reflected every bit of blue that came over it, and even when the skies
were dark, and the snow-peaks hid their heads in a cloud, the fiord’s
reflections were only grave and thoughtful—never gloomy.
“And the water was so clear!
“Sailing along in a little boat you could look down, down, for twenty
fathoms, and see the smooth white sand, with little shells and
star-fish; and then the bottom of the fiord rose suddenly up like a
rocky mountain—over which the boat passed into a deep gulf on the other
side. Then came a plain, and great forests, far down in the water;
through which large fishes swam softly about; and then another mountain.
“In one of the narrowest parts of the fiord a little spot of cleared
and cultivated land lay like a smile between it and the rough mountain.
A mere point of land—a little valley wedged in among the heights that
rose cliff beyond cliff towards the blue sky, fringed here and there
with fir trees. The valley smiled none the less for all this roughness;
and the little dwelling that there found a foothold seemed rather to
court the protection of the cliffs, and to nestle under their shelter.
The house was such as best suited the place.
“It was built of great pine logs, roughly squared and laid one upon
another, with layers of moss between; while every crevice and crack was
well stuffed with the same. The roof was of boards, covered with strips
of birch bark; and over all a coating of earth two or three inches
deep in which a fine crop of moss had taken root. The windows were
large, and well glazed with coarse glass, while very white curtains
hung within; and the door was painted in gay colours. Other little
huts or houses stood about, forming a sort of square; and furnishing
apartments for the pig, the cows, and their winter provision; while one
more carefully built than the rest, held all manner of stores for the
family. Raised upon posts, that the rats might not enter, the little
alpebod kept safe the fish, the venison, the vegetables,—even the
cloth, yarn, and sometimes clothing, of its humble owners.
“In sight of the house, a little way down the fiord, was a wild ravine;
skirted on one side with a height of thick woods and rocks, while on
the other the rocks stood alone—the sharp ridge rising up hundreds of
feet to a ledge in some places not a foot wide. On either side the
ridge the pitch was very sheer down, the one depth being filled with
forest trees which led on to the wooded hill beyond; while the ravine
on the other echoed to the voice of a waterfall, that pouring down over
a pile of rocks perhaps two hundred feet high, foamed into the fiord;
which then came eddying past the little hut, bearing the white flakes
yet on its blue water.
“This was all one could see in the valley; but the tall fir trees
looked at long ranges of wooded hills and rocky cliffs, with the fiord
in its further windings, and beyond all the snow mountains.
“‘How cold you must be up there!’ said a little pine who was nearly as
high as the tall fir’s lower branches. But the fir did not hear him,
or perhaps did not take notice, for he was looking off at the fine
prospect.
“‘Yes, it is cold up here,’ answered one of the fir cones,—‘and
windy—and there’s a great deal of sameness about it. It’s just snow and
rain, and wind and sunshine, and then snow again.’
“‘That’s what it is everywhere,’ said the wind as he swept by.
“‘I can’t help it,’—said the cone—‘I am tired of it. I want to travel,
and see the world, and be of some use to society. What can one do in
the top of a fir tree?’
“‘Why, what can a pine cone do anywhere?’ said some of the beech mast.
“‘The end of a pine cone’s existence is not to be eaten up, however,’
retorted the cone, sharply. ‘Neither am I a pine cone—though people
will call me so. We firs hold our heads pretty high, I can tell you.
But I will throw myself into the fiord some day, and go to sea. I have
no doubt I could sail as well as a boat. It would be a fine thing to
discover new islands, and take possession.’
“‘It would be very lonely,’ said a squirrel who was gathering beech
mast.
“‘Royally so—’ said the pine cone. ‘There one would be king of all the
trees.’
“‘The trees never had but one king, and that was a bramble,’ said a
reed at the water’s edge who was well versed in history.
“‘What nonsense you are all talking!’ said the tall fir tree at length.
‘My top leaf is at this moment loaded with a snowflake—there is
something sensible for you to think of.’
“At this moment the hut door opened and a woman came out.
“She wore a dark stuff petticoat made very short, with warm stockings
and thick shoes; a yellow close-fitting bodice was girdled round her
waist, and from under it came out a white kerchief and very full white
sleeves. On her head she wore a high white cap.
“She looked first at the weather, and then turning towards the fall
she watched or listened for a few minutes,—but water and rocks and
firs were all that eye or ear could find out. Then going up to a line
stretched between two of the fir-trees, she felt of some things that
hung there to dry.”
“I s’pose that was her clothes line,” said Carl.
“No it wasn’t,” replied the cone,—“I might rather call it her _bread_
line. The things that hung there were great pieces of the inner bark of
the pine tree, and looked very much like sheets of foolscap paper.”
“She didn’t make bread out of _them_, I guess,” said Carl.
“Yes she did,” replied the cone. “She made many a loaf of bark
bread, by pounding the dry bark and mixing it with flour. It wasn’t
particularly bad bread either. So people say—I never tasted it. But the
country folks in Norway use it a great deal in hard seasons; and in
those woods you often meet great pine trees that have been stripped of
their bark, and that have dried and bleached in the weather till they
look as if made of bone or marble.
“Well—the pieces of bark were dry, and Norrska began to take them off
the line, for of course the snow would not improve them.”
“Who was Norrska?” interrupted Carl.
“The good woman that came out of the house. She took them down, and
when they were all in a heap at the foot of the tree she began to carry
them off to the alpebod—that is the little storehouse I spoke of. Then
she went back into the hut for a minute, and when she came out again
she had on a long-sleeved grey woollen jacket, and her luur in her
hand.”
“What’s that?” said Carl.
“The luur is a long trumpet-shaped thing, made of hollow pieces of
wood, or pieces of birch bark, tied together, and four or five feet
long.”
“What was it for?” said Carl.
“Why you shall hear, if you will have patience,” said the cone.
“Norrska raised the luur with one hand, and putting her mouth to the
little end there came forth of the other sundry sweet and loud sounds,
which echoed back and forth among the rocks till they died away, far up
the mountain.”
“But I say,” said Carl, “what for?”
And he took hold of the pine cone and gave it a little pinch; but it
was pretty sharp and he let go again.
The pine cone settled himself down on the chest, looking just as stiff
as ever, and then went on with his story.
“Norrska sounded her luur twice or thrice, and presently the head and
horns of a red cow shewed themselves high up among the rocks. Then came
in sight her shoulders and fore feet, and her hind feet and tail; and
the whole cow began to descend into the valley, while a dun cow’s head
shewed itself in just the same place and fashion. But when Norrska had
once seen that they were coming she ceased to watch them, and turned to
the fall again.
“Its white foam looked whiter than ever in the gathering dusk. The
grey clouds which were fast closing in overhead sent down a cold grey
light, and the water before it broke no longer sparkled with the sun’s
gay beams, but looked leaden and cold and deep. Then breasted with snow
like the stormy petrel, it came flying down the precipice, to plunge
into the deep fiord below. Its very voice seem changed; for the wind
had died away, and the steady roar of the water was the only sound that
broke the hush.
“There was no living creature in sight,—unless a little lemming peeped
out of his hole, or an eagle soared across the sky, a mere speck upon
its clouds. The cows had reached the valley and now stood quietly
chewing the cud, having had the precaution to turn their backs to the
wind; and now Norrska fetched the milkpails, and drove the red cow
up to the milking-corner. And as she went, a snowflake fell on her
forehead and another fell on top of her head; and the fir trees sighed,
and bowed their heads to what they couldn’t help. Norrska sighed too.
“‘The winter is coming,’ she said, ‘and the snow; and truly the alpebod
is but poorly filled. And Sneeflocken sick—and Laaft not home from
Lofoden!—And Kline—what can keep him?’ And again she looked towards the
fall.
“Kline was there now—she could see him plain enough, though he was but
a little spot on that sharp ridge by the waterfall. The path itself was
hard to find, as it wound about over and under and around the points
of rock that met on the ledge. A stranger could scarce have climbed
it but on hands and knees. Yet down there came Kline, sure-footed as
a chamois—swiftly down; and singing praises of the rocks and streams
and woods and snow as he came. But before he reached the foot of the
hill Kline’s song stopped,—with the first look at the hut his thoughts
had outrun his feet; and with a quieter step now he came down into the
valley and up to where his mother sat milking the red cow. In one hand
was a gun, in the other a string of golden plovers.
“‘How late, Kline!’ said Norrska.
“‘Yes mother—I tried to get shot at a reindeer. How is she?’
“Norrska silently pointed to a snowflake, which falling on her hand as
she talked, had lain for a moment in all its pure beauty, but was now
melting fast away. She watched till it disappeared, and then bending
her head lower than ever, she resumed her work.
“Kline stood silent and thoughtful.
“‘May be not, mother,’ he said at length. ‘Her appetite has been better
lately. See—I have these plovers for her to-night, and to-morrow I will
have the deer. Think of my finding one in these parts!’
“But his mother said no more, and when the pails were full Kline
took them from her and carried them into one of the little huts; and
then returning he drove the cows into their little log dwelling, and
taking up his birds and gun he walked slowly to the house. But the
gayly-painted door was out of tune with his mood, and he turned and
went round the back way.
“Leaving both gun and birds in the kitchen, Kline opened softly a door
leading to one of the bedrooms and went in.
“The corners of this room and the sides of the windows were boarded,
and the floor was strewed with fresh twigs of the juniper tree; which
gave a sweet smell through the room, and made it look pretty too. Of
the three windows two looked towards the fiord and one to the mountain
and over the little clearing. The bed stood in a recess that had
doors like one of your cupboards; but these now were open, and by the
bedside stood a little white pine table, and upon it a wooden bowl and
spoon—all prettily carved.”
“How were they carved?” said Carl.
“The bowl had carved upon it a spray of the wild bramble—twining round
with its leaves and berries; and the handle of the spoon was like a
wild duck’s head; and the feet of the table were like bear’s feet.
Kline had done it all, for in Norway the men and boys carve a great
deal, and very beautifully; and this bowl and spoon had been made for
his little sister as he sat by her bedside, and Kline was very proud of
them. The feathers on the duck’s head were beautifully done, and the
bramble-berries looked pretty enough to eat. But Kline did not once
look at them now, for something far prettier lay on the bed, and that
was little Sneeflocken.”
“What did they call her that for?” said Carl.
“Because that is the name of the snowflakes. And she was just as
pure and fresh as they, and had never had the least bit of colour
in her cheeks from the time she was a baby. You could scarcely have
distinguished them from the pillow, but for the fair hair that came
between. She was covered with a quilt made of down; for Kline had
risked his life almost in climbing to the high difficult places where
the eider ducks build their nests, that he might get the soft down
which the mother duck plucks from her own breast to keep her eggs and
nestlings warm. And Norrska had made it into a quilt, the warmest thing
that could be—while the weight of it was almost nothing.
“And beneath this soft quilt Sneeflocken lay, with her eyes closed,
and singing softly to herself in the Norse language a hymn, which was
something like this:—
‘O little child, lie still and sleep!—
Jesus is near,
Thou need’st not fear;—
No one need fear, whom God doth keep
By day or night.
Then lay thee down in slumber deep
Till morning light.
O little child, thou need’st not wake;—
Though bears should prowl,
And wolfish howl
And watch-dog’s bark the silence break.
Jesus is strong,—
And angels watch thee for his sake,
The whole night long.
O little child, lie still and rest,—
He sweetly sleeps
Whom Jesus keeps,—
And in the morning wake, so blest,
_His_ child to be.
Love every one, but love him best,—
He first loved thee.
O little child! when thou must die,
Fear nothing then,—
But say Amen
To God’s command; and quiet lie
In his kind hand,
Till he shall say, ‘Dear child, come, fly
To heaven’s bright land.’
Then with thy angel-wings quick grown,
Shalt thou ascend,
To meet thy Friend,—
Jesus the little child will own—
Safe, at his side!
And thou shalt live before the throne
Because he died!’
“Kline had to step back into the shadow of the door of the recess, to
wipe the tears off his face, before he could venture to speak to his
little sister. But she spoke first.
“‘Kline!’
“‘What, dear?’ said her brother, coming forward.
“‘I thought I heard your step,’ said Sneeflocken with a smile, and
putting up her lips to kiss him. ‘Where have you been all day?’
“‘O—over the mountains—hunting,’ said Kline as cheerfully as he could.
‘I saw a great big reindeer, Flocken; and I mean to go and find him
to-morrow. That would fill the alpebod finely, and you would like some
venison—wouldn’t you dear?’
“‘O yes,’ said Flocken—with a little smile—‘but _I_ wouldn’t kill the
deer for that.’
“‘I would,’ said Kline. ‘And it would help mother, too.’
“‘I should like to help mother, if I could,’ said Sneeflocken, putting
her little thin hands together. ‘But Jesus will—I have asked him.’
“‘Why you help us all,’ said Kline; ‘just as the birds do when they
sing, or the sun when it shines.’
“‘Maybe I shall by and by,’ said the child, smiling again in that
grave, quiet way.
“‘Yes, by and by,—when you grow up to be a strong woman,’ said Kline.
“‘No, Kline,’ said Sneeflocken stroking his face—‘No, dear Kline—but
by and by when I go to heaven. Maybe God will let me help take care of
her then, and of you too, Kline. But you will not know that it is your
little Sneeflocken.’
“And Kline could only sit and hold her in his arms, and say nothing.
“The snow fell all that night, and the winter set in early; and the
waterfall scattered icicles upon every branch and rock in its way,
and then built for itself an ice trough through which it poured down
as noisily as ever. Then the sun never shewed his face but for a few
minutes, and the rest of the day was twilight. And at night the moon
shone splendidly, and the Northern Lights showed peaks of fire in the
heavens,—or sometimes there were only the stars, burning clear in the
high lift, and twinkling down in the dark fiord between the shadows of
the fir trees. Now and then a bear would come out, and prowl about the
little dwelling,—or a wolf gave a concert with the waterfall; but cows
and pigs were safe shut up; and Foss, the little dog, shewed so much
disapprobation at the concert, that often the wolves did not have one
for nights together. Laaft, the father of Kline, got home from Lofoden
with his stock of dried fish; and Kline himself had shot his reindeer;
and both meat and fish were safely stowed in the alpebod. Didn’t the
wolves know that! and didn’t their mouths water sometimes at night till
they were fringed with icicles! But they never tried to break in, for
the alpebod was strong; and little Foss knew as well as the wolves what
good things were there; and scolded terribly if every body and every
thing did not keep at a respectful distance. And besides all that, the
wolves were afraid of the light that always shone from one room of the
little cottage.
“‘This is a very quiet way of life—ours,’ said the fir trees nodding to
each other.
“‘I’m very tired of it,’ said one of the cones. ‘It’s very cold up
here, and really in the dark one cannot see to do much.’
“‘A fir glories in the frost and the cold and the snow,’ said the tall
tree proudly. ‘We are not called upon to do anything but to make sweet
music to the wind, and to keep it from blowing too fiercely upon the
little hut, and to shew our fine heads against the sky. The snow-birds
are warm in our arms during the long night, for _we_ have plenty of
good clothes all the year round.’
“The beeches heard this speech, but were too frost-bound to make any
answer.”
“What became of the discontented pine cone?” said Carl. “Did he throw
himself into the fiord?”
“Yes,” said the cone,—“at least one night he tried to. But he fell on
the shore instead—just dropped down at the foot of the fir tree; and
there Kline found him one day, and picked him up and carried him into
the house to show Flocken—he was such a large one.
“Every night through the winter was that light burning in the same room
of the hut; and every day did Kline come out with his gun and spend
what daylight there was in hunting. Sometimes he brought home a hare or
a ptarmigan, or a partridge that he had snared, or a wild duck; while
his father was cutting wood, or away in his boat to catch fish.
“‘I could get only one partridge to-day, dear Flocken,’ Kline would
say upon his return home; ‘but maybe I shall find something better
to-morrow.’
“‘O Kline,’ said his little sister, ‘how good you are to take so much
trouble for me! But it’s a pity to kill the birds,—they can’t make me
live, so we might let them.’
“‘Wasn’t that a good one you had yesterday?’ said Kline.
“‘O yes—’ said Flocken,—‘it was delicious. I think everything is good
that you get for me and that mother cooks. But then you know I can’t
eat much.’
“If you had seen her as she lay there—so thin, so white,—you might as
soon have suspected a very snowflake of eating much.
“‘So it don’t make much difference,’ repeated little Sneeflocken, ‘what
I have; only I do believe, Kline, that I like to have you take so much
trouble, and go away up in the snow to get things for me.’ And she put
her arms round his neck, and laying her white face against his coarse
grey jacket, she stroked and caressed him until Kline thought his heart
would burst beneath the weight of that little snowflake.
“‘When the spring comes,’ he said, ‘we will go up the mountain and look
for flowers; and I will make you a wreath of violets and fringed pinks,
little Flocken.’
“Sneeflocken stroked his face and smiled, and then she looked grave
again.
“‘And forget-me-nots, Kline,’ she said softly,—‘you will want them too.
The little blue forget-me-nots—they are so like the sky-colour. You
will think about me, Kline, whenever you see them, for I shall know
what the sky is made of then.—Where’s mother?’
“‘She is cooking your partridge,’ said Kline. ‘Don’t you smell it?’
“‘O yes,’ said the child smiling, ‘and I guess the wolves smell it too.
How loud they howl!’
“‘You are not afraid of them?’ said her brother tenderly.
“‘No—’ said Sneeflocken with a strange look of weakness and trust upon
her little face. ‘No—I am not afraid of them, for the Good Shepherd is
very strong. I should be, if it wasn’t for that. How kind he is, Kline,
to think about such poor little children as we are! And it’s kind of
him to take me away, too, for I’m not very strong—I don’t think I could
ever be of much use.’
“‘You are of too much use, my little Sneeflocken,’ said Kline, sadly,
‘because we shouldn’t know what to do without you.’
“‘Why you will have me then,’ said the child looking up in his face.
‘Just as you have the flowers now, Kline. And you can think about me,
and say that some day you will go up and up to find me.’
“‘Up to find you!’ said Laaft, who with Norrska had just entered
the room. ‘Are you going to play hide-and-seek with Kline upon the
mountains, my little dear?’
“But Norrska asked no such questions, for she knew what Sneeflocken
meant well enough; but she brought the roast partridge to the bedside,
on a little wooden platter that had a row of pine cones carved all
round the edge; and sitting down on the bed she watched the child eat
her scanty supper when Kline had lifted her up and wrapped an old cloak
about her.
“Little Foss had followed them in, and now he sat wagging his tail
and beating the floor with it, just because he felt uncomfortable and
didn’t know what to do with himself—not at all because he smelt the
partridge. For he knew perfectly well that Sneeflocken was sick; and
when she had finished her supper, and called ‘Foss! Foss!’—the little
dog ran to the bed, and, standing as high as he could on his hind legs
thrust his cold nose into her hand, and whined and whimpered with joy
and sorrow. Then in a tumult of excitement, he dashed out of the house
to bark at the wolves again.
“They watched her so, by day and by night, through the long winter; but
before the first spring days came, the little snowflake had melted away
and sunk down into the brown earth.
“They made her grave within the little clearing, just between the house
windows and the mountain; where the fir tree shadows could just touch
it sometimes, but where the sunlight came as well. And within the
little white railing that enclosed the grave they placed an upright
slab of wood, upon which Kline had carved these words as Norrska
desired him:—
“‘SAY UNTO HER,—IS IT WELL WITH THEE? IS IT WELL WITH THY HUSBAND? IS
IT WELL WITH THE CHILD? AND SHE ANSWERED, IT IS WELL.’
“The grass grew green and fresh there, and the little blue
forget-me-nots that Kline had planted about the grave soon covered it
with their flowers. And sometimes when Kline stood there leaning over
the paling, he almost fancied that it was as she said,—that God had
sent her to take care of them; and that it was not the soft spring wind
which stroked his face, but the hand of his little Sneeflocken.
“He thanked God that she was safe in the arms of the Good Shepherd,
and for the hope that when his time came to go, he should find her in
heaven.”
“Were you that discontented pine cone?” said Carl, when he had sat for
some time thinking over the story.
“Yes,” said the cone, “and I was carried into the house as I told you.
And then because Sneeflocken had once held me in her little hand, Kline
said he would keep me always.”
“But I say!” said Carl, knitting his brows and looking very eager; “how
did you get _here_?”
“Because other people were as foolish as I was, and didn’t know when
they were well off,” said the cone. “For Kline was your mother’s
grandfather; and when he died, and she left her home to follow the
fortunes of John Krinken, she brought the old pine cone along; to
remember the tall fir trees that waved above the old hut in Norway, and
to remind her of little Foss, and Kline, and Sneeflocken.”
THE STORY OF THE HYMN BOOK.
“‘Clary! Clary!—wake up! you’ll be late. See how late it’s getting.’
“‘Well mother—but I’m so tired! What’s the good of living so, mother?’
“‘One must live somehow, child—till one’s time comes to die.’
“Clary did not say, but she thought, as she raised herself slowly from
the hard little straw bed, that it did not matter how soon that time
came for her. Work! work!—living to work and working to live. Working
hard, too, and for what a pittance of life! Was it _living_ to sleep
half as much as she wanted, and then to get up in the cold grey dawn
of a winter’s morning, get three or four dirty children out of bed and
into such clothes as they had; and then after as much breakfast as she
had had sleep, to take that long cold walk in her old straw bonnet
and thin cotton shawl to the printing-office,—there to stand all day
supplying the busy iron fingers of the press? How thin and blue her own
were!