The schoolteacher took the book and opened it.
“Let’s hear the same story again,” said Garden-Ole. “I don’t quite have a grasp of it yet. And then he will have to read the other one about the woodcutter.”
Those two stories were enough for Ole. They were like two sunbeams that shone into the simple cottage and into the downtrodden thoughts that had made them grumpy and cross.
Hans had read the whole book, read it many times. The fairy tales carried him out into the world, there where he couldn’t go since his legs couldn’t carry him.
The schoolteacher sat by his bed. They talked together, and it was pleasant for both of them.
From that day on the schoolteacher came more often to see Hans when his parents were working. It was like a celebration for the boy every time he came. How he listened to what the old man told him! About the earth’s size and about many other countries, and that the sun was almost a half million times the size of the earth and so far away that a cannonball would take twenty five years to travel from the sun to earth, while light rays could reach the earth in eight minutes.
Every capable schoolboy knows all this now, but for Hans it was new and even more marvelous than everything written in the book of fairy tales.
A couple of times a year the schoolteacher was invited to dinner at the manor house, and on one such occasion he told them how important the fairy tale book had been in the poor cottage, where just two stories had resulted in revival and blessings. The weak, clever little boy had brought reflection and joy to the house through his reading.
When the schoolteacher went home from the manor, the mistress pressed a couple of shiny silver dollars in his hand for little Hans.
“Father and mother must have those!” said the boy when the schoolteacher brought him the money.
And Garden-Ole and Garden-Kirsten said, “Cripple Hans is, after all, a benefit and a blessing.”
A few days later when the parents were at work on the estate, its family coach stopped outside. It was the tender-hearted mistress who came, happy that her Christmas present had been such comfort and brought such pleasure to the boy and his parents.
She brought along some fine bread, fruit, and a bottle of sweet syrup, but what was even better, she brought him a little black bird in a gilded cage. It could whistle so beautifully. The cage with the bird was placed on the old chest of drawers, not far from the boy’s bed. He could see the bird and hear it, and even people way out on the road could hear the bird singing.
Garden-Ole and Garden-Kirsten didn’t come home until the mistress had left. They saw how happy Hans was, but thought that such a gift could only bring inconvenience.
“Rich people don’t consider things!” they said. “Now we’ll have that to take care of too. Cripple Hans can’t do it, and the cat will end up taking it.”
A week went by, and then another. During that time the cat had been in the room many times without scaring the bird, let alone harming it. Then something great occurred. It was in the afternoon. His parents and the other children were working, and Hans was quite alone. He had the fairy tale book in his hands and was reading about the fisherman’s wife, who had all her wishes fulfilled.4 She wanted to be King, and she became it. She wanted to be emperor, and she became it. But then she wanted to be God and so ended up in the muddy ditch, where she had come from. This story has nothing to do with the bird and the cat, but it happened to be the story he was reading when the event happened. He always remembered that.
The cage was standing on the bureau. The cat was standing on the floor staring hard with its yellow-green eyes at the bird. There was something in the cat’s face—as if it wanted to tell the bird, “How beautiful you are! I would really like to eat you!”
Hans understood this. He could read it in the cat’s face.
“Scram, cat!” he shouted. “Get out of here!”
It was as if the cat was readying itself to spring.
Hans couldn’t reach it. He had nothing to throw at it except his dearest treasure, the fairy tale book. He threw it, but the cover was loose and flew to one side, and the book itself with all the pages flew to the other side. The cat slowly retreated a little bit and looked at Hans, as if it wanted to say: “Don’t involve yourself in this matter, little Hans. I can walk, and I can spring, and you can do neither.”
Hans kept his eye on the cat and was very uneasy. The bird became uneasy too. There was no person to call upon, and it was as if the cat knew this. It once again readied itself to spring. Hans could use his hands, and he waved his bedspread, but the cat didn’t care about the bedspread and when this too was thrown at it, to no avail, it leaped up on the chair and then into the windowsill, where it was closer to the bird.
Hans sensed the warm blood flowing in his veins, but he didn’t think about that. He only thought about the cat and the bird. He couldn’t get out of bed, couldn’t stand on his legs, much less walk. It was as if his heart turned over in his chest when he saw the cat jump from the window right onto the bureau and push the cage so it tipped over. The bird was fluttering around confusedly in there.
Hans gave a cry. His body jerked, and without thinking, he sprang from the bed, towards the chest of drawers. He threw the cat down and grasped the cage firmly. The bird was scared to death. With the cage in his hand he ran out the door and onto the road.
The tears were streaming down his face. He shouted for joy and screamed loudly, “I can walk! I can walk!”
He had regained the use of his limbs. Such things can happen, and it happened to him.
The schoolteacher lived close by, and the boy came running in to him in his bare feet, wearing only his shirt and bed jacket and carrying the bird in the cage.
“I can walk!” he shouted. “Lord, my God!” and he sobbed tearfully from pure joy.
And there was joy in the home of Garden-Ole and Garden-Kirsten. “We’ll never see a happier day!” they both said.
Hans was summoned to the manor house. He hadn’t walked that way for many years. It was as if the trees and hazelnut bushes that he knew so well nodded to him and said, “Hello, Hans. Welcome back out here.” The sun shone into his face and right into his heart.
At the manor the young, kind master and mistress had him sit by them, and looked as happy as if he were one of their own family.
Happiest of all was the mistress, who had given him the book of fairy tales, and the little songbird. It was, true enough, dead now. It had died of fright, but in a way it had been the means to his recovery, and the book had been an awakening for him and his parents. He still had it, and he would keep it and read it, no matter how old he became. And now he could also be useful to them at home. He would learn a trade, preferably become a bookbinder, “because,” he said, “then I can read all the new books.”
In the afternoon the mistress summoned Hans’ parents. She and her husband had talked about Hans. He was a good and clever boy, had a love of reading and good aptitude. Our Lord always approves a worthy cause.
That evening the parents came home happy from the manor, especially Kirsten, but the next week she cried because little Hans was going away. He had new clothes and was a good boy, but now he was going over the sea, far away, to go to school, a classical education. It would be many years before they would see him again.
He didn’t take the book of fairy tales along with him. His parents wanted it as a keepsake. And father often read it, but only the two stories that he knew.
And they received letters from Hans, one happier than the next. He lived with nice people in good circumstances, but the very best thing was going to school. There was so much to learn and know. He wanted only to live to be a hundred and become a schoolteacher sometime.
“If we could live to see that!” said his parents, and they held each other’s hands, as if they were at communion.