But she thought the shoes had not been thrown out far enough. Then she
crept into a boat that lay among the reeds, and threw the shoes again from
the farther end of the boat into the water, but it was not fastened. And her
movement sent it gliding away from the land. When she saw this she
hastened to reach the end of the boat, but before she could so it was more
than a yard from the bank, and drifting away faster than ever. Then little
Gerda was very much frightened, and began to cry, but no one heard her
except the sparrows, and they could not carry her to land, but they flew
along by the shore, and sang, as if to comfort her, “Here we are! Here we
are!” The boat floated with the stream; little Gerda sat quite still with only
her stockings on her feet; the red shoes floated after her, but she could not
reach them because the boat kept so much in advance. The banks on each
side of the river were very pretty. There were beautiful flowers, old trees,
sloping fields, in which cows and sheep were grazing, but not a man to be
seen. Perhaps the river will carry me to little Kay, thought Gerda, and then
she became more cheerful, and raised her head, and looked at the beautiful
green banks; and so the boat sailed on for hours. At length she came to a
large cherry orchard, in which stood a small red house with strange red and
blue windows. It had also a thatched roof, and outside were two wooden
soldiers, that presented arms to her as she sailed past. Gerda called out to
them, for she thought they were alive, but of course they did not answer;
and as the boat drifted nearer to the shore, she saw what they really were.
Then Gerda called still louder, and there came a very old woman out of the
house, leaning on a crutch. She wore a large hat to shade her from the sun,
and on it were painted all sorts of pretty flowers. “You poor little child,”
