Some months later, as Olaf held in his big arms his first-born son,
Viola shyly whispered:
"It was to have been a girl, but for your sake I decided it should be
a boy. Thinking of it on that blessed Sunday, I laughed, wicked little
creature that I was. He is not like you, neither is he like me; indeed
he is very ugly; but who cares? We shall love him just the same!"
"Nay, I will not have him called 'ugly,'" said his father, "for he has
your hair, Viola, and my eyes, and haven't you told me a thousand times
you fell in love with me on account of my blue eyes?"
"In love!" cried Viola; "now, Olaf, you are too absurd. As if anybody
_could_ be in love with such a big, burly, giant-like fellow! Why, how
should I, half a mile below you, see up so high as to know the color of
your eyes, unless indeed I climbed a ladder on purpose?"
So saying, Viola pulled the giant down to his knees by her bed-side,
laid his great head on her breast, and patted and caressed it, while
railing at him and his eyes and his baby to her heart's content. Olaf
received these mingled attentions with purrs of satisfaction, and went
on his way with the calm conviction that however his wife and child
might look to other people, there was no doubt they were both as near
perfection as need be.
In spite of her happiness and of Olaf's cares, however, Viola did not
recover from her illness very rapidly. She missed now many comforts to
which she had been accustomed; some dainty to tempt her appetite, or
the luscious fruits of her own land. Her brave, true heart, and Olaf's
affection sustained her amid these new demands on her fortitude; when
strength failed her she made up for it by patience and energy, and
though she accomplished it painfully, she did accomplish as much as
other vigorous women of her class. Olaf worked diligently to procure
for Viola such alleviations as he could think of; but always accustomed
to a life of the utmost simplicity, many of her real wants, had they
been expressed, would have seemed to him most puerile.
The child received the name of Eric; Viola thus honored and gratified
Olaf's father; but she promised herself that her second child should
bear the name of her own mother.
Little Eric, at six months old, had reversed the apparent gifts of his
birthright. His dark hair fell off, and was replaced by a crown of
luxurious golden curls; his blue eyes became steel-colored, then a soft
brown, like his mother's; he was a marvel of the beauty of two races.
And as his character developed he proved the truth of the saying, that
mingled races produce the finest strain of nature.
In his very babyhood the neighbors said he was no common child, and, of
course, Olaf and Viola thought so too, though they both said, as they
thought they ought to say, that he was like all the other babies in
the world. Viola, indeed, knew little about children. She had neither
brother or sister, and the mistress with whom she had spent most of her
life could not bear the sound of a child's voice. Eric was, therefore,
an object of great curiosity to his young mother; a little mystery whom
she was never tired of studying. She and Olaf had some pleasant strife
together as to the first language the child should speak; naturally
enough, he chose that which he heard most frequently, and spoke his
first lisping words in her musical tongue. His grandmother thought that
for a Swedish boy to speak Italian was nothing less than a miracle, and
prophesied that such a child would die before its time. There was her
old neighbor, Stenbock; her son died of knowing too much, and of having
his hair left to grow till it hung down all over his shoulders like a
yellow veil; she hoped Viola would not let Eric's hair grow in that
fashion, though, to be sure, its having once been dark might make all
the difference in the world.
But when Eric soon proved that he could talk Swedish almost as well as
herself, the good grandmother shook her head, and hoped, with secret
misgivings to the contrary, that this was not some wicked spirit come
in human shape to ruin them all. Viola concerned herself very little
with such fancies. Everything the child said or did amused her, but she
had too little experience to know how individual this little creature
was; how imitative and yet how original. As soon as he could speak
plainly, Eric began to go singing about the house, as his mother did.
He caught both words and air without effort, and when he sang, seemed
as unconscious as a bird on the wing. Then one day, as Viola sat at
work, using her needle with great rapidity, she was suddenly aroused
from her absorption in it by Eric's long silence; unusual quietness
in an active child usually means mischief brewing, as every mother
knows. Looking up, she saw Eric seated gravely opposite her, with a
bit of cloth fastened to his knee, and imitating her every motion with
precision. He had fastened his thread to a pin, and was making this pin
move in concert with her needle, only, of course, his movements were
only a pretence, while hers were real. She threw herself back in her
chair to laugh at her ease at this comic scene; whereupon Eric, with no
little humor twinkling in his eye, threw himself back likewise, and
laughed in unison with her.
"You little monkey, how dare you!" she cried, half vexed and half
amused; but Eric looked at her with such an open, innocent face, that
she saw he meant no harm, and if a monkey, was a harmless one after all.
But now the whole household was kept busy and merry with the incessant
activity of this quaint child. Nothing escaped his observation. He
coughed like his grandfather; he made believe knit, and took snuff like
his grandmother.
When Viola shook her head at him, he would instantly turn upon her that
open, honest face, free from guile and malice, and obey forthwith. No
one who caught that glance could help forgiving the unconscious child
and taking him into his confidence.
Viola, meanwhile, attained the desire of her heart--a little Swedish
maiden with rosy cheeks and fair hair, the very funniest miniature of
Olaf. Eric, of course, cried when the baby cried, or at least lifted
up his voice in perfect imitation, and crept when the baby crept, as
if going on all-fours was man's normal mode of locomotion. At the same
time he constituted himself her guardian and protector. All the songs
he had picked up he sang to her as she lay in her cradle, and as she
grew older he repeated to her, with marvelous accuracy, all the tales
he had heard in his short life. Then the tenderness Olaf poured out
on Viola, Eric lavished on his little sister; words sacred to husbands
and wives who love each other, and which they never mean to let fall
on profane ears, will sometimes escape; such words and tones the boy
treasured in his memory perhaps many long months, and then showered
them on Carina with all manner of courtesies and gallantries. She
received them without much response, but with sweet content, for her
instincts told her that when Eric said he loved her and could not
imagine how he ever got along without her, he was not just "making
believe."
There was no school in the neighborhood, and Viola was too ignorant
of the language to teach Eric to read. His grandmother, therefore,
undertook this task, which proved to be only a pleasure, he learned
with so much ease, and was so joyous and cheerful over his books.
His fine ear enabled him to catch her tones, so that when he first
began to read aloud to his father the effect was almost ludicrous; by
degrees, however, as his mind developed, he read with great spirit,
like, yet unlike, all he had ever heard. By degrees the peculiarities
and talents of this strange boy began to be much spoken of; strangers
who passed that way made the excuse of needing refreshment, in the hope
of seeing for themselves some of his performances. Viola received them
with true Swedish hospitality, as her husband wished her to do, but
she never could succeed in making Eric understand what was desired of
him. His unconsciousness saved him from vanity; what he said and sang,
and what he did, were all as natural and simple as childhood could make
them.
There had been one great inconvenience in his imitative propensities;
since his early babyhood they had not dared to take him to church. They
knew that the whole congregation would be excited to merriment should
he have the opportunity to watch the grotesque gestures of the pastor
in the pulpit. Eric had already caught them, to a certain extent,
when the minister made his visits at the house; but bad must not be
suffered to become worse. When he was four years old, however, Olaf
resolved that his boy should be cured of a habit which would make him
disagreeable, now that he was ceasing to be a child. He, therefore, set
himself seriously to work.
"Eric, do you know what sort of an animal a monkey is?" he demanded.
Eric began eagerly to tell all he knew, which was not a little.
"Well, and should you like to have everybody say you were a monkey?"
"I don't know," replied Eric, reflectively. "It wouldn't turn me into a
monkey to have folks say I was a monkey. And if I really was one, why,
then I should have a great long tail, and I could hang to the branches
of trees, this way; look, father, I'll show you how!"
"Has the boy really no sense of shame?" cried Olaf, angrily.
"Leave him to me, I will manage him," said his grandmother.
"Do you know, Eric, how nice and pleasant it is to go to church? There
are all the good people together praising God. They sing like the
angels, so that one actually sheds tears when one hears them. Now,
would not you love to go and shed tears at church, listening to such
beautiful music?"
"I shouldn't want to go there to cry," returned Eric. "I should like to
go and sing like an angel, though."
"But if we let you go you will not be contented with singing. You will
be getting up on the seat, making your arms go like our dear pastor's."
"Should I?" said Eric. "But, dear grandmother, couldn't you tie my arms
with a string?"
"Fie! now you are talking nonsense. And great boys four years old
should not talk nonsense."
"Yesterday, when I asked for another piece of oaten cake, you said I
ate too much for such a little boy," said Eric, thoughtfully. "But it
is a long while since yesterday; perhaps I _am_ a great boy now."
"Well, well, child; but now suppose we take you to church with us
to-morrow, will you behave yourself like a little man, and not fall
into any of your tricks?"
"I don't know," said Eric, mournfully. "Maybe I should. I never do any
tricks on purpose. They come and make me."
"Who come and make you?"
"The Trolls, and all of them."
"Now who has been teaching the child such wicked nonsense?" cried Olaf,
starting to his feet. "Oh, mother, I would not have believed this of
you!"
"Don't be angry with mother, Olaf dear," said Viola, gently. "She can't
help believing things she has been taught all her life."
Olaf was silent. He felt angry with his mother, and wanted to reproach
her. But that must not be in the presence of that keen-eyed child, who
would remember every look and tone.
"Eric," he said at last, "you will go to church with us to-morrow, for
our pastor will have it so. But there are no Trolls in God's house,
therefore if you are not a good boy I shall know whose fault it is."
"You will be a good boy, Eric, won't you now?" said his mother,
coaxingly.
"Yes, dear mother, I will," replied Eric, in tones so perfectly like
her own, that, as usual, they all burst out laughing.
With such management the only wonder is the poor child was not
ruined at once. But He who commits little children to the hands of
inexperienced and ignorant parents--and are there any earthly hands
that are not such?--He overrules the mistakes and corrects the errors.
Eric had been used all his life to be coaxed, threatened, laughed at,
praised, and argued with, in multitudes of cases where a single word of
parental authority was all that was needed.
The next day was a bright, cheerful Sunday, and the whole family set
off for church in good spirits. Eric was full of curiosity to know what
going to church could really mean. He helped pack the basket of dinner,
and made himself useful in many ways a less-observing child would not
have thought of. On entering the church he watched carefully to see
what his father and mother did, and perceiving that they stood for a
moment with folded hands, engaged in silent prayer, he, too, closed his
eyes and moved his lips, with an aspect of great devotion. When they
were all seated, his eager gaze at the unwonted scene around him repaid
his mother for bringing him with her. She enjoyed his surprise and
pleasure, and showed her sympathy with him by pressing the little hand
she held in her own. Nothing was lost upon him, and he responded at the
close of every prayer, like a veteran, until that preceding the sermon;
for a moment his attention wandered, and he sat lost in thought, till
suddenly arousing himself, he uttered a vigorous "Amen" that was heard
all over the church, and which broke in upon the text which the pastor
was repeating in solemn accents. Viola laughed; Olaf pretended not to
have heard, but changed color in spite of himself; the grandmother
shook her finger at him, and Eric, amid these contending influences,
felt half pleased and half frightened. He now, however, was attracted
by the sermon, and the manner of its delivery; he sat erect, silent,
almost breathless, a picture of awe and of ecstacy. Gradually, seeing
him so absorbed, Olaf and Viola began to feel easy about him; Olaf gave
himself up to enjoyment of the sermon; Viola attended to Carina, who
continually asked if service were most done, and whom she invariably
answered; the old grandmother fell asleep, and the grandfather began
to take snuff. Eric unconsciously rose to his feet, climbed up to
the seat, stretched forth now this arm, now that, clasped his hands,
looked heavenward, and, in short, copied every motion of the pastor
with unerring accuracy. The pastor, instead of serious faces, saw
endless smiles; he was first surprised, then displeased; his gestures
became animated with these emotions, and Eric faithfully repeated them,
till, by degrees, nearly the whole congregation was in an uproar. The
poor little fellow was ignominiously pulled down from his throne, and
borne out of church by his exasperated father, who could hardly wait
till he got him to a safe distance, before he gave him a most severe
thrashing. He was interrupted in this labor by a hand laid, with
force, upon his arm, and turning resentfully to the intruder, was
ashamed to find himself confronted by the pastor's wife.
He pulled off his cap, and saluted her, and Eric, in the midst of his
pain, did the same.
The Fru Prostinna looked kindly down upon the little boy, and instantly
reassured, a frank smile lighted up his ingenuous face.
"You were severe with the poor child," said the Fru Prostinna.
"It was because I forgot to have my hands tied!" cried Eric eagerly.
"I brought the string, but when I got inside the church and saw so
many people, all dressed in holiday clothes so gay, and the Prost with
his black gown and big ruff, and heard the singing and praying; oh, I
forgot my string! But here it is," he continued, drawing it from his
pocket, "and next time father will tie my hands."
The Fru Prostinna smiled.
"Well, my little fellow," said she, "I think it would be better to tie
your hands than to break your bones, and you may thank me for hurrying
after you out of church, to see that you were not killed outright. Play
about now, while your father and I have a little talk together."
As soon as Eric was out of hearing, Olaf began to apologize for his
severity to the child.
"It is the first time I ever laid my hand on him," he said, "and it
shall be the last."
"Do not say that, Olaf. Correction is as necessary in our days as it
was when Solomon forbid the sparing of the rod. Rather resolve never to
strike him again in anger."
"Why, I could not strike him at all, if I were not angry," said Olaf.
"For though he is wild in his way of mocking everything he sees and
hears, he is a good boy in other things; a merry, pleasant boy as need
be."
"Yes, I know. I have heard all about that. And if I were you, instead
of reproving or laughing at this habit, I would turn it to good
account. His active nature craves employment; now the next time
you manufacture any of those pretty baskets you used to make, lay
materials and tools within his reach, and see if instead of imitating,
in a superficial way, all your motions, he does not really produce a
facsimile of your work."
This was a new idea to Olaf, and it gave him pleasure. "Ah, if Eric had
the Fru Prostinna for his mother, she would train him so wisely and
discreetly; whereas, Viola is never the same person one day that she is
the next. She lets the children do so many things I was not allowed to
do at their age. And the Fru Prostinna would have made a man of Eric.
Not a hard-working peasant, a great rough fellow like myself, but, who
knows? a clergyman perhaps, with his parish and his schools, and his
farms and his houses!"
And Olaf began to feel aggrieved, and as if Viola, in being of his own
rank in life, and uninstructed and capricious, had done him a wrong and
deprived him of the chance of giving a refined and educated mother to
his children.
But when she came, at the close of service, to meet him, dressed
in her becoming holiday costume, her red bodice and white cap, her
face looked, as it always did, home-like and very dear. He laughed
at himself for the foolish thoughts that a momentary ambition had
awakened, and as they sat on the grass, eating their dinner together,
told her what the pastor's good wife had said to him.
"But you only make baskets and things of that sort in the winter
evenings," said Viola. "And such work as you are doing now, he cannot
possibly do. But my work he can learn, and that he shall do forthwith."
So the next day, when she swept her house she put a little broom into
Eric's hands, saying, "Sweep now, as I do. Don't just move your brush
in the air; do just as I do, and make the floor clean for mother."
Eric obeyed, and when he saw that his little brush helped to beautify
the floor, he used it with delight, singing joyfully to himself the
while, and doing his work with his mother's exactitude. So it was in
almost all the details of the day; and when, in the afternoon, she sat
in her well-ordered room, in her clean, fresh dress, and began to sew,
she gave Eric, not a bit of waste cloth, but part of a little garment,
saying:
"See, now, dear Eric, when I sew I join these pieces together, and make
your little sleeve. But when you sew you make nothing. You only move
your arms as I move mine."
Then Eric watched her more closely, and saw that she pulled her needle
through her work, now in, now out; imitated her with joy, and really
made the little sleeve. Viola showed it to his father in the evening,
and they all thought it a wonderful affair, as it indeed was, for the
stitches were not the unwilling, irregular workmanship of compulsion,
but the result of a taste that must indulge itself in aiming at
perfection. Eric, himself, was not satisfied with his sleeve because it
was not so nicely done as his mother's, but she laughed at the idea of
his expecting at his first attempt to equal her needlework, of which
she was very proud.
A few weeks later, two little arms came to fill the little sleeves;
the baby-boy to whom they belonged, was beautiful from his birth;
even Viola was satisfied with him, though she would not own it. Eric
did not cry in imitation of his brother, as he had done with his
sister; he knew better, now; besides, he was too busy to waste his
time in watching him, except when bidden to do so. His father had been
occupied at intervals during several weeks in manufacturing articles
which Viola needed about the house: a table, two chairs, and a little
bedstead for Carina, who must give up her place by her mother's side to
the baby. Eric could hardly contain himself till he had made miniature
furniture of the same pattern. To be sure, he pounded his fingers and
cut them, and met with all sorts of difficulties, but that made no
difference; chairs and table and bedstead he was resolved to make,
and make them he did; and then his mother made a little doll of the
right size for the furniture, and the whole establishment was given
to Carina. His father was astonished at this performance, which he
could appreciate better than he could the needlework. He began to find
great pleasure in taking Eric with him to his work, and in answering
his endless questions, which were daily becoming more and intelligent.
He was obliged to work very hard, now that there were so many little
children, for though the grandfather owned the house in which they
lived, this was all they possessed, except the small bit of land which
had been bought at the time of his marriage, when Olaf hoped to add
to it; but that he had never been able to do. Shortly after the birth
of the third baby, the grandfather began to suffer seriously from
rheumatism, particularly in his hands, so that by degrees he became
quite unable to do work of any sort. Olaf must do double duty; but it
was some relief to see Eric growing every day stronger and more useful,
and to look forward to the time as not far distant, when he would
materially help in the support of the family.
To be sure, the neighbors all said among themselves, that Eric would be
Jack of all trades, and master of none; such prodigies, they were sure,
never turned out in the end to be anything wonderful; and after all, he
wasn't so much of a marvel as he might be.
Olaf, however, determined to have Eric's education hurried forward as
speedily as possible. But how was this to be done? Viola knew how to
keep her house, to bear children, and to be a good, loving mother to
them; but beyond these duties she could not go. Her education was far
inferior to that of the peasantry about her; she could neither read nor
write. The grandmother had taught Eric to do both, and had made him say
the catechism every Sunday till he knew it past ever forgetting one
of its ponderous words; but this did not satisfy Olaf; he was sure he
ought to do more for this boy who had been endowed by nature with such
varied powers.