IV.--THE STORY OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN.
On the 2nd of April, 1805, was born, amid very humble surroundings, a little Danish boy named Hans Christian Andersen, who, in later years, became the most popular tale-writer that perhaps the world has ever known. Andersen's Fairy Tales, though written in a past century, and for another generation, are just as popular to-day as they ever were, and it seems as if all children (and grown-up people who have kept their child-like hearts) could never tire of these delightful stories. We can all read, and re-read, the 'Ugly Duckling,' or the 'Eleven Wild Swans;' we can sympathise with the love of the faithful 'Tin Soldier;' and who can resist laughing at all the outrageous performances of 'Little Claus and Big Claus?' Truly, Andersen had the key to unlock all hearts!
[Illustration: Hans Christian Andersen. Born April 2, 1805. Died August 4, 1875.]
The father of Hans Andersen was only a poor shoe-maker, but he loved reading and poetry, and seems to have taught his little boy a similar love. The shoe-maker amused himself by making a toy theatre for his little Hans, and showed him how to work the puppets, and make them act little plays. This was a winter amusement. In the long summer days he would often take the child to the woods--and here, in the great birch forests, the two would spend the hours, hardly saying a word to each other, but each dreaming his own dreams as they sauntered along the shady paths.
But these happy childish days soon came to an end: the kind father died, and Hans had to go to a charity school, where he learnt little beyond reading and writing.
Money was now very scarce in his home, and both Hans and his mother were often hard put to it for a meal.
One day they went out into the fields to glean corn, and were chased off the ground by a cruel bailiff, who ran after them with a heavy whip. The bailiff, with his long legs, soon overtook the little eight-year-old Hans, and was about to bring his whip down on the child's shoulders, when Hans turned round, and looking full at the angry man, exclaimed: 'How dare you strike me when you know God can see you?'
The bailiff was so taken aback at this rebuke from the mouth of a child that he dropped his whip, and, fumbling in his pocket, produced some money, which he offered to Hans to make up for his unkindness.