“Now we must think out what we shall do with Thumbietot to-morrow—­so that no harm can come to him, while we run over to Kullaberg,” said Akka.  “Thumbietot shall not be left alone!” said the goosey-gander.  “If the cranes won’t let him see their dance, then I’ll stay with him.”

“No human being has ever been permitted to attend the Animal’s Congress, at Kullaberg,” said Akka, “and I shouldn’t dare to take Thumbietot along.  But We’ll discuss this more at length later in the day.  Now we must first and foremost think about getting something to eat.”

With that Akka gave the signal to adjourn.  On this day she also sought her feeding-place a good distance away, on Smirre Fox’s account, and she didn’t alight until she came to the swampy meadows a little south of Glimminge castle.

All that day the boy sat on the shores of a little pond, and blew on reed-pipes.  He was out of sorts because he shouldn’t see the crane dance, and he just couldn’t say a word, either to the goosey-gander, or to any of the others.

It was pretty hard that Akka should still doubt him.  When a boy had given up being human, just to travel around with a few wild geese, they surely ought to understand that he had no desire to betray them.  Then, too, they ought to understand that when he had renounced so much to follow them, it was their duty to let him see all the wonders they could show him.

“I’ll have to speak my mind right out to them,” thought he.  But hour after hour passed, still he hadn’t come round to it.  It may sound remarkable—­but the boy had actually acquired a kind of respect for the old leader-goose.  He felt that it was not easy to pit his will against hers.

On one side of the swampy meadow, where the wild geese fed, there was a broad stone hedge.  Toward evening when the boy finally raised his head, to speak to Akka, his glance happened to rest on this hedge.  He uttered a little cry of surprise, and all the wild geese instantly looked up, and stared in the same direction.  At first, both the geese and the boy thought that all the round, gray stones in the hedge had acquired legs, and were starting on a run; but soon they saw that it was a company of rats who ran over it.  They moved very rapidly, and ran forward, tightly packed, line upon line, and were so numerous that, for some time, they covered the entire stone hedge.

The boy had been afraid of rats, even when he was a big, strong human being.  Then what must his feelings be now, when he was so tiny that two or three of them could overpower him?  One shudder after another travelled down his spinal column as he stood and stared at them.

But strangely enough, the wild geese seemed to feel the same aversion toward the rats that he did.  They did not speak to them; and when they were gone, they shook themselves as if their feathers had been mud-spattered.

“Such a lot of gray rats abroad!” said Iksi from Vassipaure.  “That’s not a good omen.”