Seacrow Island

by Astrid Lindgren

  Tjorven caught her breath. As a matter of fact Westerman was not one of her favorite people, but just now she felt that she adored him. “Oh,” she said, and wondered how you could say thank you for anything so marvelous.

  “I’ll make you a cross-stitch pot-holder. Would you like that?”

  Westerman did not realize that Tjorven meant to give him the greatest gift that she could possibly make and he said, “Well, I can’t exactly say that I’d like one, but you take the seal anyway, because I just don’t dare go home to the wife with a baby seal.”

  Then Westerman went away and Tjorven stood absolutely overwhelmed. “Bosun, it’s crazy! We’ve got a seal,” she said.

  Bosun nosed the seal. He had never seen anything like it before, but if Tjorven wanted to have it, he would make friends with this strange little creature which lay growling at him.

  “Now, don’t frighten him,” said Tjorven and pushed Bosun aside. Then she shouted as loudly as she could, “Come here, come here, everybody! It’s absolutely crazy! I’ve been given a seal.”

  Pelle was the first to arrive and he was trembling with excitement when he saw the baby seal and heard this amazing news. Tjorven had been given that fantastic gray-spotted little bundle that squealed and growled and wriggled about on the jetty with its strange little flippers!

  “Oh, how lucky you are,” said Pelle from the bottom of his heart, and Tjorven agreed.

  “Yes, it’s quite fantastic. I always have such good luck!” But she still had to persuade her mother and father what a good thing it was to own a seal. Soon everyone was on the jetty, admiring the baby seal.

  “We’ll soon be able to open a zoo on Seacrow Island,” said Melker. “I’ll see if I can find a couple of cheap hippopotamuses.”

  But Marta said that on no account did she want a seal in the house. Nisse was not certain either. He explained to Tjorven what a lot of trouble she would have in feeding him. He needed as much milk as a calf, and pounds of fish when he was a little older.

  “He can have fish from us,” said Stina. “Can’t he, Grandpa?”

  Tjorven looked at her parents. “But he’s been given to me,” she said. “It’s just like having a baby, surely you see that.”

  Teddy and Freddy both agreed with her.

  “And when you have a baby, you don’t begin talking about how much milk it must have and how difficult it will be to feed it,” said Teddy.

  They begged and pleaded with Marta. Johan, Niklas and Pelle helped. They promised to make a pool for the seal where he could swim during the day. There was a big cleft in the rock behind the boathouse and if that was filled with fresh sea water the seal would have the finest pool he could wish for.

  “And he could stay in the boathouse during the night,” said Freddy. He would be no trouble at all, they all said.

  The baby seal gave out small helpless shrieks now and again and Stina said triumphantly, “Listen, he’s calling ‘Mummy’!”

  “And that’s me,” said Tjorven and caught the baby seal in her arms. It looked as if he felt comfortable for he pushed his nose in her face and his whiskers tickled her so she laughed.

  “I know what he’ll be called,” said Tjorven. “Moses! Because Westerman found him exactly as the princess found Moses in the bulrushes. Do you remember that, Freddy?”

  “Not that I have ever thought Pharaoh’s daughter was quite like Westerman, but Moses is a good name,” said Melker.

  As everybody seemed to take it for granted that Moses was to stay, Marta agreed at last. “Well, you can keep him until he’s big enough to look after himself,” she said, and all the children shouted for joy.

  “Do you know what I think?” said Stina. “I think Moses is an enchanted prince who has come up out of the sea.”

  “You and your enchanted princes,” said Pelle. “Prince Moses, how’s that?”

  Tjorven sat on the jetty and Moses lay on her lap. She stroked him and he nosed her hands so that she felt his whiskers, and then she laughed again until she was shaking with laughter.

  Bosun stood watching. He stood quietly for a long time, looking at Tjorven with his usual sad gaze. Then he suddenly turned and went away.

  Tjorven had a very busy spring with both Yoka and Moses to look after. Pelle wrote letter after letter from town, telling her to look after his rabbit properly. GIVE HIM A LOT OF DANDELION LEAVES, he wrote, and Tjorven complained to Stina, “A lot of dandelion leaves, Pelle says! I’ve never seen a rabbit who is always so hungry.”

  But Yoka was at least a very quiet animal and was perfectly content with dandelion leaves and water. He did not cry when he was left alone. He did not crawl about everywhere, pulling down tablecloths or nosing out saucepans or tearing Daddy’s Sunday paper to pieces. Moses did all these things, Moses who should have been in his pool during the day and in the boathouse during the night. Moses did not want to stay either in the pool or in the boathouse. He followed Tjorven wherever she went. Wasn’t she his mother? Didn’t she give him his bottle containing warm milk and oil? As that was so, he wanted to be with her all the time. He squealed and protested when Tjorven locked him into the boathouse in the evening and once when he was making more noise than usual she took him into her room—Mummy was off with Mrs. Jansson, so she could not forbid it.

  Bosun usually slept on a mat beside Tjorven’s bed. He had slept there every night since he was a puppy. But when Moses came and began to crawl back and forth over the floor, Tjorven said, “Bosun, you must sleep with Teddy and Freddy tonight.”

  It was some time before Bosun understood what she meant. Not until she took hold of his collar and led him out of her room did he understand.

  “It’s only for tonight, Bosun,” said Tjorven.

  But when Moses realized how comfortable it was to sleep in Tjorven’s room, he would not be satisfied with any old boathouse. Next evening when Tjorven locked him in, he squealed so loudly that it could be heard all over Seacrow Island.

  “People will think we’re torturing him,” said Teddy. “He had better sleep with Tjorven.”

  Marta hesitated a little, but at last she gave in. It was difficult to resist a little seal who looked at you with his wise, charming eyes exactly as if he understood everything.

  That evening Bosun went and lay down in Teddy and Freddy’s room of his own accord and continued to do so after that. He stopped following Tjorven wherever she went. Perhaps he was afraid of walking on Moses. Nowadays he spent most of his time by the steps leading to the shop, with his head between his paws as if he were asleep, and he only looked up when anyone went into the shop.

  “My own darling little soppy dog, how sleepy you are these days,” said Tjorven and patted him. But then she would have to go off to pick dandelion leaves for Yoka and see to warm milk for Moses. It was such hard work to look after the animals, even if Stina did help her sometimes.

  “You’ve only got Hop-ashore Charlie,” said Tjorven, “but I’ve got two animals to look after—and Bosun, of course.”

  Stina did not think it was at all a good thing that she only had Hop-ashore Charlie. She could not feed him with a bottle as Tjorven fed Moses, lucky Tjorven! Stina helped her pick dandelion leaves for Yoka and hoped every time for the reward she longed for—to be allowed to feed Moses with the bottle. But Tjorven was adamant. She wanted to feed Moses herself. She said that he was not happy otherwise. Stina was allowed to sit and look on, although her fingers itched to take the bottle away from Tjorven, whether Moses was happy about it or not.

  But better days dawned for Stina. Her grandfather owned a few sheep, which he was allowed to keep in Westerman’s field. At this time of year they had their lambs and Stina went with her grandfather every day to see if any lambs had been born.

  “Come along, sheep,” shouted Söderman. “Come along, so that I can count you and see if I am any richer.”

  One of his ewes did all she could to increase his riches. One day she had no less than three lambs in the little shed that Söderman had put
up as a shelter for his sheep.

  “She hasn’t got enough milk for all of them,” said Söderman. “One of them will be bound to suffer.”

  Söderman was right. For several days he and Stina saw how the youngest of the lambs grew weaker because he was not strong enough to fight for milk with the other two.

  Finally Söderman said, “We must try with the bottle.”

  Stina jumped. Sometimes the most unexpected and wonderful things happened after all. She made her grandfather go to the shop with her in a hurry which Söderman thought was excessive. After all, the lamb was not at death’s door; but at Stina’s order he bought a baby’s bottle exactly like the one that Tjorven had for Moses, and Stina smiled happily. Now she would be equal with Tjorven at last!

  Tjorven was feeding Moses when Stina arrived with a full baby’s bottle in her hand.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” asked Tjorven.

  Moses had a reserve bottle which he was given if he was particularly hungry, and Tjorven thought that this was what Stina had dared to bring, without asking her permission.

  “Moses is full up. He doesn’t want any more,” said Tjorven.

  “Who cares,” said Stina. “I’ve got other things to think about.”

  Tjorven lifted her eyebrows. “What, for instance?”

  “I’m going to feed Tottie, so there,” said Stina importantly.

  Tjorven was silent with surprise. “Who on earth is Tottie?” she said at last.

  And as soon as she had been told, she ran with Stina to Westerman’s field and eagerly helped her feed the little lamb, although she generously allowed Stina to hold the bottle.

  Tottie soon became as tame as Moses, and Stina took him milk several times a day. Sometimes she let him out in the field and took him with her for a little walk. He followed her just as devotedly as Moses followed Tjorven.

  “It’s a real sight,” said Nisse Grankvist, when he came out on his steps and saw Tjorven and Stina come toward him with Moses and Tottie behind them. And then he bent down and patted Bosun. “And how are you getting on? Are you lying here all sad because you aren’t allowed to go with them and play?”

  But Stina and Tjorven sat down on the steps and fed their animals and discussed which of them was the sweetest.

  “At least a seal is a seal,” said Tjorven, and Stina could not deny that.

  “But a lamb is much sweeter,” said Stina. And then she added, “I think that Tottie and Moses are both enchanted princes.”

  “Nonsense,” said Tjorven. “Only toads are that—I’ve already told you.”

  “That’s what you say,” said Stina. She sat silent and thought. Perhaps it wasn’t possible for an ordinary lamb in Westerman’s field to be an enchanted prince, but Moses, who had been found in a fishing net, why, that was just like in the fairy tales.

  “I think, anyhow,” said Stina, “that Moses is a sea king’s little boy who has been bewitched by a bad fairy.”

  “No, he’s my little boy,” said Tjorven and hugged Moses.

  Bosun lifted his head and looked at them. And if it was really true that he could think like a human being, perhaps he thought, just like Pelle: To blazes with all enchanted princes!

  Does Malin Really Not Want a Husband?

  “NOW OUR apple trees are in flower,” wrote Malin in her diary. “They stand around our house in their pink loveliness and sometimes some of their blossoms snow down over the path leading to our well. Our apple trees, our house, our well—marvelous! It isn’t ours at all, but I like to pretend it is, which seems strangely easy. At this time a year ago I had not even seen Carpenter’s Cottage and yet it feels as if it is our home on earth. Oh, you cheerful carpenter, how I love you for having built this house, if it was you who did, and thank you for planting apple trees around it. How can I ever be grateful enough that we are allowed to live here and that it is summer again?”

  “How about it, Daddy?” she asked Melker. “Have you been just as clever this year and signed a contract for the whole year?”

  “Not yet,” said Melker, “I’m waiting for the man Mattsson. He’s supposed to be coming here one of these days.”

  And while they were waiting for Mattsson, the Melkersons prepared their Carpenter’s Cottage for the summer. They raked all the leaves in the garden together, they beat the rugs and aired the bedclothes, they cleaned windows and scrubbed floors and put up fresh curtains. Niklas blacked the iron grate and Johan painted the kitchen chairs blue. Melker made a bookshelf for the family’s varied summer reading and put up pictures which he had brought with him from town. Malin gave the kitchen sofa a new cover and Pelle just walked around, enjoying everything. The furniture that was too ugly for use was put in the boathouse and Pelle arranged it into an ugly little room, so that it would feel that there was someone who still cared for it, and, besides, he wanted to sit there with Yoka when it rained.

  “It feels as if we’re creating something,” said Malin looking about her summery house. “Now I just want masses of flowers.” And she put out the happy carpenter’s wife’s old pottery jars and filled them with lilac, and finally she wandered out into Jansson’s cow meadow, where the wild lilies of the valley grew, and picked whole handfuls of them.

  On the way home she met Tjorven and Stina, who were walking along under the birch trees, chattering merrily away. They fell silent when they saw Malin, for she looked so pretty as she came to meet them with her hands full of lilies.

  “You look like a bride,” said Tjorven.

  Stina’s eyes brightened immediately as a favorite thought awoke within her. “Aren’t you ever going to get yourself a bridegroom?”

  Tjorven burst into loud laughter. “A bridegroom? What’s that?” she said.

  “It’s something you have at a wedding,” said Stina uncertainly.

  Malin said she would like a bridegroom some time, but at the moment she thought she was a little too young. Tjorven stared at her as if she could hardly believe her ears.

  “Too young! You? You’re as old as the hills already!”

  Malin laughed. “Of course you’ve got to find somebody you really like first.”

  Both Tjorven and Stina admitted that there were very few bridegrooms on Seacrow Island.

  “But you might be able to find an enchanted prince,” said Stina eagerly.

  “Are there any?” asked Malin.

  “Yes, all the ditches are full of them,” said Stina. “Because all frogs and toads are enchanted princes, Tjorven says.”

  Tjorven nodded. “You only have to kiss one and—bang—there’s a prince for you!”

  “That sounds simple enough,” said Malin. “If that’s all you have to do, I’ll try to find one.”

  Tjorven nodded once more. “Yes—before it’s too late.” And she went on, “I will get married before I’m all that old, at any rate.”

  “To an enchanted prince?” asked Malin.

  “No, I’m going to marry a plumber,” said Tjorven. “Daddy says they make lots of money nowadays.”

  Stina wanted to marry a plumber, too, hastening to add, “Because I want to be exactly like Tjorven.”

  “Then there will be at least two happy plumbers,” said Malin, and she turned to go. “If you see an enchanted prince,” she said, “tell him I’ve just tottered home on my two old legs.”

  Then Tjorven took Stina’s hand and they both ran off between the birches, singing loudly.

  They intended to pick lilies of the valley, just like Malin, but before they had begun something wonderful happened. They found an enchanted prince for Malin—for they found a frog! Just imagine! He was sitting at the side of the road, looking thoughtful.

  “Come on, we must find Malin and get her to kiss him.”

  But Malin had disappeared. They went all the way back to Carpenter’s Cottage with the little frog, but when they got there Uncle Melker said Malin had gone to Söderman’s to buy herrings.

  “Then we’ll go there,” said Stina, but there was no Mali
n there either. She had bought her fish and gone.

  “Let’s go down to the jetty and wait,” said Tjorven. “But unless she comes soon, she’ll have to go without her prince because I’m beginning to get tired of this frog.”

  It appeared that the frog was at least as tired of Tjorven as she was of him, for when she carefully opened her hands to let Stina have a look, the frog took a long jump onto the jetty and would have fallen over the edge if Stina had not caught it just in time.

  A strange sailboat lay by the jetty, but there was no one to be seen, either on board or anywhere else. The sun shone and it was warm and boring sitting there waiting, thought Tjorven. She was not the patient sort and she was used to inventing ways out of boring situations.

  “I know,” she said. “We can kiss the frog. That will make him into a prince just as well, and then we can take him to Malin and he can do the rest himself.”

  Stina thought this sounded sensible. Of course, it was most unpleasant to kiss frogs, but she would do anything for Malin. Evidently the frog did not like being kissed. It struggled wildly to get free, but Tjorven held it firmly and Stina drew a deep breath and shut her eyes.

  “Do it,” said Tjorven, and Stina did. She kissed the frog. But the stubborn creature refused to turn itself into a prince.

  “Well, I’ll try,” said Tjorven. She put a little more strength into her kiss, but it still had no effect.

  “Stupid prince, he doesn’t want to come,” said Tjorven. “Off you go then!”

  She put the frog down on the jetty, and happy at his unexpected release, he took a long jump right over the edge of the jetty and down into the sailboat. And bang! There the prince was, exactly as in the fairy tale. He came hurrying out of the cabin and jumped up onto the jetty and stopped right in front of Tjorven and Stina, with a little brown puppy in his arms. A prince if ever there was one!

  Tjorven and Stina stared at him with eyes that grew rounder and rounder. He was not dressed as he should be, of course. He wore an ordinary shirt and an ordinary jacket and ordinary blue trousers, but otherwise he really looked princelike, with his blue eyes, white teeth, and fair hair like a golden helmet. Yes, he would do very well for Malin.