Gerda did enjoy the red cherries, and, while she was still eating them, the old, old woman stole out to the garden and waved her hooked stick over the rose-bushes and they quickly sank beneath the brown earth. For Gerda had told her how fond Kay had once been of their little rose-bushes in the balcony, and the witch was afraid the sight of roses would remind the little girl of her lost playmate. But now that the roses had vanished, Gerda might come into the garden.
How the child danced for joy past the lilies and bluebells, how she suddenly fell on her knees to smell the pinks and mignonette, and then danced off again, in and out among the sunflowers and hollyhocks!
Gerda was perfectly happy now, and played among the flowers until the sun sank behind the cherry-trees. Then the old, old woman again took her by the hand, and led her to the little house. And she undressed her and put her into a little bed of white violets, and there the little girl dreamed sweet dreams.
The next day and the next again and for many more Gerda played among the flowers in the garden.
One morning, as the old woman sat near, Gerda looked at her hat with the wonderful painted flowers. Prettiest of all was a rose.
"A rose! Why, surely I have seen none in the garden," thought Gerda, and she danced off in search.
But she could find none, and in her disappointment hot tears fell. And they fell on the very spot where the roses had grown, and as soon as the warm drops moistened the earth, the rose-bushes sprang up.
"You are beautiful, beautiful," she said; but in a moment the tears fell again, for she thought of the rose-bushes in the balcony, and she remembered Kay.
"Oh Kay, dear, dear Kay, is he dead?" she asked the roses.
"No, he is not dead," they answered, "for we have been beneath the brown earth, and he is not there."
"Then where, oh, where is he?" and she went from flower to flower whispering, "Have you seen little Kay?"
But the flowers stood in the sunshine, dreaming their own dreams, and these they told the little maiden gladly, but of Kay they could not tell her, for they knew nothing.
Then the little girl ran down the garden path until she came to the garden gate. She pressed the rusty latch. The gate flew open, and Gerda ran out on her little bare feet into the green fields. And she ran, and she ran, until she could run no longer. Then she sat down on a big stone to rest.