The year that Nils Holgersson travelled with the wild geese everybody
was talking about two little children, a boy and a girl, who tramped
through the country. They were from Sunnerbo township, in Småland, and
had once lived with their parents and four brothers and sisters in a
little cabin on the heath.
While the two children, Osa and Mats, were still small, a poor, homeless
woman came to their cabin one night and begged for shelter. Although the
place could hardly hold the family, she was taken in and the mother
spread a bed for her on the floor. In the night she coughed so hard that
the children fancied the house shook. By morning she was too ill to
continue her wanderings. The children's father and mother were as kind
to her as could be. They gave up their bed to her and slept on the
floor, while the father went to the doctor and brought her medicine.
The first few days the sick woman behaved like a savage; she demanded
constant attention and never uttered a word of thanks. Later she became
more subdued and finally begged to be carried out to the heath and left
there to die.
When her hosts would not hear of this, she told them that the last few
years she had roamed about with a band of gipsies. She herself was not
of gipsy blood, but was the daughter of a well-to-do farmer. She had run
away from home and gone with the nomads. She believed that a gipsy woman
who was angry at her had brought this sickness upon her. Nor was that
all: The gipsy woman had also cursed her, saying that all who took her
under their roof or were kind to her should suffer a like fate. She
believed this, and therefore begged them to cast her out of the house
and never to see her again. She did not want to bring misfortune down
upon such good people. But the peasants refused to do her bidding. It
was quite possible that they were alarmed, but they were not the kind of
folk who could turn out a poor, sick person.
Soon after that she died, and then along came the misfortunes. Before,
there had never been anything but happiness in that cabin. Its inmates
were poor, yet not so very poor. The father was a maker of weavers'
combs, and mother and children helped him with the work. Father made the
frames, mother and the older children did the binding, while the smaller
ones planed the teeth and cut them out. They worked from morning until
night, but the time passed pleasantly, especially when father talked of
the days when he travelled about in foreign lands and sold weavers'
combs. Father was so jolly that sometimes mother and the children would
laugh until their sides ached at his funny quips and jokes.
The weeks following the death of the poor vagabond woman lingered in the
minds of the children like a horrible nightmare. They knew not if the
time had been long or short, but they remembered that they were always
having funerals at home. One after another they lost their brothers and
sisters. At last it was very still and sad in the cabin.
The mother kept up some measure of courage, but the father was not a bit
like himself. He could no longer work nor jest, but sat from morning
till night, his head buried in his hands, and only brooded.
Once--that was after the third burial--the father had broken out into
wild talk, which frightened the children. He said that he could not
understand why such misfortunes should come upon them. They had done a
kindly thing in helping the sick woman. Could it be true, then, that the
evil in this world was more powerful than the good?
The mother tried to reason with him, but she was unable to soothe him.
A few days later the eldest was stricken. She had always been the
father's favourite, so when he realized that she, too, must go, he fled
from all the misery. The mother never said anything, but she thought it
was best for him to be away, as she feared that he might lose his
reason. He had brooded too long over this one idea: that God had allowed
a wicked person to bring about so much evil.
After the father went away they became very poor. For awhile he sent
them money, but afterward things must have gone badly with him, for no
more came.
The day of the eldest daughter's burial the mother closed the cabin and
left home with the two remaining children, Osa and Mats. She went down
to Skåne to work in the beet fields, and found a place at the Jordberga
sugar refinery. She was a good worker and had a cheerful and generous
nature. Everybody liked her. Many were astonished because she could be
so calm after all that she had passed through, but the mother was very
strong and patient. When any one spoke to her of her two sturdy
children, she only said: "I shall soon lose them also," without a quaver
in her voice or a tear in her eye. She had accustomed herself to expect
nothing else.
But it did not turn out as she feared. Instead, the sickness came upon
herself. She had gone to Skane in the beginning of summer; before autumn
she was gone, and the children were left alone.
While their mother was ill she had often said to the children they must
remember that she never regretted having let the sick woman stop with
them. It was not hard to die when one had done right, she said, for then
one could go with a clear conscience.
Before the mother passed away, she tried to make some provision for her
children. She asked the people with whom she lived to let them remain in
the room which she had occupied. If the children only had a shelter they
would not become a burden to any one. She knew that they could take care
of themselves.
Osa and Mats were allowed to keep the room on condition that they would
tend the geese, as it was always hard to find children willing to do
that work. It turned out as the mother expected: they did maintain
themselves. The girl made candy, and the boy carved wooden toys, which
they sold at the farm houses. They had a talent for trading and soon
began buying eggs and butter from the farmers, which they sold to the
workers at the sugar refinery. Osa was the older, and, by the time she
was thirteen, she was as responsible as a grown woman. She was quiet and
serious, while Mats was lively and talkative. His sister used to say to
him that he could outcackle the geese.
When the children had been at Jordberga for two years, there was a
lecture given one evening at the schoolhouse. Evidently it was meant for
grown-ups, but the two Småland children were in the audience. They did
not regard themselves as children, and few persons thought of them as
such. The lecturer talked about the dread disease called the White
Plague, which every year carried off so many people in Sweden. He spoke
very plainly and the children understood every word.
After the lecture they waited outside the schoolhouse. When the lecturer
came out they took hold of hands and walked gravely up to him, asking if
they might speak to him.
The stranger must have wondered at the two rosy, baby-faced children
standing there talking with an earnestness more in keeping with people
thrice their age; but he listened graciously to them. They related what
had happened in their home, and asked the lecturer if he thought their
mother and their sisters and brothers had died of the sickness he had
described.
"Very likely," he answered. "It could hardly have been any other
disease."
If only the mother and father had known what the children learned that
evening, they might have protected themselves. If they had burned the
clothing of the vagabond woman; if they had scoured and aired the cabin
and had not used the old bedding, all whom the children mourned might
have been living yet. The lecturer said he could not say positively, but
he believed that none of their dear ones would have been sick had they
understood how to guard against the infection.
Osa and Mats waited awhile before putting the next question, for that
was the most important of all. It was not true then that the gipsy woman
had sent the sickness because they had befriended the one with whom she
was angry. It was not something special that had stricken only them. The
lecturer assured them that no person had the power to bring sickness
upon another in that way.
Thereupon the children thanked him and went to their room. They talked
until late that night.
The next day they gave notice that they could not tend geese another
year, but must go elsewhere. Where were they going? Why, to try to find
their father. They must tell him that their mother and the other
children had died of a common ailment and not something special brought
upon them by an angry person. They were very glad that they had found
out about this. Now it was their duty to tell their father of it, for
probably he was still trying to solve the mystery.
Osa and Mats set out for their old home on the heath. When they arrived
they were shocked to find the little cabin in flames. They went to the
parsonage and there they learned that a railroad workman had seen their
father at Malmberget, far up in Lapland. He had been working in a mine
and possibly was still there. When the clergyman heard that the children
wanted to go in search of their father he brought forth a map and showed
them how far it was to Malmberget and tried to dissuade them from making
the journey, but the children insisted that they must find their father.
He had left home believing something that was not true. They must find
him and tell him that it was all a mistake.
They did not want to spend their little savings buying railway tickets,
therefore they decided to go all the way on foot, which they never
regretted, as it proved to be a remarkably beautiful journey.
Before they were out of Småland, they stopped at a farm house to buy
food. The housewife was a kind, motherly soul who took an interest in
the children. She asked them who they were and where they came from, and
they told her their story. "Dear, dear! Dear, dear!" she interpolated
time and again when they were speaking. Later she petted the children
and stuffed them with all kinds of goodies, for which she would not
accept a penny. When they rose to thank her and go, the woman asked them
to stop at her brother's farm in the next township. Of course the
children were delighted.
"Give him my greetings and tell him what has happened to you," said the
peasant woman.
This the children did and were well treated. From every farm after that
it was always: "If you happen to go in such and such a direction, stop
there or there and tell them what has happened to you."
In every farm house to which they were sent there was always a
consumptive. So Osa and Mats went through the country unconsciously
teaching the people how to combat that dreadful disease.
Long, long ago, when the black plague was ravaging the country, 'twas
said that a boy and a girl were seen wandering from house to house. The
boy carried a rake, and if he stopped and raked in front of a house, it
meant that there many should die, but not all; for the rake has coarse
teeth and does not take everything with it. The girl carried a broom,
and if she came along and swept before a door, it meant that all who
lived within must die; for the broom is an implement that makes a clean
sweep.
It seems quite remarkable that in our time two children should wander
through the land because of a cruel sickness. But these children did not
frighten people with the rake and the broom. They said rather: "We will
not content ourselves with merely raking the yard and sweeping the
floors, we will use mop and brush, water and soap. We will keep clean
inside and outside of the door and we ourselves will be clean in both
mind and body. In this way we will conquer the sickness."
One day, while still in Lapland, Akka took the boy to Malmberget, where
they discovered little Mats lying unconscious at the mouth of the pit.
He and Osa had arrived there a short time before. That morning he had
been roaming about, hoping to come across his father. He had ventured
too near the shaft and been hurt by flying rocks after the setting off
of a blast.
Thumbietot ran to the edge of the shaft and called down to the miners
that a little boy was injured.
Immediately a number of labourers came rushing up to little Mats. Two of
them carried him to the hut where he and Osa were staying. They did all
they could to save him, but it was too late.
Thumbietot felt so sorry for poor Osa. He wanted to help and comfort
her; but he knew that if he were to go to her now, he would only
frighten her--such as he was!
The night after the burial of little Mats, Osa straightway shut herself
in her hut.
She sat alone recalling, one after another, things her brother had said
and done. There was so much to think about that she did not go straight
to bed, but sat up most of the night. The more she thought of her
brother the more she realized how hard it would be to live without him.
At last she dropped her head on the table and wept.
"What shall I do now that little Mats is gone?" she sobbed.
It was far along toward morning and Osa, spent by the strain of her hard
day, finally fell asleep.
She dreamed that little Mats softly opened the door and stepped into the
room.
"Osa, you must go and find father," he said.
"How can I when I don't even know where he is?" she replied in her
dream.
"Don't worry about that," returned little Mats in his usual, cheery way.
"I'll send some one to help you."
Just as Osa, the goose girl, dreamed that little Mats had said this,
there was a knock at the door. It was a real knock--not something she
heard in the dream, but she was so held by the dream that she could not
tell the real from the unreal. As she went on to open the door, she
thought:
"This must be the person little Mats promised to send me."
She was right, for it was Thumbietot come to talk to her about her
father.
When he saw that she was not afraid of him, he told her in a few words
where her father was and how to reach him.
While he was speaking, Osa, the goose girl, gradually regained
consciousness; when he had finished she was wide awake.
Then she was so terrified at the thought of talking with an elf that she
could not say thank you or anything else, but quickly shut the door.
As she did that she thought she saw an expression of pain flash across
the elf's face, but she could not help what she did, for she was beside
herself with fright. She crept into bed as quickly as she could and drew
the covers over her head.
Although she was afraid of the elf, she had a feeling that he meant well
by her. So the next day she made haste to do as he had told her.