sank lower and lower, with his
outspread wings: he still flapped his wings, now and then, but that
did not help him; now his feet touched the cordage of the ship; now he
glided down the sail, and, bounce! down he came on the deck.
A sailor-boy then took him up, and set him in the hencoop among hens,
and ducks, and turkeys. The poor stork stood quite confounded among
them all.
"Here's a thing!" said all the hens.
And the turkey-cock blew himself up as much as ever he could, and asked
the stork who he was; and the ducks they went on jostling one against
the other, saying, "Do thou ask! do thou ask!"
The stork told them all about the warm Africa, about the pyramids, and
about the simoom, which sped like a horse over the desert: but the
ducks understood not a word about what he said, and so they whispered
one to the other, "We are all agreed, he is silly!"
"Yes, to be sure, he is silly," said the turkey-cock aloud. The poor
stork stood quite still, and thought about Africa.
"What a pair of beautiful thin legs you have got!" said the
turkey-cock; "what is the price by the yard?"
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed all the ducks; but the stork pretended that he
did not hear.
"I cannot help laughing," said the turkey-cock, "it was so very witty;
or, perhaps, it was too low for him!--ha! ha! he can't take in many
ideas! Let us only be interesting to ourselves!" And with that they
began to gobble, and the ducks chattered, "Gik, gak! gik, gak!" It was
amazing to see how entertaining they were to themselves.
Yalmar, however, went up to the hencoop, opened the door, and called
to the stork, which hopped out to him on the deck. It had now rested
itself; and it seemed as if it nodded to Yalmar to thank him. With this
it spread out its wings and flew away to its warm countries; but the
hens clucked, the ducks chattered, and the turkey-cocks grew quite red
in the head.
"To-morrow we shall have you for dinner!" said Yalmar; and so he awoke,
and was lying in his little bed.
It was, however, a wonderful voyage that Olé Luckoiè had taken him that
night.