Seacrow Island
Page 23
“Come in and you’ll see,” said Mrs. Sjöblom and opened the door wide.
“You too,” she said to Melker and his two weeping sons. Melker shook his head. He did not want to see who had bought Carpenter’s Cottage. It was better not to know who it was.
But then he heard from within a voice that he knew only too well. “Uncle Melker has got the right knack, I can promise you that, Aunt Sjöblom!”
All was mild confusion in the yellow house for the next hour. Mr. Karlberg was very angry and shouted and made a fuss and scolded Mattsson, who was red in the face.
“I can’t understand all this. You’ll have to clear it up, Mattsson, and then you’ll have to act as you think fit.”
Poor Mattsson, he seemed to shrink in his ugly check suit and was suddenly small and meek. “There’s nothing to be done,” he said in a low voice. “She’s as stubborn as an old goat.”
Mrs. Sjöblom had been standing with her back to them, but now she turned around. “Yes, she is! And she’s got sharp ears too.”
“Though not when the radio’s playing,” said Tjorven.
But Pelle was being hugged by his father, pressed hard to his heart. “Pelle, my little boy, what have you been doing? What have you been up to?”
“I paid a little in advance to Aunt Sjöblom,” said Pelle, “so as to make it sure. And she’s given me a receipt too.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Mrs. Sjöblom. “Look!” And she held up a shining crown.
Mr. Karlberg turned and went. He slipped out of the door without looking behind him, and after him went Mattsson.
“That’s a good thing,” said Tjorven, and they all agreed.
Johan patted Pelle on the head. “And Daddy said this wasn’t a game for little children! You were great, Pelle!”
“There’s one thing I must ask you, Mrs. Sjöblom, before we leave,” said Melker. They were sitting in her kitchen and she had made some more sandwiches. They were the most delicious sandwiches they had ever tasted in their lives. Perhaps it was because they had eaten nothing since that morning. Or was it because everything was suddenly part of one great happiness, so that even the sandwiches had a heavenly taste?
“What do you want to ask?” said Mrs. Sjöblom.
Melker looked at her curiously. “Carpenter’s Cottage—why was it called that?”
“My husband was a carpenter. Didn’t you know?”
Yes, of course he was, thought Melker. I must ask something I don’t know. Aloud he said, “Carpenter’s Cottage, yes, of course. And you moved there in 1908?”
“1907,” said Mrs. Sjöblom.
Melker looked surprised. “Are you sure it wasn’t 1908?”
Then Mrs. Sjöblom laughed. “I suppose you’ll allow me to know the year I got married!”
Oh, well, one year more or less doesn’t matter, thought Melker. And then he said, “May I ask you one more question? What was your husband like? Was he a happy, gay soul?”
“Yes, he was,” said Mrs. Sjöblom. “He was the gayest person I’ve ever known, though he lost his temper sometimes.”
Malin wrote in her diary, “Sometimes it seems as if life had picked out one day and said, ‘I will give you everything. It shall be one of those rose-red days which shimmer in the memory when all others are forgotten.’ This is just such a day. Not for everybody, of course. There are many who are crying now and will remember this day with despair; but for us, the Melkersons of Carpenter’s Cottage on Seacrow Island, this day has been so full of joy that I scarcely know how to bear it.”
Melker did not know either. He sat on a rock with his feet in the water to soothe their aching. He was fishing. Pelle and Tjorven sat on each side of him, looking on, Pelle with Yum-yum on his knee and Tjorven with Bosun close beside her.
“You haven’t got the right knack, Uncle Melker,” said Tjorven. “If you carry on like that, you’ll never catch a fish.”
“I don’t want a fish,” said Melker dreamily.
“Why are you sitting here with a rod then?” asked Tjorven.
And Melker recited to her in the same dreamy voice,
“The sun was dipping near the sea.
He wished to see its glow . . .”
Yes, that’s what he wished—to see everything: the sun reflected in the still water, the white seagulls, the gray rocks, the boathouses on the far side of the channel which mirrored themselves so clearly in the water below them, all that was most dear to him, he wanted to see. He would have liked to stretch out his hand and touch them all.
“I think I’ll stay here tonight and watch the sun rise and see the first flush of dawn . . .”
“Malin won’t let you,” Tjorven assured him.
The wings of the morning, thought Pelle. I’d like to see that too!
“If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea . . .” Just think, they had such a place now, one that was absolutely theirs. A dwelling in the uttermost parts of the sea.
ASTRID LINDGREN (1907–2002) was born in Vimmerby, Sweden, and grew up with three siblings on a family farm in the Småland countryside, a setting that later formed the backdrop for many of her books. In 1926 she moved to Stockholm where she found work as a secretary. She did not begin writing until 1944 when, immobilized with a sprained ankle, she began to set down the Pippi Longstocking stories she had invented over the years to entertain her daughter, Karin. Her first book (Britt-Mari Opens Her Heart) was published by Rabén & Sjögren that same year, followed by Pippi Longstocking in 1945. Free-spirited and supernaturally strong in all respects, Pippi was an immediate favorite of Swedish schoolchildren, and her popularity only increased with the tales of her adventures that followed. In 1946, Lindgren became an editor and then the head of the children’s book department at Rabén & Sjögren, a role she held for the next twenty-four years, living in Stockholm and spending summers on her beloved island of Furusund in the Stockholm archipelago, where Seacrow Island is set. After the Pippi series, Lindgren wrote many fairy tales and picture books, in addition to further chapter books, including Mio, My Son (1954; published by The New York Review Children’s Collection) and Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter (1981). In addition to writing more than forty children’s books, Lindgren published and produced plays and screenplays, and was politically active and lobbied successfully for what became the Animal Protection Act of 1988. She received the Swedish Academy’s Gold Medal in 1971 for her contribution to children’s literature, and the Dag Hammarskjöld Award (1984), Albert Schweitzer Medal (1989), and Right Livelihood Award (1994) for her humanitarian efforts. In 2003 the Swedish government created the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in her honor.