silk handkerchief in your pocket and a shining hat on. You looked so well,
and the weather in the street was horrible!’
“‘Then we married,’ he said. ‘Do you remember how we got our first
boy, and then Mary, Niels, Peter, John, and Christian?’
‘Oh yes; and now they have all grown up, and have become useful
members of society, whom everybody cares for.’
“‘And their children have had children again,’ said the old sailor. ‘Yes,
these are children’s children, and they are strong and healthy. If I am not
mistaken, our wedding took place at this season of the year.’
“‘Yes, to-day is your golden wedding-day,’ said the little elder-tree
mother, stretching her head down between the two old people, who thought
that she was their neighbour who was nodding to them; they looked at each
other and clasped hands. Soon afterwards the children and grandchildren
came, for they knew very well that it was the golden wedding-day; they had
already wished them joy and happiness in the morning, but the old people
had forgotten it, although they remembered things so well that had passed
many, many years ago. The elder-tree smelt strongly, and the setting sun
illuminated the faces of the two old people, so that they looked quite rosy;
the youngest of the grandchildren danced round them, and cried merrily that
there would be a feast in the evening, for they were to have hot potatoes;
and the elder mother nodded in the tree and cried ‘Hooray’ with the others.”
“But that was no fairy tale,” said the little boy who had listened to it.
“You will presently understand it,” said the old man who told the story.
“Let us ask little elder-tree mother about it.”
“That was no fairy tale,” said the little elder-tree mother; “but now it
comes! Real life furnishes us with subjects for the most wonderful fairy
tales; for otherwise my beautiful elder-bush could not have grown forth out
of the teapot.”
And then she took the little boy out of bed and placed him on her bosom;
the elder branches, full of blossoms, closed over them; it was as if they sat
