TWO LITTLE MAIDS
When the Barren Moor children set out again from the forester’s home,
they were only five. Brita-Carrie had been allowed to stay with the
little sister. So the two little maids were together again.
It was the forester himself who had wished it. Orderly person that he
was, he noticed and marveled when the new little ragamuffin who, he
thought, would scarcely know enough to feed herself, came into his room
to thank him for her meal and at once saw his paper-knife under the
table. ‘Is a knife under table,’ she piped, in a sweet voice and crept
down after the object in question.
And sure enough, the paper-knife he prized so highly and had searched
for in vain lay under the deerskin there.
‘Won’t you give it to me?’ he said, and stretched out his hand toward
her.
Brita-Carrie went to him at once and gave him the knife.
The forester, who knew how hard it was to teach dogs to retrieve, was
taken aback. He had thought that it would be harder to get a child to
mind.
‘Ita-Tawie, tom, new doll, sin’ hennenly Tana to new doll.’
Martha-Greta, who was already at home in the forester’s pretty
pleasant rooms, came toddling in and pulled Brita-Carrie with her. She
wanted to show her a new doll, a real one, with clear eyes in a fine
porcelain head, and she wanted them to sing it to sleep as they used to
with other dolls.
The little ones put the doll to bed in a sewing-machine drawer in
the bedroom. In there, with her foster-parents, Martha-Greta now
had her own pretty little bed. Brita-Carrie put her doll too in the
machine-drawer, a stick of wood wrapped up in rags. Then they sang
sweetly and devoutly their song about heavenly Canaan to the two sleepy
dolls, while they rocked the drawer between them.
Gerda, the foster-mother, ran after her husband. He must hear and see
them, see and compare the already rosy-cheeked, happy-eyed little
foundling in neat pretty clothes, with the other, the little paleface
with suffering in her eyes, and in thin worn-out rags. Gerda knew well
why she wanted to give her husband this glimpse of them.
The two stood close to each other, and listened to the children’s song.
‘Arthur, they’re singing about “Heavenly Canaan.” Listen to the new
little one, and it _isn’t_ about “many, many swans,”’ she added shyly.
‘You don’t think you’ve been fooled by the little angel?’
‘No, indeed! I’ll tell you now I absolutely do not want to be without
her. It would be altogether too empty and quiet in the house again.’
‘Arthur, do you remember the proverb that says, “The kettle that cooks
for one, cooks just as well for two”?’
‘You mean--well, God knows----’
The forester looked thoughtfully at the two little ones there on the
floor, who continued to sing and rock the machine-drawer. One of them
he would, and wanted to keep. But the other--the pale little being with
thin cheeks and the dark, suffering eyes--Well, she must go out on the
roads again. And no mother and father owned them, his wife had said.
‘Well, then, _let_ the kettle cook for two,’ he said at last.
The children sang and sang, while the foster-parents, serious, with
bright faces, went out to the older children who sat in the kitchen
and talked with Dordi. They did not want to take the little ones
without the consent of the older ones. And one can well understand
that in a little house, where the very windows smiled and winked up
under the eaves, and where the house itself seemed painted with red
whortleberries and cream, there would be a good place for the little
ones to stay.