"Am I to hear any more stories?" asked little Hjalmar, as soon as
Ole-Luk-Oie had sent him to sleep.
"We shall have no time this evening," said he, spreading out his
prettiest umbrella over the child. "Look at these Chinese people." And
then the whole umbrella appeared like a large china bowl, with blue
trees and pointed bridges upon which stood little Chinamen nodding their
heads.
"We must make all the world beautiful for to-morrow morning," said
Ole-Luk-Oie, "for it will be a holiday; it is Sunday. I must now go to
the church steeple and see if the little sprites who live there have
polished the bells so that they may sound sweetly; then I must go into
the fields and see if the wind has blown the dust from the grass and the
leaves; and the most difficult task of all which I have to do is to take
down all the stars and brighten them up. I have to number them first
before I put them in my apron, and also to number the places from which
I take them, so that they may go back into the right holes, or else
they would not remain and we should have a number of falling stars, for
they would all tumble down one after another."
"Hark ye, Mr. Luk-Oie!" said an old portrait which hung on the wall of
Hjalmar's bedroom. "Do you know me? I am Hjalmar's great-grandfather. I
thank you for telling the boy stories, but you must not confuse his
ideas. The stars cannot be taken down from the sky and polished; they
are spheres like our earth, which is a good thing for them."
"Thank you, old great-grandfather," said Ole-Luk-Oie. "I thank you. You
may be the head of the family, as no doubt you are, and very old, but I
am older still. I am an ancient heathen. The old Romans and Greeks named
me the Dream God. I have visited the noblest houses,--yes, and I
continue to do so,--still I know how to conduct myself both to high and
low, and now you may tell the stories yourself"; and so Ole-Luk-Oie
walked off, taking his umbrellas with him.
"Well, well, one is never to give an opinion, I suppose," grumbled the
portrait. And it woke Hjalmar.