mistress came here at dusk, to put things in order for me, but she felt so ill
that she had to go back to the cabin; and she has not returned."
"It's distressing that I should be little and powerless," said the boy. "I don't
believe that I am able to help you." "You can't make me believe that you are
powerless because you are little," said the cow. "All the elves that I've ever
heard of, were so strong that they could pull a whole load of hay and strike a
cow dead with one fist." The boy couldn't help laughing at the cow. "They were a
very different kind of elf from me," said he. "But I'll loosen your halter and
open the door for you, so that you can go out and drink in one of the pools on
the place, and then I'll try to climb up to the hayloft and throw down some hay
down to you." "Yes, that would be some help," said the cow.
The boy did as he had said; and when the cow stood with a full manger in front
of her, he thought that at last he should get some sleep. But he had hardly
crept down into the bed before she began anew to talk to him.
"'YES, THAT WOULD BE SOME HELP,' SAID THE COW"
"You'll be clean put out with me if I ask you for one thing more," said the cow.
"Oh, no I won't, if it's only something that I'm able to do," assured the boy.
"Then I shall ask you to go into the cabin, directly opposite, and find out how
my mistress is getting along. I fear some misfortune has come to her." "No! I
can't do that," said the boy. "I dare not show myself before human beings."
"Surely you're not afraid of an old and sick woman," said the cow. "But you do
not have to go into the cabin. Just stand outside the door and peep through the
crack!" "Oh! if that is all you ask of me, I'll do it, of course," said the boy.
With that he opened the cowshed door and went out into the yard. It was a
fearful night! Neither moon nor stars shone; the wind blew a gale, and the rain
came down in torrents. And the worst of all was that seven great owls sat in a
row under the eaves of the cabin. It was awful just to hear them, where they sat
and grumbled at the weather; but it was even worse to think what would happen to
him if one of them should set eyes on him. That would be the last of him.
"Pity him who is little!" said the boy as he ventured out in the yard. And he
had a right to say this, for he was blown down twice before he got to the house:
once the wind swept him into a pool which was so deep that he came near
drowning. But he got there nevertheless.
He clambered up the steps, scrambled over the threshold, and came into the
hallway. The cabin door was closed, but down in one corner a large piece had
been cut away, to let the cat in and out. It was no difficulty whatever for the
boy to see how things were in the cabin.
He had barely glanced in when he staggered back and turned his head away. An old
gray-haired woman lay stretched on the floor within. She neither moved nor
moaned; and her face shone strangely white. It was as if an invisible moon had
cast a feeble light over it.
The boy remembered that when his grandfather had died, his face had also become
so strangely white-like. And he understood that the old woman who lay on the
cabin floor must be dead. Death had probably come to her so suddenly that she
didn't even have time to lie down on her bed.
As he thought of being alone with the dead in the middle of the dark night, he
was terribly afraid. He threw himself headlong down the steps, and rushed back
to the cowshed.
When he told the cow of what he had seen in the cabin, she stopped eating. "So
my mistress is dead," sighed she. "Then it will soon be over for me as well."
"There will always be some one to look out for you," said the boy comfortingly.
"Ah! you don't know," said the cow, "that I am already twice as old as a cow
usually is before she is laid upon the slaughter-bench. But then, I do not wish
to live any longer, since she, in there, can come no more to care for me."
She said nothing more for a time, but the boy observed that she neither slept
nor ate. It was not long before she began to speak again. "Is she lying on the
bare floor?" she asked. "She is," said the boy. "She had a habit of coming out
to the cowshed," she continued, "and talking about everything that troubled her.
I understood what she said, although I could not answer her. The last days she
talked of how afraid she was that there would be no one with her when she died.
She was anxious lest none be near to close her eyes and fold her hands across
her breast, after she was dead. Perhaps you'll go in and do this?" The boy
hesitated. He remembered that when his grandfather had died, mother had been
very careful about putting everything to rights. He knew this was something
which had to be done. But, on the other hand, he felt that he did not dare go to
the dead, in the ghastly night. He didn't say no; nor did he take a step toward
the cowshed door. For a couple of seconds the old cow was silent, as if waiting
for an answer. But when the boy said nothing, she did not repeat her request.
Instead, she began to talk to him of her mistress.
There was much to tell, first and foremost, about all the children she had
brought up. They had been in the cowshed every day, and in the summer they had
taken the cattle to pasture on the swamp and in the groves so the old cow knew
all about them. They had been splendid, all of them, and happy and industrious.
A cow knew well enough what her caretakers were good for.
There was also much to be said about the farm. It had not always been as poor as
it was now, although the greater part of it consisted of swamps and stony
groves. There was not much room left for fields, but there was plenty of good
fodder everywhere. At one time there had been a cow for every stall in the
cowshed; and the oxshed, which was now empty, had at one time been filled with
oxen. And then there was life and gayety, both in cabin and cowhouse. When the
mistress opened the cowshed door she always hummed or sang, and all the cows
mooed their gladness when they heard her coming.
But the good man had died when the children were so small that they could be of
no assistance, and the mistress had to take charge of the farm, and all the work
and responsibility. She had been as strong as a man; and had both ploughed and
reaped. Evenings, when she came into the cowshed to milk, sometimes she was so
tired that she wept. But when she thought of her children she dashed away her
tears, and was cheerful again. "It doesn't matter. Good times are coming again
for me, too, if only my children grow up. Yes, if they only grow up."
But as soon as the children were grown, a strange longing came over them. They
didn't want to stay at home, so they went away to a strange country. Their
mother never got any help from them. A couple of her children were married
before they went away, and they left their children behind, in the old home. And
now these children followed the mistress to the cowshed, just as her own had
done. They tended the cows, and were fine, good folk. And evenings, when the
mistress was so tired out that she could have fallen asleep in the middle of the
milking, she would arouse herself again to renewed courage by thinking of them.
"Good times are coming for me, too," said she ­ and shook off sleep ­ "when once
they are grown."
But when these children grew up, they went away to their parents in the strange
land. No one came back, no one stayed at home. The old mistress was left alone
on the farm.
Probably she had never asked them to remain with her. "Think you, Redlinna, that
I would ask them to stay here with me, when they can go out in the world and
have things comfortable?" she would say as she stood in the stall with the old
cow. "Here in Småland they have only poverty to look forward to."
But when the last grandchild was gone, it was all up with the mistress. All at
once she became bent and gray, and tottered as she walked; as if she no longer
had the strength to move about. She stopped working. She did not care to look
after the farm, but let everything go to rack and ruin. She did not repair the
houses; and she sold both cows and oxen. The only one she kept was the old cow
who now talked with Thumbietot. Her she let live because all the children had
tended her.
She could have taken maids and farm-hands into her service, who would have
helped her with the work, but she couldn't bear to see strangers around her,
since her own had deserted her. Perhaps she was better satisfied to let the farm
go to ruin, since none of her children were coming back to take charge of it
after she was gone. She did not mind being poor herself for she didn't value
that which was only hers. But she was troubled lest the children should find out
how hard she had it. "If only the children do not hear of this! If only the
children do not hear of this!" she sighed as she tottered through the cowhouse.
The children wrote constantly, and begged her to come out to them; but this she
did not wish. She didn't want to see the land that had taken them from her. She
was angry at it. "It's foolish of me, perhaps, that I do not like that land
which has been so good for them," said she. "But, I don't want to see it."
She thought only of the children, and of this ­ that they must needs have gone.
When summer came, she led the cow out to graze in the big swamp. All day she
would sit at the edge of the swamp, her hands in her lap; and on the way home
she would say: "You see, Redlinna, if there had been large, rich fields here, in
place of these barren swamps, there would have been no need of their leaving."
She could become furious with the swamp which spread out so big, and did no
good. She would sit and talk of how it was the swamp's fault that the children
had left her.
The last evening she had been more trembly and feeble than ever. She could not
even do the milking. She had leaned against the manger and talked about two
strangers who had been to see her, and who had asked if they might buy the
swamp. They wanted to drain it, they said, to raise grain on it. This had made
her both anxious and happy. "Do you hear, Redlinna," she had said. "Do you hear
that grain can grow on the swamp? Now I shall write to the children to come
home. They won't have to stay away any longer; for now they can get their bread
here at home." It was this that she had gone into the cabin to do ­
The boy heard no more. He had already opened the door, crossed the yard and gone
in to the dead, of whom he had but lately been so afraid.
The cabin was not so bare as he had expected. It was well supplied with the sort
of things one generally finds among those who have relatives in America. In a
corner there was an American rocking chair; on the table before the window lay a
brocaded plush cover; there was a pretty spread on the bed; on the walls, in
carved-wood frames, hung the photographs of the children and grandchildren who
had gone away; on the bureau stood high vases and a couple of candlesticks, with
thick, spiral candles in them.
The boy searched for a matchbox and lighted these candles, not because he needed
more light than he already had; but because he thought that this was one way to
honour the dead.
Then he went up to the woman, closed her eyes, folded her hands across her
breast, and stroked back the thin gray hair from her face.
He thought no more about being afraid of her, but he was deeply grieved because
she had been forced to live out her old age in loneliness and longing. He, at
least, would watch over her dead body this night.
He hunted up the psalm book, and sat down to read a couple of psalms in an
undertone. But in the middle of the reading he paused, for he had begun to think
of his mother and father.
Think, that parents can long so for their children! This he had never known.
Think, that life can be as though it was over for them when the children are
away! Think, if those at home longed for him in the same way that this old
peasant woman had longed!
This thought made him happy, but he dared not believe in it. He had not been the
sort that anybody could long for.
But what he had not been, perhaps he might become.
Round about him he saw the portraits of those who were away. They were big,
strong men and women with earnest faces. There were brides in long veils, and
gentlemen in fine clothes; and there were children with waved hair and pretty
white dresses. And he thought that they all stared blindly into vacancy ­ and
did not want to see.
"Poor you!" said the boy to the portraits. "Your mother is dead. You cannot make
amends now for your leaving of her. But my mother is living!"
Here he paused, and nodded and smiled to himself. "My mother is living," said
he. "Both father and mother are living."
[Next]
Chapter XVIII.
"Chapter XVIII." by Selma Lagerlöf (1858-1940), translated by Velma Swanston
Howard.
From: The Wonderful Adventures of Nils. by Selma Lagerlöf. New York: Doubleday,
Page & Company, 1922, pp. 226-230.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
FROM TABERG TO HUSKVARNA
Friday, April fifteenth.
THE boy sat awake nearly all night, but toward morning he fell asleep and
dreamed of his father and mother. He could hardly recognize them. They had grown
gray, and had old and wrinkled faces. He asked how this had come about, and they
answered that they had aged so because they had longed for him. He was both
touched and astonished, for he had never believed but what they were glad to be
