Seacrow Island

by Astrid Lindgren

  “The beasts! Daddy had told them that they might stay up as long as they liked as it was Midsummer’s Eve.

  “ ‘It seems to me that it’s a little too thick with brothers around here,’ said Krister. ‘Isn’t there anywhere we can get away from them?’

  “ ‘At home perhaps,’ I said. ‘I don’t suppose they’d want to go there.’

  “So we went back to Carpenter’s Cottage and I made a sandwich for Krister in the sitting room, which smelled of lilies of the valley and birch leaves.

  “Daddy was asleep. Pelle was asleep. All was quiet and peaceful. We sat on the sofa with the window behind us open to the night, which would soon begin to lighten.

  “ ‘How can you bear to have those brats hanging around you all the time?’ asked Krister. And I said, truthfully, that I could bear it very well because I loved them, stupid though they were.

  “ ‘Right now I love them too—fantastically!’ said Krister. ‘Simply because they’re not here.’

  “Or so he thought—so I thought too. Until I heard those giggles again, outside the window this time. In the summer dusk a little procession of giggling children went by, with the most hideous hats in the world on their heads. There are some strange things in our attic! Every time they passed the window they lifted their hats politely and giggled so much at each other’s jokes that they had to lean against the trees to keep their balance.

  “ ‘Good evening! Have you heard that butter has gone up several pennies a pound?’ they said, and, ‘Excuse me, but is this the way to Stockholm?’ and, ‘Do you happen to know if there’s any snuff left for Grandpa?’

  “When Johan said this last sentence, Niklas giggled so much that he really did fall over and lay on his back in the grass like a beetle and just screeched with laughter.

  “Luckily, just at that point Nisse came to fetch his daughters and it seemed as if Johan and Niklas had grown tired of the game too and they went up to bed. I heard them clumping up the attic stairs to their room and I gave a sigh of relief.

  “Krister had begun to be annoyed and I was not surprised. I offered him another sandwich and some more tea and tried to make up for my brothers’ awful behavior.

  “ ‘A fine lot of brothers you have!’ said Krister. ‘Have you chloroformed your youngest brother to keep him so quiet?’

  “ ‘Thank goodness, he’s one of those angelic children who go to sleep at night,’ I said.

  “Then I suddenly heard Pelle’s voice. ‘That’s what you think!’ Daddy has fixed a rope from the boys’ attic in case of fire. On this rope the ‘angelic child who goes to sleep at night’ was now dangling outside the window, and from the attic window above I could hear wild giggles. I could have cried.

  “ ‘Pelle,’ I said in a miserable voice. ‘What are you hanging there for?’

  “ ‘To see that no funny business is going on down there. Johan told me to have a look!’

  “Then Krister got up and made for the door. ‘When brothers begin to hang from ropes outside windows, that’s the end,’ he said, giving up. ‘’Bye, Malin,’ he said and disappeared into the dawn, and that was the end of my Midsummer’s Eve.

  “Still, it was quite a good Midsummer’s Eve even so, I thought.”

  “All right, Johan, I know you’re lying behind the hedge,” said Malin, and put her diary down in the grass. “Come here, and we’ll settle all this here and now. If you will carry in all the wood and water for the whole of today I may just possibly forgive you.”

  Live for the Day

  THE SUMMER ran its course. The sun shone and the rain fell at regular intervals. Sometimes there was a storm, and the bay was white and all the windows of the house shook and rattled. At times like this Tjorven had to go very carefully when she walked down to the quay to meet the Stockholm boat and little Stina was once almost blown into the sea. Söderman’s cat refused to go out. Söderman himself spent three days mending his herring nets.

  Sometimes it thundered. The Melkersons sat for one whole night in their kitchen, watching the lightning streaking down into the sea, lighting up the water as if it were day. The thunder rolled over the island and out over the sea, sounding almost like the day of doom. Who would dare to sleep in that noise?

  “I’m beginning to get tired of this night life,” said Pelle at last.

  There was no real order at all in the nights here on Seacrow Island, he thought. Though it had been quite easy to stay awake on Midsummer’s Eve because there was a party. Nisse Grankvist had explained to him that every kind of weather was lovely and Pelle believed blindly all that Uncle Nisse told him. It was only when it rained through the roof that he wondered a little. But even that came to an end, for one fine day his father climbed up on the roof and put tarred paper and slates over the worst places. Malin had said that the whole of the Melkerson family was to observe a two-minute silence while Dad was on the roof. It certainly worked, because he finished the job without anything going wrong. But things did not go so well the next day when he had to climb up again, because then he fell down. His children anxiously hurried to help him, but Melker assured them that he was perfectly all right. He had simply come to the sudden conclusion that this was not the day for doing the repairs.

  “But surely you need not have come to a conclusion so suddenly that you had to fall down and hurt yourself,” said Malin.

  But for the most part everything was fine and the whole summer was one long delight. Pelle had already begun to dread the awful day when they would all have to go back to town. He had an old comb with as many teeth as the summer had days. Every morning he broke off a tooth and noticed anxiously how the comb grew thinner and thinner.

  Melker saw the comb one morning and threw it away. To worry about the future was the wrong attitude toward life, he said. One should enjoy each day as it came. On a sunny morning like the present one, life was nothing but happiness. How wonderful it was to go straight out into the garden in pajamas, feeling the dew-wet grass under one’s feet, and then take a dip from the jetty and afterward sit down at the painted garden table to read a book or the paper while drinking delicious coffee, with the children milling around! He could ask nothing better from life. And so Pelle was not to bother with any old comb. Pelle allowed him to throw it away without protest and when that was done, his father returned to his book and Johan and Niklas began to grumble about whose turn it was to wash the dishes.

  Both of them were convinced that their washing-up days came too often, but Malin was just as certain that when the time for washing up came around it would be difficult to find boys who could do such a complete vanishing trick as Johan and Niklas.

  “I’m sure you’re wrong,” said Niklas.

  “Who washed up yesterday,” retorted Malin, “if not yours truly, Malin?”

  Niklas could not understand this. “That’s queer, I thought it was me.”

  “Didn’t you notice?” said Pelle, spreading his marmalade on his bread and butter. “Didn’t you notice it was Malin washing up—not you?”

  One of his wasps arrived at that moment and wanted to have some marmalade too. Pelle held out his bread and butter in a friendly way, for one has to feed one’s pets. Pelle was certain that the wasps knew who was their master. He would sit in his attic window and whistle to them and talk to them, and had promised them that they might stay at Carpenter’s Cottage for as long as they liked.

  He now looked with interest at the little wasp, which had begun to eat the few grains of sugar that had been spilled, and he wondered how it felt to be a wasp. Were wasps sad or frightened like people—not grown-up people, of course, but little boys about seven years old? How much did wasps actually know?

  “Daddy, do you think wasps know it’s the 18th of July today?” asked Pelle. But his father was deep in his own thoughts.

  “Live for the day,” murmured Melker. “Yes, excellent idea.”

  “What’s so excellent about it?” asked Johan.

  “That’s what it says in t
his book,” said Melker enthusiastically. “Live for the day. That’s the reason why I’ve thrown Pelle’s comb away.”

  “How can a book tell you to throw my comb away?” wondered Pelle.

  “It says live for the day—that means that one should live every day as if one had only today and no more. One should be aware of every moment.”

  “And you think that I ought to stay here and wash up!” said Niklas reproachfully to Malin.

  “Why not?” asked Melker. “The feeling that you are really doing something with your hands makes you feel you are alive.”

  “Then perhaps you’d like to wash up?” suggested Niklas.

  But Melker said he had a lot of other things to do, enough to make him realize that he was alive for the whole day.

  “What does life feel like, anyhow?” asked Pelle. “Is it something you feel with your hands?”

  Malin looked tenderly at her little brother. “As far as you’re concerned, I think it’s in your legs. When you say that you feel as if you had springs in your legs, that’s the feeling of life.”

  “Is it?” said Pelle, amazed.

  How much there was that one did not know, even though one was a person and not a wasp. Perhaps wasps did not realize that today was the 18th of July, but they realized perfectly well that there was marmalade in a bowl on a table in a garden, and they came in such swarms that Malin grew annoyed and shooshed them away. Then one of them decided on vengeance, but instead of going for Malin it went quite unfairly to poor, innocent Melker and gave him a jab in the neck.

  Melker jumped up with a roar and was just about to kill an innocent little wasp which was creeping around the table, having done nothing wrong, when Pelle stopped him.

  “Stop it!” he shouted. “Don’t touch my wasps! They want to live, just the way you said.”

  “What did I say?” asked Melker. He could not remember that he had said anything about wasps.

  “Live for the day, or whatever it was,” said Pelle.

  Melker lowered his book, the book with which he had been about to slay the wasp. “Oh yes, of course. But I don’t think they should begin the day by stinging my neck.” Then he stroked Pelle’s hair lovingly. “You’re the kindest little boy in the world to animals,” he said. “It’s a pity you haven’t a pet of your own.”

  He rubbed his neck. It was painful, but he did not mean to let such a little thing spoil his morning. He rose energetically from the table. Live for the day—that was it! And he knew just what he was going to do!

  The next moment a large motorboat came chugging in toward the jetty. When Johan and Niklas spied who was in the boat, they looked at each other darkly.

  “I thought we finished him off at Midsummer.”

  Krister had obviously forgotten everything except that Malin was the sweetest, loveliest creature within reach here among the islands. If there had been anything sweeter or lovelier on any of the other islands he might have gone there, but now he could think of no better place than the Melkerson’s jetty.

  “Hello, Malin! Want to come out in the boat with me?”

  Her three brothers held their breath. Was she really going off in a motorboat? If so, they could not guard her.

  Malin looked delighted. It was obvious she had nothing against a little trip out to sea.

  “How long are you going to be away?” she shouted.

  “The whole day,” yelled Krister. “Bring your bathing suit in case we find a good place to swim.”

  Johan shook his head warningly. “Just you be careful. Live for the day. Do you really want to spend a whole day in that boat?”

  Malin laughed. “Of course! It’s much more fun staying at home, washing up and cooking, but I mustn’t be selfish. I must see to it that you have a little fun too sometimes!”

  “You’ll be sorry,” said Niklas.

  Malin looked questioningly at her father. “Do you think you’ll get on all right without me?”

  “Of course,” said Melker. “Leave everything to your father.”

  Melker sometimes had a guilty conscience about Malin. Perhaps she had more work and more responsibility than was right for a nineteen-year-old. He was anxious for her to have any fun she could. Besides, it suited him for her to be away today when he wished to be alone.

  “Off you go, my dear,” he said. “Leave the housekeeping to me. I shall enjoy it.”

  But before Malin had collected her various belongings, Pelle was down on the jetty. He was buttoning up his windbreaker, eyeing Krister sourly.

  “Hello,” said Krister. “Why are you putting that on?”

  “You always have to wear a windbreaker when you go to sea,” said Pelle coldly.

  “Oh, so you’re going to sea too! Who with?”

  “With you and Malin,” said Pelle, “to see that there’s no funny business.”

  At that moment Malin appeared and she looked at Krister pleadingly. “Oh, he can come with us, can’t he?”

  It was obvious that Krister was not anxious to have a troublesome little brother in the boat, and Malin said to him crossly, “You don’t seem to like children particularly!”

  Krister took hold of Pelle and dropped him roughly into the boat. “Oh yes, I do,” he assured her. “I’m very fond of children, but only if they’re girls and about nineteen years old, otherwise I don’t much care for them!” He held out his hand and helped her aboard. “But I suppose I must be thankful that you’re not bringing all your brothers with you.”

  The two who remained behind stood looking after the boat until she looked like a tiny speck out in the bay; then they began to do what had to be done. They cleared the table and carried the breakfast things out into the kitchen, heated the water, washed up and put away the china. They did it quickly and well, for they were used to doing these things when they were forced to—and, besides, Teddy and Freddy were waiting for them on a raft at the Grankvist jetty.

  And Melker was waiting just as eagerly for them to go. He wanted to be alone, for now he was going to try out his invention, his secret water pipe that would free him from all drudgery.

  There were certain things that had to be done every day, which did not make life all that pleasant. Melker considered that the continual carrying of water was one of these. Goodness knows what Malin did with all the water that had to be carried in for her, but the water pails always looked empty and reproachful when anyone came into the kitchen. It went without saying that Malin, with four men in the house, should not have to carry water. Johan and Niklas did it if they happened to be in the neighborhood just when it was needed and if they were told to do so. But all too often there was no one but Melker on hand to fill the empty pails. But it was going to be an altogether different matter in the future. Melker Melkerson had found a water pipe in the boathouse, that glorious old boathouse which housed so much rubbish. He had secretly been rubbing the pipe with sand to clean it. Now he had only to set it up.

  “It’s as simple as that,” Melker assured himself, as he planned what to do. “First—fix up an apparatus at the well with the pipe at the correct angle. Second—fasten this apparatus securely to two of the lower boughs of the tree. Third—attach the pipe to the apparatus with wire so that it is quite steady and pass it through the kitchen window after you have carefully measured and made sure it’s long enough. Fourth—place a large trough under the pipe in the kitchen. Fifth and sixth, the water will run into the kitchen and you can stay outside without doing a thing. Of course, the water will still have to be drawn up from the well by hand, but that’s a minor problem. We will still have to draw up fifteen to twenty buckets of water every morning, but once that’s done we’ll be free for the rest of the day, and Malin will have all the water she wants.”

  Melker began with a light heart. The work was harder than he had expected, but he talked gently and encouragingly to himself all the while. “That’s two things going splendidly,” he said when he had maneuvered the pipe into the right position. “No . . . three! This beautiful wood
en pipe, the water flowing straight into the kitchen, and of course Melker Melkerson’s cleverness in fixing it all.”

  Everything went well—just as he had expected—and he knew that it would all work out exactly right. He had no time to get the trough, which was a pity. He would have to try it out with just a pail, so he needed someone in the kitchen to tell him when the pail was full.

  As if sent from heaven, Tjorven arrived at that very moment and Melker laughed. “Tjorven, you’ve come at just the right time!”

  “Have I?” said Tjorven, delighted. “Have you been longing for me to come?”

  A friendship had grown up between Melker and Tjorven of a special kind that sometimes exists between a child and an adult: a friendship of two equals who are absolutely honest toward each other, each having an equal right to say exactly what he thinks. Melker had enough of the child in him and Tjorven enough of something else, not exactly maturity, but a strange inner strength, to make it possible for them to talk together as equals—or, at any rate, almost as equals.

  Tjorven faced Melker with more bitter truths than anyone else, and he sometimes gasped and was just about to scold her when he realized that it would be entirely useless. She was what she was and said what she thought. As a matter of fact, she was genuinely friendly and devoted and she liked Uncle Melker very much indeed.

  He explained to her what a fine invention this was. In the future Malin would have the water brought straight into the kitchen for her.

  “Like Mother,” said Tjorven. “She has water brought straight into the kitchen, too.”

  “Oh no, she hasn’t,” said Melker.

  “Yes, she has!” said Tjorven. “Daddy brings it in.”

  Melker laughed in a superior way. This was something quite different and a nice little surprise for Malin, he said.

  Tjorven looked at him seriously. “And so that you won’t have to work so hard yourself.”

  Melker made no comment on that remark. “Now you stand here by the pail,” he explained to Tjorven, “and give me a shout when the water starts coming. And when the pail is full, you shout again. Understand?”