leg, for he had been cast last, and there was not enough tin. But he
stood on his one leg just as firm as the others on two, so he was just
the one to be famous.

On the table where they were set up stood a lot of other playthings; but
what caught your eye was a pretty castle of paper. Through the little
windows you could see right into the halls. Little trees stood in front,
around a bit of looking-glass which was meant for a lake. Wax swans swam
on it and were reflected in it. That was all very pretty, but still the
prettiest thing was a little girl who stood right in the castle gate.
She was cut out of paper too, but she had a silk dress, and a little
narrow blue ribbon across her shoulders, on which was a sparkling star
as big as her whole face. The little girl lifted her arms gracefully in
the air, for she was a dancer; and then she lifted one leg so high that
the tin soldier could not find it at all, and thought that she had only
one leg, just like himself.

"That would be the wife for me," thought he, "but she is too fine for
me. She lives in a castle, and I have only a box, which I have to share
with twenty-four. That is no house for her. But I will see whether I can
make her acquaintance." Then he lay down at full length behind a
snuff-box which was on the table. From there he could watch the trig
little lady who kept standing on one leg without losing her balance.
When evening came, the other tin soldiers were all put in their box, and
the people in the house went to bed. Then the playthings began to play,
first at "visiting," then at "war" and at "dancing." The tin soldiers
rattled in their box, for they would have liked to join in it, but they
could not get the cover off. The nutcracker turned somersaults, and the
pencil scrawled over the slate. There was such a racket that the
canary-bird woke up and began to sing, and that in verses. The only ones