Fairy Tales from the German Forests Part 9

Frau Holle burst out laughing: "A mortal child and a Kobold of the forest! nonsense, it's impossible!"

Kathchen lifted up her brown eyes. "We might play at it," she said. "It would be a beautiful game."

Frau Holle chuckled so much at this that she nearly upset the milk jug.

"How _do_ people get engaged?" said Kathe. "I have often thought about it, but I never could imagine how they do it?"

"Didn't they teach you that at school either?" said Green Ears. "My stars! What _did_ they teach you at school?"

"Children," said the wood-woman, "children, do you mean it?"

"Certainly," said Green Ears.

"I think so," said Kathe.

"Do you wish to buy rings?"

"O yes," decidedly from both children.

"Now listen; there is a pa.s.sage from my house leading to the shops, most convenient I a.s.sure you," said Frau Holle. "Everything delivered punctually on the premises within one minute of purchasing it. No lifts or motor-cars necessary. You see I know the ways of the world." So saying she opened the back door, and they pa.s.sed into a lane lighted by many lamp-posts. These lamp-posts gave a very bright light and had queer faces like the man in the moon. They grinned and winked as Green Ears and Kathchen went by.

It was a lovely fair; a fair in fairyland you may imagine how gorgeous that must be!

There were stalls on which lay all sorts of tempting things, cakes, sweet and toys. Kathe felt sorry that she had no money.

At the flower stall they paused; the flowers were exquisitely arranged, and out of each peeped a little Fee.

In big gold letters was written:

CONDENSED FLOWERS FOR SALE.

As Green Ears asked boldly for engagement rings, a fairy who stood behind the stall, handed him two little gold rings made to fit any finger; they were a new patent and self-adapting, the fairy said.

Green Ears was so pleased that he turned head over heels again and again for joy, a funny proceeding for a would-be husband.

"Do you know _how_ to get engaged," he said to the fairy.

"Why no, not exactly, but I have heard it is very simple," said she.

"Mother Holle (here she made a deep curtsy), Mother Holle knows all about it."

Kathe looked out of the corner of her eyes at her lover, and wished he would behave with more dignity. Now he was cramming his mouth with sweeties.

"Aren't you going to give me _any_?" she said.

"O my stars!" he said again, surprised; it had never struck him. Imps are usually egoists; that is to say they think _first_ of themselves.

There are exceptions, but this is the rule.

He went rapidly from stall to stall and returned with his arms full of parcels done up in pink paper which he presented to Kathchen with a low bow. She accepted them with much delight and they fell to munching chocolate together; it was a real bond of union, and they were not the first sweethearts who discovered it.

They reached the end of the street and suddenly found themselves alone once more on the slopes of the Altenhainer Thal or Valley.

Green Ears sat down by Kathchen, and squeezed himself up closely to her.

"Give me your pretty little hand," he said. "_Do_ you know which is the right finger?"

"O yes!" Kathchen knew that quite well, though I have heard that it is a disputed point in Germany.

She stuck out her little hard-worked fingers, and he put the gold ring on the third finger of the left hand. It fitted exactly and with a cry of joy Kathchen put the other on his long brown finger.

Then both the children laughed and clapped their hands, and danced merrily about. "Now we are engaged," they cried, "really engaged to be married!"

They made such a noise that the squirrels were cross and threw sticks at them for disturbing their early-morning sleep.

Then, goodness knows why--let us call it reaction--Kathe began to cry again, great, big drops.

Green Ears was much puzzled.

"You _are_ clever, now I can't do that," he said. "You must stay with me always, and live with me in the woods, and be my own little sweetheart."

"O no," said Kathe, "I should never be allowed to do that; I must go to school every day, and then I have my exercises to do, and to help mother with the housework; the baby to mind; and--O I am always so busy."

"I will come and help you," said Green Ears.

"But you _can't_, you are not _real_, you know," said Kathe and began to cry again.

"Kathchen," said Green Ears, and he looked quite serious and thinky all at once. "Listen to me. I will go to the Old King; he is the ruler of all the fairies here, and I will beg him to teach me how to become human. It may be years before we meet again, for the way into your world is very hard for me to find. Yes it is easier for you to find the way into our world, than for us to enter yours; but cheer up, I will dare it and do it for your sake! but O sweetheart wait for me; O wait for me!"

"Wait for me, my little sweetheart, Till I come to you again, Win the world for you, my sweetheart, With its joy and with its pain.

Wait for me, my little sweetheart, For when falling on the ground I beheld those curious dewdrops To your heart my heart was bound.

All my fairy life is nothing, All my fairy joy I give, Just to hold your hands, my sweetheart, In your world with you to live.

Wait for me, my little sweetheart: I will find the way to you, As a grown man I will seek you, Seek and find you ever true."

So singing they walked arm in arm through the long winding valley, till the dawn approached like a golden bird opening its great wings to fly.

Kathchen reached her cottage door. All was silent within. "Good-bye,"

she said, and their eyes met in one last farewell.

"Auf Wiedersehen!" said Green Ears (that pretty German farewell greeting which means so much more than good-bye), and then he stole back down the stony street, kissing his hands again and again to the little girl.

In some strange way Kathchen pa.s.sed _through_ the door of her little cottage; she had become for the time incorporeal; through the touch of a fairy her body and soul had become _loose_, that is to say, and she was able to enter the house as silently as a person in a dream. She went through the kitchen and up the steep wooden stairs. It seemed to her as if her feet did not touch the ground, she floated rather than walked.

She reached her own little attic, and saw the room as if it were a picture, the square window-frame, the branches of the trees outside, the old pictures on the walls that she was so fond of.

But what was her surprise to see _herself_ curled up asleep in her big wooden bed!

The horror of it made her faint, and she remembered no more until she found herself in her own bed under her own big feather sack. In order that she should not forget her night's adventures, or think it was all merely a dream, she found a ring of yellow gra.s.s wound tightly round her third finger. From that hour, though the ring fell to pieces, the mark of it was clearly to be seen on her finger. It _was_ a fairy ring, you see.