prayed to God to forgive his father. The cobbler died when Hans was only eleven years old, and he was left alone with his mother.
He continued to play with his toy theater and peep-*shows and made dolls' clothes. But he also read all he could lay hands on, and a great deal of Shakespeare, which made a deep impression on him. He liked best the plays where there are ghosts and witches—he felt he must go on the stage. He jotted down at this time the titles of twenty-five plays; the spelling of the titles being most peculiar!
Naturally young Hans Andersen was the laughing-stock of the neighborhood. Nobody understood him, and Hans singing in the lanes and sewing and reading at home was simply regarded as a lunatic. By the time he was fourteen he had not a single friend of his own age. Boys teased him, and screamed at him, "There goes the play scribbler," so that Hans shrank from them and would hide himself at home from their mocking eyes and voices. He longed, like the ugly duckling of his story, for the companionship of people cleverer and nobler than himself.
He was indeed very funny to look at, quite comically ugly with his large nose and feet and very small Japanese eyes, and he was so tall and gawky that his clothes were always too small for him, which made him look still odder. He became persuaded that his voice was going to make his fortune, and an old woman who washed clothes in the river told Andersen that
