In the corner of the garden they dug a little grave. Ida kissed the flowers before she buried them. Jonas and Adolph shot an arrow above the grave, for they didn’t have a gun or a cannon.

5

Inchelina

Once upon a time there was a woman whose only desire was to have a tiny little child. Now she had no idea where she could get one; so she went to an old witch and asked her: “Please, could you tell me where I could get a tiny little child? I would so love to have one.”

“That is not so difficult,” said the witch. “Here is a grain of barley; it is not the kind that grows in the farmer’s fields or that you can feed to the chickens. Plant it in a flowerpot and watch what happens.”

“Thank you,” said the woman. She handed the witch twelve pennies, and she went home to plant the grain of barley. No sooner was it in the earth than it started to sprout. A beautiful big flower grew up; it looked like a tulip that was just about to bloom.

“What a lovely flower,” said the woman, and kissed the red and yellow petals that were closed so tightly. With a snap they opened and one could see that it was a real tulip. In the center of the flower on the green stigma sat a tiny little girl. She was so beautiful and so delicate, and exactly one inch long. “I will call her Inchelina,” thought the woman.

The lacquered shell of a walnut became Inchelina’s cradle, the blue petals of violets her mattress, and a rose petal her cover. Here she slept at night; in the daytime she played on the table by the window. The woman had put a bowl of water there with a garland of flowers around it. In this tiny “lake” there floated a tulip petal, on which Inchelina could row from one side of the plate to the other, using two white horsehairs as oars; it was an exquisite sight. And Inchelina could sing, as no one has ever sung before—so clearly and delicately.

One night as she lay sleeping in her beautiful little bed a toad came into the room through a broken windowpane. The toad was big and wet and ugly; she jumped down upon the table where Inchelina was sleeping under her red rose petal.

“She would make a lovely wife for my son,” said the toad; and grabbing the walnut shell in which Inchelina slept, she leaped through the broken window and down into the garden.

On the banks of a broad stream, just where it was muddiest, lived the toad with her son. He had taken after his mother and was very ugly. “Croak … Croak … Croak!” was all he said when he saw the beautiful little girl in the walnut shell.

“Don’t talk so loud or you will wake her,” scolded the mother. “She could run away and we wouldn’t be able to catch her, for she is as light as the down of a swan. I will put her on a water-lily leaf, it will be just like an island to her. In the meantime, we shall get your apartment, down in the mud, ready for your marriage.”

Out in the stream grew many water lilies, and all of their leaves looked as if they were floating in the water. The biggest of them was the farthest from shore; on that one the old toad put Inchelina’s little bed.

When the poor little girl woke in the morning and saw where she was—on a green leaf with water all around her—she began to cry bitterly. There was no way of getting to shore at all.

The old toad was very busy down in her mud house, decorating the walls with reeds and yellow flowers that grew near the shore. She meant to do her best for her new daughter-in-law. After she had finished, she and her ugly son swam out to the water-lily leaf to fetch Inchelina’s bed. It was to be put in the bridal chamber. The old toad curtsied and that is not easy to do while you are swimming; then she said, “Here is my son. He is to be your husband; you two will live happily down in the mud.”

“Croak! … Croak!” was all the son said.