IN A DEN OF THIEVES
Magnus slept as he sat on the sled and rested his tired, strained bones
and sinews. Kitty slept and rested deathly frightened nerves, and limbs
twisted almost out of joint. Owls hooted and shrieked shrilly koo-hu-u,
and kle-vitt in the mountains that were reflected in the ice so that it
looked coal black near the shore.
But out on the lake the ice gleamed red, yellow, green, as the
northern-light flames over the heavens were reflected on its shining
surface.
Andy and Maglena, not to mention little Magnus, would have thought it
both dismal and creepy to be out alone on such a night if they had not
been cheered up over saving the cat.
As they now walked and talked and led Golden Horn between them, they
reached the last fir on the lake. It, like the other guiding firs, had
lost a solid foothold in the last thaw, and now leaned sadly to one
side.
They had a more sure foothold on land on a driven road. Golden Horn
dived like lightning into the thicket to get a meal of pine branches
and willow buds.
Kitty didn’t want to stay any longer either, but was ready at once to
take to her feet. Maglena caught her. She stuffed her into her shawl
and held her fast with both hands.
Andy alone drew the sled with Magnus, who still slept heavily. He bent
his steps toward the first big farmhouse he caught sight of. Light
shone from all the windows of a red painted two-story house a bit back
from the road. They understood that there was either a funeral or a
wedding going on there. So it was not for such wandering people to go
to such a place. Therefore, they approached the first-named house, also
a big two-story house, but this one was gray and unpainted. Not really
finished either, old as it was, for boards were still nailed across
some of the windows instead of glass.
The fence that surrounded the place was ragged for long stretches,
and the gate hung by one hinge on the gatepost. The gate had not, as
is generally done in the fall, been carried in to protect it from the
heavy snow. Trash and rubbish and broken bottles lay everywhere and
glittered in the moonlight.
Kitty fought and struggled in Maglena’s shawl as if she had suddenly
gone wild. She clawed and snarled, no matter how Maglena tried to calm
her.
The door to the right in the hallway leading into the house creaked.
Now there was no holding the cat. With one twist, she tore herself
loose and flew like a shot away from Maglena out into the yard.
A boy about Andy’s size came slouching out on the step, followed by a
gray dog.
The gray dog barked and growled at them with drawn-up nose and angrily
gleaming teeth.
Magnus woke up and gave a shriek. Golden Horn fled behind Andy.
But Maglena did as she used to when she, in so strange a way, succeeded
in calming and taming animals.
She sat down on the ground and opened her arms to the dog without
minding how he bit at her and tore away part of the shawl fringes.
‘So-o-o, so-o! You don’t want to do us any harm, we who are small and
alone.’
The dog quieted down, but growled with arched back. He looked dangerous
when he, with sly glances and stealthy steps, went around the children
and sniffed after the goat, who had crept in between them.
‘Boy,’ called Maglena with her pretty, ringing, soft, but at the same
time decided, voice. ‘Boy, call your dog. You can see that we are small
and alone. You are big, and ought to help us,’ she added when the boy
only whistled and did not seem to listen to what she said.
‘Call your dog at once!’ Maglena’s voice became commanding. The dog was
impressed by it. He stood still as if ashamed.
The boy came down the step, kicked loose a piece of ice, and threw
it into the group. It struck the dog, who whined and with a look of
hatred and fear at Grels, the boy, the farm’s oldest son, lumbered out
through the gateway.
Grels followed the dog out through the gate, but leered slyly back. He
saw how the children went to the woodshed with the goat creature they
had with them.
Yes, there she was safe, the goat!
All three children went to the shed with Golden Horn whom they tied
lightly near a pile of chips. There she could lie down until they,
as usual, could get her into the barn. Generally only one of them
attended to Golden Horn. But to-day it seemed that they did not dare be
separated a single moment.
They held each other’s hands tightly when they went up the steps into
the hallway and opened the door into the big room or kitchen where
light streamed out through the windows.
Yes, no doubt the room was big and fine. It could have looked exactly
like the big kitchen at Karl Nilsson’s. Here, too, there was an
over-bed, a rosy Dalecarlian clock, and blue painted cupboards. But
it was slovenly, untidy. No curtains at the windows and no hangings
in front of the beds. On the table were seen wooden bowls and wooden
spoons left since the evening meal.
A well-grown, pretty, but carelessly dressed servant girl stood with
one foot on a bench, and scraped the mush kettle out of which she was
eating.
‘Make a move, there, grandfather,’ she screamed angrily at an old man
who, tremblingly and clumsily, sat whittling kindling wood.
‘You’ve been up long enough. You’ve had all you’re going to get. Get
out now!’ snapped a still young mistress with delicate but sharp
features. She stood by the fire combing the hair of a girl about
Maglena’s age.
Andy and the children stepped noiselessly in through the door. They
felt a burning desire to turn and, if possible, flee to the wilderness
again. But it was so late. They were tired and frozen and longed for
something warm, for a little water gruel or mush.
Two small boys of about Per-Erik’s and Magnus’s age caught sight of
them.
‘Usch! Mother, see what a tatterpack we have here,’ bawled one.
The mistress turned around. The children seemed to feel her sharp
eyes and pointed nose bore into them. They crept together and made
themselves as small as they could.
‘What are you doing here? This ain’t any hotel. We haven’t any more
than we eat up ourselves,’ she screamed, and advanced toward the
children with her hand raised.
‘Barbara-Carrie--listen, you,’ called a hollow voice from the lower
bed. ‘Don’t hurt those children. It will bring bad luck to the house. I
saw them in a dream last night.’
‘Shut up, old woman!’ almost barked the woman. But still it seemed that
the words had impressed her, for she turned away from the children and
went on with her work.
‘Give them the cold mush that was left after I fed the chickens this
morning. There is a little goats’ milk on the table in a bowl, and you
can give them the bread crusts that are left.’
‘Give them yourself,’ snapped the maid. ‘I’m going to get dressed to go
to the “wedding-farm” with the milk. All the rest of the milkmaids are
there already. But here there is never any order with anything.’
She went, but stopped hesitatingly at the door.
Grandmother called to her from the lower bed: ‘Brita, look out, girl!
I laid out the cards for you to-day--and there was only poverty and no
bread, with a jack of hearts between. You can take away the danger by
doing something good. Well, well, look out, you.’
Brita closed the door with her foot and came in again. She threw the
unappetizing bits of food at the children. More with fear than with
cold, they crept tremblingly to the hearth bench where the food had
been thrown.
‘Oh, you got my milk-bowl,’ yelled the younger boy, Johnnie.
And at once he had run forward and was trying to jerk it away from
Maglena. She held fast to it, and looked him steadily in the eyes.
‘Your mother said we could have it, so you can’t take it away from us.’
‘Mother!’ He stuck out his tongue at his mother. ‘I----’ he said
something coarse, but which meant ‘I don’t care for mother, or what she
says.’
Strangely enough, Maglena kept the bowl. This was a disappointment to
Erika, who had just jerked herself away from her mother’s hands to see
how the fight between the bad-tempered, stingy brother and the strange
beggar girl would end.
The little wanderers ate cold, watery mush, sour milk, and crusts of
bread--quiet, unhappy.
Grels came in just as the children were devoutly thanking God for food.
He looked wicked and odious. The old man, who fumbled with the stick of
wood trying to cut off a last piece, stood up hastily. He looked for
his crutch. But as usual the children had taken it from the back of his
chair and thrown it out on the floor. They howled with laughter when
the old man, half-creeping, with one leg dragging behind him, worked
himself over the floor to get it.
Andy, who saw where the crutch lay, went at once and picked it up. He
gave it to the old man, who with confused, bleary eyes looked up at him.
‘Where d-d-did this b-b-boy c-come from?’ he stammered with suspicion
and surprise in his voice.
‘Get away from the fire, young ones, so I can get there with the
coffee-pot,’ said the mistress to the strange children without paying
any attention to the behavior of her own.
‘Andy, help grandfather; he walks like mother did at the last,’
whispered Maglena. ‘It’s so slippery on the step.’
Andy went slowly, as if ashamed, after the old man. But when he came
out where no one made fun of him, he took fast hold of the old man’s
arm and helped him carefully down the steps and down the slippery,
uneven path that led to the little cottage where he lived.
The peasants’ old parents up in Norrland are called ‘receivers of
food’ or ‘old folks’ when they have given up their farm to the son
and his wife. The old people are given what they need of milk, flour,
potatoes, and such things. If the children on that farm are not good
and generous, it can be very hard for the old people.
The little cottage into which grandfather now stumbled was cold and
uncared-for, because old grandmother was sick and lay in the lower bed
up at the house. She lay there, not in order to get better care, but
because no one wanted to go down and cook for the old man now that the
old woman could not do it, and then one did not have to think about
attending to her. The servant, who usually kept a fire and looked out
for the old folks, had something else to think about to-night.
[Illustration: HE WAS TOO STIFF AND FROZEN TO BE ABLE TO PUT WOOD IN
THE GRATE AND LIGHT A FIRE. ANDY DID IT FOR HIM]
Shivering with cold, the old man prepared to lie down fully dressed
under the sheepskin in the lower bed. He was too stiff and frozen to
be able to put wood in the grate and light a fire.
Andy did it for him. He also put over the fire the coffee-pot that
stood on the hearth.
The old man sat on the edge of the bed, and looked at the boy. To him
he looked like an angel, gray and mended as his clothes were.
‘Y-you c-c-can s-sleep in the upper b-b-bed to-to-night,’ he stammered.
‘Maglena and Magnus too?’ asked Andy eagerly. He thought that life here
with the old man, who looked at him with friendly eyes, in the cold,
uncared-for cottage, was greatly preferable to the big light kitchen
where they only quarreled with one another. Lighter of heart, he ran up
to the house, after he had seen that the fire had caught and the old
man undressed, and in bed.
Grels stood on the step when Andy came up. He was noticeably
humble--actually friendly when he began to talk to Andy.
‘We’re going to go and look on at the wedding. Brita is going with the
milk and we’re going to follow and peek in at the bride.’
‘That will be fun for you,’ said Andy, and tried to pass Grels. But he
stood in the way.
‘Well, it will be just as much fun for you and the others as for us.’
‘They can’t go and look on here, can they?’
‘Any one can go to look. The boys in this village are mad at this bride
’cause she, who is so rich and pretty, took a man from outside the
parish who ain’t got a homestead and is such a fool that he says “no”
to gin. And so we’re going to act up to-night and scare them. We small
boys from this village and others too are going to be along when it
happens.’
‘But not us. Maglena and Magnus are tired and ought to go to bed.’
‘They’re the ones that want to go, and Brita and I have promised them.
They don’t look as though they’ve had much fun,’ added Grels with a
certain sympathy in his voice that moved Andy.
‘Well, if they want to, I’ll let them,’ said he.
Grels let him go by at once. Andy did not notice the evil gleam in his
eyes.
Maglena and Magnus came eagerly to meet him. Fatigue and discouragement
had left them. They were going to go and see the bride at the
neighboring farm. The minister’s wife herself had dressed her, and
she was so beautiful that the queen herself couldn’t be more so--in a
golden crown and her whole head covered with roses, and a red silk sash
and black silk skirt and bodice--and--and----!
‘Mons and Johnnie are real good to us now,’ they assured Andy.
‘Come,’ yelled Grels, and jerked Andy’s arm, ‘we’re going now. Brita is
all dressed up.’
The children, strangers and farm-children together, went off. Grels
pulled them with him when they wanted to stop and say good-night to
Golden Horn.