On the table beside her parents’ bed, the night light burned.

“I wonder if my flowers are still lying in Sophie’s bed,” she whispered. “Oh, God, how I would love to know!”

She sat up in bed and looked toward the door. It was ajar; in the next room were her flowers and all her playthings. She listened; someone was playing the piano softly and more beautifully than she had ever heard it played before.

“Now all the flowers are dancing. Oh, God, how I would love to see it,” she whispered. But she didn’t dare get up, for she was afraid she would wake her father and mother.

“If only the flowers would come in here,” she thought. But the flowers didn’t come, and the music kept on playing.

Finally she climbed out of bed, tiptoed over to the door, and looked into the living room.

There was no night light burning in there, but she could see anyway, for the moon shone in through the windows onto the floor. It was so bright that it was almost as light as day. All the tulips and the hyacinths stood in two long rows on the floor; on the window sill stood only their empty flowerpots. The flowers danced so gracefully, holding onto each other’s leaves. They formed chains and swung each other around, just as children do when they dance.

A big yellow lily sat at the piano and played. Little Ida remembered that she had seen it in the garden that summer. The student had said, “Why, it looks like Miss Line!” Everybody had laughed at him then; but now little Ida thought that the slender yellow flower really did look like Miss Line; and behaved just as she did when she played. There the flower was, turning its yellow face from side to side and nodding in time to the music.

None of the flowers noticed little Ida. Suddenly a big blue crocus jumped up on the table where her playthings were, went right over to the doll’s bed, and drew the curtains. There lay the sick flowers. But they didn’t seem sick any more. They leaped out of bed. They wanted to dance too. The little porcelain man, whose chin was chipped, bowed to the flowers. They jumped down onto the floor; and what a good time they had!

Now in Denmark at Shrovetide little children are given a bunch of birch and beech branches tied together with ribbons, and fastened to their twigs are paper flowers, little toys, and candies. It is an old custom for the children to whip their parents out of bed with these switches on Shrove Monday. The switches are pretty and most of the children keep them. Little Ida’s had been lying on the table among her other toys. Bump! Down they jumped with their ribbons flying; they thought they were flowers. A handsome little wax doll, with a broad-brimmed hat just like the one the chancellor wore, was tied to the top of the longest branch.

The switches danced the mazurka, for they were stronger than the flowers and could stamp their feet. All at once the wax doll began to grow. It became taller and bigger and started screaming at the paper flowers: “What a lot of nonsense to tell a child! What a lot of nonsense!”

Now the wax doll looked exactly like the chancellor; for he, too, wore a broad-brimmed hat and had a yellow complexion and a sour expression. The ribbons started to hit the wax doll across the legs, and he had to pull himself together till he was only a little wax doll again.

It was all so funny that little Ida could not help laughing. The switches kept on dancing, and the chancellor had to dance too—when he was as big and tall as a man and when he was only a little wax doll.