Tales From Moominvalley by Tove Jansson Read Free Book Online Page A

got five roaches and one eel that he let off again because it made such a fuss.
    Towards evening a boat came down the river. A youngish hemulen steered.

    'Any luck?' he asked.
    'So so,' Snufkin replied. 'Going far?'
    'Oh, well,' said the hemulen.
    'Throw me your painter,' Snufkin said. 'You might have use for a few fish. Swaddle them in damp newspapers and roast them on the embers. It's not too bad.'
    'And what do you want?' asked the hemulen who wasn't used to presents.
    Snufkin laughed and took off his hat with the sleeping dragon.
    'Now listen,' he said. 'Take this with you as far as you're going and leave it in some nice place where there are a lot of flies. Fold up the hat to look like a nest, and put it under a bush or something to make this dragon feel undisturbed.'
    'A dragon, is it?' the hemulen asked suspiciously. 'Does he bite? How often does one have to feed him?'
    Snufkin went into his tent and returned with his old tea-kettle. He shoved a tuft of grass down into it and cautiously let the sleeping dragon down after it. Then he placed the lid firmly on and said:
    'You can poke some flies down the nozzle now and then, and pour in a few drops of water sometimes also. Don't mind if the kettle becomes hot. Here you are. After a couple of days you can leave it.'
    'That's quite a job for five roaches,' the hemulen replied sourly and hauled home his painter. The boat started to glide with the current.
    'Don't forget the hat,' Snufkin called over the water. 'It's very particular about my hat.'
    'No, no, no,' said the hemulen and disappeared round the bend.
    'He'll burn his fingers some time,' Snufkin thought. 'Might serve him right.'
    *
    Moomintroll came after sundown.
    'Hello,' Snufkin said.
    'Yippee,' Moomintroll said tonelessly. 'Caught any fish?'
    'So so,' Snufkin replied. 'Won't you sit down?'
    'Oh, I just happened to pass by,' Moomintroll mumbled.
    There was a pause. A new kind of silence, troubled and awkward. Finally Moomintroll asked:
    'Does he shine in the dark?'
    'Who?'
    'Oh, the dragon. I just thought it might be fun to ask if a creep like that shines in the dark.'
    'I really don't know,' Snufkin said. 'You'd better go home and take a look.'
    'But I've let him out,' Moomintroll cried. 'Didn't he come to you?'
    'Nope,' Snufkin said, lighting his pipe. 'Dragons, they do as they like. They're pretty flighty you know, and if they see a fat fly somewhere they forget everything else. That's dragons. They're really nothing much.'
    Moomintroll was silent for quite a while. Then he sat down in the grass and said:
    'Perhaps you're right. Perhaps it was just as well that it went away. Well, yes. I rather think so. Snufkin. That new float of yours. I suppose it looked good in the water. The red one.'
    'Not bad,' Snufkin said. 'I'll make you one. Were you planning to fish tomorrow?'
    'Of course,' Moomintroll said. 'Naturally.'

The Hemulen who loved Silence
    O NCE upon a time there was a hemulen who worked in a pleasure-ground, which doesn't necessarily mean having a lot of fun. The hemulen's job was to punch holes in tickets, so that people wouldn't have fun more than once, and such a job is quite enough to make anyone sad if you have to do it all your life.
    The hemulen punched and punched, and while punching he used to dream of the things he would do when he got his pension at last.
    In case someone doesn't know what a pension is, it means that you can do what you like in all the peace you wish for, when you're old enough. At least that was how the hemulen's relatives had explained it to him.
    He had terribly many relatives, a great lot of enormous, rollicking, talkative hemulens who went about slapping each other's backs and bursting into gigantic laughs.
    They were joint owners of the pleasure-ground, and in their spare time they blew the trombone or threw the

    hammer, told funny stories and frightened people generally. But they did it all with the best of intentions.
    The hemulen himself didn't own anything because