"When I first went out into the world," said the little mouse, "I
fancied, as so many of my age do, that I already knew everything--but it
was not so. It takes years to acquire great knowledge.
"I went at once to sea, in a ship bound for the north. I had been told
that the ship's cook must know how to prepare every dish at sea, and it
is easy enough to do that with plenty of sides of bacon, and large tubs
of salt meat and musty flour. There I found plenty of delicate food but
no opportunity to learn how to make soup from a sausage skewer.
"We sailed on for many days and nights; the ship rocked fearfully, and
we did not escape without a wetting. As soon as we arrived at the port
to which the ship was bound, I left it and went on shore at a place far
towards the north. It is a wonderful thing to leave your own little
corner at home, to hide yourself in a ship where there are sure to be
some nice snug corners for shelter, then suddenly to find yourself
thousands of miles away in a foreign land.
"I saw large, pathless forests of pine and birch trees, which smelt so
strong that I sneezed and thought of sausage. There were great lakes
also, which looked as black as ink at a distance but were quite clear
when I came close to them. Large swans were floating upon them, and I
thought at first they were only foam, they lay so still; but when I saw
them walk and fly, I knew directly what they were. They belonged to the
goose species. One could see that by their walk, for no one can
successfully disguise his family descent.
"I kept with my own kind and associated with the forest and field mice,
who, however, knew very little--especially about what I wanted to know
and what had actually made me travel abroad.
"The idea that soup could be made from a sausage skewer was so startling
to them that it was repeated from one to another through the whole
forest. They declared that the problem would never be solved--that the
thing was an impossibility. How little I thought that in this place, on
the very first night, I should be initiated into the manner of its
preparation!
"It was the height of summer, which the mice told me was the reason that
the forest smelt so strong, and that the herbs were so fragrant, and
that the lakes with the white, swimming swans were so dark and yet so
clear.
"On the margin of the wood, near several houses, a pole as large as the
mainmast of a ship had been erected, and from the summit hung wreaths of
flowers and fluttering ribbons. It was the Maypole. Lads and lasses
danced round it and tried to outdo the violins of the musicians with
their singing. They were as gay as ever at sunset and in the moonlight,
but I took no part in the merrymaking. What has a little mouse to do
with a Maypole dance? I sat in the soft moss and held my sausage skewer
tight. The moon shone particularly bright on one spot where stood a
tree covered with very fine moss. I may almost venture to say that it
was as fine and soft as the fur of the mouse-king, but it was green,
which is a color very agreeable to the eye.
"All at once I saw the most charming little people marching towards me.
They did not reach higher than my knee, although they looked like human
beings but were better proportioned. They called themselves elves, and
wore clothes that were very delicate and fine, for they were made of the
leaves of flowers, trimmed with the wings of flies and gnats. The effect
was by no means bad.
"They seemed to be seeking something--I knew not what, till at last one
of them espied me. They came towards me, and the foremost pointed to my
sausage skewer, saying: 'There, that is just what we want. See, it is
pointed at the top; is it not capital?' The longer he looked at my
pilgrim's staff the more delighted he became.
"'I will lend it to you,' said I, 'but not to keep.'
"'Oh, no, we won't keep it!' they all cried. Then they seized the
skewer, which I gave up to them, and dancing with it to the tree
covered with delicate moss, set it up in the middle of the green. They
wanted a Maypole, and the one they now had seemed made especially for
them. This they decorated so beautifully that it was quite dazzling to
look at. Little spiders spun golden threads around it, and it was hung
with fluttering veils and flags, as delicately white as snow glittering
in the moonlight. Then they took colors from the butterfly's wing,
sprinkling them over the white drapery until it gleamed as if covered
with flowers and diamonds, and I could no longer recognize my sausage
skewer. Such a Maypole as this has never been seen in all the world.
"Then came a great company of real elves. Nothing could be finer than
their clothes. They invited me to be present at the feast, but I was to
keep at a certain distance because I was too large for them. Then began
music that sounded like a thousand glass bells, and was so full and
strong that I thought it must be the song of the swans. I fancied also
that I heard the voices of the cuckoo and the blackbird, and it seemed
at last as if the whole forest sent forth glorious melodies--the voices
of children, the tinkling of bells, and the songs of the birds. And all
this wonderful melody came from the elfin Maypole. My sausage peg was a
complete peal of bells. I could scarcely believe that so much could have
been produced from it, till I remembered into what hands it had fallen.
I was so much affected that I wept tears such as a little mouse can
weep, but they were tears of joy.
"The night was far too short for me; there are no long nights there in
summer, as we often have in this part of the world. When the morning
dawned and the gentle breeze rippled the glassy mirror of the forest
lake, all the delicate veils and flags fluttered away into thin air. The
waving garlands of the spider's web, the hanging bridges and galleries,
or whatever else they may be called, vanished away as if they had never
been. Six elves brought me back my sausage skewer and at the same time
asked me to make any request, which they would grant if it lay in their
power. So I begged them, if they could, to tell me how to make soup from
a sausage skewer.
"'How do we make it?' asked the chief of the elves, with a smile. 'Why,
you have just seen us. You scarcely knew your sausage skewer again, I am
sure.'
"'They think themselves very wise,' thought I to myself. Then I told
them all about it, and why I had traveled so far, and also what promise
had been made at home to the one who should discover the method of
preparing this soup.
"'What good will it do the mouse-king or our whole mighty kingdom,' I
asked, 'for me to have seen all these beautiful things? I cannot shake
the sausage peg and say, "Look, here is the skewer, and now the soup
will come." That would only produce a dish to be served when people were
keeping a fast.'
"Then the elf dipped his finger into the cup of a violet and said,
'Look, I will anoint your pilgrim's staff, so that when you return to
your home and enter the king's castle, you have only to touch the king
with your staff and violets will spring forth, even in the coldest
winter time. I think I have given you something worth carrying home, and
a little more than something.'"
Before the little mouse explained what this something more was, she
stretched her staff toward the king, and as it touched him the most
beautiful bunch of violets sprang forth and filled the place with their
perfume. The smell was so powerful that the mouse-king ordered the mice
who stood nearest the chimney to thrust their tails into the fire that
there might be a smell of burning, for the perfume of the violets was
overpowering and not the sort of scent that every one liked.
"But what was the something more, of which you spoke just now?" asked
the mouse-king.
"Why," answered the little mouse, "I think it is what they call
'effect.'" Thereupon she turned the staff round, and behold, not a
single flower was to be seen on it! She now held only the naked skewer,
and lifted it up as a conductor lifts his baton at a concert.
"Violets, the elf told me," continued the mouse, "are for the sight, the
smell, and the touch; so we have only to produce the effect of hearing
and tasting." Then, as the little mouse beat time with her staff, there
came sounds of music; not such music as was heard in the forest, at the
elfin feast, but such as is often heard in the kitchen--the sounds of
boiling and roasting. It came quite suddenly, like wind rushing through
the chimneys, and it seemed as if every pot and kettle were boiling
over.
The fire shovel clattered down on the brass fender, and then, quite as
suddenly, all was still,--nothing could be heard but the light, vapory
song of the teakettle, which was quite wonderful to hear, for no one
could rightly distinguish whether the kettle was just beginning to boil
or just going to stop. And the little pot steamed, and the great pot
simmered, but without any regard for each other; indeed, there seemed no
sense in the pots at all. As the little mouse waved her baton still more
wildly, the pots foamed and threw up bubbles and boiled over, while
again the wind roared and whistled through the chimney, and at last
there was such a terrible hubbub that the little mouse let her stick
fall.
"That is a strange sort of soup," said the mouse-king. "Shall we not now
hear about the preparation?"
"That is all," answered the little mouse, with a bow.
"That all!" said the mouse-king; "then we shall be glad to hear what
information the next may have to give us."