Father and the boys are seated one rainy October evening in a
third-class railway coach on their way to Stockholm. The father is
sitting by himself on one bench, and the boys sit close together
directly opposite him, reading a Jules Verne romance entitled "Six Weeks
in a Balloon." The book is much worn. The boys know it almost by heart
and have held endless discussions on it, but they always read it with
the same pleasure. They have forgotten everything else to follow the
daring sailors of the air all over Africa, and seldom raise their eyes
from the book to glance at the Swedish towns they are travelling
through.
The boys are very like each other. They are the same height, are dressed
alike, with blue caps and gray overcoats, and both have large dreamy
eyes and little pug noses. They are always good friends, always
together, do not bother with other children, and are forever talking
about inventions and exploring expeditions. In point of talent they are
quite unlike. Lennart, the elder, who is thirteen, is backward in his
studies at the High School and can hardly keep up with his class in any
theme. To make up for this, he is very handy and enterprising. He is
going to be an inventor and works all the time on a flying-machine which
he is constructing. Hugo is a year younger than Lennart, but he is
quicker at study and is already in the same grade as his brother. He
doesn't find studying any special fun, either; but, on the other hand,
he is a great sportsman--a ski-runner, a cyclist, and a skater. He
intends to start out on voyages of discovery when he is grown up. As
soon as Lennart's airship is ready, Hugo is going to travel in it in
order to explore what is still left of this globe to be discovered.
Their father is a tall thin man with a sunken chest, a haggard face, and
pretty, slender hands. He is carelessly dressed. His shirt bosom is
wrinkled and the coat band pokes up at the neck; his vest is buttoned
wrongly and his socks sag down over his shoes. He wears his hair so long
at the neck that it hangs on his coat collar. This is due not to
carelessness, but to habit and taste.
The father is a descendant of an old musical family from far back in a
rural district, and he has brought with him into the world two strong
inclinations, one of which is a great musical talent; and it was this
that first came into the light. He was graduated from the Academy in
Stockholm and then studied a few years abroad, and during these study
years made such brilliant progress that both he and his teacher thought
he would some day be a great and world-renowned violinist. He certainly
had talent enough to reach the goal, but he lacked grit and
perseverance. He couldn't fight his way to any sort of standing out in
the world, but soon came home again and accepted a situation as organist
in a country town. At the start he felt ashamed because he had not lived
up to the expectations of every one, but he felt, also, that it was good
to have an assured income and not be forced to depend any longer upon
the charity of others.
Shortly after he had got the appointment, he married, and a few years
later he was perfectly satisfied with his lot. He had a pretty little
home, a cheerful and contented wife, and two little boys. He was the
town favorite, feted, and in great demand everywhere. But then there
came a time when all this did not seem to satisfy him. He longed to go
out in the world once more and try his luck; but he felt bound down at
home because he had a wife and children.
More than all, it was the wife who had persuaded him to give up this
journey. She had not believed that he would succeed any better now than
before. She felt they were so happy that there was no need for him to
strive after anything else. Unquestionably she made a mistake in this
instance, but she also lived to regret it bitterly, for, from that time
on, the other family trait showed itself. When his yearning for success
and fame was not satisfied, he tried to console himself with drinking.
Now it turned out with him, as was usual with folk of his family--he
drank inordinately. By degrees he became an entirely different person.
He was no longer charming or lovable, but harsh and cruel; and the
greatest misfortune of all was that he conceived a terrible hatred for
his wife and tortured her in every conceivable way, both when he was
drunk and when he wasn't.
So the boys did not have a good home, and their childhood would have
been very unhappy had they not been able to create for themselves a
little world of their own, filled with machine models, exploring
schemes, and books of adventure. The only one who has ever caught a
glimpse of this world is the mother. The father hasn't even a suspicion
of its existence, nor can he talk with the boys about anything that
interests them. He disturbs them, time and again, by asking if they
don't think it will be fun to see Stockholm; if they are not glad to be
out travelling with father, and other things in that way, to which the
boys give brief replies, in order that they may immediately bury
themselves in the book again. Nevertheless the father continues to
question the boys. He thinks they are charmed with his affability,
although they are too bashful to show it.
"They have been too long under petticoat rule," he thinks. "They have
become timid and namby-pamby. There will be some go in them now, when I
take them in hand."
Father is mistaken. It is not because the boys are bashful that they
answer him so briefly; it simply shows that they are well brought up and
do not wish to hurt his feelings. If they were not polite, they would
answer him in a very different manner. "Why should we think it fun to be
travelling with father?" they would then say. "Father must think himself
something wonderful, but we know, of course, that he is only a poor
wreck of a man. And why should we be glad to see Stockholm? We
understand very well that it is not for our sakes that father has taken
us along, but only to make mother unhappy!"
It would be wiser, no doubt, if the father were to let the boys read
without interrupting them. They are sad and apprehensive, and it
irritates them to see him in a good humor. "It is only because he knows
that mother is sitting at home crying that he is so happy to-day," they
whisper to each other.
Father's questions finally bring matters to this pass: the boys read no
more, although they continue to sit bent over the book. Instead, their
thoughts begin in bitterness to embrace all that they have had to endure
on their father's account.
They remember the time when he drank himself full in the morning and
came staggering up the street, with a crowd of school boys after him,
who poked fun at him. They recall how the other boys teased them and
gave them nicknames because they had a father who drank.
They have been put to shame for their father. They have been forced to
live in a state of constant anxiety for his sake, and as soon as they
were having any enjoyment, he always came and spoiled their fun. It is
no small register of sins that they are setting down against him! The
boys are very meek and patient, but they feel a greater and greater
wrath springing up in them.
He should at least understand that, as yet, they cannot forgive him for
the great wrong he did them yesterday. This was by far the worst wrong
he had ever done them.
It seems that, last year, mother and the boys decided to part from
father. For a number of years he had been persecuting and torturing her
in every possible way, but she was loath to part from him and remained,
so that he wouldn't go altogether to rack and ruin. But now, at last,
she wanted to do it for the sake of her boys. She had noticed that their
father made them unhappy, and realized that she must take them away from
this misery and provide them with a good and peaceable home.
When the spring school-term was over, she sent them to her parents in
the country, and she herself went abroad in order to obtain a divorce in
the easiest way possible. She regretted that, by going about it in this
way, it would appear as though it were her fault that the marriage was
dissolved; but that she must submit to. She was even less pleased when
the courts turned the boys over to the father because she was a run-away
wife. She consoled herself with the thought that he couldn't possibly
wish to keep the children; but she had felt quite ill at ease.
As soon as the divorce was settled, she came back and took a small
apartment where she and the boys were to live. In two days she had
everything in readiness, so that they could come home to her.
It was the happiest day the boys had experienced. The entire apartment
consisted of one large living-room and a big kitchen, but everything was
new and pretty, and mother had arranged the place so cosily. The big
room she and they were to use daytimes as a work-room, and nights they
were to sleep there. The kitchen was light and comfortable. There they
would eat, and in a little closet off the kitchen mother had her bed.
She had told them that they would be very poor. She had secured a place
as singing-teacher at the girls' school, and this was all they had to
live upon. They couldn't afford to keep a servant, but must get along
all by themselves. The boys were in ecstasies over everything--most of
all, because they might help along. They volunteered to carry water and
wood. They were to brush their own shoes and make their own beds. It was
only fun to think up all that they were going to do!
There was a little wardrobe, in which Lennart was to keep all his
mechanical apparatus. He was to have the key himself, and no one but
Hugo and he should ever go in there.
But the boys were allowed to be happy with their mother only for a
single day. Afterwards their father spoiled their pleasure, as he had
always done as far back as they could remember. Mother told them she had
heard that their father had received a legacy of a few thousand kronor,
and that he had resigned from his position as organist and was going to
move to Stockholm. Both they and mother were glad that he was leaving
town, so they would escape meeting him on the streets. And then a friend
of father's had called on mother to tell her that father wanted to take
the boys with him to Stockholm.
Mother had wept and begged that she might keep her boys, but father's
messenger had answered her that her husband was determined to have the
boys under his guardianship. If they did not come willingly, he would
let the police fetch them. He bade mother read through the divorce
papers, and there it said plainly that the boys would belong to their
father. This, of course, she already knew. It was not to be gainsaid.
Father's friend had said many nice things of father and had told her of
how much he loved his sons, and for this reason he wanted them to be
with him. But the boys knew that father was taking them away solely for
the purpose of torturing mother. She would have to live in a state of
continual anxiety for them. The whole thing was nothing but malice and
revenge!
But father had his own way, and here they were now, on their way to
Stockholm. And right opposite them their father sits, rejoicing in the
thought that he has made their mother unhappy. With every second that
passes, the thought of having to live with father becomes more
repellent. Are they then wholly in his power? Will there be no help for
this?
Father leans back in his seat, and after a bit he falls asleep.
Immediately the boys begin whispering to each other very earnestly. It
isn't difficult for them to come to a decision. The whole day they have
been sitting there thinking that they ought to run away. They conclude
to steal out on the platform and to jump from the train when it goes
through a big forest. Then they will build them a hut in the most
secluded spot in the forest, and live all by themselves and never show
themselves to a human being.
While the boys are laying their plans, the train stops at a station, and
a peasant woman, leading a little boy by the hand, comes into the coupé.
She is dressed in black, with a shawl on her head, and has a kind and
friendly appearance. She removes the little one's overcoat, which is wet
from the rain, and wraps a shawl around him. Then she takes off his
shoes and stockings, dries his little cold feet, takes from a bundle dry
shoes and stockings and puts them on him. Then she gives him a stick of
candy and lays him down on the seat with his head resting on her lap,
that he might sleep.
First one boy, then the other casts a glance over at the peasant woman.
These glances become more frequent, and suddenly the eyes of both boys
fill with tears. Then they look up no more, but keep their eyes
obstinately lowered.
It seems that when the peasant woman entered some one else--some one who
was invisible and imperceptible to all save the boys--came into the
coupé. The boys fancied that she came and sat down between them and took
their hands in hers, as she had done late last night, when it was
settled that they must leave her; and she was talking to them now as she
did then. "You must promise me that you will not be angry with father
for my sake. Father has never been able to forgive me for preventing him
from going abroad. He thinks it is my fault that he has never amounted
to anything and that he drinks. He can never punish me enough. But you
mustn't be angry at him on that account. Now, when you are to live with
father, you must promise me that you will be kind to him. You mustn't
quarrel with him and you are to look after his needs as well as you can.
This you must promise me, otherwise I don't know how I can ever let you
go." And the boys promised. "You mustn't run away from father, promise
me that!" mother had said. That they had also promised.
The boys are as good as their word, and the instant they happen to think
that they had given mother these promises, they abandon all thought of
flight. Father sleeps all the while and they remain patiently in their
places. Then they resume their reading with redoubled zeal, and their
friend, the good Jules Verne, soon takes them away from many heavy
sorrows to Africa's happy wonder world.
Far out on the south side of the city, father has rented two rooms and a
kitchen on the ground floor, with an entrance from the court and an
outlook over a narrow yard. The apartment has long been in use; it has
gone from family to family, without ever having been renovated. The wall
paper is full of tears and spots; the ceilings are sooty; a couple of
window-panes are cracked, and the kitchen floor is so worn that it is
full of ruts. Expressmen have brought the furniture cases from the
railway station and have left them there, helter skelter. Father and the
boys are now unpacking. Father stands with axe raised to hack open a
box. The boys are taking out glass and porcelain ware from another box,
and are arranging them in a wall cupboard. They are handy and work
eagerly, but the father never stops cautioning them to be careful, and
forbids their carrying more than one glass or plate at a time. Meanwhile
it goes slowly with father's own work. His hands are fumbly and
powerless, and he works himself into a sweat without getting the lock
off the box. He lays down the axe, walks around the box, and wonders if
it's the bottom that is uppermost. Then one of the boys takes hold of
the axe and begins to bend the lock, but father pushes him aside. "That
lock is nailed down too hard. Surely you don't imagine that you can
force the lock when father couldn't do it? Only a regular workman can
open that box," says father, putting on his hat and coat to go and fetch
the janitor.
Father is hardly outside the door when an idea strikes him. Instantly he
understands why he has no strength in his hands. It is still quite early
in the morning and he has not consumed anything which could set the
blood in motion. If he were to step into a café and have a cognac, he
would get back his strength and could manage without help. This is
better than calling the janitor.
Then father goes into the street to try and hunt up a café. When he
returns to the little apartment on the court, it is eight o'clock in the
evening.
In father's youth, when he attended the Academy, he had lived at the
south end of the city. He was then a member of a double quartette,
mostly made up of choristers and petty tradesmen, who used to meet in a
cellar near Mosebacke. Father had taken a notion to go and see if the
little cellar was still there. It was, in fact, and father had the luck
to run across a pair of old comrades who were seated there having their
breakfast. They had received him with the greatest delight, had invited
him to breakfast, and had celebrated his advent in Stockholm in the
friendliest way possible. When the breakfast was over, finally, father
wanted to go home and unpack his furniture, but his friends persuaded
him to remain and take dinner with them. This function was so long drawn
out that he hadn't been able to go home until around eight o'clock. And
it had cost him more than a slight effort to tear himself away from the
lively place that early.
When father comes home, the boys are in the dark, for they have no
matches. Father has a match in his pocket, and when he has lighted a
little stump of a candle, which luckily had come along with their
furnishings, he sees that the boys are hot and dusty, but well and happy
and apparently very well pleased with their day.
In the rooms the furniture is arranged alongside the walls, the boxes
have been removed and straw and papers have been swept away. Hugo is
just turning down the boys' beds in the outer room. The inner room is to
be father's bedroom, and there stands his bed, turned down with as great
care as he could possibly wish.
Now a sudden revulsion of feeling possesses him. When he came home, he
was displeased with himself because he had gone away from his work and
had left the boys without food; but now, when he sees that they are in
good spirits and not in any distress, he regrets that, for their sakes,
he should have left his friends; and he becomes irritable and
quarrelsome.
He sees, no doubt, that the boys are proud of all the work they have
accomplished and expect him to praise them; but this he is not at all
inclined to do. Instead, he asks who has been here and helped them, and
begs them to remember that here in Stockholm one gets nothing without
money, and that the janitor must be paid for all he does. The boys
answer that they have had no assistance and have got on by themselves.
But father continues to grumble. It was wrong of them to open the big
box. They might have hurt themselves on it. Had he not forbidden them to
open it? Now they would have to obey him. He is the one who must answer
for their welfare.
He takes the candle, goes out into the kitchen, and peeps into the
cupboards. The scanty supply of glass and porcelain is arranged on the
shelves in an orderly manner. He scrutinizes everything very carefully
to find an excuse for further complaint.
All of a sudden he catches sight of some leavings from the boys' supper,
and begins immediately to grumble because they have had chicken. Where
did they get it from? Do they think of living like princes? Is it his
money they are throwing away on chicken? Then he remembers that he had
not left them any money. He wonders if they have stolen the chicken and
becomes perturbed. He preaches and admonishes, scolds and fusses, but
now he gets no response from the boys. They do not bother themselves
about telling him where they got the chicken, but let him go on. He
makes long speeches and exhausts his forces. Finally he begs and
implores.
"I beseech you to tell me the truth. I will forgive you, no matter what
you have done, if you will only tell me the truth!"
Now the boys can hold in no longer. Father hears a spluttering sound.
They throw off the quilts and sit up, and he notices that they are
purple in the face from suppressed laughter. And as they can laugh now
without restraint, Lennart says between the paroxysms, "Mother put a
chicken in the food sack which she gave us when we left home."
Father, draws himself up, looks at the boys, wants to speak, but finds
no suitable words. He becomes even more majestic in his bearing, looks
with withering scorn at them, and goes to his room without further
parley.
* * * * *
It has dawned upon father how handy the boys are, and he makes use of
this fact to escape hiring servants. Mornings he sends Lennart into the
kitchen to make coffee and lets Hugo lay the breakfast-table and fetch
bread from the baker's. After breakfast he sits down on a chair and
watches how the boys make up the beds, sweep the floors, and build a
fire in the grate. He gives endless orders and sends them from one task
to another, only to show his authority. When the morning chores are
over, he goes out and remains away all the forenoon. The dinner he lets
them fetch from a cooking-school in the neighborhood. After dinner he
leaves the boys for the evening, and exacts nothing more of them than
that his bed shall be turned down when he comes home.
The boys are practically alone almost the entire day and can busy
themselves in any way they choose.
One of their most important tasks is to write to their mother. They get
letters from her every day, and she sends them paper and postage, so
that they can answer her. Mother's letters are mostly admonitions that
they shall be good to their father. She writes constantly of how lovable
father was when she first knew him, of how industrious and thrifty he
was at the beginning of his career. They must be tender and kind to him.
They must never forget how unhappy he is. "If you are very good to
father, perhaps he may feel sorry for you and let you come home to me."
Mother tells them that she has called to see the dean and the
burgomaster to ask if it were not possible to get back the boys. Both of
them had replied that there was no help for her. The boys would have to
stay with their father. Mother wants to move to Stockholm that she may
see her boys once in a while, at least, but every one advises her to
have patience and abide her time. They think father will soon tire of
the boys and send them home. Mother doesn't quite know what she should
do. On the one hand she thinks it dreadful that the boys are living in
Stockholm with no one to look after them, and on the other hand she
knows that if she were to leave her home and her work, she could not
take them and support them, even if they were freed. But for Christmas,
at all events, mother is coming to Stockholm to look after them.
The boys write and tell her what they do all day, hour by hour. They let
mother know that they cook for father and make his bed. She apprehends
that they are trying to be kind to him for her sake, but she probably
perceives that they like him no better now than formerly.
Her little boys appear to be always alone. They live in a large city,
where there are lots of people, but no one asks after them. And perhaps
it is better thus. Who can tell what might happen to them were they to
make any acquaintances?
They always beg of her not to be uneasy about them. They tell how they
darn their stockings and sew on their buttons. They also intimate that
Lennart has made great headway with his invention and say that when this
is finished all will be well.
Mother lives in a state of continual fear. Night and day her thoughts
are with her boys. Night and day she prays God to watch over her little
sons, who live alone in a great city, with no one to shield them from
the temptations of the destroyer, and to keep their young hearts from
the desire for evil.
* * * * *
Father and the boys are sitting one morning at the Opera. One of
father's old comrades, who is with the Royal Orchestra, has invited him
to be present at a symphony rehearsal, and father has taken the boys
along. When the orchestra strikes up and the auditorium is filled with
tone, father is so affected that he can't control himself, and begins to
weep. He sobs and blows his nose and moans aloud, time and again. He
puts no restraint upon his feelings, but makes such a noise that the
musicians are disturbed. A guard comes along and beckons him away, and
father takes the boys by the hand and slinks out without a word of
protest. All the way home his tears continue to flow.
Father is walking on, with a boy on each side, and he has kept their
hands in his all the while. Suddenly the boys start crying. They
understand now for the first time how much father has loved his art. It
was painful for him to sit there, besotten and broken, and listen to
others playing. They feel sorry for him who had never become what he
might have been. It was with father as it might be with Lennart were he
never to finish his flying-machine, or with Hugo if he were not to make
any voyages of discovery. Think if they should one day sit like old
good-for-nothings and see fine airships sailing over their heads which
they had not invented and were not allowed to pilot!
* * * * *
The boys were sitting one morning on opposite sides of the
writing-table. Father had taken a music roll under his arm and gone out.
He had mumbled something about giving a music lesson, but the boys had
not for a moment been tempted into believing this true.
Father is in an ugly mood as he walks up the street. He noticed the look
the boys exchanged when he said that he was going to a music lesson.
"They are setting themselves up as judges of their father," he thinks.
"I am too indulgent toward them. I should have given them each a sound
box on the ear. It's their mother, I dare say, who is setting them
against me. Suppose I were to keep an eye on the fine gentlemen?" he
continues. "It would do no harm to find out how they attend to their
lessons."
He turns back, walks quietly across the court, opens the door very
softly, and stands in the boys' room without either of them having heard
him coming. The boys jump up, red in the face, and Lennart quickly
snatches a bundle of papers which he throws into the table drawer.
When the boys had been in Stockholm a day or two, they had asked which
school they were to attend, and the father had replied that their
school-going days were over now. He would try and procure a private
tutor who would teach them. This proposition he had never carried into
effect, nor had the boys said anything more about going to school. But
in less than a week a school chart was discovered hanging on the wall in
the boys' room. The school books had been brought forth, and every
morning they sat on opposite sides of an old writing-table and studied
their lessons aloud. It was evident that they had received letters from
their mother counselling them to try and study, so as not to forget
entirely what they had learned.
Now, as father unexpectedly comes into the room, he goes up to the chart
first and studies it. He takes out his watch and compares. "Wednesday,
between ten and eleven, Geography." Then he comes up to the table.
"Shouldn't you have geography at this hour?"
"Yes," the boys reply, growing flame-red in the face.
"Have you the geography and the map?"
The boys glance over at the book shelf and look confused. "We haven't
begun yet," says Lennart.
"Indeed!" says father. "You must have been up to something else." He
straightens up, thoroughly pleased with himself. He has an advantage,
which he doesn't care to let go until he has browbeaten them very
effectually.
Both boys are silent. Ever since the day they accompanied father to the
Opera, they have felt sympathy for him, and it has not been such an
effort for them to be kind to him as it was before. But, naturally, they
haven't for a moment thought of taking father into their confidence. He
has not risen in their estimation although they are sorry for him.
"Were you writing letters?" father asks in his severest tone.
"No," say both boys at the same time.
"What were you doing?"
"Oh, just talking."
"That isn't true. I saw that Lennart hid something in the drawer of the
table."
Now both boys are mum again.
"Take it out!" shouts the father, purple with rage. He thinks the sons
have written to his wife, and, since they don't care to show the letter,
of course there is something mean about him in it.
The boys do not stir, and father raises his hand to strike Lennart, who
is sitting before the table drawer.
"Don't touch him!" cries Hugo. "We were only talking over something
which Lennart has invented."
Hugo pushes Lennart aside, opens the drawer, and pulls out the paper,
which is scrawled full of airships of the most extraordinary shapes.
"Last night Lennart thought out a new kind of sail for his airship. It
was of this we were speaking."
Father wouldn't believe him. He bends over, searches in the drawer, but
finds only sheets of paper covered with drawings of balloons,
parachutes, flying-machines, and everything else appertaining to
air-sailing.
To the great surprise of the boys, father does not cast this aside at
once, nor does he laugh at their attempts, but examines closely sheet
after sheet. As a matter of fact, father, too, has a little leaning
toward mechanics, and was interested in things of this sort in days gone
by, when his brain was still good for something. Soon he begins to ask
questions as to the meaning of one thing and another, and inasmuch as
his words betray that he is deeply interested and understands what he
sees, Lennart fights his bashfulness, and answers him, hesitatingly at
first and then more willingly.
Soon father and boys are absorbed in a profound discussion about
airships and air-sailing. After they are fairly well started, the boys
chatter unreservedly and give father a share in their plans and dreams
of greatness. And while the father comprehends, of course, that the boys
cannot fly very far with the airship which they have constructed, he is
very much impressed. His little sons talk of aluminum motors,
aeroplanes, and balancers, as though they were the simplest things in
the world. He had thought them regular blockheads because they didn't
get on very fast at school. Now, all at once, he believes they are a
pair of little scientists.
The high-soaring thoughts and aspirations father understands better than
anything else; he cognizes them. He himself has dreamed in the same
way, and he has no desire to laugh at such dreams.
Father doesn't go out again that morning, but sits and chats with the
boys until it is time to fetch the food for dinner and set the table.
And at that meal father and the boys are real good friends, to their
great and mutual astonishment.
* * * * *
The hour is eleven at night, and father is staggering up the street. The
little boys are walking on either side of him, and he holds their hands
tightly clasped in his all the while.
They have sought him out in one of his haunts, where they have stationed
themselves just inside the door. Father sits by himself at a table with
a big brown toddy in front of him, and listens to a ladies' orchestra
which is playing at the other end of the hall. After a moment's
hesitancy he rises reluctantly and goes over to the boys. "What is it?"
he asks. "Why do you come here?"
"Father was to come home," they say. "This is the fifth of December.
Father promised--"
Then he remembers that Lennart had confided to him that it was Hugo's
birthday and that he had promised him to come home early. But this he
had entirely forgotten. Hugo was probably expecting a birthday present
from him, but he had not remembered to get him one.
At any rate, he has gone with the boys and is walking along, displeased
with them and with himself. When he comes home, the birthday table is
laid. The boys had wished to give a little party. Lennart had creamed
some pancakes, which are now a few hours old and look like pieces of
leather. They had received a little money from their mother, and with
this they had bought nuts, raisins, and a bottle of soda-water.
This fine feast they did not care to enjoy all by themselves, and they
had been sitting and waiting for father to come home and share it with
them. Now, since they and father have become friends, they cannot
celebrate such a big event without him. Father understands it all, and
the thought of being missed flatters him and puts him in a fairly good
humor. Half full as he is, he plumps himself down at the table. Just as
he is about to take his place he stumbles, clutches at the table-cloth,
falls, and draws down on the floor everything on the table. As he raises
himself, he sees how the soda flows out over the floor and pickles and
pancakes are strewn about among bits of porcelain and broken glass.
Father glances at the boys' long faces, rips out an oath, and makes a
rush for the door, and he doesn't come back home until on towards
morning.
* * * * *
One morning in February, the boys are coming up the street with their
skates dangling from their shoulders. They are not quite like
themselves. They have grown thin and pale and look untidy and uncared
for. Their hair is uncut; they are not well washed and they have holes
in both stockings and shoes. When they address each other, they use a
lot of street-boy expressions, and one and another oath escapes from
their lips.
A change has taken place in the boys. It had its beginning on the
evening when their father forgot to come home to help celebrate Hugo's
birthday. It was as if until that time they had been kept up by the hope
that soon their father would be a changed man.
At first they had counted on his tiring of them and sending them home.
Later, they had fancied that he would become fond of them and give up
drinking for their sakes, and they had even imagined that mother and he
might become reconciled and that all of them would be happy. But it
dawned upon them that night that father was impossible. He could love
nothing but drink. Even if he were kind to them for a little while, he
didn't really care for them.
A heavy hopelessness fell upon the boys; nothing would ever be changed
for them. They should never get away from father. They felt as though
they were doomed to sit shut in a dark prison all their lives. Not even
their great plans for the future could comfort them. In the way that
they were bound down, these plans could never be carried out. Only
think, they were not learning anything! They knew enough of the
histories of great men to know that he who wants to accomplish anything
noteworthy must first of all have knowledge.
Still the hardest blow was that mother did not come to them at
Christmas. In the beginning of December she had fallen down stairs and
broken her leg, and was forced to lie in a hospital during the Christmas
holidays, therefore she could not come to Stockholm. Now that mother was
up, her school had begun again. Apart from this, she had no money with
which to travel. The little that she had saved was spent while she lay
ill.
The boys felt themselves deserted by the whole world. It was obvious
that it never would be any better for them, no matter how good they
were! So, gradually, they ceased to exert themselves with the sort of
things that were tiresome. They might just as well do that which amused
them.
The boys began to shirk their morning studies. No one heard their
lessons, so what was the use of their studying? There had been good
skating for a couple of days and they might as well play truant all day.
On the ice there were always throngs of boys, and they had made the
acquaintance of a number who also preferred skating to being shut in the
house with their books.
It has turned out to be such a fine day that it is impossible to think
of staying indoors. The weather is so clear and sunny that the school
children have been granted skating leave. The whole street is filled
with children, who have been home to get their skates and are now
hurrying down to the ice.
The boys, as they move among the other children, appear solemn and
low-spirited. Not a smile lights up their faces. Their misfortune is so
heavy that they cannot forget it for a second.
When they come down on the ice, it is full of life and movement. All
along the edges it is bordered with a tight mass of people; farther
out, the skaters circle around one another, like gnats, and still
farther out, solitary black specks that float along at lightning speed
are seen.
The boys buckle on their skates and join the other skaters. They skate
very well, and as they glide out on the ice, full speed, they get color
in their cheeks and their eyes sparkle, but not for a moment do they
appear happy, like other children.
All of a sudden, as they are making a turn toward land, they catch sight
of something very pretty. A big balloon comes from the direction of
Stockholm and is sailing out toward Salt Lake. It is striped in reds and
yellows, and when the sun strikes it it glitters like a ball of fire.
The basket is decorated with many-hued flags, and as the balloon does
not fly very high the bright color-play can be seen quite plainly.
When the boys spy the balloon, they send up a shriek of delight. It is
the first time in their lives that they have seen a big balloon sailing
through the air. All the dreams and plans which have been their
consolation and joy during the many trying days come back to them when
they see it. They stand still that they may observe how the ropes and
lines are fastened; and they take note of the anchor and the sand bags
on the edge of the car.
The balloon moves with good speed over the ice-bound fiord. All the
skaters, big and little, dart around one another, laughing and hooting
at it when it first comes into sight, and then they bound after it. They
follow it out to sea, in a long swaying line, like a drag line. The
air-sailors amuse themselves by scattering handfuls of paper strips in a
variety of colors, which come circling down slowly through the blue air.
The boys are foremost in the long line that is chasing after the
balloon. They hurry forward, with heads thrown back, and gaze steadily
turned upward. Their eyes dance with delight for the first time since
they parted from their mother. They are beside themselves with
excitement over the airship and think of nothing else than to follow it
as long as possible.
But the balloon moves ahead rapidly, and one has to be a good skater not
to be left behind. The crowd chasing after it thins down, but in the
lead of those who keep up the pursuit the two little boys are seen.
Afterwards people said there was something strange about them. They
neither laughed nor shouted, but on their upturned faces there was a
look of transport--as though they had seen a heavenly vision.
The balloon also affects the boys like a celestial guide, who has come
to lead them back to the right path and teach them how to go forward
with renewed courage. When the boys see it, their hearts bound with
longing to begin work again on the great invention. Once more they feel
confident and happy. If only they are patient, they'll probably work
their way toward success. A day will surely come when they can step into
their own airship and soar aloft in space. Some day _they_ will be the
ones who travel up there, far above the people, and _their_ airship will
be more perfect than the one they now see. Theirs shall be an airship
that can be steered and turned, lowered and raised, sail against wind
and without wind. It shall carry them by day and by night, wherever they
may wish to travel. They shall descend to the highest mountain peaks,
travel over the dreariest deserts, and explore the most inaccessible
regions. They shall behold all the glories of the world.
"It isn't worth while to lose heart, Hugo," says Lennart. "We'll have a
fine time if we can only finish it!"
Father and his ill-luck are things which do not concern them any more.
One who has something as great to strive for as they have cannot let
himself be hindered by anything so pitiable!
The balloon gains in speed the farther out it comes. The skaters have
ceased following it. The only ones who continue the chase are the two
little boys. They move ahead as swiftly and lightly as if their feet had
taken on wings.
Suddenly the people who stand on the shore and can look far out across
the fiord send up a great cry of horror and fear. They see that the
balloon, pursued all the while by the two children, sails away toward
the fairway, where there is open sea. "Open sea! It is open sea out
there!" the people shout.
The skaters down on the ice hear the shouts and turn their eyes toward
the mouth of the fiord. They see how a strip of water shimmers in the
sunlight yonder. They see, also, that two little boys are skating toward
this strip, which they do not notice because their eyes are fixed on the
balloon; and not for a second do they turn them toward earth.
The people are calling out with all their might and stamping on the ice.
Fast runners are hurrying on to stop them; but the little ones mark
nothing of all this, where they are chasing after the airship. They do
not know that they alone are following it. They hear no cries back of
them. They do not hear the splash and roar of the water ahead of them.
They see only the balloon, which as it were carries them with it.
Lennart already feels his own airship rising under him, and Hugo soars
away over the North Pole.
The people on the ice and on the shore see how rapidly they are nearing
the open sea. For a second or two they are in such breathless suspense
that they can neither move nor cry out. It seems as if the two children
are under a magic spell--in their chase after a shining heavenly vision.
The air-sailors up in the balloon have also caught a glimpse of the
little boys. They see that they are in danger and scream at them and
make warning gestures; but the boys do not understand them. When they
notice that the air-sailors are making signs at them, they think they
want to take them up into the car. They stretch their arms toward them,
overjoyed in the hope of accompanying them through the bright upper
regions.
At this moment the boys have reached the sailing channel, and, with arms
uplifted, they skate down into the water and disappear without a cry for
help. The skaters, who have tried to reach them in time, are standing a
couple of seconds later on the edge of the ice, but the current has
carried their bodies under the ice, and no helping hand can reach
them.