_THE BOX OF DREAMS_
Long ago there lived in a far country a little girl called Gretel, whosemother was dying. Before she died she said to Gretel--
"I am very poor, and I have no money to leave for you after I am gone. Ihave nothing to give you but this box. It was given to me when I was achild by some one who was wise and good. You must be very careful of it,for it is full of Dreams, and they are hard to keep safely. You mustnever open the box except when you are alone, or the Dreams will flyaway. But keep them safely till your hair is grey, and something willhappen to surprise you."
Gretel took the box and hid it safely, and said nothing about it to anyone. Her mother died a few days afterwards, and then Gretel was sentaway to be a little servant, and to work very hard. She had to get upearly, and light the fire, and feed the pigs, and she had to wash thedishes and scrub the floor, and do a great many other things, so thatthere was very little time for anything but work. All the time her boxof Dreams was hidden away upstairs in her little trunk, underneath herSunday frock. Often, when she was working in the kitchen, or in thefarmyard among the hens, she was thinking of her box of Dreams; andsometimes when she was quite alone she would open it and look inside.The first time she opened the box she felt a little bit frightened, forshe had never seen any Dreams before, and she was not sure what theywere like; but when she saw them, soft and pink and downy, like lovelysleeping birds, she was not frightened any more.
"Oh, but they are pretty things!" she said to herself. "How I hope Ishall be able to keep them safely till my hair is grey! They look as ifa breath would blow them away, out of the window and over the hill!"
For a long time she was very careful not to let any one see her prettyrosy Dreams. Indeed, she never spoke of them; and the old farmer's wife,whose servant she was, little guessed that anything so strange as a boxof Dreams was hidden upstairs in the garret, underneath Gretel's Sundayfrock.
The farmer and his wife had a son about the same age as Gretel. His namewas Eitel. He was a big, clumsy sort of boy, and not very clever; butGretel had very few friends, so when Eitel was kind to her and talked toher over the fire in the evenings she was very glad. Sometimes hecarried the big bucket for her when she went out to feed the pigs, andsometimes in the summer they made hay together in the field on thehillside. In this way they became great friends. Gretel told Eiteleverything that had happened to her since she was a little child; andone day she told him about her box of Dreams.
"Let me see them, Gretel dear," said Eitel.
"Oh, but I mustn't!" said Gretel. "No one must see them till my hair isgrey. If any one sees them they will fly away, out of the window andover the hill."
"What are they like?" asked Eitel. "And what are they for?"
"They are lovely," said Gretel, "but I don't know yet what they arefor."
"Come, let me see them," said Eitel coaxingly. "I believe I see a greyhair on your head, Gretel."
It was really a bit of white thread, but Gretel thought her hair must begrowing grey, so she ran upstairs and fetched the box of Dreams down tothe kitchen. She opened the box very carefully, and Eitel peeped in.
_Pouf! Pouf!_ Half-a-dozen soft rosy Dreams fluttered out from under thelid, and hovered in the air for a moment like wisps of pink mist. Gretelshut the box with a snap, and tried to catch the floating Dreams withher fingers. But it was too late. They floated higher and higher,farther and farther, out of the window and over the hill.
"Oh, Eitel," cried Gretel, sobbing, "I have lost my Dreams--so many ofthem--so many of them!"
"Well," said Eitel, "I don't see that there's much to cry about. Theywere only pink fluff after all! I wouldn't cry about pink fluff if Iwere you!"
So Eitel went out of the house whistling, and thinking that girls weresometimes very silly; while Gretel carried her box upstairs, crying, andthinking that boys were often very unkind. As soon as she was in herroom she opened her box again, and found to her great joy that it wasstill half full of beautiful Dreams.
She soon made friends with Eitel again, but she never spoke to him anymore about her box of Dreams.
As the years went by Gretel became first a big girl and then a grown-upwoman, and still she had to work for her living. She lived in a goodmany different places, sometimes with nice people and sometimes withpeople who were not kind to her; but wherever she lived she had to scruband sweep, and get up early and go to bed late. She still kept her boxof Dreams safely in her little trunk, hidden under her Sunday frock.Since the time that she had lost so many of her Dreams she had neveropened the box except when she was alone. She was afraid of losing somemore; and, besides, she did not like it when Eitel laughed at her andcalled her pretty Dreams "nothing but pink fluff." So she made up hermind to wait till her hair was really grey.
It seemed to her sometimes that this would never happen! Her hair wasbrowner than other people's, she thought, and was not going to turn greyat all. But though the time seemed so long to her, she was as a matterof fact still a young woman when she discovered that there were two greyhairs growing among the brown ones. She was combing her hair at thetime, and the moment she saw the grey hairs she dropped the comb, andclapping her hands for joy ran quickly to get her box of Dreams out ofher little trunk. She was so much excited that her trembling fingerscould hardly undo the fastenings of the box.
When the box was at last open she was still more excited. Her mother hadpromised that she should be surprised, but she had not expected such astrange and delightful and altogether wonderful surprise as this! Youcould never guess what had happened! Her pretty rosy Dreams had allturned into jewels more splendid than any you ever saw or heard about!Every kind of precious stone was there--emeralds and pearls and fieryopals, glowing rubies and sea-blue sapphires, besides a great manystrange stones whose names you have never heard.
Gretel gasped.
She sat on the floor beside the box, and stared and stared. She couldhardly believe that the glittering things were real, and she could notbelieve at all that they belonged to her. At first she expected everyminute that they would disappear, and she was afraid to touch them; butpresently she took courage and lifted them out of the box one by one.Then she took them to the light, and they looked still more beautifulthan before.
As Gretel sat on the floor near the window, with the many-colouredjewels glimmering and shimmering in her lap, she came gradually tounderstand that when her mother gave her the box of Dreams she gave hergreat riches.
Gretel lived to be very old, but she never lost her jewels. She was ablenow to show them to all the world without any danger of their flyingaway, and as time went on the people flocked to see her and her jewels.Eitel admired them as much as any one, but he could never be persuadedthat the fluffy pink things he had once seen had really turned intothese shining and wonderful stones.