Once upon a time, in a huge room filled with posters of the night sky and all kinds of stars, there lived a little girl named Ella. Every night before she went to sleep, she used to gaze out of her window over her garden, the village and the mountains, and dream of flying away through the blue ether and far beyond the world of men as a little explorer among the stars.
Now, it is true that her room was very big, but still to Ella it seemed enormous. For when she jumped out of her white bed, she could not easily touch the floor, because it was a long way off; she could never find her slippers quite easily, even when her big teddy bear was good enough to help her. When one was in such a big room, as it always is with large places, one easily became frightened-all the more so when one lay in bed at night and looked at the shadows. They came streaming in through the window and floated on the walls. Where did they come from? And what did they mean?
One night, while Ella lay in bed and was thinking such thoughts, a star peeped in through her window. Small and timid it came, fluttering down from its starry realm amongst moon and planets and sat down on the edge of her bed. And shyly the star spoke to her: “Little Ella, little Ella, are you going to sleep? Don’t you want to be a little explorer among the stars? Can’t you? Why not? Don’t you want to? Then come and sit on my tail, flap, flap, flap, and off we will fly through the ethereal blue, we will dash, we will rush, we will race till we get there. Little Ella, little Ella!”
“Oh, yes, oh, yes! I do want to go!” said Ella.
But when the star saw how small Ella was, it was frightened, and darted back up through the window, higher and higher away into the night, and was as small as a pin-point.
Then Ella heard how her big teddy bear whispered to her: “Don’t you mind the bad star! You are quite big enough to come and play with the big stars; only just gather courage.”
Whereupon Ella jumped out of bed and flung herself after the star out into the high, blue ether. And soon she was walking about on the surface of the beautiful new, round planet, with the most interesting colored stones and a bright red surface of fine sand. It was a charming place! There was no doubt about that; but where were the little inhabitants that ought to be there just naturally? There was nothing to be seen, not so much as any marks that an explorer had been there. It seemed so lonely far away in the universe, where everything was so sick and pale.
Then the planet began to tremble. A huge, black tempest was gathering in the distance, all wild and confused. Chains of flames and balls of fire shot through the sky. “Get away, get away!” cried the tiny inhabitants of the planet, and they dug and they worked and they cried till their tiny hands were sore and bleeding. Two of them hung on to Ella and begged for help. So she dug and she worked and cried with all her might in the desert of the little planet, so that at last the little beings were able to save their houses here and there and dig their way down under the surface deep down to their secret subterranean towns.
And when she had saved the planet when she had done that, may be not so very worth-while, after all so that they had owed her nothing, the little beings sent a swarm of proud flowers up on the ground outside tumbling from rainbow to rainbow. But she went about the little minuscule parade and wept and wept till the flowers turned into little rain which sublimed into innumerable little play-mail-carrier children and set off to deliver it out at all the star-post-offices of the world in Heaven while she flew here and she flew there high and low round the whole world to see if people had forgotten her nothing came to her.
Then at last at last they had not forgotten her; and once the postman came with her birthday presents direct from Heaven. And when she had received a post-office in the shape of a palace built entirely of big, white pearls, as a large as diamonds, and when he had delivered the political tunny from Jerusalem, and the lovely tinted stuffed cats from Japan, and the fish from Americathe postman had just flown off when the star came, as small as a pin point, and sat down on the edge of her bed.
And shyly it said to her: “Little Ella, little Ella, are you awake? Don’t you want to be a little explorer among the stars? Can’t you? Why not? Don’t you want to? Then you have to go to sleep at once.”
And in this way they woke her to let her know that the dream-journey had been at an end, but that she had a fine memory left of it all, and she was really most happy again.