years old, and Dolly, the youngest, was one, and the rest were
scattered between. It was a pretty sight to see them of a summer
afternoon on the grass plot before the house, rolling over one
another and gambolling like a sportive family of kittens; only
you could hardly help feeling vaguely uneasy about the mountain,
the steep, black wall of which, sparsely clad with pines, rose so
threateningly above them. It seemed as if it must, some day, swoop
down upon them and crush them. The mother, it must be admitted,
was occasionally oppressed by some such fear; but when she
reflected that the mountain had stood there from time immemorial,
and had never yet moved, or harmed anyone, she felt ashamed of
her apprehension, and blamed herself for her distrust of God’s
providence.
Besides the children there was another young inhabitant of the
Myrbraaten cottage, and surely a very important one. He too, was
named Hans, but, in order to distinguish him from the son of the
house, the word “Little” was prefixed, and the latter, although
he was really the smaller of the two, was called, by way of
distinction, Big Hans. The most remarkable thing about Little Hans
was that he had, in spite of his youth, a very well-developed
beard. Big Hans, who had not a hair on his chin, rather envied
him this manly ornament. Then, again, Little Hans was a capital
fighter, and could knock you down in one round with great coolness
and sweet-tempered seriousness, as if he were acting entirely from
a sense of duty. He never used any hard words; but the moment
his adversary attempted to rise, Little Hans quietly gave him
another knock, and winked wickedly at him, as if warning him to
lie still. He never bragged of his victories, but showed a modest
self-appreciation to which very few of his age ever attain. Big
Hans, who valued his friend and namesake above others, and had a
hearty admiration for his many fine qualities, declared himself
utterly unable to rival him in combativeness, modesty, and coolness
of temper. For Big Hans, I am sorry to say, was sometimes given to
bragging of his muscle and of his skill in turning hand-springs and
standing on his head, and he could easily be teased into a furious
temper. Now, Little Hans could not turn hand-springs, nor could he
stand on his head; but, though he promptly resented any trifling
with his dignity, I never once knew him to lose his temper. He
never laughed when anything struck him as being funny; in fact,
he seemed to regard every boisterous exhibition of feeling as
undignified. He only turned his head away and stood chewing a piece
of paper or a straw, with his usual look of comical gravity in his
eye.
Many people wondered at the fast friendship which bound Big
Hans and Little Hans together. Their tastes, people said,
were dissimilar; in temperament, too, they had few points of
resemblance. And yet they were absolutely inseparable. Wherever
Big Hans went, Little Hans was sure to follow. Often they were
seen racing along the beach or climbing up the mountain-side;
and, as Little Hans was a capital hand (or ought I to say foot?)
at climbing, Big Hans often had hard work to keep up with him.
Sometimes Little Hans would leap up a rock which was so steep that
it was impossible for his friend to climb it, and then he would
grin comically down at Big Hans, who would stand below calling
tearfully to his companion until he descended, which usually was
very soon. For Little Hans was very fond of Big Hans, and could
never bear to see him cry. And that is not in the least to be
wondered at, as Big Hans had saved him from starvation and death
when Little Hans was really in the sorest need. Their acquaintance
began in the following manner: one day when Big Hans was up in
the mountains trapping hares, he heard a feeble voice in a cleft
of the rocks near by, and hurrying to the spot, he found Little
Hans wedged in between two great stones, and his leg caught in so
distressing a manner that it cost Big Hans nearly an hour’s work to
set it free. Then he dressed the bruised foot with a rag torn from
the lining of his coat, and carried Little Hans home in his arms.
And as Little Hans’ parents had never claimed him, and he himself
could give no satisfactory account of them, he had thenceforth
remained at Myrbraaten, where all the children were very fond of
him. Turid, their mother, on the other hand, had no great liking
for him, especially after he had devoured her hymn-book (which was
her most precious property) and eaten with much appetite a piece
of Dolly’s dress. For, as I intimated, Little Hans’ tastes were
very curious, and nothing came amiss when he was hungry. He had a
trick of pulling off Dolly’s stockings when she was sitting out on
the green, and if he were not discovered in time, he was sure to
make his breakfast off of them. With these tastes, you will readily
understand, Big Hans could have no sympathy, and the only thing
which could induce him to forgive Little Hans’ eccentricities was
the fact that Little Hans was a goat.
II.
In the winter of 187-, a great deal of snow fell on the
northwestern coast of Norway. The old pines about the Myrbraaten
cottage were laden down with it; the children had to be put to work
with snow-shovels early in the morning, in order to hollow out a
tunnel to the cow-stable where the cow stood bellowing with hunger.
The mother, too, worked bravely, and sometimes when the thin roof
of snow caved in and fell down upon them, they laughed heartily,
and their mother too, could not help laughing because they were
so happy. Little Hans also made a pretence of working, but only
succeeded in being in everybody’s way, and when the cold snow
drizzled down upon his nose he grinned and made faces so queer that
the children shouted with merriment.
Day after day, and week after week, the snow continued to descend.
Big Hans and his friend sat at the window watching the large
feathery flakes, as they whirled slowly and silently through the
air and covered the earth far and near with a white pall. Soon
there was a scarcity of wood at the Myrbraaten cottage, and Halvor
was obliged to get into his skees and go to the forest. Humming the
multiplication table (so far as he knew it) to the tune of a hymn,
he pulled on his warmest jacket, took his axe from its hiding-place
under the eaves, and went in a slanting line up the mountain-side;
but before he had gone many rods it struck him that it was useless
to go so far for wood, when the whole mountain-slope was covered
with pines. Fresh pine would be a little hard to burn, to be sure,
but then pine was full of pitch and would burn anyhow. He therefore
took off his skees, dug a hole in the snow, and felled three or
four trees only a few hundred rods above the cottage. When his wife
heard the sound of his axe so near the house, she rushed out and
cried to him:
“Halvor, Halvor, don’t cut down the trees on the slope! They are
all that keep the snow from coming down upon us in an avalanche,
and sweeping us into the ocean!”
“Oh, the Lord will look out for his own,” sang Halvor, cheerily.
“The Lord put the pine-trees there to protect us,” replied his wife.
But the end was that, in spite of his wife’s protests, Halvor
continued to fell the trees.
The heavy fall of snow was followed in the course of a week by a
sudden thaw.
Strange creaking and groaning sounds stole through the forest.
Sometimes when a large load of snow fell, it rolled and grew as it
rolled, until it dashed against a huge trunk and nearly broke it
with its weight.
Then, one night, there came down a great load which fell with a
dull thud and rolled down and down, pushing a growing wall of snow
before it, until it reached the clearing where Halvor had cut his
wood; there, meeting with no obstructions, it gained a tremendous
headway, sweeping all the snow and the felled trunks with it, and
rushed down in a great mass, carrying along stones, shrubs, huge
trees, and the very soil itself, leaving nothing but the bare rock
behind it. How terrible was the sight! A smoke-like cloud rose in
the darkness, and a sound as of a thousand thundering cataracts
filled the night. On it swept, onward, with a wild, resistless
speed! At the jutting rock, where the juniper stood, the avalanche
divided, tearing up the old spruces and the birches by the roots
and hurling them down, but leaving the juniper standing alone on
its barren peak. It was but a moment’s work. The avalanche shot
downward with increased speed--hark!--a sharp shriek, a smothered
groan, then a fierce hissing sound of waves that rose toward the
sky and returned with a long thundering cannonade to the strand!
The night was darker and the silence deeper than before.
III.
Where the Myrbraaten cottage had stood, the bare rock now stares
black and dismal against the sun. The rumor of the calamity spread
like wild-fire through the valley, and the folk of the whole parish
came to gaze upon the ruin which the avalanche had wrought. All
that was left of Myrbraaten was the cow-stable, where the cow and
Little Hans and Big Hans had slept. Little Hans had been very
ill-behaved the night before, so Turid had sent him to sleep with
the cow; and Big Hans, who thought it would be cruel to ask his
companion to spend the night in that dark stable, with only a cow
for company, had gone with him and slept with him in the hay. Thus
it happened that Little Hans and Big Hans both were saved. It was
pitiful to see them shivering in the wet snow. Big Hans was crying
as if his heart would break; and the women who crowded about him
were unable to comfort him. What should he, a small boy of ten, do
alone in this wide world? His father and his mother and his little
brothers and sisters were all gone, and there was no one left who
cared for him. Just then Little Hans, who was anxious to express
his sympathy, put his nose close to Big Hans’ face and rubbed it
against his cheek.
“Yes, you are right, Little Hans,” sobbed the boy, embracing his
faithful friend; “you do care for me. You are the only one I have
left now, in all the world. You and I will stand by each other
always.”
Little Hans then said, “Ma-a-a,” which in his language meant, “Yes.”
The question soon arose in the parish--what was to be done with
Big Hans? He had no relatives except a brother of his mother, who
had emigrated many years before to Minnesota; and there was no one
else who seemed disposed to assume the burden of his support. It
was finally decided that he should be hired out as a pauper to the
lowest bidder, and that the parish should pay for his board. But
when the people who bid for him refused to take Little Hans too,
the boy determined, after some altercation with the authorities,
to seek his uncle in America. One thing he was sure of, and that
was that he would not part from Little Hans. But there was no
one in the parish who would board Little Hans without extra pay.
Accordingly, the cow and the barn were sold for the boy’s benefit,
and he and his comrade went on foot to the city, where they bought
a ticket for New York.
Thus it happened that Big Hans and Little Hans became Americans.
But before they reached the United States some rather curious
things happened to them. The captain of the steamship, Big Hans
found, was not willing to take a goat as a passenger, and Big Hans
was forced to return with his friend to the pier, while the other
emigrants thronged on board. He was nearly at his wits’ end, when
it suddenly occurred to him to put Little Hans in a bag and smuggle
him on board as baggage. This was a lucky thought. Little Hans was
quite heavy, to be sure, but he seemed to comprehend the situation
perfectly, and kept as still as a mouse in his bag while Big Hans,
with the assistance of a benevolent fellow-passenger, lugged him up
the gang-plank. And when he emerged from his retirement some time
after the steamer was well under way, none of the officers even
thought of throwing the poor goat overboard; for Little Hans became
a great favorite with both crew and passengers, although he played
various mischievous pranks, in his quiet, unostentatious way, and
ate some shirts which had been hung out to dry.
It was early in April when the two friends arrived in New York.
They attracted considerable attention as they walked up Broadway
together; and many people turned around to laugh at the little
emigrant boy, in his queer Norwegian costume, who led a full-grown
goat after him by a halter. The bootblacks and the newsboys pointed
their fingers at them, and, when that had no effect, made faces
at them, and pulled Big Hans by his short jacket and Little Hans
by his short tail. Big Hans was quite frightened when he saw how
many of them there were, but, perceiving that Little Hans was
not in the least ruffled, he felt ashamed of himself, and took
heart again. Thus they marched on for several blocks, while the
crowd behind them grew more and more boisterous and importunate.
Suddenly, one big boy, who seemed to be the leader of the gang,
sprang forward with a yell and knocked off Big Hans’ hat, while all
the rest cheered loudly; but just as he was turning around to enjoy
his triumph, Little Hans turned around too, and gave him a bump
from behind which sent him headlong into the gutter. Then, rising
on his hind legs, Little Hans leaped forward again and again, and
despatched the second and third boy in the same manner, whereupon
all the rest ran away, helter-skelter, scattering through the side
streets. It was all done in so quiet and gentlemanly a manner that
not one of the grown-up spectators who had gathered on the sidewalk
thought of interfering. Big Hans, however, who had intended to
see something of the city before starting for the West, was so
discouraged at the inhospitable reception the United States had
given him, that he gave up his purpose, and returned disconsolately
to Castle Garden. There he spent the rest of the day, and when the
night came, he went to sleep on the floor, with his little bundle
under his head; while Little Hans, who did not seem to be sleepy,
lay down at his side, quietly munching a piece of pie which he had
stolen from somebody’s luncheon-basket.
Early the next morning Big Hans was awakened by a gentle pulling
at his coat-collar; and, looking up, he saw that it was Little
Hans. He jumped up as quickly as he could, and he found that
it was high time, for all the emigrants had formed into a sort
of a procession and were filing through the gate on their way
to the railway station. There were some seven or eight hundred
of them--toil-worn, sad-faced men and women, and queer-looking
children in all sorts of outlandish costumes. Big Hans and his
friend ran to take their places at the very end of the procession,
and just managed to slip through the gate before it was closed.
At the railway station the boy exhibited his ticket which he had
bought at the steamship office in Norway, and was just about to
board the train, when the conductor cried out:
“Hold on, there! This is not a cattle-train! You can’t take your
goat into the passenger-car!”
Big Hans did not quite comprehend what was said, but from the
expression of the conductor’s voice and face, he surmised that
there was some objection to his comrade.
“I think I have money enough to buy a ticket for Little Hans, too,”
he said, in his innocent Norwegian way, as he pulled a five-dollar
bill from his pocket.
“I don’t want your money,” cried the conductor, who knew as little
of Norwegian as Big Hans did of English.
“Get out of the way there with your billy-goat!”
And he hustled the boy roughly out of the way to make room for the
other emigrants, who were thronging up to the platform.
“Well, then,” said Big Hans, “since they don’t want us on the
train, Little Hans, we shall have to walk to Minnesota. And as this
railroad is going that way, I suppose we shall get there if we
follow the track.”
Little Hans seemed to think that this was a good plan; for, as soon
as the train had steamed off, he started at a brisk rate along the
track, so that his master had great difficulty in keeping up with
him. For several hours they trudged along cheerfully, and both
were in excellent spirits. Minnesota, Big Hans supposed, might,
perhaps, be a day’s journey off, and if he walked fast he thought
he would probably be there at nightfall. When once he was there, he
did not doubt but that everybody would know his Uncle Peter. He was
somewhat puzzled, however, when he came to a place where no less
than three railroad tracks branched off in different directions;
and, as there was no one to ask, he sat down patiently in the shade
of a tree and determined to wait. Presently a man came along with a
red flag.
“Perhaps you would kindly tell me if this is the way to Minnesota,”
said Big Hans, taking off his cap and bowing politely to the man.
The man shook his head sullenly, but did not answer; he did not
understand the boy’s language.
“And you don’t happen to know my uncle, Peter Volden?” essayed the
boy, less confidently, making another respectful bow to the flagman.
“You are a queer loon of a chap,” grumbled the man; “but if you
don’t jump off the track with your goat, the train will run over
both of you.”
He had hardly spoken, when the train was seen rounding the curve,
and the boy had just time to pull Little Hans over into the ditch
when the locomotive came thundering along, sending out volumes
of black smoke, which scattered slowly in the warm air, making
the sunlight for awhile seem gray and dingy. Big Hans was almost
stunned, but picked himself up, with a little fainter heart than
before, perhaps; but whispering a snatch of a prayer which his
mother had taught him, he seized Little Hans by the halter, and
started once more upon his weary way after the train.
“Minnesota must be a great way off, I am afraid,” he said,
addressing himself, as was his wont, to his companion; “but if we
keep on walking, it seems to me we must, in the end, get there; or,
what do you think, Little Hans?”
Little Hans did not choose to say what he thought, just then, for
his attention had been called to some tender grass at the roadside
which he knew tasted very sweet. Big Hans was then reminded that
he, too, was hungry, and he sat down on a stone and ate a piece of
bread which he had brought with him from Castle Garden. The sun
rose higher in the sky and the heat grew more and more oppressive.
Still the emigrant boy trudged on patiently. Whenever he came to
a station he stopped, and read the sign, and shook his head sadly
when he saw some unfamiliar name.
“Not Minnesota yet, Little Hans,” he sighed; “I am afraid we shall
have to take lodgings somewhere for the night. I am so footsore and
tired.”
It was then about six o’clock in the evening, and the two friends
had walked about twenty miles. At the next station they met a
hand-organ man, who was sitting on a truck, feeding his monkey.
Big Hans, who had never seen so funny an animal before, was greatly
delighted. He went close up to the man, and put out his hand
cautiously to touch the monkey.
“Are you going to Minnesota, too?” he asked, in a tone of great
friendliness; “if so, we might bear each other company. I like that
hairy little fellow of yours very much.”
The hand-organ man, who, like most men of his calling, was an
Italian, shook his head, and the monkey shook his head, too, as if
to say, “All that may be very fine, but I don’t understand it.”
The boy, however, was too full of delight to notice whether he
was understood or not; and when the monkey took off his little
red hat and offered to shake hands with him, he laughed until the
tears rolled down his cheeks. He seemed to have entirely forgotten
Little Hans, who was standing by, glowering at the monkey with a
look which was by no means friendly. The fact was, Little Hans had
never been accustomed to any rival in his master’s affection, and
he didn’t enjoy in the least the latter’s interest in the monkey.
He kept his jealousy to himself, however, as long as he could; but
when Big Hans, after having giving ten cents to the organ-man,
took the monkey on his lap and patted and stroked it, Little Hans’
heart was ready to burst. He could not endure seeing his affections
so cruelly trifled with. Bending his head and rising on his hind
legs, he darted forward and gave his rival a knock on the head
that sent him tumbling in a heap at Big Hans’ feet. The Italian
jumped up with a terrible shout and seized his treasure in his
arms. The monkey made an effort to open its eyes, gave a little
shiver, and--was dead. The boy stood staring in mute despair at
the tiny stiffened body; he felt like a murderer. Hardly knowing
what he did, he seized Little Hans’ halter; but in the same moment
the enraged owner of the monkey rushed at the goat with the butt
end of his whip uplifted. Little Hans, who was dauntless as ever,
dexterously dodged the blow, but the instant his antagonist had
turned to vent his wrath upon his master, he gave him an impetus
from behind which sent him headlong out upon the railroad track.
A crowd of men and boys (of the class who always lounge about
railroad stations) had now collected to see the fight, and goaded
both combatants on with their jeering cries. The Italian, who was
maddened with anger, had just picked himself up, and was plunging
forward for a second attack upon Little Hans, when Big Hans, seeing
the danger, flung himself over his friend’s back, clasping his arms
about his neck. The loaded end of the whip struck Big Hans in the
back of the head; without a sound, the boy fell senseless upon the
track.
Then a policeman arrived, and Little Hans, the Italian, and the
insensible boy were taken to the police-station. A doctor was
summoned, and he declared that Big Hans’ wound was very dangerous,
and that he must be taken to the hospital. And there the emigrant
boy lay for six weeks, hovering between life and death; but when,
at the end of that time, he was permitted to go out, he heard with
dread that he was to testify at the Italian’s trial. A Norwegian
interpreter was easily found, and when Hans told his simple story
to the judge, there were many wet eyes in the court-room. And he
himself cried, too, for he thought that Little Hans was lost. But
just as he had finished his story, he heard a loud “Ba-a-a” in his
ear; he jumped down from the witness-stand and flung his arms about
Little Hans’ neck and laughed and cried as if he had lost his wits.
It is safe to say that such a scene had never before been witnessed
in an American court-room.
The next day Big Hans and Little Hans were both sent by rail,
at the expense of some kind-hearted citizens, to their uncle in
Minnesota. And it was there I made their acquaintance.
A NEW WINTER SPORT.
It is a curious fact that so useful an article as the Norwegian
_skees_ has not been more generally introduced in the United
States. In some of the Western States, notably in Wisconsin
and Minnesota, where the Scandinavian population is large, the
immigrants of Norse blood are beginning to teach Americans the
use of their national snow-shoes, and in Canada there has been an
attempt made (with what success I do not know) to make skee-running
popular. But the subject has by no means received the consideration
which it deserves, and I am confident that I shall earn the
gratitude of the great army of boys if I can teach them how to
enjoy this fascinating sport.
Let me first, then, describe a _skee_ and tell you how to have it
made. You take a piece of tough, straight-grained pine, from five
to ten feet long, and cut it down until it is about the breadth of
your foot, or, at most, an inch broader. There must be no knots
in the wood, and the grain must run with tolerable regularity
lengthwise from end to end.
[Illustration: Bending the Skee.]