KARIN'S FÊTE.
Nono was in disgrace. The twins had twice brought him before Karin,
his clothes all smeared with mud, as if he had purposely made his whole
person the colour of his brown face, and had given his hands rough
gloves of a still darker hue. Of course he had at first been sternly
reprimanded, for Karin suffered no such proceedings in her neat
household. The second reproof was more severe, and accompanied by the
promise of a thorough whipping if the offence were repeated.
The long summer evenings gave a fine play-time for the boys, and then
Nono generally amused himself out of the way of the twins, who were
very despotic in their style of government. Again they had detected
him brushing himself behind the bushes, and dolorously looking at the
obstinate stains upon his cotton clothes. With a wild hollo they
seized the culprit between them, and hurried him along towards Karin,
who was cheerily examining her flower-beds under the southern windows,
and chatting meanwhile with Jan, who sat on the doorstep.
Karin was both grieved and angry, and unusually excited. "Nono must be
whipped, and that soundly," she said emphatically to Jan. "This is the
third time he has come to the house in that condition. I won't have
him learn to disobey me that way."
Jan got up slowly, and took from its hiding-place inside the cottage
something that looked like a broom-brush made of young twigs. It was
the family emblem and instrument of punishment, much dreaded among the
children; and with reason, for Jan had a strong hand and a sure one.
He had been accustomed to giving his own boys a thrashing now and then,
but on Nono he had never laid hands, as Karin's gentler discipline had
usually sufficed for her foster-son.
The tears were in the eyes of the culprit, but he stood quite still,
and was at first speechless. At last he managed to say, "Don't whip me
here, Papa Jan; take me down to the shore, please." Jan generally had
his times of punishment quite private with the boys, the grove behind
the house being the usual place of execution. He could not, however,
refuse Nono's modest request. Off to the shore they went together, the
twins meanwhile shrugging and wincing, as if they themselves were
undergoing the ordeal, while they said to each other, "He'll catch it!
It won't feel good!"--not without some satisfaction, mingled with a
sense of the seriousness of the occasion.
Little Decima, who had been a depressed looker-on at the proceedings,
buried her head in her mother's apron and cried as if she herself were
the victim. The little boys, no longer little, were hardened to
punishment, as they were often in disgrace for their wild pranks, but
the idea of Nono's being whipped seemed to have made them uncommonly
sober. Sven went into the cottage to look among his treasures for
something with which to console Nono on his return from the shore.
Thor was walking up and down, giving defiant looks at the twins for
their want of sympathy with Nono in his humiliation. There was a
sorrowful shadow over the whole family group that evening not common at
the golden house.
To the surprise of all parties Jan soon appeared, holding Nono by the
hand, both apparently in a most cheerful humour. There were no tears
in Nono's face, and Jan looked down at him with peculiar tenderness.
"Nono has not meant to be a bad boy," said Jan; "and I have forgiven
him, and I think you will have to forgive him too, Karin."
"Dear, dear Mamma Karin, indeed I did not want to be a bad boy," said
Nono. "That would be hard, after all your kindness to me. Please,
please forgive me!" Nono put his arm round Karin as he spoke. She
looked doubtfully at him, but could not refuse the lips he put up to
her to be kissed in sign of full forgiveness.
Sven, who had found a broken horse-shoe among his treasures, was rather
disappointed that he had lost the opportunity of consoling Nono with
his friendly gift.
Decima laid her little hand in Nono's, and was about leading him off
the scene, when she was suddenly captured by her mother and hurried
into the cottage, with the exclamation, "Here's Decima up till this
time! One never knows when to put children to bed these summer
evenings. She'll be as cross as pepper in the morning if she don't get
her sleep out!"
It was plain that Karin was not quite satisfied with the turn the whole
affair had taken.
"Papa is too partial to Nono! It is a shame!" murmured the twins, as
they went off in a pout.
The morning of the second day of August was warm and bright. When
Karin awoke, Jan was already up and out of the house. The children
were dressed in their holiday clothes, by their father's permission,
they said, their faces beaming with satisfaction. Karin was hardly in
order when Jan appeared and advised her to put on a white apron, which
she wonderingly consented to do, and then Jan led her off down to the
shore. Behind them the children followed in orderly procession. Old
Pelle brought up the rear, like the shepherd with the sheep going on
before him.
Of the why and wherefore of all this ado the children had no idea.
Nono had assured them that their father approved of the whole thing,
and the proud and yet tender way that Jan was walking with Karin showed
that the affair had his full endorsement.
On a green bank in a little cove in the shore Karin was ceremoniously
seated, and Jan placed himself at her side.
The children threw into her lap their bouquets, each of a hue of its
own, to lie there like a jumbled-up rainbow. With Oke's bright flowers
from the pastor's garden fell a bank-note from the absent Erik, with an
inscription pinned to it in his usual lingo: "Mamma. From her gosse
Erik." (Nono had assured Oke it was best to keep the gift till the
second of August.) A few drops fell on the note and the bright flowers
from Karin's astonished eyes; but there was a sudden sunshine of joy
and wonder as Nono proceeded to take down the evergreen branches that
were leaned against the bank opposite to her. There, a deep arch had
been scooped into the hillside. In its sweet retirement there was a
tiny house of yellow pine, perfectly modelled after the family home,
the door open, and the flower-beds in their proper place under the
windows. In front of the house was a group, which all recognized at a
glance. "Perfect! Just as if he had seen it! Think! he could make
it, when he was only _so long_ at the time!" exclaimed Oke, his fingers
indicating a most diminutive baby. There was no contempt, but
unlimited admiration, in this mention of the infant Nono.
[Illustration: The model house.]
It was indeed a most successful bit of modelling. The picture that had
been so long in Nono's mind had taken form. Bear, and Italians, and
Swedes, and the very baby Francesca was raising high in the air for a
toss, were wonderfully living and full of expression.
When the tumult of delight was subdued for a moment, Jan intimated, as
he had been requested, that Nono had something to say.
What grandiloquence Nono had prepared never transpired. As it was, he
forgot his intended speech. His heart was in his throat; but he
managed to say that this was Katharina day in the almanac, and so Mamma
Karin's name-day, and the dear mother of them all ought, of course, to
be honoured. He had found some nice clay by the shore, which would
stay in any form he put it, and he had tried to make the group he had
thought so much about to show how thankful he was to have a place in
such a home. He had not meant to be careless, but when he got at his
work he forgot everything else, and so it had all happened. The last
time was the worst, when he had spilt the basin of water, just as he
was trying to make himself decent. Papa Jan had forgiven him, and he
hoped Mamma Karin would do so too, now she had heard all about it. He
really had not meant to be a bad boy.
Karin caught the little Italian in her arms, while Jan looked down on
them benignantly, and the children roared an applause that came from
the depths of their hearts. They had never thought of celebrating
their mother's name-day. It had never even struck them that she had
one, as her name as they knew it was not to be found in the almanac.
As for themselves, each could remember some simple treat that had been
provided for his name-day--a row on the bay, pancakes after dinner, an
apple all round, a trip to the village, or some other favour calculated
to specially please the recipient and make all happy in the home.
The children, all but Nono, had been sure to have their _fête_; for if
the name by which they were called in everyday life had no place in the
almanac, they had a luxury used only once a year which fixed their time
to be honoured--a second name that stood in the calendar. So Decima
had come to be a kind of D.D. in her way. She had been baptized Decima
Desideria, that she too might have a name-day and a celebration.
Desideria was a royal name, and a kind of a queen too. Decima had been
from the very beginning the one girl among many boys, and ruling them
all with her whims and caprices.
Jan had no idea of lingering all day by the shore, and he soon broke up
the party by saying it was time for them all to go in and get on their
everyday clothes, and be twice as busy as usual to make up for lost
time.
Jan spoke bluntly, for he found himself in a softened mood, and that
was his odd way of showing it. For his part, he had made up his mind
that he had taken too little pains to give Karin pleasure--his good
wife, who had all kinds of bothers, no doubt, and never troubled him
about them.
A truce was sealed that day between Nono and the twins, though the
duumvirs said never a word on the subject. They were not going to
trouble a boy who could make such wonderful things, and show how
grateful he was to their own mother, who had been just as kind to them,
and they had thought little about it, and not even found out she had a
name-day at all.
When Nono was going to bed that night, Karin thanked him again for the
great pleasure he had given her.
"I did not give it to you; it was all the princess," he said. Karin
looked wonderingly at him, and he added, "I told Oke I wanted to make
beautiful things like some he showed me in a book about Italy the
pastor had lent him. Oke laughed first, and then he said it told in
the book that the men who made beautiful things did not always have
beautiful lives--good lives it meant, Oke said. I want to have a
beautiful life, Mamma Karin, and I thought it might be best not to try
to make figures at all, as I am always wanting to, and I felt sorry
about it. When Miss Alma showed me what the good princess could make,
I thought I might see if I could make beautiful things and have a
beautiful life too, like her. So you see it was the princess. I am
glad you were pleased."
Karin bade the little boy good-night with unusual tenderness. She
understood him, and in her heart the purpose was strengthened to try
more herself to lead "a beautiful life," and to begin more earnestly
than ever before on her name-day.