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Then Karl sprang out of the stove and fell at the feet of the man who had spoken.

“Oh, let me stay, please let me stay!” he said. “I have come all the way with my darling Hirschvogel!”

The man answered kindly, “Poor little child! tell me how you came to hide in the stove. Do not be afraid. I am the king.”

Karl was too much in earnest to be afraid; he was so glad, so glad it was the king, for kings must be always kind, he thought.

“Oh, dear king!” he said with a trembling voice, “Hirschvogel was ours, and we have loved it all our lives, and father sold it, and when I saw that it really did go from us I said to myself that I would go with it; and I do beg you to let me live with it, and I will go out every morning and cut wood for it and for all your other stoves, if only you will let me stay beside it. No one has ever fed it with wood but me since I grew big enough, and it loves me; it does indeed!” And then he lifted up his little pale face to the young king, who saw that great tears were running down his cheeks.

“Can’t I stay with Hirschvogel?” he pleaded.

“Wait a little,” said the king. “What do you want to be when you are a man? Do you want to be a wood-chopper?”

“I want to be a painter,” cried Karl. “I want to be what Hirschvogel was. I mean the potter that made my Hirschvogel.”

“I understand,” answered the king, and he looked down at the child, and smiled. “Get up, my little man,” he said in a kind voice; “I will let you stay with your Hirschvogel. You shall stay here, and you shall be taught to be a painter, but you must grow up very good, and when you are twenty-one years old, if you have done well, then I will give you back your beautiful stove.” Then he smiled again and stretched out his hand. Karl threw his two arms about the king’s knees and kissed his feet, and then all at once he was so tired and so glad and hungry and happy, that he fainted quite away on the floor.

Then the king had a letter written to Karl’s father, telling him that Karl had drawn him some beautiful charcoal pictures, and that he liked them so much he was going to take care of him until he was old enough to paint wonderful stoves like Hirschvogel. And he did take care of him for a long time, and when Karl grew older, he often went for a few days to his old home, where his father still lives.

In the little brown house stands Hirschvogel, tall and splendid, with its peacock colors as beautiful as ever,–the king’s present to Hilda; and Karl never goes home without going into the great church and giving his thanks to God, who blessed his strange winter’s journey in the great porcelain stove.