The Happy Family

The biggest green leaf in this country is the burdock leaf. If you hold it in front of you, it is like a whole apron. If you hold it over your head in rainy weather, it is almost as good as an umbrella because it is so huge.

Burdock never grows alone; where one grows, there are always several. It is a great delight, and all this delightfulness is food for snails. The great white snails that rich people in olden times made into stew, ate, and said, "Hem, hem! how delicious!" because they thought it tasted so delicate—they lived on burdock leaves, and that is why burdock seeds were planted.

Now, there was an old manor house, where they no longer ate snails. The snails were quite gone, but the burdocks were not gone. They grew and grew all over the paths and all the flowerbeds. People could not get the upper hand over them—it was a whole forest of burdocks. Here and there stood an apple tree or a plum tree, or else no one would ever have thought it was a garden. Everything was burdocks, and there lived the two last very old snails.

They themselves did not know how old they were, but they remembered very well that there had once been many more. They were from a family from foreign lands, and for them and their family the whole forest had been planted.

They had never been outside it, but they knew that there was still something more in the world, which was called the manor house. There they would be boiled, and then they would become black and be placed on a silver dish. But what happened further they did not know.

In fact, what it meant to be boiled and to lie on a silver dish, they could not possibly imagine. But it was said to be delightful and especially fancy. Neither the beetles, the toads, nor the earthworms, whom they asked about it, could give them any information—none of them had ever been boiled or laid on a silver dish.

The old white snails were the first important people in the world, that they knew. The forest was planted for their sake, and the manor house was there so that they could be boiled and laid on a silver dish.

Now they lived a very lonely and happy life. Since they had no children themselves, they had adopted a little common snail, which they raised as their own. But the little one would not grow, because he was from a common family. However, the old ones, especially Dame Mother Snail, thought they could see how he was increasing in size, and she begged Father Snail that if he could not see it, he would at least feel the little snail's shell. And then he felt it and found that the good dame was right.

One day there was a heavy storm of rain.

"Hear how it beats like a drum on the burdock leaves!" said Father Snail.

"There are also raindrops!" said Mother Snail. "And now the rain pours right down the stalk! You will see that it will be wet here! I am very happy to think that we have our good house, and the little one has his also! There is more done for us than for all other creatures, sure enough. But can you not see that we are important people in the world? We are provided with a house from our birth, and the burdock forest is planted for our sakes! I should like to know how far it extends and what there is outside!"

"There is nothing at all," said Father Snail. "No place can be better than ours, and I have nothing to wish for!"

"Yes," said the dame. "I would willingly go to the manor house, be boiled, and laid on a silver dish. All our forefathers have been treated so. There is something special in it, you may be sure!"

"The manor house has most likely fallen to ruin!" said Father Snail. "Or the burdocks have grown up over it so that they cannot come out. There need not, however, be any hurry about that. But you are always in such a terrible hurry, and the little one is beginning to be the same. Has he not been creeping up that stalk for three days? It gives me a headache when I look up at him!"

"You must not scold him," said Mother Snail. "He creeps so carefully. He will bring us much pleasure—and we have nothing but him to live for! But have you not thought about it? Where shall we get a wife for him? Do you not think that there are some of our kind far away inside the burdock forest?"

"Black snails, I dare say, there are enough of," said the old one. "Black snails without a house—but they are so common and so conceited. But we might give the ants a commission to look for us. They run to and fro as if they had something to do, and they certainly know of a wife for our little snail!"

"I know one, sure enough—the most charming one!" said one of the ants. "But I am afraid we will hardly succeed, for she is a queen!"

"That is nothing!" said the old folks. "Does she have a house?"

"She has a palace!" said the ant. "The finest ant palace, with seven hundred passages!"

"I thank you!" said Mother Snail. "Our son shall not go into an anthill. If you know nothing better than that, we will give the commission to the white gnats. They fly far and wide, in rain and sunshine. They know the whole forest here, both inside and outside."

"We have a wife for him," said the gnats. "At a hundred human paces from here there sits a little snail in her house, on a gooseberry bush. She is quite lonely and old enough to be married. It is only a hundred human paces!"

"Well, then, let her come to him!" said the old ones. "He has a whole forest of burdocks; she has only a bush!"

And so they went and fetched little Miss Snail. It was a whole week before she arrived. But that was just the very best part, because one could thus see that she was of the same kind.

And then the wedding was celebrated. Six earthworms shone as well as they could. Otherwise, the whole went off very quietly, for the old folks could not stand noise and merriment. But old Dame Snail made a brilliant speech. Father Snail could not speak; he was too moved.

And so they gave them as a dowry and inheritance the whole forest of burdocks and said—what they had always said—that it was the best in the world. And if they lived honestly and decently and increased and multiplied, they and their children would one day come to the manor house, be boiled black, and be laid on silver dishes.

After this speech was made, the old ones crept into their shells and never came out again. They slept. The young couple ruled in the forest and had many children, but they were never boiled and never came on silver dishes.

So from this they concluded that the manor house had fallen to ruins and that all the people in the world were extinct. And as no one contradicted them, of course it was so. And the rain beat on the burdock leaves to make drum music for their sake, and the sun shone to give the burdock forest color for their sakes.

And they were very happy, and the whole family was happy—for they truly were so.