which Hjalmar had written: they fancied they looked like the copy, but they
were mistaken; for they were leaning on one side as if they intended to fall
over the pencil-lines.
“See, this is the way you should hold yourselves,” said the copy. “Look
here, you should slope thus, with a graceful curve.”
“Oh, we are very willing to do so, but we cannot,” said Hjalmar’s letters;
“we are so wretchedly made.”
“You must be scratched out, then,” said Ole-Luk-Oie.
“Oh, no!” they cried, and then they stood up so gracefully it was quite a
pleasure to look at them.
“Now we must give up our stories, and exercise these letters,” said Ole-
Luk-Oie; “One, two-one, two-” So he drilled them till they stood up
gracefully, and looked as beautiful as a copy could look. But after Ole-Luk-
Oie was gone, and Hjalmar looked at them in the morning, they were as
wretched and as awkward as ever.
Tuesday
As soon as Hjalmar was in bed, Ole-Luk-Oie touched, with his little
magic wand, all the furniture in the room, which immediately began to
chatter, and each article only talked of itself.
Over the chest of drawers hung a large picture in a gilt frame,
representing a landscape, with fine old trees, flowers in the grass, and a
broad stream, which flowed through the wood, past several castles, far out
into the wild ocean. Ole-Luk-Oie touched the picture with his magic wand,
