have onlypoverty to look forward to."
But when the last grandchild was gone, it was all up with the mistress.All at once she became bent and gray, and tottered as she walked; as ifshe no longer had the strength to move about. She stopped working. Shedid not care to look after the farm, but let everything go to rack andruin. She didn't repair the houses; and she sold both the cows and theoxen. The only one that she kept was the old cow who now talked withThumbietot. Her she let live because all the children had tended her.
She could have taken maids and farm-hands into her service, who wouldhave helped her with the work, but she couldn't bear to see strangersaround her, since her own had deserted her. Perhaps she was bettersatisfied to let the farm go to ruin, since none of her children werecoming back to take it after she was gone. She did not mind that sheherself became poor, because she didn't value that which was only hers.But she was troubled lest the children should find out how hard she hadit. "If only the children do not hear of this! If only the children donot hear of this!" she sighed as she tottered through the cowhouse.
The children wrote constantly, and begged her to come out to them; butthis she did not wish. She didn't want to see the land that had takenthem from her. She was angry with it. "It's foolish of me, perhaps, thatI do not like that land which has been so good for them," said she. "ButI don't want to see it."
She never thought of anything but the children, and of this--that theymust needs have gone. When summer came, she led the cow out to graze inthe big swamp. All day she would sit on the edge of the swamp, her handsin her lap; and on the way home she would say: "You see, Roedlinna, ifthere had been large, rich fields here, in place of these barren swamps,then there would have been no need for them to leave."
She could become furious with the swamp which spread out so big, and didno good. She could sit and talk about how it was the swamp's fault thatthe children had left her.
This last evening she had been more trembly and feeble than ever before.She could not even do the milking. She had leaned against the mangerand talked about two strangers who had been to see her, and had asked ifthey might buy the swamp. They wanted to drain it, and sow and raisegrain on it. This had made her both anxious and glad. "Do you hear,Roedlinna," she had said, "do you hear they said that grain can grow onthe swamp? Now I shall write to the children to come home. Now they'llnot have to stay away any longer; for now they can get their bread hereat home." It was this that she had gone into the cabin to do--
The boy heard no more of what the old cow said. He had opened thecowhouse door and gone across the yard, and in to the dead whom he hadbut lately been so afraid of.
It was not so poor in the cabin as he had expected. It was well suppliedwith the sort of things one generally finds among those who haverelatives in America. In a corner there was an American rocking chair;on the table before the window lay a brocaded plush cover; there was apretty spread on the bed; on the walls, in carved-wood frames, hung thephotographs of the children and grandchildren who had gone away; on thebureau stood high vases and a couple of candlesticks, with thick, spiralcandles in them.
The boy searched for a matchbox and lighted these candles, not becausehe needed more light than he already had; but because he thought thatthis was one way to honour the dead.
Then he went up to her, closed her eyes, folded her hands across herbreast, and stroked back the thin gray hair from her face.
He thought no more about being afraid of her. He was so deeply grievedbecause she had been forced to live out her old age in loneliness andlonging. He, at least, would watch over her dead body this night.
He hunted up the psalm book, and seated himself to read a couple ofpsalms in an undertone. But in the middle of the reading hepaused--because he had begun to think about his mother and father.
Think, that parents can long so for their children! This he had neverknown. Think, that life can be as though it was over for them when thechildren are away! Think, if those at home longed for him in the sameway that this old peasant woman had longed!
This thought made him happy, but he dared not believe in it. He had notbeen such a one that anybody could long for him.
But what he had not been, perhaps he could become.
Round about him he saw the portraits of those who were away. They werebig, strong men and women with earnest faces. There were brides in longveils, and gentlemen in fine clothes; and there were children with wavedhair and pretty white dresses. And he thought that they all staredblindly into vacancy--and did not want to see.
"Poor you!" said the boy to the portraits. "Your mother is dead. Youcannot make reparation now, because you went away from her. But mymother is living!"
Here he paused, and nodded and smiled to himself. "My mother is living,"said he. "Both father and mother are living."
FROM TABERG TO HUSKVARNA
_Friday, April fifteenth_.
The boy sat awake nearly all night, but toward morning he fell asleepand then he dreamed of his father and mother. He could hardly recognisethem. They had both grown gray, and had old and wrinkled faces. He askedhow this had come about, and they answered that they had aged so becausethey had longed for him. He was both touched and astonished, for he hadnever believed but what they were glad to be rid of him.
When the boy awoke the morning was come, with fine, clear weather.First, he himself ate a bit of bread which he found in the cabin; thenhe gave morning feed to both geese and cow, and opened the cowhouse doorso that the cow could go over to the nearest farm. When the cow camealong all by herself the neighbours would no doubt understand thatsomething was wrong with her mistress. They would hurry over to thedesolate farm to see how the old woman was getting along, and then theywould find her dead body and bury it.
The boy and the geese had barely raised themselves into the air, whenthey caught a glimpse of a high mountain, with almost perpendicularwalls, and an abrupt, broken-off top; and they understood that thismust be Taberg. On the summit stood Akka, with Yksi and Kaksi, Kolmi andNeljae, Viisi and Knusi, and all six goslings and waited for them. Therewas a rejoicing, and a cackling, and a fluttering, and a calling whichno one can describe, when they saw that the goosey-gander and Dunfin hadsucceeded in finding Thumbietot.
The woods grew pretty high up on Taberg's sides, but her highest peakwas barren; and from there one could look out in all directions. If onegazed toward the east, or south, or west, then there was hardly anythingto be seen but a poor highland with dark spruce-trees, brown morasses,ice-clad lakes, and bluish mountain-ridges. The boy couldn't keep fromthinking it was true that the one who had created this hadn't taken verygreat pains with his work, but had thrown it together in a hurry. But ifone glanced to the north, it was altogether different. Here it looked asif it had been worked out with the utmost care and affection. In thisdirection one saw only beautiful mountains, soft valleys, and windingrivers, all the way to the big Lake Vettern, which lay ice-free andtransparently clear, and shone as if it wasn't filled with water butwith blue light.
It was Vettern that made it so pretty to look toward the north, becauseit looked as though a blue stream had risen up from the lake, and spreaditself over land also. Groves and hills and roofs, and the spires ofJoenkoeping City--which shimmered along Vettern's shores--lay enveloped inpale blue which caressed the eye. If there were countries in heaven,they, too, must be blue like this, thought the boy, and imagined that hehad gotten a faint idea of how it must look in Paradise.
Later in the day, when the geese continued their journey, they flew uptoward the blue valley. They were in holiday humour; shrieked and madesuch a racket that no one who had ears could help hearing them.
This happened to be the first really fine spring day they had had inthis section. Until now, the spring had done its work under rain andbluster; and now, when it had all of a sudden become fine weather, thepeople were filled with such a longing after summer warmth and greenwoods that they could hardly perform their tasks. And when the wildgeese rode by, high above the ground, cheerful
and free, there wasn'tone who did not drop what he had in hand, and glance at them.
The first ones who saw the wild geese that day were miners on Taberg,who were digging ore at the mouth of the mine. When they heard themcackle, they paused in their drilling for ore, and one of them called tothe birds: "Where are you going? Where are you going?" The geese didn'tunderstand what he said, but the boy leaned forward over the goose-back,and answered for them: "Where there is neither pick nor hammer." Whenthe miners heard the words, they thought it was their own longing thatmade the goose-cackle sound like human speech. "Take us along with you!Take us along with you!" they cried. "Not this year," shrieked the boy."Not this year."
The wild geese followed Taberg River down toward Monk Lake, and all thewhile they made the same racket. Here, on the narrow land-strip betweenMonk and Vettern lakes, lay
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