"Yes, that you, who are a sensible man, may well say," said the fieldmouse; "what has the bird, with all its piping and singing, when winter comes? It may be
famished or frozen!"
Tommelise said nothing; but when the two others had turned their backs, she bent over it, stroked aside the feathers which lay over its head, and kissed its closed eyes.
"Perhaps it was that same swallow which sang so sweetly to me in summer," thought she; "what a deal of pleasure it caused me, the dear, beautiful bird!"
The mole stopped up the opening which it had made for the daylight to come in, and accompanied the ladies home. Tommelise, however, could not sleep in the night; so she got up out of bed, and wove a small, beautiful mat of hay; and that she carried down and spread over the dead bird; laid soft cotton-wool, which she had found in the fieldmouse's parlor, around the bird, that it might lie warm in the cold earth.
"Farewell, thou pretty little bird," said she; "farewell, and thanks for thy beautiful song, in summer, when all the trees were green, and the sun shone so warmly upon us!"
With this she laid her head upon the bird's breast, and the same moment was quite amazed, for it seemed to her as if there were a slight movement within it. It was the bird's heart. The bird was not dead; it lay in a swoon, and now being warmed, it was reanimated.
In the autumn all the swallows fly away to the warm countries; but if there be one which tarries behind, it becomes stiff with cold, so that it falls down as if dead, and the winter's snow covers it.
Tommelise was quite terrified, for in comparison with her the bird was a very large creature; but she took courage, however, laid the cotton-wool closer around the poor swallow, and fetched a coverlet of chrysanthemum leaves, which she had for her bed, and laid it over its head.
Next night she listened again, and it was quite living, but so weak that it could only open its eyes a very little, and see Tommelise, who stood with a piece of touchwood in her hand, for other light she had none.
"Thanks thou shalt have, thou pretty little child!" said the sick swallow to her; "I have been beautifully revived! I shall soon recover my strength, and be able to fly again out into the warm sunshine!"
"O," said she, "it is so cold out-of-doors! it snows and freezes! stop in thy warm bed, and I will nurse thee!"
She brought the swallow water, in a flower-leaf, and it drank it, and related to her how it had torn one of its wings upon a thorn-bush, and, therefore, had not been able to fly so well as the other swallows, who had flown far, far away, into the warm countries. It had, at last, fallen down upon the ground; but more than that it knew not, nor how it had come there.
During the whole winter it continued down here, and Tommelise was very kind to it, and became very fond of it; but neither the mole nor the fieldmouse knew any thing about it, for they could not endure swallows.
As soon as ever spring came, and the sun shone warm into the earth, the swallow bade farewell to Tommelise, who opened the hole which the mole had covered up. The sun shone so delightfully down into it, and the swallow asked whether she would not go with him; she might sit upon his back, and he would fly out with her far into the green-wood. But Tommelise knew that it would distress the old fieldmouse if she thus left her.
"No, I cannot," said Tommelise.
"Farewell, farewell, thou good, sweet little maiden!" said the swallow, and flew out into the sunshine. Tommelise looked after it, and the tears came into her eyes, for she was very fond of the swallow, and she felt quite forlorn now it was gone.
"Quivit! quivit!" sung the bird, and flew into the green-wood.
Tommelise was very sorrowful. She could not obtain leave to go out into the warm sunshine. The corn which had been sown in the field above the mouse's dwelling, had grown so high that it was now like a thick wood to her.
"Now, during this summer, thou shalt get thy wedding clothes ready," said the fieldmouse to her; for the old neighbor, the wealthy mole, had presented himself as a wooer.
"Thou shalt have both woollen and linen clothes; thou shalt have both table and body linen, if thou wilt be the mole's wife," said the old fieldmouse.
Tommelise was obliged to sit down and spin; and the fieldmouse hired six spiders to spin and weave both night and day. Every evening the mole came to pay a visit, and always said that when the summer was ended, and the sun did not shine so hotly as to bake the earth to a stone, yes, when the summer was over, then he and Tommelise would have a grand wedding; but this never gave her any pleasure, for she did not like the wealthy old gentleman. Every morning, when the sun rose, and every evening, when it set, she stole out to the door; and if the wind blew the ears of corn aside so that she could see the blue sky, she thought how bright and beautiful it was out there,
and she wished so much that she could, just once more, see the dear swallow. But he never came; he certainly had flown far, far away from the lovely green-wood.