Little Lasse
There was once a little boy whose name was Lars, and because
he was so little he was called Little Lasse; he was a brave little man, for he
sailed round the world in a pea-shell boat.
It was summer time, when the pea shells grew long and green
in the garden. Little Lasse crept into the pea bed where the pea stalks rose
high above his cap, and he picked seventeen large shells, the longest and
straightest he could find.
Little Lasse thought, perhaps, that no one saw him; but that
was foolish, for God sees everywhere.
Then the gardener came with his gun over his shoulder, and he
heard something rustling in the pea bed.
'I think that must be a sparrow,' he said. 'Ras! Ras!' but no
sparrows flew out, for Little Lasse had no wings, only two small legs. 'Wait! I
will load my gun and shoot the sparrows,' said the gardener.
Then Little Lasse was frightened, and crept out on to the
path.
'Forgive me, dear gardener!' he said. 'I wanted to get some
fine boats.'
'Well, I will this time,' said the gardener. 'But another
time Little Lasse must ask leave to go and look for boats in the pea bed.'
'I will,' answered Lasse; and he went off to the shore. Then
he opened the shells with a pin, split them carefully in two, and broke small
little bits of sticks for the rowers' seats. Then he took the peas which were
in the shells and put them in the boats for cargo. Some of the shells got broken,
some remained whole, and when all were ready Lasse had twelve boats. But they
should not be boats, they should be large warships. He had three liners, three
frigates, three brigs and three schooners. The largest liner was called
Hercules, and the smallest schooner The Flea. Little Lasse put all the twelve
into the water, and they floated as splendidly and as proudly as any great
ships over the waves of the ocean.
And now the ships must sail round the world. The great island
over there was Asia; that large stone Africa; the little island America; the
small stones were Polynesia; and the shore from which the ships sailed out was
Europe. The whole fleet set off and sailed far away to other parts of the
world. The ships of the line steered a straight course to Asia, the frigates
sailed to Africa, the brigs to America, and the schooners to Polynesia. But
Little Lasse remained in Europe, and threw small stones out into the great sea.
Now, there was on the shore of Europe a real boat, father's
own, a beautiful white-painted boat, and Little Lasse got into it. Father and
mother had forbidden this, but Little Lasse forgot. He thought he should very
much like to travel to some other part of the world.
'I shall row out a little way--only a very little way,' he
thought. The pea-shell boats had travelled so far that they only looked like
little specks on the ocean. 'I shall seize Hercules on the coast of Asia,' said
Lasse, 'and then row home again to Europe.'
He shook the rope that held the boat, and, strange to say,
the rope became loose. Ditsch, ratsch, a man is a man, and so Little Lasse
manned the boat.
Now he would row--and he could row, for he had rowed so often
on the step sat home, when the steps pretended to be a boat and father's big
stick an oar. But when Little Lasse wanted to row there were no oars to be
found in the boat. The oars were locked up in the boat-house, and Little Lasse
had not noticed that the boat was empty. It is not so easy as one thinks to row
to Asia without oars.
What could Little Lasse do now? The boat was already some
distance out on the sea, and the wind, which blew from land, was driving it
still further out. Lasse was frightened and began to cry. But there was no one
on the shore to hear him. Only a big crow perched alone in the birch tree; and
the gardener's black cat sat under the birch tree, waiting to catch the crow.
Neither of them troubled themselves in the least about Little Lasse, who was
drifting out to sea.
Ah! how sorry Little Lasse was now that he had been
disobedient and got into the boat, when father and mother had so often
forbidden him to do so! Now it was too late, he could not get back to land.
Perhaps he would be lost out on the great sea. What should he do?
When he had shouted until he was tired and no one heard him,
he put his two little hands together and said, 'Good God, do not be angry with
Little Lasse.' And then he went to sleep. For although it was daylight, old
Nukku Matti was sitting on the shores of the 'Land of Nod,' and was fishing for
little children with his long fishing rod. He heard the low words which Little
Lasse said to God, and he immediately drew the boat to himself and laid Little
Lasse to sleep on a bed of rose leaves.
Then Nukku Matti said to one of the Dreams, 'Play with Little
Lasse, so that he does not feel lonesome.'
It was a little dream-boy, so little, so little, that he was
less than Lasse himself; he had blue eyes and fair hair, a red cap with a
silver band, and white coat with pearls on the collar. He came to Little Lasse
and said, 'Would you like to sail round the world?'
'Yes,' said Lasse in his sleep, 'I should like to.'
'Come, then,' said the dream-boy, 'and let us sail in your
pea-shell boats. You shall sail in Hercules and I shall sail in The Flea.'
So they sailed away from the 'Land of Nod,' and in a little
while Hercules and The Flea were on the shores of Asia away at the other end of
the world, where the Ice Sea flows through Behring Straits into the Pacific
Ocean. A long way off in the winter mist they could see the explorer
Nordenskiold with his ship Vega trying to find an opening between the ice. It
was so cold, so cold; the great icebergs glittered strangely, and the huge
whales now lived under the ice, for they could not make a hole through with
their awkward heads. All around on the dreary shore there was snow and snow as
far as the eye could see; little grey men in shaggy skins moved about, and
drove in small sledges through the snow drifts, but the sledges were drawn by
dogs.
'Shall we land here?' asked the dream-boy.
'No,' said Little Lasse. 'I am so afraid that the whales
would swallow us up, and the big dogs bite us. Let us sail instead to another
part of the world.'
'Very well,' said the dream-boy with the red cap and the
silver band; 'it is not far to America'--and at the same moment they were
there.
The sun was shining and it was very warm. Tall palm trees
grew in long rows on the shore and bore coconuts in their top branches. Men red
as copper galloped over the immense green prairies and shot their arrows at the
buffaloes, who turned against them with their sharp horns. An enormous cobra
which had crept up the stem of a tall palm tree threw itself on to a little
llama that was grazing at the foot. Knaps! it was all over the little llama.
'Shall we land here?' asked the dream-boy.
'No,' said Little Lasse. 'I am so afraid that the buffaloes
will butt us, and the great serpent eat us up. Let us travel to another part of
the world.'
'Very well,' said the dream-boy with the white coat, 'it is
only a little way to Polynesia'--and then they were there.
It was very warm there, as warm as in a hot bath in Finland.
Costly spices grew on the shores: the pepper plant, the cinnamon tree, ginger,
saffron; the coffee plant and the tea plant. Brown people with long ears and
thick lips, and hideously painted faces, hunted a yellow-spotted tiger among
the high bamboos on the shore, and the tiger turned on them and stuck its claws
into one of the brown men. Then all the others took to flight.
'Shall we land here?' asked the dream-boy.
'No,' said Little Lasse. 'Don't you see the tiger away there
by the pepper plant? Let us travel to another part of the world.'
'We can do so,' said the dream-boy with the blue eyes. 'We
are not far from Africa'--and as he said that they were there.
They anchored at the mouth of a great river where the shores
were as green as the greenest velvet. A little distance from the river an
immense desert stretched away. The air was yellow; the sun shone so hot, so hot
as if it would burn the earth to ashes, and the people were as black as the
blackest jet. They rode across the desert on tall camels; the lions roared with
thirst, and the great crocodiles with their grey lizard heads and sharp white
teeth gaped up out of the river.
'Shall we land here?' asked the dream-boy.
'No,' said Little Lasse. 'The sun would burn us, and the
lions and the crocodiles would eat us up. Let us travel to another part of the
world.'
'We can travel back to Europe,' said the dream-boy with the fair
hair. And with that they were there.
They came to a shore where it was all so cool and familiar
and friendly. There stood the tall birch tree with its drooping leaves; at the
top sat the old crow, and at its foot crept the gardener's black cat. Not far
away was a house which Little Lasse had seen before; near the house there was a
garden, and in the garden a pea bed with long pea shells. An old gardener with
a green coat walked about and wondered if the cucumbers were ripe. Fylax was
barking on the steps, and when he saw Little Lasse he wagged his tail. Old
Stina was milking the cows in the farmyard, and there was a very familiar lady
in a check woollen shawl on her way to the bleaching green to see if the
clothes were bleached. There was, too, a well-known gentleman in a yellow
summer coat, with a long pipe in his mouth; he was going to see if the reapers
had cut the rye. A boy and a girl were running on the shore and calling out,
'Little Lasse! Come home for bread-and-butter!'
'Shall we land here?' asked the dream-boy, and he blinked his
blue eyes roguishly.
'Come with me, and I shall ask mother to give you some
bread-and-butter and a glass of milk,' said Little Lasse.
'Wait a little,' said the dream-boy. And now Little Lasse saw
that the kitchen door was open, and from within there was heard a low, pleasant
frizzling, like that which is heard when one whisks yellow batter with a wooden
ladle into a hot frying-pan.
'Perhaps we should sail back to Polynesia now?' said the
happy dream-boy.
'No; they are frying pancakes in Europe just now,' said
Little Lasse; and he wanted to jump ashore, but he could not. The dream-boy had
tied him with a chain of flowers, so that he could not move. And now all the
little dreams came about him, thousands and thousands of little children, and
they made a ring around him and sang a little song:
The world is very, very wide,
Little Lasse, Lasse,
And though you've
sailed beyond the tide,
You can never tell how
wide
It is on the other
side,
Lasse, Little Lasse.
You have found it cold
and hot,
Little Lasse, Lasse;
But in no land is God
not,
Lasse, Little Lasse.
Many men live there as
here,
But they all to God
are dear,
Little Lasse, Lasse.
When His angel is your
guide,
Little Lasse, Lasse,
Then no harm can e'er
betide,
Even on the other side
Where the wild
beasts wander.
But tell us now,
Whene'er you roam,
Do you not find the
best is home
Of all the lands
you've looked upon,
Lasse, Little Lasse?
When the dreams had sung their song they skipped away, and
Nukku Matti carried Lasse back to the boat. He lay there for a long time quite
still, and he still heard the frying-pan frizzling at home of the fire, the
frizzling was very plain, Little Lasse heard it quite near him; and so he woke
up and rubbed his eyes.
There he lay in the boat, where he had fallen asleep. The
wind had turned, and the boat had drifted out with one wind and drifted in with
another while Little Lasse slept, and what Lasse thought was frizzling in a
frying-pan was the low murmur of the waves as they washed against the stones on
the shore. But he was not altogether wrong, for the clear blue sea is like a
great pan in which God's sun all day makes cakes for good children.
Little Lasse rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and looked
around him. Everything was the same as before; the crow in the birch tree, the
cat on the grass, and the pea-shell fleet on the shore. Some of the ships had
foundered, and some had drifted back to land. Hercules had come back with its
cargo from Asia, The Flea had arrived from Polynesia, and the other parts of
the world were just where they were before.
Little Lasse did not know what to think. He had so often been
in that grotto in the 'Land of Nod' and did not know what tricks dreams can
play. But Little Lasse did not trouble his head with such things; he gathered
together his boats and walked up the shore back to the house.
His brother and sister ran to meet him, and called out from
the distance, 'Where have you been so long, Lasse? Come home and get some bread-and-butter.'
The kitchen door stood open, and inside was heard a strange frizzling.
The gardener was near the gate, watering the dill and
parsley, the carrots and parsnips.
'Well,' he said, 'where has Little Lasse been so long?'
Little Lasse straightened himself up stiff, and answered: 'I
have sailed round the world in a pea-shell boat.'
'Oh!' said the gardener.
He has forgotten Dreamland. But you have not forgotten it;
you know that it exists. You know the beautiful grotto and the bright silver
walls whose lustre never fades, the sparkling diamonds which never grow dim,
the music which never ceases its low, soft murmur through the sweet evening
twilight. The airy fairy fancies of happy Dreamland never grow old; they, like
the glorious stars above us, are always young. Perhaps you have caught a
glimpse of their ethereal wings as they flew around your pillow. Perhaps you
have met the same dream-boy with the blue eyes and the fair hair, the one who
wore the red cap with the silver band and the white coat with pearls on the
collar. Perhaps he has taken you to see all the countries of the world and the
peoples, the cold waste lands and the burning deserts, the many coloured men
and the wild creatures in the sea and in the woods, so that you may earn many
things, but come gladly home again. Yes, who knows? Perhaps you also have
sailed round the wide world once in a pea-shell boat. From Z. Topelius.
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