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SECTION 34 - WESTBOTTOM AND LAPLAND
THE FIVE SCOUTS
Once, at Skansen, the boy had sat under the steps at Bollnäs cottage and had overheard
Clement Larsson and the old Laplander talk about Norrland.
Both agreed that it was the most beautiful part of Sweden.
Clement thought that the southern part was the best, while the Laplander favoured the
northern part.
As they argued, it became plain that Clement had never been farther north than
Härnösand.
The Laplander laughed at him for speaking with such assurance of places that he had
never seen.
"I think I shall have to tell you a story, Clement, to give you some idea of Lapland,
since you have not seen it," volunteered the Laplander.
"It shall not be said of me that I refuse to listen to a story," retorted Clement,
and the old Laplander began:
"It once happened that the birds who lived down in Sweden, south of the great
Saméland, thought that they were overcrowded there and suggested moving
northward.
"They came together to consider the matter. The young and eager birds wished to start
at once, but the older and wiser ones passed a resolution to send scouts to
explore the new country.
"'Let each of the five great bird families send out a scout,' said the old and wise
birds, 'to learn if there is room for us all up there--food and hiding places.'
"Five intelligent and capable birds were immediately appointed by the five great
bird families.
"The forest birds selected a grouse, the field birds a lark, the sea birds a gull,
the fresh-water birds a loon, and the cliff birds a snow sparrow.
"When the five chosen ones were ready to start, the grouse, who was the largest and
most commanding, said: "'There are great stretches of land ahead.
If we travel together, it will be long before we cover all the territory that we
must explore.
If, on the other hand, we travel singly-- each one exploring his special portion of
the country--the whole business can be accomplished in a few days.'
"The other scouts thought the suggestion a good one, and agreed to act upon it.
"It was decided that the grouse should explore the midlands.
The lark was to travel to the eastward, the sea gull still farther east, where the land
bordered on the sea, while the loon should fly over the territory west of the
midlands, and the snow sparrow to the extreme west.
"In accordance with this plan, the five birds flew over the whole Northland.
Then they turned back and told the assembly of birds what they had discovered.
"The gull, who had travelled along the sea- coast, spoke first.
"'The North is a fine country,' he said.
'The sounds are full of fish, and there are points and islands without number.
Most of these are uninhabited, and the birds will find plenty of room there.
The humans do a little fishing and sailing in the sounds, but not enough to disturb
the birds. If the sea birds follow my advice, they
will move north immediately.'
"When the gull had finished, the lark, who had explored the land back from the coast,
spoke: "'I don't know what the gull means by his
islands and points,' said the lark.
I have travelled only over great fields and flowery meadows.
I have never before seen a country crossed by some large streams.
Their shores are dotted with homesteads, and at the mouth of the rivers are cities;
but for the most part the country is very desolate.
If the field birds follow my advice, they will move north immediately.'
"After the lark came the grouse, who had flown over the midlands.
"'I know neither what the lark means with his meadows nor the gull with his islands
and points,' said he. 'I have seen only pine forests on this
whole trip.
There are also many rushing streams and great stretches of moss-grown swamp land;
but all that is not river or swamp is forest.
If the forest birds follow my advice, they will move north immediately.'
"After the grouse came the loon, who had explored the borderland to the west.
"I don't know what the grouse means by his forests, nor do I know where the eyes of
the lark and the gull could have been,' remarked the loon.
There's hardly any land up there--only big lakes.
Between beautiful shores glisten clear, blue mountain lakes, which pour into
roaring water-falls.
If the fresh-water birds follow my advice, they will move north immediately.'
"The last speaker was the snow sparrow, who had flown along the western boundary.
"'I don't know what the loon means by his lakes, nor do I know what countries the
grouse, the lark, and the gull can have seen,' he said.
'I found one vast mountainous region up north.
I didn't run across any fields or any pine forests, but peak after peak and highlands.
I have seen ice fields and snow and mountain brooks, with water as white as
milk.
No farmers nor cattle nor homesteads have I seen, but only Lapps and reindeer and huts
met my eyes. If the cliff birds follow my advice, they
will move north immediately.'
"When the five scouts had presented their reports to the assembly, they began to call
one another liars, and were ready to fly at each other to prove the truth of their
arguments.
"But the old and wise birds who had sent them out, listened to their accounts with
joy, and calmed their fighting propensities.
"'You mustn't quarrel among yourselves,' they said.
'We understand from your reports that up north there are large mountain tracts, a
big lake region, great forest lands, a wide plain, and a big group of islands.
This is more than we have expected--more than many a mighty kingdom can boast within
its borders.'"
THE MOVING LANDSCAPE
Saturday, June eighteenth. The boy had been reminded of the old
Laplander's story because he himself was now travelling over the country of which he
had spoken.
The eagle told him that the expanse of coast which spread beneath them was
Westbottom, and that the blue ridges far to the west were in Lapland.
Only to be once more seated comfortably on Gorgo's back, after all that he had
suffered during the forest fire, was a pleasure.
Besides, they were having a fine trip.
The flight was so easy that at times it seemed as if they were standing still in
the air.
The eagle beat and beat his wings, without appearing to move from the spot; on the
other hand, everything under them seemed in motion.
The whole earth and all things on it moved slowly southward.
The forests, the fields, the fences, the rivers, the cities, the islands, the
sawmills--all were on the march.
The boy wondered whither they were bound. Had they grown tired of standing so far
north, and wished to move toward the south?
Amid all the objects in motion there was only one that stood still: that was a
railway train.
It stood directly under them, for it was with the train as with Gorgo--it could not
move from the spot. The locomotive sent forth smoke and sparks.
The clatter of the wheels could be heard all the way up to the boy, but the train
did not seem to move.
The forests rushed by; the flag station rushed by; fences and telegraph poles
rushed by; but the train stood still.
A broad river with a long bridge came toward it, but the river and the bridge
glided along under the train with perfect ease.
Finally a railway station appeared.
The station master stood on the platform with his red flag, and moved slowly toward
the train.
When he waved his little flag, the locomotive belched even darker smoke curls
than before, and whistled mournfully because it had to stand still.
All of a sudden it began to move toward the south, like everything else.
The boy saw all the coach doors open and the passengers step out while both cars and
people were moving southward.
He glanced away from the earth and tried to look straight ahead.
Staring at the *** railway train had made him dizzy; but after he had gazed for a
moment at a little white cloud, he was tired of that and looked down again--
thinking all the while that the eagle and
himself were quite still and that everything else was travelling on south.
Fancy!
Suppose the grain field just then running along under him--which must have been newly
sown for he had seen a green blade on it-- were to travel all the way down to Skåne
where the rye was in full bloom at this season!
Up here the pine forests were different: the trees were bare, the branches short and
the needles were almost black.
Many trees were bald at the top and looked sickly.
If a forest like that were to journey down to Kolmården and see a real forest, how
inferior it would feel!
The gardens which he now saw had some pretty bushes, but no fruit trees or
lindens or chestnut trees--only mountain ash and birch.
There were some vegetable beds, but they were not as yet hoed or planted.
"If such an apology for a garden were to come trailing into Sörmland, the province
of gardens, wouldn't it think itself a poor wilderness by comparison?"
Imagine an immense plain like the one now gliding beneath him, coming under the very
eyes of the poor Småland peasants!
They would hurry away from their meagre garden plots and stony fields, to begin
plowing and sowing.
There was one thing, however, of which this Northland had more than other lands, and
that was light.
Night must have set in, for the cranes stood sleeping on the morass; but it was as
light as day. The sun had not travelled southward, like
every other thing.
Instead, it had gone so far north that it shone in the boy's face.
To all appearance, it had no notion of setting that night.
If this light and this sun were only shining on West Vemmenhög!
It would suit the boy's father and mother to a dot to have a working day that lasted
twenty-four hours.
Sunday, June nineteenth. The boy raised his head and looked around,
perfectly bewildered. It was mighty ***!
Here he lay sleeping in some place where he had not been before.
No, he had never seen this glen nor the mountains round about; and never had he
noticed such puny and shrunken birches as those under which he now lay.
Where was the eagle?
The boy could see no sign of him. Gorgo must have deserted him.
Well, here was another adventure!
The boy lay down again, closed his eyes, and tried to recall the circumstances under
which he had dropped to sleep.
He remembered that as long as he was travelling over Westbottom he had fancied
that the eagle and he were at a standstill in the air, and that the land under them
was moving southward.
As the eagle turned northwest, the wind had come from that side, and again he had felt
a current of air, so that the land below had stopped moving and he had noticed that
the eagle was bearing him onward with terrific speed.
"Now we are flying into Lapland," Gorgo had said, and the boy had bent forward, so that
he might see the country of which he had heard so much.
But he had felt rather disappointed at not seeing anything but great tracts of forest
land and wide marshes. Forest followed marsh and marsh followed
forest.
The monotony of the whole finally made him so sleepy that he had nearly dropped to the
ground.
He said to the eagle that he could not stay on his back another minute, but must sleep
awhile.
Gorgo had promptly swooped to the ground, where the boy had dropped down on a moss
tuft. Then Gorgo put a talon around him and
soared into the air with him again.
"Go to sleep, Thumbietot!" he cried. "The sunshine keeps me awake and I want to
continue the journey." Although the boy hung in this uncomfortable
position, he actually dozed and dreamed.
He dreamed that he was on a broad road in southern Sweden, hurrying along as fast as
his little legs could carry him. He was not alone, many wayfarers were
tramping in the same direction.
Close beside him marched grain-filled rye blades, blossoming corn flowers, and yellow
daisies.
Heavily laden apple trees went puffing along, followed by vine-covered bean
stalks, big clusters of white daisies, and masses of berry bushes.
Tall beeches and oaks and lindens strolled leisurely in the middle of the road, their
branches swaying, and they stepped aside for none.
Between the boy's tiny feet darted the little flowers--wild strawberry blossoms,
white anemones, clover, and forget-me-nots.
At first he thought that only the vegetable family was on the march, but presently he
saw that animals and people accompanied them.
The insects were buzzing around advancing bushes, the fishes were swimming in moving
ditches, the birds were singing in strolling trees.
Both tame and wild beasts were racing, and amongst all this people moved along--some
with spades and scythes, others with axes, and others, again, with fishing nets.
The procession marched with gladness and gayety, and he did not wonder at that when
he saw who was leading it.
It was nothing less than the Sun itself that rolled on like a great shining head
with hair of many-hued rays and a countenance beaming with merriment and
kindliness!
"Forward, march!" it kept calling out. "None need feel anxious whilst I am here.
Forward, march!" "I wonder where the Sun wants to take us
to?" remarked the boy.
A rye blade that walked beside him heard him, and immediately answered:
"He wants to take us up to Lapland to fight the Ice Witch."
Presently the boy noticed that some of the travellers hesitated, slowed up, and
finally stood quite still.
He saw that the tall beech tree stopped, and that the roebuck and the wheat blade
tarried by the wayside, likewise the blackberry bush, the little yellow
buttercup, the chestnut tree, and the grouse.
He glanced about him and tried to reason out why so many stopped.
Then he discovered that they were no longer in southern Sweden.
The march had been so rapid that they were already in Svealand.
Up there the oak began to move more cautiously.
It paused awhile to consider, took a few faltering steps, then came to a standstill.
"Why doesn't the oak come along?" asked the boy.
"It's afraid of the Ice Witch," said a fair young birch that tripped along so boldly
and cheerfully that it was a joy to watch it.
The crowd hurried on as before.
In a short time they were in Norrland, and now it mattered not how much the Sun cried
and coaxed--the apple tree stopped, the cherry tree stopped, the rye blade stopped!
The boy turned to them and asked:
"Why don't you come along? Why do you desert the Sun?"
"We dare not! We're afraid of the Ice Witch, who lives in
Lapland," they answered.
The boy comprehended that they were far north, as the procession grew thinner and
thinner.
The rye blade, the barley, the wild strawberry, the blueberry bush, the pea
stalk, the currant bush had come along as far as this.
The elk and the domestic cow had been walking side by side, but now they stopped.
The Sun no doubt would have been almost deserted if new followers had not happened
along.
Osier bushes and a lot of brushy vegetation joined the procession.
Laps and reindeer, mountain owl and mountain fox and willow grouse followed.
Then the boy heard something coming toward them.
He saw great rivers and creeks sweeping along with terrible force.
"Why are they in such a hurry?" he asked.
"They are running away from the Ice Witch, who lives up in the mountains."
All of a sudden the boy saw before him a high, dark, turreted wall.
Instantly the Sun turned its beaming face toward this wall and flooded it with light.
Then it became apparent that it was no wall, but the most glorious mountains,
which loomed up--one behind another.
Their peaks were rose-coloured in the sunlight, their slopes azure and gold-
tinted. "Onward, onward!" urged the Sun as it
climbed the steep cliffs.
"There's no danger so long as I am with you."
But half way up, the bold young birch deserted--also the sturdy pine and the
persistent spruce, and there, too, the Laplander, and the willow brush deserted.
At last, when the Sun reached the top, there was no one but the little tot, Nils
Holgersson, who had followed it.
The Sun rolled into a cave, where the walls were bedecked with ice, and Nils Holgersson
wanted to follow, but farther than the opening of the cave he dared not venture,
for in there he saw something dreadful.
Far back in the cave sat an old witch with an ice body, hair of icicles, and a mantle
of snow!
At her feet lay three black wolves, who rose and opened their jaws when the Sun
approached.
From the mouth of one came a piercing cold, from the second a blustering north wind,
and from the third came impenetrable darkness.
"That must be the Ice Witch and her tribe," thought the boy.
He understood that now was the time for him to flee, but he was so curious to see the
outcome of the meeting between the Sun and the Ice Witch that he tarried.
The Ice Witch did not move--only turned her hideous face toward the Sun.
This continued for a short time. It appeared to the boy that the witch was
beginning to sigh and tremble.
Her snow mantle fell, and the three ferocious wolves howled less savagely.
Suddenly the Sun cried: "Now my time is up!" and rolled out of the
cave.
Then the Ice Witch let loose her three wolves.
Instantly the North Wind, Cold, and Darkness rushed from the cave and began to
chase the Sun.
"Drive him out! Drive him back!" shrieked the Ice Witch.
"Chase him so far that he can never come back!
Teach him that Lapland is MINE!"
But Nils Holgersson felt so unhappy when he saw that the Sun was to be driven from
Lapland that he awakened with a cry. When he recovered his senses, he found
himself at the bottom of a ravine.
But where was Gorgo? How was he to find out where he himself
was? He arose and looked all around him.
Then he happened to glance upward and saw a peculiar structure of pine twigs and
branches that stood on a cliff-ledge. "That must be one of those eagle nests that
Gorgo--" But this was as far as he got.
He tore off his cap, waved it in the air, and cheered.
Now he understood where Gorgo had brought him.
This was the very glen where the wild geese lived in summer, and just above it was the
eagles' cliff.
HE HAD ARRIVED!
He would meet Morten Goosey-Gander and Akka and all the other comrades in a few
moments. Hurrah!
THE MEETING
All was still in the glen. The sun had not yet stepped above the
cliffs, and Nils Holgersson knew that it was too early in the morning for the geese
to be awake.
The boy walked along leisurely and searched for his friends.
Before he had gone very far, he paused with a smile, for he saw such a pretty sight.
A wild goose was sleeping in a neat little nest, and beside her stood her goosey-
gander.
He too, slept, but it was obvious that he had stationed himself thus near her that he
might be on hand in the possible event of danger.
The boy went on without disturbing them and peeped into the willow brush that covered
the ground. It was not long before he spied another
goose couple.
These were strangers, not of his flock, but he was so happy that he began to hum--just
because he had come across wild geese. He peeped into another bit of brushwood.
There at last he saw two that were familiar.
It was certainly Neljä that was nesting there, and the goosey-gander who stood
beside her was surely Kolme.
Why, of course! The boy had a good mind to awaken them, but
he let them sleep on, and walked away.
In the next brush he saw Viisi and Kuusi, and not far from them he found Yksi and
Kaksi. All four were asleep, and the boy passed by
without disturbing them.
As he approached the next brush, he thought he saw something white shimmering among the
bushes, and the heart of him thumped with joy.
Yes, it was as he expected.
In there sat the dainty Dunfin on an egg- filled nest.
Beside her stood her white goosey-gander.
Although he slept, it was easy to see how proud he was to watch over his wife up here
among the Lapland mountains. The boy did not care to waken the goosey-
gander, so he walked on.
He had to seek a long time before he came across any more wild geese.
Finally, he saw on a little hillock something that resembled a small, gray moss
tuft, and he knew that there was Akka from Kebnekaise.
She stood, wide awake, looking about as if she were keeping watch over the whole glen.
"Good morning, Mother Akka!" said the boy.
"Please don't waken the other geese yet awhile, for I wish to speak with you in
private." The old leader-goose came rushing down the
hill and up to the boy.
First she seized hold of him and shook him, then she stroked him with her bill before
she shook him again. But she did not say a word, since he asked
her not to waken the others.
Thumbietot kissed old Mother Akka on both cheeks, then he told her how he had been
carried off to Skansen and held captive there.
"Now I must tell you that Smirre Fox, short of an ear, sat imprisoned in the foxes'
cage at Skansen," said the boy. "Although he was very mean to us, I
couldn't help feeling sorry for him.
There were many other foxes in the cage; and they seemed quite contented there, but
Smirre sat all the while looking dejected, longing for liberty.
"I made many good friends at Skansen, and I learned one day from the Lapp dog that a
man had come to Skansen to buy foxes. He was from some island far out in the
ocean.
All the foxes had been exterminated there, and the rats were about to get the better
of the inhabitants, so they wished the foxes back again.
"As soon as I learned of this, I went to Smirre's cage and said to him:
"'To-morrow some men are coming here to get a pair of foxes.
Don't hide, Smirre, but keep well in the foreground and see to it that you are
chosen. Then you'll be free again.'
"He followed my suggestion, and now he is running at large on the island.
What say you to this, Mother Akka? If you had been in my place, would you not
have done likewise?"
"You have acted in a way that makes me wish I had done that myself," said the leader-
goose proudly. "It's a relief to know that you approve,"
said the boy.
"Now there is one thing more I wish to ask you about:
"One day I happened to see Gorgo, the eagle--the one that fought with Morten
Goosey-Gander--a prisoner at Skansen.
He was in the eagles' cage and looked pitifully forlorn.
I was thinking of filing down the wire roof over him and letting him out, but I also
thought of his being a dangerous robber and bird-eater, and wondered if I should be
doing right in letting loose such a
plunderer, and if it were not better, perhaps, to let him stay where he was.
What say you, Mother Akka? Was it right to think thus?"
"No, it was not right!" retorted Akka.
"Say what you will about the eagles, they are proud birds and greater lovers of
freedom than all others. It is not right to keep them in captivity.
Do you know what I would suggest?
This: that, as soon as you are well rested, we two make the trip together to the big
bird prison, and liberate Gorgo."
"That is just the word I was expecting from you, Mother Akka," returned the boy
eagerly.
"There are those who say that you no longer have any love in your heart for the one you
reared so tenderly, because he lives as eagles must live.
But I know now that it isn't true.
And now I want to see if Morten Goosey- Gander is awake.
"Meanwhile, if you wish to say a 'thank you' to the one who brought me here to you,
I think you'll find him up there on the cliff ledge, where once you found a
helpless eaglet."
<
SECTION 35 - OSA, THE GOOSE GIRL, AND LITTLE MATS
The year that Nils Holgersson travelled with the wild geese everybody was talking
about two little children, a boy and a girl, who tramped through the country.
They were from Sunnerbo township, in Småland, and had once lived with their
parents and four brothers and sisters in a little cabin on the heath.
While the two children, Osa and Mats, were still small, a poor, homeless woman came to
their cabin one night and begged for shelter.
Although the place could hardly hold the family, she was taken in and the mother
spread a bed for her on the floor. In the night she coughed so hard that the
children fancied the house shook.
By morning she was too ill to continue her wanderings.
The children's father and mother were as kind to her as could be.
They gave up their bed to her and slept on the floor, while the father went to the
doctor and brought her medicine.
The first few days the sick woman behaved like a savage; she demanded constant
attention and never uttered a word of thanks.
Later she became more subdued and finally begged to be carried out to the heath and
left there to die.
When her hosts would not hear of this, she told them that the last few years she had
roamed about with a band of gipsies. She herself was not of gipsy blood, but was
the daughter of a well-to-do farmer.
She had run away from home and gone with the nomads.
She believed that a gipsy woman who was angry at her had brought this sickness upon
her.
Nor was that all: The gipsy woman had also cursed her, saying that all who took her
under their roof or were kind to her should suffer a like fate.
She believed this, and therefore begged them to cast her out of the house and never
to see her again. She did not want to bring misfortune down
upon such good people.
But the peasants refused to do her bidding. It was quite possible that they were
alarmed, but they were not the kind of folk who could turn out a poor, sick person.
Soon after that she died, and then along came the misfortunes.
Before, there had never been anything but happiness in that cabin.
Its inmates were poor, yet not so very poor.
The father was a maker of weavers' combs, and mother and children helped him with the
work.
Father made the frames, mother and the older children did the binding, while the
smaller ones planed the teeth and cut them out.
They worked from morning until night, but the time passed pleasantly, especially when
father talked of the days when he travelled about in foreign lands and sold weavers'
combs.
Father was so jolly that sometimes mother and the children would laugh until their
sides ached at his funny quips and jokes.
The weeks following the death of the poor vagabond woman lingered in the minds of the
children like a horrible nightmare.
They knew not if the time had been long or short, but they remembered that they were
always having funerals at home. One after another they lost their brothers
and sisters.
At last it was very still and sad in the cabin.
The mother kept up some measure of courage, but the father was not a bit like himself.
He could no longer work nor jest, but sat from morning till night, his head buried in
his hands, and only brooded.
Once--that was after the third burial--the father had broken out into wild talk, which
frightened the children. He said that he could not understand why
such misfortunes should come upon them.
They had done a kindly thing in helping the sick woman.
Could it be true, then, that the evil in this world was more powerful than the good?
The mother tried to reason with him, but she was unable to soothe him.
A few days later the eldest was stricken.
She had always been the father's favourite, so when he realized that she, too, must go,
he fled from all the misery.
The mother never said anything, but she thought it was best for him to be away, as
she feared that he might lose his reason.
He had brooded too long over this one idea: that God had allowed a wicked person to
bring about so much evil. After the father went away they became very
poor.
For awhile he sent them money, but afterward things must have gone badly with
him, for no more came.
The day of the eldest daughter's burial the mother closed the cabin and left home with
the two remaining children, Osa and Mats.
She went down to Skåne to work in the beet fields, and found a place at the Jordberga
sugar refinery. She was a good worker and had a cheerful
and generous nature.
Everybody liked her. Many were astonished because she could be
so calm after all that she had passed through, but the mother was very strong and
patient.
When any one spoke to her of her two sturdy children, she only said: "I shall soon lose
them also," without a quaver in her voice or a tear in her eye.
She had accustomed herself to expect nothing else.
But it did not turn out as she feared. Instead, the sickness came upon herself.
She had gone to Skane in the beginning of summer; before autumn she was gone, and the
children were left alone.
While their mother was ill she had often said to the children they must remember
that she never regretted having let the sick woman stop with them.
It was not hard to die when one had done right, she said, for then one could go with
a clear conscience. Before the mother passed away, she tried to
make some provision for her children.
She asked the people with whom she lived to let them remain in the room which she had
occupied. If the children only had a shelter they
would not become a burden to any one.
She knew that they could take care of themselves.
Osa and Mats were allowed to keep the room on condition that they would tend the
geese, as it was always hard to find children willing to do that work.
It turned out as the mother expected: they did maintain themselves.
The girl made candy, and the boy carved wooden toys, which they sold at the farm
houses.
They had a talent for trading and soon began buying eggs and butter from the
farmers, which they sold to the workers at the sugar refinery.
Osa was the older, and, by the time she was thirteen, she was as responsible as a grown
woman. She was quiet and serious, while Mats was
lively and talkative.
His sister used to say to him that he could outcackle the geese.
When the children had been at Jordberga for two years, there was a lecture given one
evening at the schoolhouse.
Evidently it was meant for grown-ups, but the two Småland children were in the
audience. They did not regard themselves as children,
and few persons thought of them as such.
The lecturer talked about the dread disease called the White Plague, which every year
carried off so many people in Sweden. He spoke very plainly and the children
understood every word.
After the lecture they waited outside the schoolhouse.
When the lecturer came out they took hold of hands and walked gravely up to him,
asking if they might speak to him.
The stranger must have wondered at the two rosy, baby-faced children standing there
talking with an earnestness more in keeping with people thrice their age; but he
listened graciously to them.
They related what had happened in their home, and asked the lecturer if he thought
their mother and their sisters and brothers had died of the sickness he had described.
"Very likely," he answered.
"It could hardly have been any other disease."
If only the mother and father had known what the children learned that evening,
they might have protected themselves.
If they had burned the clothing of the vagabond woman; if they had scoured and
aired the cabin and had not used the old bedding, all whom the children mourned
might have been living yet.
The lecturer said he could not say positively, but he believed that none of
their dear ones would have been sick had they understood how to guard against the
infection.
Osa and Mats waited awhile before putting the next question, for that was the most
important of all.
It was not true then that the gipsy woman had sent the sickness because they had
befriended the one with whom she was angry. It was not something special that had
stricken only them.
The lecturer assured them that no person had the power to bring sickness upon
another in that way. Thereupon the children thanked him and went
to their room.
They talked until late that night. The next day they gave notice that they
could not tend geese another year, but must go elsewhere.
Where were they going?
Why, to try to find their father. They must tell him that their mother and
the other children had died of a common ailment and not something special brought
upon them by an angry person.
They were very glad that they had found out about this.
Now it was their duty to tell their father of it, for probably he was still trying to
solve the mystery.
Osa and Mats set out for their old home on the heath.
When they arrived they were shocked to find the little cabin in flames.
They went to the parsonage and there they learned that a railroad workman had seen
their father at Malmberget, far up in Lapland.
He had been working in a mine and possibly was still there.
When the clergyman heard that the children wanted to go in search of their father he
brought forth a map and showed them how far it was to Malmberget and tried to dissuade
them from making the journey, but the
children insisted that they must find their father.
He had left home believing something that was not true.
They must find him and tell him that it was all a mistake.
They did not want to spend their little savings buying railway tickets, therefore
they decided to go all the way on foot, which they never regretted, as it proved to
be a remarkably beautiful journey.
Before they were out of Småland, they stopped at a farm house to buy food.
The housewife was a kind, motherly soul who took an interest in the children.
She asked them who they were and where they came from, and they told her their story.
"Dear, dear! Dear, dear!" she interpolated time and
again when they were speaking.
Later she petted the children and stuffed them with all kinds of goodies, for which
she would not accept a penny.
When they rose to thank her and go, the woman asked them to stop at her brother's
farm in the next township. Of course the children were delighted.
"Give him my greetings and tell him what has happened to you," said the peasant
woman. This the children did and were well
treated.
From every farm after that it was always: "If you happen to go in such and such a
direction, stop there or there and tell them what has happened to you."
In every farm house to which they were sent there was always a consumptive.
So Osa and Mats went through the country unconsciously teaching the people how to
combat that dreadful disease.
Long, long ago, when the black plague was ravaging the country, 'twas said that a boy
and a girl were seen wandering from house to house.
The boy carried a rake, and if he stopped and raked in front of a house, it meant
that there many should die, but not all; for the rake has coarse teeth and does not
take everything with it.
The girl carried a broom, and if she came along and swept before a door, it meant
that all who lived within must die; for the broom is an implement that makes a clean
sweep.
It seems quite remarkable that in our time two children should wander through the land
because of a cruel sickness. But these children did not frighten people
with the rake and the broom.
They said rather: "We will not content ourselves with merely raking the yard and
sweeping the floors, we will use mop and brush, water and soap.
We will keep clean inside and outside of the door and we ourselves will be clean in
both mind and body. In this way we will conquer the sickness."
One day, while still in Lapland, Akka took the boy to Malmberget, where they
discovered little Mats lying unconscious at the mouth of the pit.
He and Osa had arrived there a short time before.
That morning he had been roaming about, hoping to come across his father.
He had ventured too near the shaft and been hurt by flying rocks after the setting off
of a blast.
Thumbietot ran to the edge of the shaft and called down to the miners that a little boy
was injured. Immediately a number of labourers came
rushing up to little Mats.
Two of them carried him to the hut where he and Osa were staying.
They did all they could to save him, but it was too late.
Thumbietot felt so sorry for poor Osa.
He wanted to help and comfort her; but he knew that if he were to go to her now, he
would only frighten her--such as he was! The night after the burial of little Mats,
Osa straightway shut herself in her hut.
She sat alone recalling, one after another, things her brother had said and done.
There was so much to think about that she did not go straight to bed, but sat up most
of the night.
The more she thought of her brother the more she realized how hard it would be to
live without him. At last she dropped her head on the table
and wept.
"What shall I do now that little Mats is gone?" she sobbed.
It was far along toward morning and Osa, spent by the strain of her hard day,
finally fell asleep.
She dreamed that little Mats softly opened the door and stepped into the room.
"Osa, you must go and find father," he said.
"How can I when I don't even know where he is?" she replied in her dream.
"Don't worry about that," returned little Mats in his usual, cheery way.
"I'll send some one to help you."
Just as Osa, the goose girl, dreamed that little Mats had said this, there was a
knock at the door.
It was a real knock--not something she heard in the dream, but she was so held by
the dream that she could not tell the real from the unreal.
As she went on to open the door, she thought:
"This must be the person little Mats promised to send me."
She was right, for it was Thumbietot come to talk to her about her father.
When he saw that she was not afraid of him, he told her in a few words where her father
was and how to reach him.
While he was speaking, Osa, the goose girl, gradually regained consciousness; when he
had finished she was wide awake.
Then she was so terrified at the thought of talking with an elf that she could not say
thank you or anything else, but quickly shut the door.
As she did that she thought she saw an expression of pain flash across the elf's
face, but she could not help what she did, for she was beside herself with fright.
She crept into bed as quickly as she could and drew the covers over her head.
Although she was afraid of the elf, she had a feeling that he meant well by her.
So the next day she made haste to do as he had told her.
<
SECTION 36 - WITH THE LAPLANDERS
One afternoon in July it rained frightfully up around Lake Luossajaure.
The Laplanders, who lived mostly in the open during the summer, had crawled under
the tent and were squatting round the fire drinking coffee.
The new settlers on the east shore of the lake worked diligently to have their homes
in readiness before the severe Arctic winter set in.
They wondered at the Laplanders, who had lived in the far north for centuries
without even thinking that better protection was needed against cold and
storm than thin tent covering.
The Laplanders, on the other hand, wondered at the new settlers giving themselves so
much needless, hard work, when nothing more was necessary to live comfortably than a
few reindeer and a tent.
They only had to drive the poles into the ground and spread the covers over them, and
their abodes were ready. They did not have to trouble themselves
about decorating or furnishing.
The principal thing was to scatter some spruce twigs on the floor, spread a few
skins, and hang the big kettle, in which they cooked their reindeer meat, on a chain
suspended from the top of the tent poles.
While the Laplanders were chatting over their coffee cups, a row boat coming from
the Kiruna side pulled ashore at the Lapps' quarters.
A workman and a young girl, between thirteen and fourteen, stepped from the
boat. The girl was Osa.
The Lapp dogs bounded down to them, barking loudly, and a native poked his head out of
the tent opening to see what was going on.
He was glad when he saw the workman, for he was a friend of the Laplanders--a kindly
and sociable man, who could speak their native tongue.
The Lapp called to him to crawl under the tent.
"You're just in time, Söderberg!" he said. "The coffee pot is on the fire.
No one can do any work in this rain, so come in and tell us the news."
The workman went in, and, with much ado and amid a great deal of laughter and joking,
places were made for Söderberg and Osa, though the tent was already crowded to the
limit with natives.
Osa understood none of the conversation.
She sat dumb and looked in wonderment at the kettle and coffee pot; at the fire and
smoke; at the Lapp men and Lapp women; at the children and dogs; the walls and floor;
the coffee cups and tobacco pipes; the
multi-coloured costumes and crude implements.
All this was new to her.
Suddenly she lowered her glance, conscious that every one in the tent was looking at
her.
Söderberg must have said something about her, for now both Lapp men and Lapp women
took the short pipes from their mouths and stared at her in open-eyed wonder and awe.
The Laplander at her side patted her shoulder and nodded, saying in Swedish,
"bra, bra!" (good, good!)
A Lapp woman filled a cup to the brim with coffee and passed it under difficulties,
while a Lapp boy, who was about her own age, wriggled and crawled between the
squatters over to her.
Osa felt that Söderberg was telling the Laplanders that she had just buried her
little brother, Mats. She wished he would find out about her
father instead.
The elf had said that he lived with the Lapps, who camped west of Lake Luossajaure,
and she had begged leave to ride up on a sand truck to seek him, as no regular
passenger trains came so far.
Both labourers and foremen had assisted her as best they could.
An engineer had sent Söderberg across the lake with her, as he spoke Lappish.
She had hoped to meet her father as soon as she arrived.
Her glance wandered anxiously from face to face, but she saw only natives.
Her father was not there.
She noticed that the Lapps and the Swede, Söderberg, grew more and more earnest as
they talked among themselves.
The Lapps shook their heads and tapped their foreheads, as if they were speaking
of some one that was not quite right in his mind.
She became so uneasy that she could no longer endure the suspense and asked
Söderberg what the Laplanders knew of her father.
"They say he has gone fishing," said the workman.
"They're not sure that he can get back to the camp to-night; but as soon as the
weather clears, one of them will go in search of him."
Thereupon he turned to the Lapps and went on talking to them.
He did not wish to give Osa an opportunity to question him further about Jon Esserson.
THE NEXT MORNING
Ola Serka himself, who was the most distinguished man among the Lapps, had said
that he would find Osa's father, but he appeared to be in no haste and sat huddled
outside the tent, thinking of Jon Esserson
and wondering how best to tell him of his daughter's arrival.
It would require diplomacy in order that Jon Esserson might not become alarmed and
flee.
He was an odd sort of man who was afraid of children.
He used to say that the sight of them made him so melancholy that he could not endure
it.
While Ola Serka deliberated, Osa, the goose girl, and Aslak, the young Lapp boy who had
stared so hard at her the night before, sat on the ground in front of the tent and
chatted.
Aslak had been to school and could speak Swedish.
He was telling Osa about the life of the "Saméfolk," assuring her that they fared
better than other people.
Osa thought that they lived wretchedly, and told him so.
"You don't know what you are talking about!" said Aslak curtly.
"Only stop with us a week and you shall see that we are the happiest people on earth."
"If I were to stop here a whole week, I should be choked by all the smoke in the
tent," Osa retorted.
"Don't say that!" protested the boy. "You know nothing of us.
Let me tell you something which will make you understand that the longer you stay
with us the more contented you will become."
Thereupon Aslak began to tell Osa how a sickness called "The Black Plague" once
raged throughout the land.
He was not certain as to whether it had swept through the real "Saméland," where
they now were, but in Jämtland it had raged so brutally that among the Saméfolk, who
lived in the forests and mountains there, all had died except a boy of fifteen.
Among the Swedes, who lived in the valleys, none was left but a girl, who was also
fifteen years old.
The boy and girl separately tramped the desolate country all winter in search of
other human beings. Finally, toward spring, the two met.
Aslak continued: "The Swedish girl begged the Lapp boy to accompany her southward,
where she could meet people of her own race.
She did not wish to tarry longer in Jämtland, where there were only vacant
homesteads. I'll take you wherever you wish to go,'
said the boy, 'but not before winter.
It's spring now, and my reindeer go westward toward the mountains.
You know that we who are of the Saméfolk must go where our reindeer take us.'
The Swedish girl was the daughter of wealthy parents.
She was used to living under a roof, sleeping in a bed, and eating at a table.
She had always despised the poor mountaineers and thought that those who
lived under the open sky were most unfortunate; but she was afraid to return
to her home, where there were none but the dead.
'At least let me go with you to the mountains,' she said to the boy, 'so that
I sha'n't have to *** about here all alone and never hear the sound of a human voice.'
"The boy willingly assented, so the girl went with the reindeer to the mountains.
"The herd yearned for the good pastures there, and every day tramped long distances
to feed on the moss.
There was not time to pitch tents. The children had to lie on the snowy ground
and sleep when the reindeer stopped to graze.
The girl often sighed and complained of being so tired that she must turn back to
the valley. Nevertheless she went along to avoid being
left without human companionship.
"When they reached the highlands the boy pitched a tent for the girl on a pretty
hill that sloped toward a mountain brook. "In the evening he lassoed and milked the
reindeer, and gave the girl milk to drink.
He brought forth dried reindeer meat and reindeer cheese, which his people had
stowed away on the heights when they were there the summer before.
"Still the girl grumbled all the while, and was never satisfied.
She would eat neither reindeer meat nor reindeer cheese, nor would she drink
reindeer milk.
She could not accustom herself to squatting in the tent or to lying on the ground with
only a reindeer skin and some spruce twigs for a bed.
"The son of the mountains laughed at her woes and continued to treat her kindly.
"After a few days, the girl went up to the boy when he was milking and asked if she
might help him.
She next undertook to make the fire under the kettle, in which the reindeer meat was
to be cooked, then to carry water and to make cheese.
So the time passed pleasantly.
The weather was mild and food was easily procured.
Together they set snares for game, fished for salmon-trout in the rapids and picked
cloud-berries in the swamp.
"When the summer was gone, they moved farther down the mountains, where pine and
leaf forests meet. There they pitched their tent.
They had to work hard every day, but fared better, for food was even more plentiful
than in the summer because of the game.
"When the snow came and the lakes began to freeze, they drew farther east toward the
dense pine forests. "As soon as the tent was up, the winter's
work began.
The boy taught the girl to make twine from reindeer sinews, to treat skins, to make
shoes and clothing of hides, to make combs and tools of reindeer horn, to travel on
skis, and to drive a sledge drawn by reindeer.
"When they had lived through the dark winter and the sun began to shine all day
and most of the night, the boy said to the girl that now he would accompany her
southward, so that she might meet some of her own race.
"Then the girl looked at him astonished. "'Why do you want to send me away?' she
asked.
'Do you long to be alone with your reindeer?'
"'I thought that you were the one that longed to get away?' said the boy.
"'I have lived the life of the Saméfolk almost a year now,' replied the girl.
I can't return to my people and live the shut-in life after having wandered freely
on mountains and in forests.
Don't drive me away, but let me stay here. Your way of living is better than ours.'
"The girl stayed with the boy for the rest of her life, and never again did she long
for the valleys.
And you, Osa, if you were to stay with us only a month, you could never again part
from us." With these words, Aslak, the Lapp boy,
finished his story.
Just then his father, Ola Serka, took the pipe from his mouth and rose.
Old Ola understood more Swedish than he was willing to have any one know, and he had
overheard his son's remarks.
While he was listening, it had suddenly flashed on him how he should handle this
delicate matter of telling Jon Esserson that his daughter had come in search of
him.
Ola Serka went down to Lake Luossajaure and had walked a short distance along the
strand, when he happened upon a man who sat on a rock fishing.
The fisherman was gray-haired and bent.
His eyes blinked wearily and there was something slack and helpless about him.
He looked like a man who had tried to carry a burden too heavy for him, or to solve a
problem too difficult for him, who had become broken and despondent over his
failure.
"You must have had luck with your fishing, Jon, since you've been at it all night?"
said the mountaineer in Lappish, as he approached.
The fisherman gave a start, then glanced up.
The bait on his hook was gone and not a fish lay on the strand beside him.
He hastened to rebait the hook and throw out the line.
In the meantime the mountaineer squatted on the grass beside him.
"There's a matter that I wanted to talk over with you," said Ola.
"You know that I had a little daughter who died last winter, and we have always missed
her in the tent."
"Yes, I know," said the fisherman abruptly, a cloud passing over his face--as though he
disliked being reminded of a dead child. "It's not worth while to spend one's life
grieving," said the Laplander.
"I suppose it isn't." "Now I'm thinking of adopting another
child. Don't you think it would be a good idea?"
"That depends on the child, Ola."
"I will tell you what I know of the girl," said Ola.
Then he told the fisherman that around midsummer-time, two strange children--a boy
and a girl--had come to the mines to look for their father, but as their father was
away, they had stayed to await his return.
While there, the boy had been killed by a blast of rock.
Thereupon Ola gave a beautiful description of how brave the little girl had been, and
of how she had won the admiration and sympathy of everyone.
"Is that the girl you want to take into your tent?" asked the fisherman.
"Yes," returned the Lapp.
"When we heard her story we were all deeply touched and said among ourselves that so
good a sister would also make a good daughter, and we hoped that she would come
to us."
The fisherman sat quietly thinking a moment.
It was plain that he continued the conversation only to please his friend, the
Lapp.
"I presume the girl is one of your race?" "No," said Ola, "she doesn't belong to the
Saméfolk."
"Perhaps she's the daughter of some new settler and is accustomed to the life
here?" "No, she's from the far south," replied
Ola, as if this was of small importance.
The fisherman grew more interested. "Then I don't believe that you can take
her," he said.
"It's doubtful if she could stand living in a tent in winter, since she was not brought
up that way."
"She will find kind parents and kind brothers and sisters in the tent," insisted
Ola Serka. "It's worse to be alone than to freeze."
The fisherman became more and more zealous to prevent the adoption.
It seemed as if he could not bear the thought of a child of Swedish parents being
taken in by Laplanders.
"You said just now that she had a father in the mine."
"He's dead," said the Lapp abruptly. "I suppose you have thoroughly investigated
this matter, Ola?"
"What's the use of going to all that trouble?" disdained the Lapp.
"I ought to know!
Would the girl and her brother have been obliged to roam about the country if they
had a father living? Would two children have been forced to care
for themselves if they had a father?
The girl herself thinks he's alive, but I say that he must be dead."
The man with the tired eyes turned to Ola. "What is the girl's name, Ola?" he asked.
The mountaineer thought awhile, then said:
"I can't remember it. I must ask her."
"Ask her! Is she already here?"
"She's down at the camp."
"What, Ola! Have you taken her in before knowing her
father's wishes?" "What do I care for her father!
If he isn't dead, he's probably the kind of man who cares nothing for his child.
He may be glad to have another take her in hand."
The fisherman threw down his rod and rose with an alertness in his movements that
bespoke new life. "I don't think her father can be like other
folk," continued the mountaineer.
"I dare say he is a man who is haunted by gloomy forebodings and therefore can not
work steadily. What kind of a father would that be for the
girl?"
While Ola was talking the fisherman started up the strand.
"Where are you going?" queried the Lapp. "I'm going to have a look at your foster-
daughter, Ola."
"Good!" said the Lapp. "Come along and meet her.
I think you'll say that she will be a good daughter to me."
The Swede rushed on so rapidly that the Laplander could hardly keep pace with him.
After a moment Ola said to his companion: "Now I recall that her name is Osa--this
girl I'm adopting."
The other man only kept hurrying along and old Ola Serka was so well pleased that he
wanted to laugh aloud. When they came in sight of the tents, Ola
said a few words more.
"She came here to us Saméfolk to find her father and not to become my foster-child.
But if she doesn't find him, I shall be glad to keep her in my tent."
The fisherman hastened all the faster.
"I might have known that he would be alarmed when I threatened to take his
daughter into the Lapps' quarters," laughed Ola to himself.
When the man from Kiruna, who had brought Osa to the tent, turned back later in the
day, he had two people with him in the boat, who sat close together, holding
hands--as if they never again wanted to part.
They were Jon Esserson and his daughter. Both were unlike what they had been a few
hours earlier.
The father looked less bent and weary and his eyes were clear and good, as if at last
he had found the answer to that which had troubled him so long.
Osa, the goose girl, did not glance longingly about, for she had found some one
to care for her, and now she could be a child again.
<
SECTION 37 - HOMEWARD BOUND!
THE FIRST TRAVELLING DAY
Saturday, October first. The boy sat on the goosey-gander's back and
rode up amongst the clouds. Some thirty geese, in regular order, flew
rapidly southward.
There was a rustling of feathers and the many wings beat the air so noisily that one
could scarcely hear one's own voice.
Akka from Kebnekaise flew in the lead; after her came Yksi and Kaksi, Kolme and
Neljä, Viisi and Kuusi, Morten Goosey- Gander and Dunfin.
The six goslings which had accompanied the flock the autumn before had now left to
look after themselves.
Instead, the old geese were taking with them twenty-two goslings that had grown up
in the glen that summer.
Eleven flew to the right, eleven to the left; and they did their best to fly at
even distances, like the big birds.
The poor youngsters had never before been on a long trip and at first they had
difficulty in keeping up with the rapid flight.
"Akka from Kebnekaise!
Akka from Kebnekaise!" they cried in plaintive tones.
"What's the matter?" said the leader-goose sharply.
"Our wings are tired of moving, our wings are tired of moving!" wailed the young
ones.
"The longer you keep it up, the better it will go," answered the leader-goose,
without slackening her speed.
And she was quite right, for when the goslings had flown two hours longer, they
complained no more of being tired.
But in the mountain glen they had been in the habit of eating all day long, and very
soon they began to feel hungry. "Akka, Akka, Akka from Kebnekaise!" wailed
the goslings pitifully.
"What's the trouble now?" asked the leader- goose.
"We're so hungry, we can't fly any more!" whimpered the goslings.
"We're so hungry, we can't fly any more!"
"Wild geese must learn to eat air and drink wind," said the leader-goose, and kept
right on flying.
It actually seemed as if the young ones were learning to live on wind and air, for
when they had flown a little longer, they said nothing more about being hungry.
The goose flock was still in the mountain regions, and the old geese called out the
names of all the peaks as they flew past, so that the youngsters might learn them.
When they had been calling out a while:
"This is Porsotjokko, this is Särjaktjokko, this is Sulitelma," and so on, the goslings
became impatient again. "Akka, Akka, Akka!" they shrieked in heart-
rending tones.
"What's wrong?" said the leader-goose. "We haven't room in our heads for any more
of those awful names!" shrieked the goslings.
"The more you put into your heads the more you can get into them," retorted the
leader-goose, and continued to call out the *** names.
The boy sat thinking that it was about time the wild geese betook themselves southward,
for so much snow had fallen that the ground was white as far as the eye could see.
There was no use denying that it had been rather disagreeable in the glen toward the
last.
Rain and fog had succeeded each other without any relief, and even if it did
clear up once in a while, immediately frost set in.
Berries and mushrooms, upon which the boy had subsisted during the summer, were
either frozen or decayed. Finally he had been compelled to eat raw
fish, which was something he disliked.
The days had grown short and the long evenings and late mornings were rather
tiresome for one who could not sleep the whole time that the sun was away.
Now, at last, the goslings' wings had grown, so that the geese could start for
the south. The boy was so happy that he laughed and
sang as he rode on the goose's back.
It was not only on account of the darkness and cold that he longed to get away from
Lapland; there were other reasons too. The first weeks of his sojourn there the
boy had not been the least bit homesick.
He thought he had never before seen such a glorious country.
The only worry he had had was to keep the mosquitoes from eating him up.
The boy had seen very little of the goosey- gander, because the big, white gander
thought only of his Dunfin and was unwilling to leave her for a moment.
On the other hand, Thumbietot had stuck to Akka and Gorgo, the eagle, and the three of
them had passed many happy hours together. The two birds had taken him with them on
long trips.
He had stood on snow-capped Mount Kebnekaise, had looked down at the glaciers
and visited many high cliffs seldom tramped by human feet.
Akka had shown him deep-hidden mountain dales and had let him peep into caves where
mother wolves brought up their young.
He had also made the acquaintance of the tame reindeer that grazed in herds along
the shores of the beautiful Torne Lake, and he had been down to the great falls and
brought greetings to the bears that lived
thereabouts from their friends and relatives in Westmanland.
Ever since he had seen Osa, the goose girl, he longed for the day when he might go home
with Morten Goosey-Gander and be a normal human being once more.
He wanted to be himself again, so that Osa would not be afraid to talk to him and
would not shut the door in his face. Yes, indeed, he was glad that at last they
were speeding southward.
He waved his cap and cheered when he saw the first pine forest.
In the same manner he greeted the first gray cabin, the first goat, the first cat,
and the first chicken.
They were continually meeting birds of passage, flying now in greater flocks than
in the spring. "Where are you bound for, wild geese?"
called the passing birds.
"Where are you bound for?" "We, like yourselves, are going abroad,"
answered the geese. "Those goslings of yours aren't ready to
fly," screamed the others.
"They'll never cross the sea with those puny wings!"
Laplander and reindeer were also leaving the mountains.
When the wild geese sighted the reindeer, they circled down and called out:
"Thanks for your company this summer!" "A pleasant journey to you and a welcome
back!" returned the reindeer.
But when the bears saw the wild geese, they pointed them out to the cubs and growled:
"Just look at those geese; they are so afraid of a little cold they don't dare to
stay at home in winter."
But the old geese were ready with a retort and cried to their goslings:
"Look at those beasts that stay at home and sleep half the year rather than go to the
trouble of travelling south!"
Down in the pine forest the young grouse sat huddled together and gazed longingly
after the big bird flocks which, amid joy and merriment, proceeded southward.
"When will our turn come?" they asked the mother grouse.
"You will have to stay at home with mamma and papa," she said.
<
SECTION 38 - LEGENDS FROM HÄRJEDALEN
Tuesday, October fourth. The boy had had three days' travel in the
rain and mist and longed for some sheltered nook, where he might rest awhile.
At last the geese alighted to feed and ease their wings a bit.
To his great relief the boy saw an observation tower on a hill close by, and
dragged himself to it.
When he had climbed to the top of the tower he found a party of tourists there, so he
quickly crawled into a dark corner and was soon sound asleep.
When the boy awoke, he began to feel uneasy because the tourists lingered so long in
the tower telling stories. He thought they would never go.
Morten Goosey-Gander could not come for him while they were there and he knew, of
course, that the wild geese were in a hurry to continue the journey.
In the middle of a story he thought he heard honking and the beating of wings, as
if the geese were flying away, but he did not dare to venture over to the balustrade
to find out if it was so.
At last, when the tourists were gone, and the boy could crawl from his hiding place,
he saw no wild geese, and no Morten Goosey- Gander came to fetch him.
He called, "Here am I, where are you?" as loud as he could, but his travelling
companions did not appear.
Not for a second did he think they had deserted him; but he feared that they had
met with some mishap and was wondering what he should do to find them, when Bataki, the
raven, lit beside him.
The boy never dreamed that he should greet Bataki with such a glad welcome as he now
gave him. "Dear Bataki," he burst forth.
"How fortunate that you are here!
Maybe you know what has become of Morten Goosey-Gander and the wild geese?"
"I've just come with a greeting from them," replied the raven.
"Akka saw a hunter prowling about on the mountain and therefore dared not stay to
wait for you, but has gone on ahead. Get up on my back and you shall soon be
with your friends."
The boy quickly seated himself on the raven's back and Bataki would soon have
caught up with the geese had he not been hindered by a fog.
It was as if the morning sun had awakened it to life.
Little light veils of mist rose suddenly from the lake, from fields, and from the
forest.
They thickened and spread with marvellous rapidity, and soon the entire ground was
hidden from sight by white, rolling mists.
Bataki flew along above the fog in clear air and sparkling sunshine, but the wild
geese must have circled down among the damp clouds, for it was impossible to sight
them.
The boy and the raven called and shrieked, but got no response.
"Well, this is a stroke of ill luck!" said Bataki finally.
"But we know that they are travelling toward the south, and of course I'll find
them as soon as the mist clears."
The boy was distressed at the thought of being parted from Morten Goosey-Gander just
now, when the geese were on the wing, and the big white one might meet with all sorts
of mishaps.
After Thumbietot had been sitting worrying for two hours or more, he remarked to
himself that, thus far, there had been no mishap, and it was not worth while to lose
heart.
Just then he heard a rooster crowing down on the ground, and instantly he bent
forward on the raven's back and called out: "What's the name of the country I'm
travelling over?"
"It's called Härjedalen, Härjedalen, Härjedalen," crowed the rooster.
"How does it look down there where you are?" the boy asked.
"Cliffs in the west, woods in the east, broad valleys across the whole country,"
replied the rooster. "Thank you," cried the boy.
"You give a clear account of it."
When they had travelled a little farther, he heard a crow cawing down in the mist.
"What kind of people live in this country?" shouted the boy.
"Good, thrifty peasants," answered the crow.
"Good, thrifty peasants." "What do they do?" asked the boy.
"What do they do?"
"They raise cattle and fell forests," cawed the crow.
"Thanks," replied the boy. "You answer well."
A bit farther on he heard a human voice yodeling and singing down in the mist.
"Is there any large city in this part of the country?" the boy asked.
"What--what--who is it that calls?" cried the human voice.
"Is there any large city in this region?" the boy repeated.
"I want to know who it is that calls," shouted the human voice.
"I might have known that I could get no information when I asked a human being a
civil question," the boy retorted.
It was not long before the mist went away as suddenly as it had come.
Then the boy saw a beautiful landscape, with high cliffs as in Jämtland, but there
were no large, flourishing settlements on the mountain slopes.
The villages lay far apart, and the farms were small.
Bataki followed the stream southward till they came within sight of a village.
There he alighted in a stubble field and let the boy dismount.
"In the summer grain grew on this ground," said Bataki.
"Look around and see if you can't find something eatable."
The boy acted upon the suggestion and before long he found a blade of wheat.
As he picked out the grains and ate them, Bataki talked to him.
"Do you see that mountain towering directly south of us?" he asked.
"Yes, of course, I see it," said the boy.
"It is called Sonfjället," continued the raven; "you can imagine that wolves were
plentiful there once upon a time." "It must have been an ideal place for
wolves," said the boy.
"The people who lived here in the valley were frequently attacked by them," remarked
the raven. "Perhaps you remember a good wolf story you
could tell me?" said the boy.
"I've been told that a long, long time ago the wolves from Sonfjället are supposed to
have waylaid a man who had gone out to peddle his wares," began Bataki.
"He was from Hede, a village a few miles down the valley.
It was winter time and the wolves made for him as he was driving over the ice on Lake
Ljusna.
There were about nine or ten, and the man from Hede had a poor old horse, so there
was very little hope of his escaping.
"When the man heard the wolves howl and saw how many there were after him, he lost his
head, and it did not occur to him that he ought to dump his casks and jugs out of the
sledge, to lighten the load.
He only whipped up the horse and made the best speed he could, but he soon observed
that the wolves were gaining on him. The shores were desolate and he was
fourteen miles from the nearest farm.
He thought that his final hour had come, and was paralyzed with fear.
"While he sat there, terrified, he saw something move in the brush, which had been
set in the ice to mark out the road; and when he discovered who it was that walked
there, his fear grew more and more intense.
"Wild beasts were not coming toward him, but a poor old woman, named Finn-Malin, who
was in the habit of roaming about on highways and byways.
She was a hunchback, and slightly lame, so he recognized her at a distance.
"The old woman was walking straight toward the wolves.
The sledge had hidden them from her view, and the man comprehended at once that, if
he were to drive on without warning her, she would walk right into the jaws of the
wild beasts, and while they were rending her, he would have time enough to get away.
"The old woman walked slowly, bent over a cane.
It was plain that she was doomed if he did not help her, but even if he were to stop
and take her into the sledge, it was by no means certain that she would be safe.
More than likely the wolves would catch up with them, and he and she and the horse
would all be killed.
He wondered if it were not better to sacrifice one life in order that two might
be spared--this flashed upon him the minute he saw the old woman.
He had also time to think how it would be with him afterward--if perchance he might
not regret that he had not succoured her; or if people should some day learn of the
meeting and that he had not tried to help her.
It was a terrible temptation. "'I would rather not have seen her,' he
said to himself.
"Just then the wolves howled savagely. The horse reared, plunged forward, and
dashed past the old beggar woman.
She, too, had heard the howling of the wolves, and, as the man from Hede drove by,
he saw that the old woman knew what awaited her.
She stood motionless, her mouth open for a cry, her arms stretched out for help.
But she neither cried nor tried to throw herself into the sledge.
Something seemed to have turned her to stone.
'It was I,' thought the man. 'I must have looked like a demon as I
passed.'
"He tried to feel satisfied, now that he was certain of escape; but at that very
moment his heart reproached him.
Never before had he done a dastardly thing, and he felt now that his whole life was
blasted.
"'Let come what may,' he said, and reined in the horse, 'I cannot leave her alone
with the wolves!'
"It was with great difficulty that he got the horse to turn, but in the end he
managed it and promptly drove back to her.
"'Be quick and get into the sledge,' he said gruffly; for he was mad with himself
for not leaving the old woman to her fate. "'You might stay at home once in awhile,
you old hag!' he growled.
'Now both my horse and I will come to grief on your account.'
"The old woman did not say a word, but the man from Hede was in no mood to spare her.
"'The horse has already tramped thirty-five miles to-day, and the load hasn't lightened
any since you got up on it!' he grumbled, 'so that you must understand he'll soon be
exhausted.'
"The sledge runners crunched on the ice, but for all that he heard how the wolves
panted, and knew that the beasts were almost upon him.
"'It's all up with us!' he said.
'Much good it was, either to you or to me, this attempt to save you, Finn-Malin!'
"Up to this point the old woman had been silent--like one who is accustomed to take
abuse--but now she said a few words.
"'I can't understand why you don't throw out your wares and lighten the load.
You can come back again to-morrow and gather them up.'
"The man realized that this was sound advice and was surprised that he had not
thought of it before.
He tossed the reins to the old woman, loosed the ropes that bound the casks, and
pitched them out.
The wolves were right upon them, but now they stopped to examine that which was
thrown on the ice, and the travellers again had the start of them.
"'If this does not help you,' said the old woman, 'you understand, of course, that I
will give myself up to the wolves voluntarily, that you may escape.'
"While she was speaking the man was trying to push a heavy brewer's vat from the long
sledge.
As he tugged at this he paused, as if he could not quite make up his mind to throw
it out; but, in reality, his mind was taken up with something altogether different.
"'Surely a man and a horse who have no infirmities need not let a feeble old woman
be devoured by wolves for their sakes!' he thought.
'There must be some other way of salvation.
Why, of course, there is! It's only my stupidity that hinders me from
finding the way.' "Again he started to push the vat, then
paused once more and burst out laughing.
"The old woman was alarmed and wondered if he had gone mad, but the man from Hede was
laughing at himself because he had been so stupid all the while.
It was the simplest thing in the world to save all three of them.
He could not imagine why he had not thought of it before.
"'Listen to what I say to you, Malin!' he said.
'It was splendid of you to be willing to throw yourself to the wolves.
But you won't have to do that because I know how we can all three be helped without
endangering the life of any. Remember, whatever I may do, you are to sit
still and drive down to Linsäll.
There you must waken the townspeople and tell them that I'm alone out here on the
ice, surrounded by wolves, and ask them to come and help me.'
"The man waited until the wolves were almost upon the sledge.
Then he rolled out the big brewer's vat, jumped down, and crawled in under it.
"It was a huge vat, large enough to hold a whole Christmas brew.
The wolves pounced upon it and bit at the hoops, but the vat was too heavy for them
to move.
They could not get at the man inside. "He knew that he was safe and laughed at
the wolves. After a bit he was serious again.
"'For the future, when I get into a tight place, I shall remember this vat, and I
shall bear in mind that I need never wrong either myself or others, for there is
always a third way out of a difficulty if only one can hit upon it.'"
With this Bataki closed his narrative.
The boy noticed that the raven never spoke unless there was some special meaning back
of his words, and the longer he listened to him, the more thoughtful he became.
"I wonder why you told me that story?" remarked the boy.
"I just happened to think of it as I stood here, gazing up at Sonfjället," replied the
raven.
Now they had travelled farther down Lake Ljusna and in an hour or so they came to
Kolsätt, close to the border of Hälsingland.
Here the raven alighted near a little hut that had no windows--only a shutter.
From the chimney rose sparks and smoke, and from within the sound of heavy hammering
was heard.
"Whenever I see this smithy," observed the raven, "I'm reminded that, in former times,
there were such skilled blacksmiths here in Härjedalen, more especially in this
village--that they couldn't be matched in the whole country."
"Perhaps you also remember a story about them?" said the boy.
"Yes," returned Bataki, "I remember one about a smith from Härjedalen who once
invited two other master blacksmiths--one from Dalecarlia and one from Vermland--to
compete with him at nail-making.
The challenge was accepted and the three blacksmiths met here at Kolsätt.
The Dalecarlian began.
He forged a dozen nails, so even and smooth and sharp that they couldn't be improved
upon. After him came the Vermlander.
He, too, forged a dozen nails, which were quite perfect and, moreover, he finished
them in half the time that it took the Dalecarlian.
When the judges saw this they said to the Härjedal smith that it wouldn't be worth
while for him to try, since he could not forge better than the Dalecarlian or faster
than the Vermlander.
"'I sha'n't give up! There must be still another way of
excelling,' insisted the Härjedal smith.
"He placed the iron on the anvil without heating it at the forge; he simply hammered
it hot and forged nail after nail, without the use of either anvil or bellows.
None of the judges had ever seen a blacksmith wield a hammer more masterfully,
and the Härjedal smith was proclaimed the best in the land."
With these remarks Bataki subsided, and the boy grew even more thoughtful.
"I wonder what your purpose was in telling me that?" he queried.
"The story dropped into my mind when I saw the old smithy again," said Bataki in an
offhand manner.
The two travellers rose again into the air and the raven carried the boy southward
till they came to Lillhärdal Parish, where he alighted on a leafy mound at the top of
a ridge.
"I wonder if you know upon what mound you are standing?" said Bataki.
The boy had to confess that he did not know.
"This is a grave," said Bataki.
"Beneath this mound lies the first settler in Härjedalen."
"Perhaps you have a story to tell of him too?" said the boy.
"I haven't heard much about him, but I think he was a Norwegian.
He had served with a Norwegian king, got into his bad graces, and had to flee the
country.
"Later he went over to the Swedish king, who lived at Upsala, and took service with
him.
But, after a time, he asked for the hand of the king's sister in marriage, and when the
king wouldn't give him such a high-born bride, he eloped with her.
By that time he had managed to get himself into such disfavour that it wasn't safe for
him to live either in Norway or Sweden, and he did not wish to move to a foreign
country.
'But there must still be a course open to me,' he thought.
With his servants and treasures, he journeyed through Dalecarlia until he
arrived in the desolate forests beyond the outskirts of the province.
There he settled, built houses and broke up land.
Thus, you see, he was the first man to settle in this part of the country."
As the boy listened to the last story, he looked very serious.
"I wonder what your object is in telling me all this?" he repeated.
Bataki twisted and turned and screwed up his eyes, and it was some time before he
answered the boy.
"Since we are here alone," he said finally, "I shall take this opportunity to question
you regarding a certain matter.
"Have you ever tried to ascertain upon what terms the elf who transformed you was to
restore you to a normal human being?"
"The only stipulation I've heard anything about was that I should take the white
goosey-gander up to Lapland and bring him back to Skåne, safe and sound."
"I thought as much," said Bataki; "for when last we met, you talked confidently of
there being nothing more contemptible than deceiving a friend who trusts one.
You'd better ask Akka about the terms.
You know, I dare say, that she was at your home and talked with the elf."
"Akka hasn't told me of this," said the boy wonderingly.
"She must have thought that it was best for you not to know just what the elf did say.
Naturally she would rather help you than Morten Goosey-Gander."
"It is singular, Bataki, that you always have a way of making me feel unhappy and
anxious," said the boy.
"I dare say it might seem so," continued the raven, "but this time I believe that
you will be grateful to me for telling you that the elf's words were to this effect:
You were to become a normal human being
again if you would bring back Morten Goosey-Gander that your mother might lay
him on the block and chop his head off." The boy leaped up.
"That's only one of your base fabrications," he cried indignantly.
"You can ask Akka yourself," said Bataki. "I see her coming up there with her whole
flock.
And don't forget what I have told you to- day.
There is usually a way out of all difficulties, if only one can find it.
I shall be interested to see what success you have."
<
SECTION 39 - VERMLAND AND DALSLAND
Wednesday, October fifth.
To-day the boy took advantage of the rest hour, when Akka was feeding apart from the
other wild geese, to ask her if that which Bataki had related was true, and Akka could
not deny it.
The boy made the leader-goose promise that she would not divulge the secret to Morten
Goosey-Gander.
The big white gander was so brave and generous that he might do something rash
were he to learn of the elf's stipulations. Later the boy sat on the goose-back, glum
and silent, and hung his head.
He heard the wild geese call out to the goslings that now they were in Dalarne,
they could see Städjan in the north, and that now they were flying over Österdal
River to Horrmund Lake and were coming to Vesterdal River.
But the boy did not care even to glance at all this.
"I shall probably travel around with wild geese the rest of my life," he remarked to
himself, "and I am likely to see more of this land than I wish."
He was quite as indifferent when the wild geese called out to him that now they had
arrived in Vermland and that the stream they were following southward was
Klarälven.
"I've seen so many rivers already," thought the boy, "why bother to look at one more?"
Even had he been more eager for sight- seeing, there was not very much to be seen,
for northern Vermland is nothing but vast, monotonous forest tracts, through which
Klarälven winds--narrow and rich in rapids.
Here and there one can see a charcoal kiln, a forest clearing, or a few low,
chimneyless huts, occupied by Finns. But the forest as a whole is so extensive
one might fancy it was far up in Lapland.
A LITTLE HOMESTEAD
Thursday, October sixth. The wild geese followed Klarälven as far
as the big iron foundries at Monk Fors. Then they proceeded westward to Fryksdalen.
Before they got to Lake Fryken it began to grow dusky, and they lit in a little wet
morass on a wooded hill.
The morass was certainly a good night quarter for the wild geese, but the boy
thought it dismal and rough, and wished for a better sleeping place.
While he was still high in the air, he had noticed that below the ridge lay a number
of farms, and with great haste he proceeded to seek them out.
They were farther away than he had fancied and several times he was tempted to turn
back.
Presently the woods became less dense, and he came to a road skirting the edge of the
forest.
From it branched a pretty birch-bordered lane, which led down to a farm, and
immediately he hastened toward it.
First the boy entered a farm yard as large as a city marketplace and enclosed by a
long row of red houses.
As he crossed the yard, he saw another farm where the dwelling-house faced a gravel
path and a wide lawn. Back of the house there was a garden thick
with foliage.
The dwelling itself was small and humble, but the garden was edged by a row of
exceedingly tall mountain-ash trees, so close together that they formed a real wall
around it.
It appeared to the boy as if he were coming into a great, high-vaulted chamber, with
the lovely blue sky for a ceiling.
The mountain-ash were thick with clusters of red berries, the grass plots were still
green, of course, but that night there was a full moon, and as the bright moonlight
fell upon the grass it looked as white as silver.
No human being was in sight and the boy could wander freely wherever he wished.
When he was in the garden he saw something which almost put him in good humour.
He had climbed a mountain-ash to eat berries, but before he could reach a
cluster he caught sight of a barberry bush, which was also full of berries.
He slid along the ash branch and clambered up into the barberry bush, but he was no
sooner there than he discovered a currant bush, on which still hung long red
clusters.
Next he saw that the garden was full of gooseberries and raspberries and dog-rose
bushes; that there were cabbages and turnips in the vegetable beds and berries
on every bush, seeds on the herbs and grain-filled ears on every blade.
And there on the path--no, of course he could not mistake it--was a big red apple
which shone in the moonlight.
The boy sat down at the side of the path, with the big red apple in front of him, and
began cutting little pieces from it with his sheath knife.
"It wouldn't be such a serious matter to be an elf all one's life if it were always as
easy to get good food as it is here," he thought.
He sat and mused as he ate, wondering finally if it would not be as well for him
to remain here and let the wild geese travel south without him.
"I don't know for the life of me how I can ever explain to Morten Goosey-Gander that
I cannot go home," thought he. "It would be better were I to leave him
altogether.
I could gather provisions enough for the winter, as well as the squirrels do, and if
I were to live in a dark corner of the stable or the cow shed, I shouldn't freeze
to death."
Just as he was thinking this, he heard a light rustle over his head, and a second
later something which resembled a birch stump stood on the ground beside him.
The stump twisted and turned, and two bright dots on top of it glowed like coals
of fire. It looked like some enchantment.
However, the boy soon remarked that the stump had a hooked beak and big feather
wreaths around its glowing eyes. Then he knew that this was no enchantment.
"It is a real pleasure to meet a living creature," remarked the boy.
"Perhaps you will be good enough to tell me the name of this place, Mrs. Brown Owl, and
what sort of folk live here."
That evening, as on all other evenings, the owl had perched on a rung of the big ladder
propped against the roof, from which she had looked down toward the gravel walks and
grass plots, watching for rats.
Very much to her surprise, not a single grayskin had appeared.
She saw instead something that looked like a human being, but much, much smaller,
moving about in the garden.
"That's the one who is scaring away the rats!" thought the owl.
"What in the world can it be? It's not a squirrel, nor a kitten, nor a
weasel," she observed.
"I suppose that a bird who has lived on an old place like this as long as I have ought
to know about everything in the world; but this is beyond my comprehension," she
concluded.
She had been staring at the object that moved on the gravel path until her eyes
burned.
Finally curiosity got the better of her and she flew down to the ground to have a
closer view of the stranger. When the boy began to speak, the owl bent
forward and looked him up and down.
"He has neither claws nor horns," she remarked to herself, "yet who knows but he
may have a poisonous fang or some even more dangerous weapon.
I must try to find out what he passes for before I venture to touch him."
"The place is called Mårbacka," said the owl, "and gentlefolk lived here once upon
a time.
But you, yourself, who are you?" "I think of moving in here," volunteered
the boy without answering the owl's question.
"Would it be possible, do you think?"
"Oh, yes--but it's not much of a place now compared to what it was once," said the
owl. "You can weather it here I dare say.
It all depends upon what you expect to live on.
Do you intend to take up the rat chase?" "Oh, by no means!" declared the boy.
"There is more fear of the rats eating me than that I shall do them any harm."
"It can't be that he is as harmless as he says," thought the brown owl.
"All the same I believe I'll make an attempt...."
She rose into the air, and in a second her claws were fastened in Nils Holgersson's
shoulder and she was trying to hack at his eyes.
The boy shielded both eyes with one hand and tried to free himself with the other,
at the same time calling with all his might for help.
He realized that he was in deadly peril and thought that this time, surely, it was all
over with him!
Now I must tell you of a strange coincidence: The very year that Nils
Holgersson travelled with the wild geese there was a woman who thought of writing a
book about Sweden, which would be suitable for children to read in the schools.
She had thought of this from Christmas time until the following autumn; but not a line
of the book had she written.
At last she became so tired of the whole thing that she said to herself: "You are
not fitted for such work.
Sit down and compose stories and legends, as usual, and let another write this book,
which has got to be serious and instructive, and in which there must not be
one untruthful word."
It was as good as settled that she would abandon the idea.
But she thought, very naturally, it would have been agreeable to write something
beautiful about Sweden, and it was hard for her to relinquish her work.
Finally, it occurred to her that maybe it was because she lived in a city, with only
gray streets and house walls around her, that she could make no headway with the
writing.
Perhaps if she were to go into the country, where she could see woods and fields, that
it might go better.
She was from Vermland, and it was perfectly clear to her that she wished to begin the
book with that province. First of all she would write about the
place where she had grown up.
It was a little homestead, far removed from the great world, where many old-time habits
and customs were retained.
She thought that it would be entertaining for children to hear of the manifold duties
which had succeeded one another the year around.
She wanted to tell them how they celebrated Christmas and New Year and Easter and
Midsummer Day in her home; what kind of house furnishings they had; what the
kitchen and larder were like, and how the
cow shed, stable, lodge, and bath house had looked.
But when she was to write about it the pen would not move.
Why this was she could not in the least understand; nevertheless it was so.
True, she remembered it all just as distinctly as if she were still living in
the midst of it.
She argued with herself that since she was going into the country anyway, perhaps she
ought to make a little trip to the old homestead that she might see it again
before writing about it.
She had not been there in many years and did not think it half bad to have a reason
for the journey.
In fact she had always longed to be there, no matter in what part of the world she
happened to be. She had seen many places that were more
pretentious and prettier.
But nowhere could she find such comfort and protection as in the home of her childhood.
It was not such an easy matter for her to go home as one might think, for the estate
had been sold to people she did not know.
She felt, to be sure, that they would receive her well, but she did not care to
go to the old place to sit and talk with strangers, for she wanted to recall how it
had been in times gone by.
That was why she planned it so as to arrive there late in the evening, when the day's
work was done and the people were indoors. She had never imagined that it would be so
wonderful to come home!
As she sat in the cart and drove toward the old homestead she fancied that she was
growing younger and younger every minute, and that soon she would no longer be an
oldish person with hair that was turning
gray, but a little girl in short skirts with a long flaxen braid.
As she recognized each farm along the road, she could not picture anything else than
that everything at home would be as in bygone days.
Her father and mother and brothers and sisters would be standing on the porch to
welcome her; the old housekeeper would run to the kitchen window to see who was
coming, and Nero and Freja and another dog
or two would come bounding and jumping up on her.
The nearer she approached the place the happier she felt.
It was autumn, which meant a busy time with a round of duties.
It must have been all these varying duties which prevented home from ever being
monotonous.
All along the way the farmers were digging potatoes, and probably they would be doing
likewise at her home. That meant that they must begin immediately
to grate potatoes and make potato flour.
The autumn had been a mild one; she wondered if everything in the garden had
already been stored.
The cabbages were still out, but perhaps the hops had been picked, and all the
apples. It would be well if they were not having
house cleaning at home.
Autumn fair time was drawing nigh, everywhere the cleaning and scouring had to
be done before the fair opened. That was regarded as a great event--more
especially by the servants.
It was a pleasure to go into the kitchen on Market Eve and see the newly scoured floor
strewn with juniper twigs, the whitewashed walls and the shining copper utensils which
were suspended from the ceiling.
Even after the fair festivities were over there would not be much of a breathing
spell, for then came the work on the flax. During dog days the flax had been spread
out on a meadow to mould.
Now it was laid in the old bath house, where the stove was lighted to dry it out.
When it was dry enough to handle all the women in the neighbourhood were called
together.
They sat outside the bath house and picked the flax to pieces.
Then they beat it with swingles, to separate the fine white fibres from the dry
stems.
As they worked, the women grew gray with dust; their hair and clothing were covered
with flax seed, but they did not seem to mind it.
All day the swingles pounded, and the chatter went on, so that when one went near
the old bath house it sounded as if a blustering storm had broken loose there.
After the work with the flax, came the big hard-tack baking, the sheep shearing, and
the servants' moving time.
In November there were busy slaughter days, with salting of meats, sausage making,
baking of blood pudding, and candle steeping.
The seamstress who used to make up their homespun dresses had to come at this time,
of course, and those were always two pleasant weeks--when the women folk sat
together and busied themselves with sewing.
The cobbler, who made shoes for the entire household, sat working at the same time in
the men-servants' quarters, and one never tired of watching him as he cut the leather
and soled and heeled the shoes and put eyelets in the shoestring holes.
But the greatest rush came around Christmas time.
Lucia Day--when the housemaid went about dressed in white, with candles in her hair,
and served coffee to everybody at five in the morning--came as a sort of reminder
that for the next two weeks they could not count on much sleep.
For now they must brew the Christmas ale, steep the Christmas fish in lye, and do
their Christmas baking and Christmas scouring.
She was in the middle of the baking, with pans of Christmas buns and cooky platters
all around her, when the driver drew in the reins at the end of the lane as she had
requested.
She started like one suddenly awakened from a sound sleep.
It was dismal for her who had just dreamed herself surrounded by all her people to be
sitting alone in the late evening.
As she stepped from the wagon and started to walk up the long lane that she might
come unobserved to her old home, she felt so keenly the contrast between then and now
that she would have preferred to turn back.
"Of what use is it to come here?" she sighed.
"It can't be the same as in the old days!"
On the other hand she felt that since she had travelled such a long distance, she
would see the place at all events, so continued to walk on, although she was more
depressed with every step that she took.
She had heard that it was very much changed; and it certainly was!
But she did not observe this now in the evening.
She thought, rather, that everything was quite the same.
There was the pond, which in her youth had been full of carp and where no one dared
fish, because it was father's wish that the carp should be left in peace.
Over there were the men-servants' quarters, the larder and barn, with the farm yard
bell over one gable and the weather-vane over the other.
The house yard was like a circular room, with no outlook in any direction, as it had
been in her father's time--for he had not the heart to cut down as much as a bush.
She lingered in the shadow under the big mountain-ash at the entrance to the farm,
and stood looking about her.
As she stood there a strange thing happened; a flock of doves came and lit
beside her.
She could hardly believe that they were real birds, for doves are not in the habit
of moving about after sundown. It must have been the beautiful moonlight
that had awakened these.
They must have thought it was dawn and flown from their dove-cotes, only to become
confused, hardly knowing where they were. When they saw a human being they flew over
to her, as if she would set them right.
There had been many flocks of doves at the manor when her parents lived there, for the
doves were among the creatures which her father had taken under his special care.
If one ever mentioned the killing of a dove, it put him in a bad humour.
She was pleased that the pretty birds had come to meet her in the old home.
Who could tell but the doves had flown out in the night to show her they had not
forgotten that once upon a time they had a good home there.
Perhaps her father had sent his birds with a greeting to her, so that she would not
feel so sad and lonely when she came to her former home.
As she thought of this, there welled up within her such an intense longing for the
old times that her eyes filled with tears. Life had been beautiful in this place.
They had had weeks of work broken by many holiday festivities.
They had toiled hard all day, but at evening they had gathered around the lamp
and read Tegner and Runeberg, "Fru" Lenngren and "Mamsell" Bremer.
They had cultivated grain, but also roses and jasmine.
They had spun flax, but had sung folk-songs as they spun.
They had worked hard at their history and grammar, but they had also played theatre
and written verses.
They had stood at the kitchen stove and prepared food, but had learned, also, to
play the flute and guitar, the violin and piano.
They had planted cabbages and turnips, peas and beans in one garden, but they had
another full of apples and pears and all kinds of berries.
They had lived by themselves, and this was why so many stories and legends were stowed
away in their memories.
They had worn homespun clothes, but they had also been able to lead care-free and
independent lives.
"Nowhere else in the world do they know how to get so much out of life as they did at
one of these little homesteads in my childhood!" she thought.
"There was just enough work and just enough play, and every day there was a joy.
How I should love to come back here again! Now that I have seen the place, it is hard
to leave it."
Then she turned to the flock of doves and said to them--laughing at herself all the
while: "Won't you fly to father and tell him that
I long to come home?
I have wandered long enough in strange places.
Ask him if he can't arrange it so that I may soon turn back to my childhood's home."
The moment she had said this the flock of doves rose and flew away.
She tried to follow them with her eyes, but they vanished instantly.
It was as if the whole white company had dissolved in the shimmering air.
The doves had only just gone when she heard a couple of piercing cries from the garden,
and as she hastened thither she saw a singular sight.
There stood a tiny midget, no taller than a hand's breadth, struggling with a brown
owl. At first she was so astonished that she
could not move.
But when the midget cried more and more pitifully, she stepped up quickly and
parted the fighters.
The owl swung herself into a tree, but the midget stood on the gravel path, without
attempting either to hide or to run away. "Thanks for your help," he said.
"But it was very stupid of you to let the owl escape.
I can't get away from here, because she is sitting up in the tree watching me."
"It was thoughtless of me to let her go.
But to make amends, can't I accompany you to your home?" asked she who wrote stories,
somewhat surprised to think that in this unexpected fashion she had got into
conversation with one of the tiny folk.
Still she was not so much surprised after all.
It was as if all the while she had been awaiting some extraordinary experience,
while she walked in the moonlight outside her old home.
"The fact is, I had thought of stopping here over night," said the midget.
"If you will only show me a safe sleeping place, I shall not be obliged to return to
the forest before daybreak."
"Must I show you a place to sleep? Are you not at home here?"
"I understand that you take me for one of the tiny folk," said the midget, "but I'm
a human being, like yourself, although I have been transformed by an elf."
"That is the most remarkable thing I have ever heard!
Wouldn't you like to tell me how you happened to get into such a plight?"
The boy did not mind telling her of his adventures, and, as the narrative
proceeded, she who listened to him grew more and more astonished and happy.
"What luck to run across one who has travelled all over Sweden on the back of a
goose!" thought she. "Just this which he is relating I shall
write down in my book.
Now I need worry no more over that matter. It was well that I came home.
To think that I should find such help as soon as I came to the old place!"
Instantly another thought flashed into her mind.
She had sent word to her father by the doves that she longed for home, and almost
immediately she had received help in the matter she had pondered so long.
Might not this be the father's answer to her prayer?
<
SECTION 40 - THE TREASURE ON THE ISLAND
ON THEIR WAY TO THE SEA
Friday, October seventh.
From the very start of the autumn trip the wild geese had flown straight south; but
when they left Fryksdalen they veered in another direction, travelling over western
Vermland and Dalsland, toward Bohuslän.
That was a jolly trip! The goslings were now so used to flying
that they complained no more of fatigue, and the boy was fast recovering his good
humour.
He was glad that he had talked with a human being.
He felt encouraged when she said to him that if he were to continue doing good to
all whom he met, as heretofore, it could not end badly for him.
She was not able to tell him how to get back his natural form, but she had given
him a little hope and assurance, which inspired the boy to think out a way to
prevent the big white gander from going home.
"Do you know, Morten Goosey-Gander, that it will be rather monotonous for us to stay at
home all winter after having been on a trip like this," he said, as they were flying
far up in the air.
"I'm sitting here thinking that we ought to go abroad with the geese."
"Surely you are not in earnest!" said the goosey-gander.
Since he had proved to the wild geese his ability to travel with them all the way to
Lapland, he was perfectly satisfied to get back to the goose pen in Holger Nilsson's
cow shed.
The boy sat silently a while and gazed down on Vermland, where the birch woods, leafy
groves, and gardens were clad in red and yellow autumn colours.
"I don't think I've ever seen the earth beneath us as lovely as it is to-day!" he
finally remarked. "The lakes are like blue satin bands.
Don't you think it would be a pity to settle down in West Vemminghög and never
see any more of the world?"
"I thought you wanted to go home to your mother and father and show them what a
splendid boy you had become?" said the goosey-gander.
All summer he had been dreaming of what a proud moment it would be for him when he
should alight in the house yard before Holger Nilsson's cabin and show Dunfin and
the six goslings to the geese and chickens,
the cows and the cat, and to Mother Holger Nilsson herself, so that he was not very
happy over the boy's proposal.
"Now, Morten Goosey-Gander, don't you think yourself that it would be hard never to see
anything more that is beautiful!" said the boy.
"I would rather see the fat grain fields of Söderslätt than these lean hills," answered
the goosey-gander.
"But you must know very well that if you really wish to continue the trip, I can't
be parted from you."
"That is just the answer I had expected from you," said the boy, and his voice
betrayed that he was relieved of a great anxiety.
Later, when they travelled over Bohuslän, the boy observed that the mountain
stretches were more continuous, the valleys were more like little ravines blasted in
the rock foundation, while the long lakes
at their base were as black as if they had come from the underworld.
This, too, was a glorious country, and as the boy saw it, with now a strip of sun,
now a shadow, he thought that there was something strange and wild about it.
He knew not why, but the idea came to him that once upon a time there were many
strong and brave heroes in these mystical regions who had passed through many
dangerous and daring adventures.
The old passion of wanting to share in all sorts of wonderful adventures awoke in him.
"I might possibly miss not being in danger of my life at least once every day or two,"
he thought.
"Anyhow it's best to be content with things as they are."
He did not speak of this idea to the big white gander, because the geese were now
flying over Bohuslän with all the speed they could muster, and the goosey-gander
was puffing so hard that he would not have had the strength to reply.
The sun was far down on the horizon, and disappeared every now and then behind a
hill; still the geese kept forging ahead.
Finally, in the west, they saw a shining strip of light, which grew broader and
broader with every wing stroke.
Soon the sea spread before them, milk white with a shimmer of rose red and sky blue,
and when they had circled past the coast cliffs they saw the sun again, as it hung
over the sea, big and red and ready to plunge into the waves.
As the boy gazed at the broad, endless sea and the red evening sun, which had such a
kindly glow that he dared to look straight at it, he felt a sense of peace and calm
penetrate his soul.
"It's not worth while to be sad, Nils Holgersson," said the Sun.
"This is a beautiful world to live in both for big and little.
It is also good to be free and happy, and to have a great dome of open sky above
you."
THE GIFT OF THE WILD GEESE
The geese stood sleeping on a little rock islet just beyond Fjällbacka.
When it drew on toward midnight, and the moon hung high in the heavens, old Akka
shook the sleepiness out of her eyes.
After that she walked around and awakened Yksi and Kaksi, Kolme and Neljä, Viisi and
Kuusi, and, last of all, she gave Thumbietot a nudge with her bill that
startled him.
"What is it, Mother Akka?" he asked, springing up in alarm.
"Nothing serious," assured the leader- goose.
"It's just this: we seven who have been long together want to fly a short distance
out to sea to-night, and we wondered if you would care to come with us."
The boy knew that Akka would not have proposed this move had there not been
something important on foot, so he promptly seated himself on her back.
The flight was straight west.
The wild geese first flew over a belt of large and small islands near the coast,
then over a broad expanse of open sea, till they reached the large cluster known as the
Väder Islands.
All of them were low and rocky, and in the moonlight one could see that they were
rather large. Akka looked at one of the smallest islands
and alighted there.
It consisted of a round, gray stone hill, with a wide cleft across it, into which the
sea had cast fine, white sea sand and a few shells.
As the boy slid from the goose's back he noticed something quite close to him that
looked like a jagged stone.
But almost at once he saw that it was a big vulture which had chosen the rock island
for a night harbour.
Before the boy had time to wonder at the geese recklessly alighting so near a
dangerous enemy, the bird flew up to them and the boy recognized Gorgo, the eagle.
Evidently Akka and Gorgo had arranged the meeting, for neither of them was taken by
surprise. "This was good of you, Gorgo," said Akka.
"I didn't expect that you would be at the meeting place ahead of us.
Have you been here long?" "I came early in the evening," replied
Gorgo.
"But I fear that the only praise I deserve is for keeping my appointment with you.
I've not been very successful in carrying out the orders you gave me."
"I'm sure, Gorgo, that you have done more than you care to admit," assured Akka.
"But before you relate your experiences on the trip, I shall ask Thumbietot to help me
find something which is supposed to be buried on this island."
The boy stood gazing admiringly at two beautiful shells, but when Akka spoke his
name, he glanced up.
"You must have wondered, Thumbietot, why we turned out of our course to fly here to the
West Sea," said Akka. "To be frank, I did think it strange,"
answered the boy.
"But I knew, of course, that you always have some good reason for whatever you do."
"You have a good opinion of me," returned Akka, "but I almost fear you will lose it
now, for it's very probable that we have made this journey in vain.
"Many years ago it happened that two of the other old geese and myself encountered
frightful storms during a spring flight and were wind-driven to this island.
When we discovered that there was only open sea before us, we feared we should be swept
so far out that we should never find our way back to land, so we lay down on the
waves between these bare cliffs, where the
storm compelled us to remain for several days.
"We suffered terribly from hunger; once we ventured up to the cleft on this island in
search of food.
We couldn't find a green blade, but we saw a number of securely tied bags half buried
in the sand.
We hoped to find grain in the bags and pulled and tugged at them till we tore the
cloth. However, no grain poured out, but shining
gold pieces.
For such things we wild geese had no use, so we left them where they were.
We haven't thought of the find in all these years; but this autumn something has come
up to make us wish for gold.
"We do not know that the treasure is still here, but we have travelled all this way to
ask you to look into the matter."
With a shell in either hand the boy jumped down into the cleft and began to scoop up
the sand.
He found no bags, but when he had made a deep hole he heard the clink of metal and
saw that he had come upon a gold piece. Then he dug with his fingers and felt many
coins in the sand.
So he hurried back to Akka. "The bags have rotted and fallen apart," he
exclaimed, "and the money lies scattered all through the sand."
"That's well!" said Akka.
"Now fill in the hole and smooth it over so no one will notice the sand has been
disturbed."
The boy did as he was told, but when he came up from the cleft he was astonished to
see that the wild geese were lined up, with Akka in the lead, and were marching toward
him with great solemnity.
The geese paused in front of him, and all bowed their heads many times, looking so
grave that he had to doff his cap and make an obeisance to them.
"The fact is," said Akka, "we old geese have been thinking that if Thumbietot had
been in the service of human beings and had done as much for them as he has for us they
would not let him go without rewarding him well."
"I haven't helped you; it is you who have taken good care of me," returned the boy.
"We think also," continued Akka, "that when a human being has attended us on a whole
journey he shouldn't be allowed to leave us as poor as when he came."
"I know that what I have learned this year with you is worth more to me than gold or
lands," said the boy.
"Since these gold coins have been lying unclaimed in the cleft all these years, I
think that you ought to have them," declared the wild goose.
"I thought you said something about needing this money yourselves," reminded the boy.
"We do need it, so as to be able to give you such recompense as will make your
mother and father think you have been working as a goose boy with worthy people."
The boy turned half round and cast a glance toward the sea, then faced about and looked
straight into Akka's bright eyes.
"I think it strange, Mother Akka, that you turn me away from your service like this
and pay me off before I have given you notice," he said.
"As long as we wild geese remain in Sweden, I trust that you will stay with us," said
Akka.
"I only wanted to show you where the treasure was while we could get to it
without going too far out of our course."
"All the same it looks as if you wished to be rid of me before I want to go," argued
Thumbietot.
"After all the good times we have had together, I think you ought to let me go
abroad with you."
When the boy said this, Akka and the other wild geese stretched their long necks
straight up and stood a moment, with bills half open, drinking in air.
"That is something I haven't thought about," said Akka, when she recovered
herself. "Before you decide to come with us, we had
better hear what Gorgo has to say.
You may as well know that when we left Lapland the agreement between Gorgo and
myself was that he should travel to your home down in Skåne to try to make better
terms for you with the elf."
"That is true," affirmed Gorgo, "but as I have already told you, luck was against me.
I soon hunted up Holger Nilsson's croft and after circling up and down over the place
a couple of hours, I caught sight of the elf, skulking along between the sheds.
"Immediately I swooped down upon him and flew off with him to a meadow where we
could talk together without interruption.
"I told him that I had been sent by Akka from Kebnekaise to ask if he couldn't give
Nils Holgersson easier terms.
"'I only wish I could!' he answered, 'for I have heard that he has conducted himself
well on the trip; but it is not in my power to do so.'
"Then I was wrathy and said that I would bore out his eyes unless he gave in.
"'You may do as you like,' he retorted, 'but as to Nils Holgersson, it will turn
out exactly as I have said.
You can tell him from me that he would do well to return soon with his goose, for
matters on the farm are in a bad shape. His father has had to forfeit a bond for
his brother, whom he trusted.
He has bought a horse with borrowed money, and the beast went lame the first time he
drove it. Since then it has been of no earthly use to
him.
Tell Nils Holgersson that his parents have had to sell two of the cows and that they
must give up the croft unless they receive help from somewhere."
When the boy heard this he frowned and clenched his fists so hard that the nails
dug into his flesh.
"It is cruel of the elf to make the conditions so hard for me that I can not go
home and relieve my parents, but he sha'n't turn me into a traitor to a friend!
My father and mother are square and upright folk.
I know they would rather forfeit my help than have me come back to them with a
guilty conscience."
<
SECTION 41 - THE JOURNEY TO VEMMINGHÖG
Thursday, November third. One day in the beginning of November the
wild geese flew over Halland Ridge and into Skåne.
For several weeks they had been resting on the wide plains around Falköping.
As many other wild goose flocks also stopped there, the grown geese had had a
pleasant time visiting with old friends, and there had been all kinds of games and
races between the younger birds.
Nils Holgersson had not been happy over the delay in Westergötland.
He had tried to keep a stout heart; but it was hard for him to reconcile himself to
his fate.
"If I were only well out of Skåne and in some foreign land," he had thought, "I
should know for certain that I had nothing to hope for, and would feel easier in my
mind."
Finally, one morning, the geese started out and flew toward Halland.
In the beginning the boy took very little interest in that province.
He thought there was nothing new to be seen there.
But when the wild geese continued the journey farther south, along the narrow
coast-lands, the boy leaned over the goose's neck and did not take his glance
from the ground.
He saw the hills gradually disappear and the plain spread under him, at the same
time he noticed that the coast became less rugged, while the group of islands beyond
thinned and finally vanished and the broad, open sea came clear up to firm land.
Here there were no more forests: here the plain was supreme.
It spread all the way to the horizon.
A land that lay so exposed, with field upon field, reminded the boy of Skåne.
He felt both happy and sad as he looked at it.
"I can't be very far from home," he thought.
Many times during the trip the goslings had asked the old geese:
"How does it look in foreign lands?"
"Wait, wait! You shall soon see," the old geese had
answered.
When the wild geese had passed Halland Ridge and gone a distance into Skåne, Akka
called out: "Now look down!
Look all around!
It is like this in foreign lands." Just then they flew over Söder Ridge.
The whole long range of hills was clad in beech woods, and beautiful, turreted
castles peeped out here and there.
Among the trees grazed roe-buck, and on the forest meadow romped the hares.
Hunters' horns sounded from the forests; the loud baying of dogs could be heard all
the way up to the wild geese.
Broad avenues wound through the trees and on these ladies and gentlemen were driving
in polished carriages or riding fine horses.
At the foot of the ridge lay Ring Lake with the ancient Bosjö Cloister on a narrow
peninsula. "Does it look like this in foreign lands?"
asked the goslings.
"It looks exactly like this wherever there are forest-clad ridges," replied Akka,
"only one doesn't see many of them. Wait!
You shall see how it looks in general."
Akka led the geese farther south to the great Skåne plain.
There it spread, with grain fields; with acres and acres of sugar beets, where the
beet-pickers were at work; with low whitewashed farm- and outhouses; with
numberless little white churches; with
ugly, gray sugar refineries and small villages near the railway stations.
Little beech-encircled meadow lakes, each of them adorned by its own stately manor,
shimmered here and there.
"Now look down! Look carefully!" called the leader-goose.
"Thus it is in foreign lands, from the Baltic coast all the way down to the high
Alps.
Farther than that I have never travelled." When the goslings had seen the plain, the
leader-goose flew down the Öresund coast. Swampy meadows sloped gradually toward the
sea.
In some places were high, steep banks, in others drift-sand fields, where the sand
lay heaped in banks and hills.
Fishing hamlets stood all along the coast, with long rows of low, uniform brick
houses, with a lighthouse at the edge of the breakwater, and brown fishing nets
hanging in the drying yard.
"Now look down! Look well!
This is how it looks along the coasts in foreign lands."
After Akka had been flying about in this manner a long time she alighted suddenly on
a marsh in Vemminghög township and the boy could not help thinking that she had
travelled over Skåne just to let him see
that his was a country which could compare favourably with any in the world.
This was unnecessary, for the boy was not thinking of whether the country was rich or
poor.
From the moment that he had seen the first willow grove his heart ached with
homesickness.
<
SECTION 42 - HOME AT LAST
Tuesday, November eighth. The atmosphere was dull and hazy.
The wild geese had been feeding on the big meadow around Skerup church and were having
their noonday rest when Akka came up to the boy.
"It looks as if we should have calm weather for awhile," she remarked, "and I think
we'll cross the Baltic to-morrow."
"Indeed!" said the boy abruptly, for his throat contracted so that he could hardly
speak.
All along he had cherished the hope that he would be released from the enchantment
while he was still in Skåne.
"We are quite near West Vemminghög now," said Akka, "and I thought that perhaps you
might like to go home for awhile. It may be some time before you have another
opportunity to see your people."
"Perhaps I had better not," said the boy hesitatingly, but something in his voice
betrayed that he was glad of Akka's proposal.
"If the goosey-gander remains with us, no harm can come to him," Akka assured.
"I think you had better find out how your parents are getting along.
You might be of some help to them, even if you're not a normal boy."
"You are right, Mother Akka. I should have thought of that long ago,"
said the boy impulsively.
The next second he and the leader-goose were on their way to his home.
It was not long before Akka alighted behind the stone hedge encircling the little farm.
"Strange how natural everything looks around here!" the boy remarked, quickly
clambering to the top of the hedge, so that he could look about.
"It seems to me only yesterday that I first saw you come flying through the air."
"I wonder if your father has a gun," said Akka suddenly.
"You may be sure he has," returned the boy.
"It was just the gun that kept me at home that Sunday morning when I should have been
at church." "Then I don't dare to stand here and wait
for you," said Akka.
"You had better meet us at Smygahök early to-morrow morning, so that you may stay at
home over night." "Oh, don't go yet, Mother Akka!" begged the
boy, jumping from the hedge.
He could not tell just why it was, but he felt as if something would happen, either
to the wild goose or to himself, to prevent their future meeting.
"No doubt you see that I'm distressed because I cannot get back my right form;
but I want to say to you that I don't regret having gone with you last spring,"
he added.
"I would rather forfeit the chance of ever being human again than to have missed that
trip." Akka breathed quickly before she answered.
"There's a little matter I should have mentioned to you before this, but since you
are not going back to your home for good, I thought there was no hurry about it.
Still it may as well be said now."
"You know very well that I am always glad to do your bidding," said the boy.
"If you have learned anything at all from us, Thumbietot, you no longer think that
the humans should have the whole earth to themselves," said the wild goose, solemnly.
"Remember you have a large country and you can easily afford to leave a few bare
rocks, a few shallow lakes and swamps, a few desolate cliffs and remote forests to
us poor, dumb creatures, where we can be allowed to live in peace.
All my days I have been hounded and hunted. It would be a comfort to know that there is
a refuge somewhere for one like me."
"Indeed, I should be glad to help if I could," said the boy, "but it's not likely
that I shall ever again have any influence among human beings."
"Well, we're standing here talking as if we were never to meet again," said Akka, "but
we shall see each other to-morrow, of course.
Now I'll return to my flock."
She spread her wings and started to fly, but came back and stroked Thumbietot up and
down with her bill before she flew away.
It was broad daylight, but no human being moved on the farm and the boy could go
where he pleased.
He hastened to the cow shed, because he knew that he could get the best information
from the cows. It looked rather barren in their shed.
In the spring there had been three fine cows there, but now there was only one--
Mayrose. It was quite apparent that she yearned for
her comrades.
Her head drooped sadly, and she had hardly touched the feed in her crib.
"Good day, Mayrose!" said the boy, running fearlessly into her stall.
"How are mother and father?
How are the cat and the chickens? What has become of Star and Gold-Lily?"
When Mayrose heard the boy's voice she started, and appeared as if she were going
to gore him.
But she was not so quick-tempered now as formerly, and took time to look well at
Nils Holgersson.
He was just as little now as when he went away, and wore the same clothes; yet he was
completely changed.
The Nils Holgersson that went away in the spring had a heavy, slow gait, a drawling
speech, and sleepy eyes.
The one that had come back was lithe and alert, ready of speech, and had eyes that
sparkled and danced. He had a confident bearing that commanded
respect, little as he was.
Although he himself did not look happy, he inspired happiness in others.
"Moo!" bellowed Mayrose. "They told me that he was changed, but I
couldn't believe it.
Welcome home, Nils Holgersson! Welcome home!
This is the first glad moment I have known for ever so long!"
"Thank you, Mayrose!" said the boy, who was very happy to be so well received.
"Now tell me all about father and mother." "They have had nothing but hardship ever
since you went away," said Mayrose.
"The horse has been a costly care all summer, for he has stood in the stable the
whole time and not earned his feed. Your father is too soft-hearted to shoot
him and he can't sell him.
It was on account of the horse that both Star and Gold-Lily had to be sold."
There was something else the boy wanted badly to know, but he was diffident about
asking the question point blank.
Therefore he said: "Mother must have felt very sorry when she
discovered that Morten Goosey-Gander had flown?"
"She wouldn't have worried much about Morten Goosey-Gander had she known the way
he came to leave.
She grieves most at the thought of her son having run away from home with a goosey-
gander." "Does she really think that I stole the
goosey-gander?" said the boy.
"What else could she think?" "Father and mother must fancy that I've
been roaming about the country, like a common ***?"
"They think that you've gone to the dogs," said Mayrose.
"They have mourned you as one mourns the loss of the dearest thing on earth."
As soon as the boy heard this, he rushed from the cow shed and down to the stable.
It was small, but clean and tidy.
Everything showed that his father had tried to make the place comfortable for the new
horse. In the stall stood a strong, fine animal
that looked well fed and well cared for.
"Good day to you!" said the boy. "I have heard that there's a sick horse in
here. Surely it can't be you, who look so healthy
and strong."
The horse turned his head and stared fixedly at the boy.
"Are you the son?" he queried. "I have heard many bad reports of him.
But you have such a good face, I couldn't believe that you were he, did I not know
that he was transformed into an elf."
"I know that I left a bad name behind me when I went away from the farm," admitted
Nils Holgersson. "My own mother thinks I am a thief.
But what matters it--I sha'n't tarry here long.
Meanwhile, I want to know what ails you."
"Pity you're not going to stay," said the horse, "for I have the feeling that you and
I might become good friends.
I've got something in my foot--the point of a knife, or something sharp--that's all
that ails me. It has gone so far in that the doctor can't
find it, but it cuts so that I can't walk.
If you would only tell your father what's wrong with me, I'm sure that he could help
me. I should like to be of some use.
I really feel ashamed to stand here and feed without doing any work."
"It's well that you have no real illness," remarked Nils Holgersson.
"I must attend to this at once, so that you will be all right again.
You don't mind if I do a little scratching on your hoof with my knife, do you?"
Nils Holgersson had just finished, when he heard the sound of voices.
He opened the stable door a little and peeped out.
His father and mother were coming down the lane.
It was easy to see that they were broken by many sorrows.
His mother had many lines on her face and his father's hair had turned gray.
She was talking with him about getting a loan from her brother-in-law.
"No, I don't want to borrow any more money," his father said, as they were
passing the stable. "There's nothing quite so hard as being in
debt.
It would be better to sell the cabin." "If it were not for the boy, I shouldn't
mind selling it," his mother demurred.
"But what will become of him, if he returns some day, wretched and poor--as he's likely
to be--and we not here?" "You're right about that," the father
agreed.
"But we shall have to ask the folks who take the place to receive him kindly and to
let him know that he's welcome back to us. We sha'n't say a harsh word to him, no
matter what he may be, shall we mother?"
"No, indeed! If I only had him again, so that I could be
certain he is not starving and freezing on the highways, I'd ask nothing more!"
Then his father and mother went in, and the boy heard no more of their conversation.
He was happy and deeply moved when he knew that they loved him so dearly, although
they believed he had gone astray.
He longed to rush into their arms. "But perhaps it would be an even greater
sorrow were they to see me as I now am." While he stood there, hesitating, a cart
drove up to the gate.
The boy smothered a cry of surprise, for who should step from the cart and go into
the house yard but Osa, the goose girl, and her father!
They walked hand in hand toward the cabin.
When they were about half way there, Osa stopped her father and said:
"Now remember, father, you are not to mention the wooden shoe or the geese or the
little brownie who was so like Nils Holgersson that if it was not himself it
must have had some connection with him."
"Certainly not!" said Jon Esserson.
"I shall only say that their son has been of great help to you on several occasions--
when you were trying to find me--and that therefore we have come to ask if we can't
do them a service in return, since I'm a
rich man now and have more than I need, thanks to the mine I discovered up in
Lapland." "I know, father, that you can say the right
thing in the right way," Osa commended.
"It is only that one particular thing that I don't wish you to mention."
They went into the cabin, and the boy would have liked to hear what they talked about
in there; but he dared not venture near the house.
It was not long before they came out again, and his father and mother accompanied them
as far as the gate. His parents were strangely happy.
They appeared to have gained a new hold on life.
When the visitors were gone, father and mother lingered at the gate gazing after
them.
"I don't feel unhappy any longer, since I've heard so much that is good of our
Nils," said his mother. "Perhaps he got more praise than he really
deserved," put in his father thoughtfully.
"Wasn't it enough for you that they came here specially to say they wanted to help
us because our Nils had served them in many ways?
I think, father, that you should have accepted their offer."
"No, mother, I don't wish to accept money from any one, either as a gift or a loan.
In the first place I want to free myself from all debt, then we will work our way up
again. We're not so very old, are we, mother?"
The father laughed heartily as he said this.
"I believe you think it will be fun to sell this place, upon which we have expended
such a lot of time and hard work," protested the mother.
"Oh, you know why I'm laughing," the father retorted.
"It was the thought of the boy's having gone to the bad that weighed me down until
I had no strength or courage left in me.
Now that I know he still lives and has turned out well, you'll see that Holger
Nilsson has some grit left."
The mother went in alone, and the boy made haste to hide in a corner, for his father
walked into the stable.
He went over to the horse and examined its hoof, as usual, to try to discover what was
wrong with it. "What's this!" he cried, discovering some
letters scratched on the hoof.
"Remove the sharp piece of iron from the foot," he read and glanced around
inquiringly.
However, he ran his fingers along the under side of the hoof and looked at it
carefully. "I verily believe there is something sharp
here!" he said.
While his father was busy with the horse and the boy sat huddled in a corner, it
happened that other callers came to the farm.
The fact was that when Morten Goosey-Gander found himself so near his old home he
simply could not resist the temptation of showing his wife and children to his old
companions on the farm.
So he took Dunfin and the goslings along, and made for home.
There was not a soul in the barn yard when the goosey-gander came along.
He alighted, confidently walked all around the place, and showed Dunfin how
luxuriously he had lived when he was a tame goose.
When they had viewed the entire farm, he noticed that the door of the cow shed was
open. "Look in here a moment," he said, "then you
will see how I lived in former days.
It was very different from camping in swamps and morasses, as we do now."
The goosey-gander stood in the doorway and looked into the cow shed.
"There's not a soul in here," he said.
"Come along, Dunfin, and you shall see the goose pen.
Don't be afraid; there's no danger."
Forthwith the goosey-gander, Dunfin, and all six goslings waddled into the goose
pen, to have a look at the elegance and comfort in which the big white gander had
lived before he joined the wild geese.
"This is the way it used to be: here was my place and over there was the trough, which
was always filled with oats and water," explained the goosey-gander.
"Wait! there's some fodder in it now."
With that he rushed to the trough and began to gobble up the oats.
But Dunfin was nervous. "Let's go out again!" she said.
"Only two more grains," insisted the goosey-gander.
The next second he let out a shriek and ran for the door, but it was too late!
The door slammed, the mistress stood without and bolted it.
They were locked in!
The father had removed a sharp piece of iron from the horse's hoof and stood
contentedly stroking the animal when the mother came running into the stable.
"Come, father, and see the capture I've made!"
"No, wait a minute!" said the father. "Look here, first.
I have discovered what ailed the horse."
"I believe our luck has turned," said the mother.
"Only fancy! the big white goosey-gander that disappeared last spring must have gone
off with the wild geese.
He has come back to us in company with seven wild geese.
They walked straight into the goose pen, and I've shut them all in."
"That's extraordinary," remarked the father.
"But best of all is that we don't have to think any more that our boy stole the
goosey-gander when he went away."
"You're quite right, father," she said. "But I'm afraid we'll have to kill them to-
night.
In two days is Morten Gooseday[1] and we must make haste if we expect to get them to
market in time."
[Footnote 1: In Sweden the 10th of November is called Morten Gooseday and corresponds
to the American Thanksgiving Day.]
"I think it would be outrageous to butcher the goosey-gander, now that he has returned
to us with such a large family," protested Holger Nilsson.
"If times were easier we'd let him live; but since we're going to move from here, we
can't keep geese. Come along now and help me carry them into
the kitchen," urged the mother.
They went out together and in a few moments the boy saw his father coming along with
Morten Goosey-Gander and Dunfin--one under each arm.
He and his wife went into the cabin.
The goosey-gander cried: "Thumbietot, come and help me!"--as he
always did when in peril--although he was not aware that the boy was at hand.
Nils Holgersson heard him, yet he lingered at the door of the cow shed.
He did not hesitate because he knew that it would be well for him if the goosey-gander
were beheaded--at that moment he did not even remember this--but because he shrank
from being seen by his parents.
"They have a hard enough time of it already," he thought.
"Must I bring them a new sorrow?" But when the door closed on the goosey-
gander, the boy was aroused.
He dashed across the house yard, sprang up on the board-walk leading to the entrance
door and ran into the hallway, where he kicked off his wooden shoes in the old
accustomed way, and walked toward the door.
All the while it went so much against the grain to appear before his father and
mother that he could not raise his hand to knock.
"But this concerns the life of the goosey- gander," he said to himself--"he who has
been my best friend ever since I last stood here."
In a twinkling the boy remembered all that he and the goosey-gander had suffered on
ice-bound lakes and stormy seas and among wild beasts of prey.
His heart swelled with gratitude; he conquered himself and knocked on the door.
"Is there some one who wishes to come in?" asked his father, opening the door.
"Mother, you sha'n't touch the goosey- gander!" cried the boy.
Instantly both the goosey-gander and Dunfin, who lay on a bench with their feet
tied, gave a cry of joy, so that he was sure they were alive.
Some one else gave a cry of joy--his mother!
"My, but you have grown tall and handsome!" she exclaimed.
The boy had not entered the cabin, but was standing on the doorstep, like one who is
not quite certain how he will be received.
"The Lord be praised that I have you back again!" said his mother, laughing and
crying. "Come in, my boy!
Come in!"
"Welcome!" added his father, and not another word could he utter.
But the boy still lingered at the threshold.
He could not comprehend why they were so glad to see him--such as he was.
Then his mother came and put her arms around him and drew him into the room, and
he knew that he was all right.
"Mother and father!" he cried. "I'm a big boy.
I am a human being again!"
<
SECTION 43 - THE PARTING WITH THE WILD GEESE
Wednesday, November ninth. The boy arose before dawn and wandered down
to the coast. He was standing alone on the strand east of
Smyge fishing hamlet before sunrise.
He had already been in the pen with Morten Goosey-Gander to try to rouse him, but the
big white gander had no desire to leave home.
He did not say a word, but only stuck his bill under his wing and went to sleep
again.
To all appearances the weather promised to be almost as perfect as it had been that
spring day when the wild geese came to Skåne.
There was hardly a ripple on the water; the air was still and the boy thought of the
good passage the geese would have.
He himself was as yet in a kind of daze-- sometimes thinking he was an elf, sometimes
a human being.
When he saw a stone hedge alongside the road, he was afraid to go farther until he
had made sure that no wild animal or vulture lurked behind it.
Very soon he laughed to himself and rejoiced because he was big and strong and
did not have to be afraid of anything.
When he reached the coast he stationed himself, big as he was, at the very edge of
the strand, so that the wild geese could see him.
It was a busy day for the birds of passage.
Bird calls sounded on the air continuously. The boy smiled as he thought that no one
but himself understood what the birds were saying to one another.
Presently wild geese came flying; one big flock following another.
"Just so it's not my geese that are going away without bidding me farewell," he
thought.
He wanted so much to tell them how everything had turned out, and to show them
that he was no longer an elf but a human being.
There came a flock that flew faster and cackled louder than the others, and
something told him that this must be the flock, but now he was not quite so sure
about it as he would have been the day before.
The flock slackened its flight and circled up and down along the coast.
The boy knew it was the right one, but he could not understand why the geese did not
come straight down to him. They could not avoid seeing him where he
stood.
He tried to give a call that would bring them down to him, but only think! his
tongue would not obey him. He could not make the right sound!
He heard Akka's calls, but did not understand what she said.
"What can this mean? Have the wild geese changed their
language?" he wondered.
He waved his cap to them and ran along the shore calling.
"Here am I, where are you?" But this seemed only to frighten the geese.
They rose and flew farther out to sea.
At last he understood. They did not know that he was human, had
not recognized him. He could not call them to him because human
beings can not speak the language of birds.
He could not speak their language, nor could he understand it.
Although the boy was very glad to be released from the enchantment, still he
thought it hard that because of this he should be parted from his old comrades.
He sat down on the sands and buried his face in his hands.
What was the use of his gazing after them any more?
Presently he heard the rustle of wings.
Old mother Akka had found it hard to fly away from Thumbietot, and turned back, and
now that the boy sat quite still she ventured to fly nearer to him.
Suddenly something must have told her who he was, for she lit close beside him.
Nils gave a cry of joy and took old Akka in his arms.
The other wild geese crowded round him and stroked him with their bills.
They cackled and chattered and wished him all kinds of good luck, and he, too, talked
to them and thanked them for the wonderful journey which he had been privileged to
make in their company.
All at once the wild geese became strangely quiet and withdrew from him, as if to say:
"Alas! he is a man. He does not understand us: we do not
understand him!"
Then the boy rose and went over to Akka; he stroked her and patted her.
He did the same to Yksi and Kaksi, Kolme and Neljä, Viisi and Kuusi--the old birds
who had been his companions from the very start.
After that he walked farther up the strand.
He knew perfectly well that the sorrows of the birds do not last long, and he wanted
to part with them while they were still sad at losing him.
As he crossed the shore meadows he turned and watched the many flocks of birds that
were flying over the sea.
All were shrieking their coaxing calls-- only one goose flock flew silently on as
long as he could follow it with his eyes. The wedge was perfect, the speed good, and
the wing strokes strong and certain.
The boy felt such a yearning for his departing comrades that he almost wished he
were Thumbietot again and could travel over land and sea with a flock of wild geese.