All of a sudden,the wax figure grew tall and important.He whirled around to the paper flowers beside him,and said,“How can anyone stuff a child's head with such nonsense-such stupid fantasy?”At that moment he was a perfect image of the big-hatted councilor,just as sallow and quite as cross.But the paper flowers hit back.They struck his thin shanks until he crumpled up into a very small wax manikin.The change was so ridiculous that little Ida could not keep from laughing.
Wherever the sceptered wand danced the councilor had to dance too,whether he made himself tall and important or remained a little wax figure in a big black hat.The real flowers put in a kind word for him,especially those who had lain ill in the doll's bed,and the birch wand let him rest.
Just then they heard a loud knocking in the drawer where Ida's doll,Sophie,lay with the other toys.The chimney-sweep rushed to the edge of the table,lay flat on his stomach and managed to pull the drawer out a little way.Sophie sat up and looked around her,most surprised.
“Why,they are having a ball!”she said,“Why hasn't somebody told me about it?”
“Won't you dance with me?”the chimney-sweep asked her.
“A fine partner you'd be!”she said,and turned her back on him.
She sat on the edge of the drawer,hoping one of the flowers would ask her to dance,but not one of them did,She coughed,“Hm,hm,hm!”and still not one of them asked her.To make matters worse,the chimney-sweep had gone off dancing by himself,which he did pretty well.
As none of the flowers paid the least attention to Sophie,she let herself tumble from the drawer to the floor with a bang.Now the flowers all came running to ask,“Did you hurt yourself?”They were very polite to her,especially those who had slept in her bed.But she wasn't hurt a bit.Ida's flowers thanked her for the use of her nice bed,and treated her well.They took her out in the middle of the floor,where the moon shone,and danced with her while all the other flowers made a circle around them.Sophie wasn't at all cross now.She said they might keep her bed.She didn't in the least mind sleeping in the drawer.
But the flowers said,“Thank you,no.We can't live long enough to keep your bed.Tomorrow we shall be dead.Tell little Ida to bury us in the garden,next to her canary bird's grave.Then we shall come up again next summer,more beautiful than ever.”
“Oh,you mustn't die,”Sophie said,and kissed all the flowers.
Then the drawing room door opened,and many more splendid flowers tripped in.Ida couldn't imagine where they had come from,unless—why,they must have come straight from the King's castle.First came two magnificent roses,wearing little gold crowns.These were the king and the queen.Then.Then came charming gillyflowers and carnations,who greeted everybody.They brought the musicians along.Large poppies and peonies blew upon pea pods until they were red in the face.Blue hyacinths and little snowdrops tinkled their bells.It was such funny music.Many other flowers followed them,and they all danced together,blue violets with pink primroses,and daisies with the lilies of the valley.
All the flowers kissed one another,and that was very pretty to look at.When the time came to say good night,little Ida sneaked back to bed too,where she dreamed of all she had seen.
As soon as it was morning,she hurried to her little table to see if her flowers were still there.She threw back the curtain around the bed.Yes,they were there,but they were even more faded than yesterday.Sophie was lying in the drawer where Ida had put her.She looked quite sleepy.
“Do you remember what you were to tell me?”little Ida asked.
But Sophie just looked stupid,and didn't say one word.
“You are no good at all,”Ida told her.“And to think how nice they were to you,and how all of them danced with you.”
She opened a little pasteboard box,nicely decorated with pictures of birds,and laid the dead flowers in it.
“This will be your pretty coffin,”she told them.“When my cousins from Norway come to visit us,they will help me bury you in the garden,so that you may come up again next summer and be more beautiful than ever.”
Her Norwegian cousins were two pleasant boys named Jonas and Adolph.Their father had given them two new crossbows,which they brought with them for Ida to see.She told them how her poor flowers had died,and they got permission to hold a funeral.The boys marched first,with their crossbows on their shoulders.Little Ida followed,with her dead flowers in their nice box.In the garden they dug a little grave.Ida first kissed the flowers,and then she closed the box and laid it in the earth.Adolph and Jonas shot their crossbows over the grave,for they had no guns or cannons.
