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Once there were five peas in one pod. The peas were green and the pod was green, and so they thought that the whole world was green.
The sun shone on the pod, and made it warm. The rain fell on the vine, and the peas grew bigger and bigger.
One bright day one of the peas said, “Are we going to be here always? I am getting very tired of sitting here so long. It seems to me that there must be more room outside.”
After a while the peas turned yellow, and the pod turned yellow, too.
“All the world is turning yellow!” cried the peas. “How queer this is!”
Then they felt a pull. The pod was torn from the vine and put into a boy’s pocket. But the peas did not know that it was a pocket, because they had never seen one before.
“What do you think will happen next?” said one of the peas.
Just then, crack! went the shell, and the five peas rolled out into the bright sunlight. The little boy was holding the peas in his hand. He rolled them over, and looked at them carefully.
“These will be fine for my pea-shooter,” he said.
Then one of the peas felt itself shot away up into the air. “Now I am flying into the wide world,” it called back to the others. “Catch me if you can.” In a minute it was gone.
“I shall fly straight to the sun,” said the second pea, as it was shot away.
“Let us roll around and find a place to sleep,” said two others as they dropped from the pea-shooter.
The last pea flew up against the window of a house and then dropped into a little crack filled with earth and moss. It could not get out.
“I do not like to be hidden away here,” said the pea. “It is more fun to fly.”
One day in the fall, a cold wind came, and then the little pea was glad that it had a warm place to sleep in. It slept under the moss, and close to the house, all winter.
In the house there lived a little girl with her aunt. The little girl had been sick all winter long, while the pea had been asleep.
The aunt was very poor and she had to work hard every day so that she might buy food that would make the little girl well and strong again.
How glad they were when spring came, and the warm sun shone in through the little girl’s window!The aunt pushed the child’s chair up close to the window, so that she could be in the sun.
“Oh, Aunty,” cried the little girl, “look here! What is this little green thing that peeps in at the window?”
The aunt went to the window and looked out. “Why,” she said, “it is a little pea that is growing in a crack and is putting out leaflets. I wonder how it got here. I will give it some water, and you can have a little garden to look at right here in your window.”
All day the little girl sat watching the pea-vine. It was so bright and green that it seemed to say, “The warm sun will make you grow, too.” That night the little girl felt much better, and this made her aunt very happy.
The next morning the aunt tied a string to the window so that the little vine could grow around it. She gave the plant some more water, too.
Every day the little girl watched the plant as it climbed higher and higher. She was sure that she could see it grow! Then one day there was a tiny bud. The little girl watched it grow until it was a beautiful white flower.
All this time the little girl had been growing stronger and stronger, while the pea-vine had been growing taller.
One morning the little girl found that she could walk again, and her first steps were from her bed to the window.
She put her face down to the little flower and kissed it. “Dear little pea,” she said, “you made me well.”
“I am glad I was shot up here where I could grow,” thought the pea-vine. “This is better than flying.”
—— Hans Christian Andersen
