The Girl from the Marsh Croft

Father and the boys are seated one rainy October evening in a third-class railway coach on their way to Stockholm. The father is sitting by himself on one bench, and the boys sit close together directly opposite him, reading a Jules Verne romance entitled "Six Weeks in a Balloon." The book is much worn. The boys know it almost by heart and have held endless discussions on it, but they always read it with the same pleasure. They have forgotten everything else to follow the daring sailors of the air all over Africa, and seldom raise their eyes from the book to glance at the Swedish towns they are travelling through.

The boys are very like each other. They are the same height, are dressed alike, with blue caps and gray overcoats, and both have large dreamy eyes and little pug noses. They are always good friends, always together, do not bother with other children, and are forever talking about inventions and exploring expeditions. In point of talent they are quite unlike. Lennart, the elder, who is thirteen, is backward in his studies at the High School and can hardly keep up with his class in any theme. To make up for this, he is very handy and enterprising. He is going to be an inventor and works all the time on a flying-machine which he is constructing. Hugo is a year younger than Lennart, but he is quicker at study and is already in the same grade as his brother. He doesn't find studying any special fun, either; but, on the other hand, he is a great sportsman—a ski-runner, a cyclist, and a skater. He intends to start out on voyages of discovery when he is grown up. As soon as Lennart's airship is ready, Hugo is going to travel in it in order to explore what is still left of this globe to be discovered.

Their father is a tall thin man with a sunken chest, a haggard face, and pretty, slender hands. He is carelessly dressed. His shirt bosom is wrinkled and the coat band pokes up at the neck; his vest is buttoned wrongly and his socks sag down over his shoes. He wears his hair so long at the neck that it hangs on his coat collar. This is due not to carelessness, but to habit and taste.

The father is a descendant of an old musical family from far back in a rural district, and he has brought with him into the world two strong inclinations, one of which is a great musical talent; and it was this that first came into the light. He was graduated from the Academy in Stockholm and then studied a few years abroad, and during these study years made such brilliant progress that both he and his teacher thought he would some day be a great and world-renowned violinist. He certainly had talent enough to reach the goal, but he lacked grit and perseverance. He couldn't fight his way to any sort of standing out in the world, but soon came home again and accepted a situation as organist in a country town. At the start he felt ashamed because he had not lived up to the expectations of every one, but he felt, also, that it was good to have an assured income and not be forced to depend any longer upon the charity of others.

Shortly after he had got the appointment, he married, and a few years later he was perfectly satisfied with his lot. He had a pretty little home, a cheerful and contented wife, and two little boys. He was the town favorite, feted, and in great demand everywhere. But then there came a time when all this did not seem to satisfy him. He longed to go out in the world once more and try his luck; but he felt bound down at home because he had a wife and children.

More than all, it was the wife who had persuaded him to give up this journey. She had not believed that he would succeed any better now than before. She felt they were so happy that there was no need for him to strive after anything else. Unquestionably she made a mistake in this instance, but she also lived to regret it bitterly, for, from that time on, the other family trait showed itself. When his yearning for success and fame was not satisfied, he tried to console himself with drinking.

Now it turned out with him, as was usual with folk of his family—he drank inordinately. By degrees he became an entirely different person. He was no longer charming or lovable, but harsh and cruel; and the greatest misfortune of all was that he conceived a terrible hatred for his wife and tortured her in every conceivable way, both when he was drunk and when he wasn't.

So the boys did not have a good home, and their childhood would have been very unhappy had they not been able to create for themselves a little world of their own, filled with machine models, exploring schemes, and books of adventure. The only one who has ever caught a glimpse of this world is the mother. The father hasn't even a suspicion of its existence, nor can he talk with the boys about anything that interests them. He disturbs them, time and again, by asking if they don't think it will be fun to see Stockholm; if they are not glad to be out travelling with father, and other things in that way, to which the boys give brief replies, in order that they may immediately bury themselves in the book again. Nevertheless the father continues to question the boys. He thinks they are charmed with his affability, although they are too bashful to show it.

"They have been too long under petticoat rule," he thinks. "They have become timid and namby-pamby. There will be some go in them now, when I take them in hand."

Father is mistaken. It is not because the boys are bashful that they answer him so briefly; it simply shows that they are well brought up and do not wish to hurt his feelings. If they were not polite, they would answer him in a very different manner. "Why should we think it fun to be travelling with father?" they would then say. "Father must think himself something wonderful, but we know, of course, that he is only a poor wreck of a man. And why should we be glad to see Stockholm? We understand very well that it is not for our sakes that father has taken us along, but only to make mother unhappy!"

It would be wiser, no doubt, if the father were to let the boys read without interrupting them. They are sad and apprehensive, and it irritates them to see him in a good humor. "It is only because he knows that mother is sitting at home crying that he is so happy to-day," they whisper to each other.

Father's questions finally bring matters to this pass: the boys read no more, although they continue to sit bent over the book. Instead, their thoughts begin in bitterness to embrace all that they have had to endure on their father's account.

They remember the time when he drank himself full in the morning and came staggering up the street, with a crowd of school boys after him, who poked fun at him. They recall how the other boys teased them and gave them nicknames because they had a father who drank.

They have been put to shame for their father. They have been forced to live in a state of constant anxiety for his sake, and as soon as they were having any enjoyment, he always came and spoiled their fun. It is no small register of sins that they are setting down against him! The boys are very meek and patient, but they feel a greater and greater wrath springing up in them.

He should at least understand that, as yet, they cannot forgive him for the great wrong he did them yesterday. This was by far the worst wrong he had ever done them.

It seems that, last year, mother and the boys decided to part from father. For a number of years he had been persecuting and torturing her in every possible way, but she was loath to part from him and remained, so that he wouldn't go altogether to rack and ruin. But now, at last, she wanted to do it for the sake of her boys. She had noticed that their father made them unhappy, and realized that she must take them away from this misery and provide them with a good and peaceable home.

When the spring school-term was over, she sent them to her parents in the country, and she herself went abroad in order to obtain a divorce in the easiest way possible. She regretted that, by going about it in this way, it would appear as though it were her fault that the marriage was dissolved; but that she must submit to. She was even less pleased when the courts turned the boys over to the father because she was a run-away wife. She consoled herself with the thought that he couldn't possibly wish to keep the children; but she had felt quite ill at ease.

As soon as the divorce was settled, she came back and took a small apartment where she and the boys were to live. In two days she had everything in readiness, so that they could come home to her.

It was the happiest day the boys had experienced. The entire apartment consisted of one large living-room and a big kitchen, but everything was new and pretty, and mother had arranged the place so cosily. The big room she and they were to use daytimes as a work-room, and nights they were to sleep there. The kitchen was light and comfortable. There they would eat, and in a little closet off the kitchen mother had her bed.

She had told them that they would be very poor. She had secured a place as singing-teacher at the girls' school, and this was all they had to live upon. They couldn't afford to keep a servant, but must get along all by themselves. The boys were in ecstasies over everything—most of all, because they might help along. They volunteered to carry water and wood. They were to brush their own shoes and make their own beds. It was only fun to think up all that they were going to do!

There was a little wardrobe, in which Lennart was to keep all his mechanical apparatus. He was to have the key himself, and no one but Hugo and he should ever go in there.

But the boys were allowed to be happy with their mother only for a single day. Afterwards their father spoiled their pleasure, as he had always done as far back as they could remember. Mother told them she had heard that their father had received a legacy of a few thousand kronor, and that he had resigned from his position as organist and was going to move to Stockholm. Both they and mother were glad that he was leaving town, so they would escape meeting him on the streets. And then a friend of father's had called on mother to tell her that father wanted to take the boys with him to Stockholm.

Mother had wept and begged that she might keep her boys, but father's messenger had answered her that her husband was determined to have the boys under his guardianship. If they did not come willingly, he would let the police fetch them. He bade mother read through the divorce papers, and there it said plainly that the boys would belong to their father. This, of course, she already knew. It was not to be gainsaid.

Father's friend had said many nice things of father and had told her of how much he loved his sons, and for this reason he wanted them to be with him. But the boys knew that father was taking them away solely for the purpose of torturing mother. She would have to live in a state of continual anxiety for them. The whole thing was nothing but malice and revenge!

But father had his own way, and here they were now, on their way to Stockholm. And right opposite them their father sits, rejoicing in the thought that he has made their mother unhappy. With every second that passes, the thought of having to live with father becomes more repellent. Are they then wholly in his power? Will there be no help for this?

Father leans back in his seat, and after a bit he falls asleep. Immediately the boys begin whispering to each other very earnestly. It isn't difficult for them to come to a decision. The whole day they have been sitting there thinking that they ought to run away. They conclude to steal out on the platform and to jump from the train when it goes through a big forest. Then they will build them a hut in the most secluded spot in the forest, and live all by themselves and never show themselves to a human being.

While the boys are laying their plans, the train stops at a station, and a peasant woman, leading a little boy by the hand, comes into the coupé. She is dressed in black, with a shawl on her head, and has a kind and friendly appearance. She removes the little one's overcoat, which is wet from the rain, and wraps a shawl around him. Then she takes off his shoes and stockings, dries his little cold feet, takes from a bundle dry shoes and stockings and puts them on him. Then she gives him a stick of candy and lays him down on the seat with his head resting on her lap, that he might sleep.

First one boy, then the other casts a glance over at the peasant woman. These glances become more frequent, and suddenly the eyes of both boys fill with tears. Then they look up no more, but keep their eyes obstinately lowered.

It seems that when the peasant woman entered some one else—some one who was invisible and imperceptible to all save the boys—came into the coupé. The boys fancied that she came and sat down between them and took their hands in hers, as she had done late last night, when it was settled that they must leave her; and she was talking to them now as she did then. "You must promise me that you will not be angry with father for my sake. Father has never been able to forgive me for preventing him from going abroad. He thinks it is my fault that he has never amounted to anything and that he drinks. He can never punish me enough. But you mustn't be angry at him on that account. Now, when you are to live with father, you must promise me that you will be kind to him. You mustn't quarrel with him and you are to look after his needs as well as you can. This you must promise me, otherwise I don't know how I can ever let you go." And the boys promised. "You mustn't run away from father, promise me that!" mother had said. That they had also promised.

The boys are as good as their word, and the instant they happen to think that they had given mother these promises, they abandon all thought of flight. Father sleeps all the while and they remain patiently in their places. Then they resume their reading with redoubled zeal, and their friend, the good Jules Verne, soon takes them away from many heavy sorrows to Africa's happy wonder world.

Far out on the south side of the city, father has rented two rooms and a kitchen on the ground floor, with an entrance from the court and an outlook over a narrow yard. The apartment has long been in use; it has gone from family to family, without ever having been renovated. The wall paper is full of tears and spots; the ceilings are sooty; a couple of window-panes are cracked, and the kitchen floor is so worn that it is full of ruts. Expressmen have brought the furniture cases from the railway station and have left them there, helter skelter. Father and the boys are now unpacking. Father stands with axe raised to hack open a box. The boys are taking out glass and porcelain ware from another box, and are arranging them in a wall cupboard. They are handy and work eagerly, but the father never stops cautioning them to be careful, and forbids their carrying more than one glass or plate at a time. Meanwhile it goes slowly with father's own work. His hands are fumbly and powerless, and he works himself into a sweat without getting the lock off the box. He lays down the axe, walks around the box, and wonders if it's the bottom that is uppermost. Then one of the boys takes hold of the axe and begins to bend the lock, but father pushes him aside. "That lock is nailed down too hard. Surely you don't imagine that you can force the lock when father couldn't do it? Only a regular workman can open that box," says father, putting on his hat and coat to go and fetch the janitor.

Father is hardly outside the door when an idea strikes him. Instantly he understands why he has no strength in his hands. It is still quite early in the morning and he has not consumed anything which could set the blood in motion. If he were to step into a café and have a cognac, he would get back his strength and could manage without help. This is better than calling the janitor.

Then father goes into the street to try and hunt up a café. When he returns to the little apartment on the court, it is eight o'clock in the evening.

In father's youth, when he attended the Academy, he had lived at the south end of the city. He was then a member of a double quartette, mostly made up of choristers and petty tradesmen, who used to meet in a cellar near Mosebacke. Father had taken a notion to go and see if the little cellar was still there. It was, in fact, and father had the luck to run across a pair of old comrades who were seated there having their breakfast. They had received him with the greatest delight, had invited him to breakfast, and had celebrated his advent in Stockholm in the friendliest way possible. When the breakfast was over, finally, father wanted to go home and unpack his furniture, but his friends persuaded him to remain and take dinner with them. This function was so long drawn out that he hadn't been able to go home until around eight o'clock. And it had cost him more than a slight effort to tear himself away from the lively place that early.

When father comes home, the boys are in the dark, for they have no matches. Father has a match in his pocket, and when he has lighted a little stump of a candle, which luckily had come along with their furnishings, he sees that the boys are hot and dusty, but well and happy and apparently very well pleased with their day.

In the rooms the furniture is arranged alongside the walls, the boxes have been removed and straw and papers have been swept away. Hugo is just turning down the boys' beds in the outer room. The inner room is to be father's bedroom, and there stands his bed, turned down with as great care as he could possibly wish.

Now a sudden revulsion of feeling possesses him. When he came home, he was displeased with himself because he had gone away from his work and had left the boys without food; but now, when he sees that they are in good spirits and not in any distress, he regrets that, for their sakes, he should have left his friends; and he becomes irritable and quarrelsome.

He sees, no doubt, that the boys are proud of all the work they have accomplished and expect him to praise them; but this he is not at all inclined to do. Instead, he asks who has been here and helped them, and begs them to remember that here in Stockholm one gets nothing without money, and that the janitor must be paid for all he does. The boys answer that they have had no assistance and have got on by themselves. But father continues to grumble. It was wrong of them to open the big box. They might have hurt themselves on it. Had he not forbidden them to open it? Now they would have to obey him. He is the one who must answer for their welfare.

He takes the candle, goes out into the kitchen, and peeps into the cupboards. The scanty supply of glass and porcelain is arranged on the shelves in an orderly manner. He scrutinizes everything very carefully to find an excuse for further complaint.

All of a sudden he catches sight of some leavings from the boys' supper, and begins immediately to grumble because they have had chicken. Where did they get it from? Do they think of living like princes? Is it his money they are throwing away on chicken? Then he remembers that he had not left them any money. He wonders if they have stolen the chicken and becomes perturbed. He preaches and admonishes, scolds and fusses, but now he gets no response from the boys. They do not bother themselves about telling him where they got the chicken, but let him go on. He makes long speeches and exhausts his forces. Finally he begs and implores.

"I beseech you to tell me the truth. I will forgive you, no matter what you have done, if you will only tell me the truth!"

Now the boys can hold in no longer. Father hears a spluttering sound. They throw off the quilts and sit up, and he notices that they are purple in the face from suppressed laughter. And as they can laugh now without restraint, Lennart says between the paroxysms, "Mother put a chicken in the food sack which she gave us when we left home."

Father, draws himself up, looks at the boys, wants to speak, but finds no suitable words. He becomes even more majestic in his bearing, looks with withering scorn at them, and goes to his room without further parley.

It has dawned upon father how handy the boys are, and he makes use of this fact to escape hiring servants. Mornings he sends Lennart into the kitchen to make coffee and lets Hugo lay the breakfast-table and fetch bread from the baker's. After breakfast he sits down on a chair and watches how the boys make up the beds, sweep the floors, and build a fire in the grate. He gives endless orders and sends them from one task to another, only to show his authority. When the morning chores are over, he goes out and remains away all the forenoon. The dinner he lets them fetch from a cooking-school in the neighborhood. After dinner he leaves the boys for the evening, and exacts nothing more of them than that his bed shall be turned down when he comes home.

The boys are practically alone almost the entire day and can busy themselves in any way they choose.

One of their most important tasks is to write to their mother. They get letters from her every day, and she sends them paper and postage, so that they can answer her. Mother's letters are mostly admonitions that they shall be good to their father. She writes constantly of how lovable father was when she first knew him, of how industrious and thrifty he was at the beginning of his career. They must be tender and kind to him. They must never forget how unhappy he is. "If you are very good to father, perhaps he may feel sorry for you and let you come home to me."

Mother tells them that she has called to see the dean and the burgomaster to ask if it were not possible to get back the boys. Both of them had replied that there was no help for her. The boys would have to stay with their father. Mother wants to move to Stockholm that she may see her boys once in a while, at least, but every one advises her to have patience and abide her time. They think father will soon tire of the boys and send them home. Mother doesn't quite know what she should do. On the one hand she thinks it dreadful that the boys are living in Stockholm with no one to look after them, and on the other hand she knows that if she were to leave her home and her work, she could not take them and support them, even if they were freed. But for Christmas, at all events, mother is coming to Stockholm to look after them.

The boys write and tell her what they do all day, hour by hour. They let mother know that they cook for father and make his bed. She apprehends that they are trying to be kind to him for her sake, but she probably perceives that they like him no better now than formerly.

Her little boys appear to be always alone. They live in a large city, where there are lots of people, but no one asks after them. And perhaps it is better thus. Who can tell what might happen to them were they to make any acquaintances?

They always beg of her not to be uneasy about them. They tell how they darn their stockings and sew on their buttons. They also intimate that Lennart has made great headway with his invention and say that when this is finished all will be well.

Mother lives in a state of continual fear. Night and day her thoughts are with her boys. Night and day she prays God to watch over her little sons, who live alone in a great city, with no one to shield them from the temptations of the destroyer, and to keep their young hearts from the desire for evil.

Father and the boys are sitting one morning at the Opera. One of father's old comrades, who is with the Royal Orchestra, has invited him to be present at a symphony rehearsal, and father has taken the boys along. When the orchestra strikes up and the auditorium is filled with tone, father is so affected that he can't control himself, and begins to weep. He sobs and blows his nose and moans aloud, time and again. He puts no restraint upon his feelings, but makes such a noise that the musicians are disturbed. A guard comes along and beckons him away, and father takes the boys by the hand and slinks out without a word of protest. All the way home his tears continue to flow.

Father is walking on, with a boy on each side, and he has kept their hands in his all the while. Suddenly the boys start crying. They understand now for the first time how much father has loved his art. It was painful for him to sit there, besotten and broken, and listen to others playing. They feel sorry for him who had never become what he might have been. It was with father as it might be with Lennart were he never to finish his flying-machine, or with Hugo if he were not to make any voyages of discovery. Think if they should one day sit like old good-for-nothings and see fine airships sailing over their heads which they had not invented and were not allowed to pilot!

The boys were sitting one morning on opposite sides of the writing-table. Father had taken a music roll under his arm and gone out. He had mumbled something about giving a music lesson, but the boys had not for a moment been tempted into believing this true.

Father is in an ugly mood as he walks up the street. He noticed the look the boys exchanged when he said that he was going to a music lesson. "They are setting themselves up as judges of their father," he thinks. "I am too indulgent toward them. I should have given them each a sound box on the ear. It's their mother, I dare say, who is setting them against me. Suppose I were to keep an eye on the fine gentlemen?" he continues. "It would do no harm to find out how they attend to their lessons."

He turns back, walks quietly across the court, opens the door very softly, and stands in the boys' room without either of them having heard him coming. The boys jump up, red in the face, and Lennart quickly snatches a bundle of papers which he throws into the table drawer.

When the boys had been in Stockholm a day or two, they had asked which school they were to attend, and the father had replied that their school-going days were over now. He would try and procure a private tutor who would teach them. This proposition he had never carried into effect, nor had the boys said anything more about going to school. But in less than a week a school chart was discovered hanging on the wall in the boys' room. The school books had been brought forth, and every morning they sat on opposite sides of an old writing-table and studied their lessons aloud. It was evident that they had received letters from their mother counselling them to try and study, so as not to forget entirely what they had learned.

Now, as father unexpectedly comes into the room, he goes up to the chart first and studies it. He takes out his watch and compares. "Wednesday, between ten and eleven, Geography." Then he comes up to the table. "Shouldn't you have geography at this hour?"

"Yes," the boys reply, growing flame-red in the face.

"Have you the geography and the map?"

The boys glance over at the book shelf and look confused. "We haven't begun yet," says Lennart.

"Indeed!" says father. "You must have been up to something else." He straightens up, thoroughly pleased with himself. He has an advantage, which he doesn't care to let go until he has browbeaten them very effectually.

Both boys are silent. Ever since the day they accompanied father to the Opera, they have felt sympathy for him, and it has not been such an effort for them to be kind to him as it was before. But, naturally, they haven't for a moment thought of taking father into their confidence. He has not risen in their estimation although they are sorry for him.

"Were you writing letters?" father asks in his severest tone.

"No," say both boys at the same time.

"What were you doing?"

"Oh, just talking."

"That isn't true. I saw that Lennart hid something in the drawer of the table."

Now both boys are mum again.

"Take it out!" shouts the father, purple with rage. He thinks the sons have written to his wife, and, since they don't care to show the letter, of course there is something mean about him in it.

The boys do not stir, and father raises his hand to strike Lennart, who is sitting before the table drawer.

"Don't touch him!" cries Hugo. "We were only talking over something which Lennart has invented."

Hugo pushes Lennart aside, opens the drawer, and pulls out the paper, which is scrawled full of airships of the most extraordinary shapes. "Last night Lennart thought out a new kind of sail for his airship. It was of this we were speaking."

Father wouldn't believe him. He bends over, searches in the drawer, but finds only sheets of paper covered with drawings of balloons, parachutes, flying-machines, and everything else appertaining to air-sailing.

To the great surprise of the boys, father does not cast this aside at once, nor does he laugh at their attempts, but examines closely sheet after sheet. As a matter of fact, father, too, has a little leaning toward mechanics, and was interested in things of this sort in days gone by, when his brain was still good for something. Soon he begins to ask questions as to the meaning of one thing and another, and inasmuch as his words betray that he is deeply interested and understands what he sees, Lennart fights his bashfulness, and answers him, hesitatingly at first and then more willingly.

Soon father and boys are absorbed in a profound discussion about airships and air-sailing. After they are fairly well started, the boys chatter unreservedly and give father a share in their plans and dreams of greatness. And while the father comprehends, of course, that the boys cannot fly very far with the airship which they have constructed, he is very much impressed. His little sons talk of aluminum motors, aeroplanes, and balancers, as though they were the simplest things in the world. He had thought them regular blockheads because they didn't get on very fast at school. Now, all at once, he believes they are a pair of little scientists.

The high-soaring thoughts and aspirations father understands better than anything else; he cognizes them. He himself has dreamed in the same way, and he has no desire to laugh at such dreams.

Father doesn't go out again that morning, but sits and chats with the boys until it is time to fetch the food for dinner and set the table. And at that meal father and the boys are real good friends, to their great and mutual astonishment.

The hour is eleven at night, and father is staggering up the street. The little boys are walking on either side of him, and he holds their hands tightly clasped in his all the while.

They have sought him out in one of his haunts, where they have stationed themselves just inside the door. Father sits by himself at a table with a big brown toddy in front of him, and listens to a ladies' orchestra which is playing at the other end of the hall. After a moment's hesitancy he rises reluctantly and goes over to the boys. "What is it?" he asks. "Why do you come here?"

"Father was to come home," they say. "This is the fifth of December. Father promised—"

Then he remembers that Lennart had confided to him that it was Hugo's birthday and that he had promised him to come home early. But this he had entirely forgotten. Hugo was probably expecting a birthday present from him, but he had not remembered to get him one.

At any rate, he has gone with the boys and is walking along, displeased with them and with himself. When he comes home, the birthday table is laid. The boys had wished to give a little party. Lennart had creamed some pancakes, which are now a few hours old and look like pieces of leather. They had received a little money from their mother, and with this they had bought nuts, raisins, and a bottle of soda-water.

This fine feast they did not care to enjoy all by themselves, and they had been sitting and waiting for father to come home and share it with them. Now, since they and father have become friends, they cannot celebrate such a big event without him. Father understands it all, and the thought of being missed flatters him and puts him in a fairly good humor. Half full as he is, he plumps himself down at the table. Just as he is about to take his place he stumbles, clutches at the table-cloth, falls, and draws down on the floor everything on the table. As he raises himself, he sees how the soda flows out over the floor and pickles and pancakes are strewn about among bits of porcelain and broken glass.

Father glances at the boys' long faces, rips out an oath, and makes a rush for the door, and he doesn't come back home until on towards morning.

One morning in February, the boys are coming up the street with their skates dangling from their shoulders. They are not quite like themselves. They have grown thin and pale and look untidy and uncared for. Their hair is uncut; they are not well washed and they have holes in both stockings and shoes. When they address each other, they use a lot of street-boy expressions, and one and another oath escapes from their lips.

A change has taken place in the boys. It had its beginning on the evening when their father forgot to come home to help celebrate Hugo's birthday. It was as if until that time they had been kept up by the hope that soon their father would be a changed man.

At first they had counted on his tiring of them and sending them home. Later, they had fancied that he would become fond of them and give up drinking for their sakes, and they had even imagined that mother and he might become reconciled and that all of them would be happy. But it dawned upon them that night that father was impossible. He could love nothing but drink. Even if he were kind to them for a little while, he didn't really care for them.

A heavy hopelessness fell upon the boys; nothing would ever be changed for them. They should never get away from father. They felt as though they were doomed to sit shut in a dark prison all their lives. Not even their great plans for the future could comfort them. In the way that they were bound down, these plans could never be carried out. Only think, they were not learning anything! They knew enough of the histories of great men to know that he who wants to accomplish anything noteworthy must first of all have knowledge.

Still the hardest blow was that mother did not come to them at Christmas. In the beginning of December she had fallen down stairs and broken her leg, and was forced to lie in a hospital during the Christmas holidays, therefore she could not come to Stockholm. Now that mother was up, her school had begun again. Apart from this, she had no money with which to travel. The little that she had saved was spent while she lay ill.

The boys felt themselves deserted by the whole world. It was obvious that it never would be any better for them, no matter how good they were! So, gradually, they ceased to exert themselves with the sort of things that were tiresome. They might just as well do that which amused them.

The boys began to shirk their morning studies. No one heard their lessons, so what was the use of their studying? There had been good skating for a couple of days and they might as well play truant all day. On the ice there were always throngs of boys, and they had made the acquaintance of a number who also preferred skating to being shut in the house with their books.

It has turned out to be such a fine day that it is impossible to think of staying indoors. The weather is so clear and sunny that the school children have been granted skating leave. The whole street is filled with children, who have been home to get their skates and are now hurrying down to the ice.

The boys, as they move among the other children, appear solemn and low-spirited. Not a smile lights up their faces. Their misfortune is so heavy that they cannot forget it for a second.

When they come down on the ice, it is full of life and movement. All along the edges it is bordered with a tight mass of people; farther out, the skaters circle around one another, like gnats, and still farther out, solitary black specks that float along at lightning speed are seen.

The boys buckle on their skates and join the other skaters. They skate very well, and as they glide out on the ice, full speed, they get color in their cheeks and their eyes sparkle, but not for a moment do they appear happy, like other children.

All of a sudden, as they are making a turn toward land, they catch sight of something very pretty. A big balloon comes from the direction of Stockholm and is sailing out toward Salt Lake. It is striped in reds and yellows, and when the sun strikes it it glitters like a ball of fire. The basket is decorated with many-hued flags, and as the balloon does not fly very high the bright color-play can be seen quite plainly.

When the boys spy the balloon, they send up a shriek of delight. It is the first time in their lives that they have seen a big balloon sailing through the air. All the dreams and plans which have been their consolation and joy during the many trying days come back to them when they see it. They stand still that they may observe how the ropes and lines are fastened; and they take note of the anchor and the sand bags on the edge of the car.

The balloon moves with good speed over the ice-bound fiord. All the skaters, big and little, dart around one another, laughing and hooting at it when it first comes into sight, and then they bound after it. They follow it out to sea, in a long swaying line, like a drag line. The air-sailors amuse themselves by scattering handfuls of paper strips in a variety of colors, which come circling down slowly through the blue air.

The boys are foremost in the long line that is chasing after the balloon. They hurry forward, with heads thrown back, and gaze steadily turned upward. Their eyes dance with delight for the first time since they parted from their mother. They are beside themselves with excitement over the airship and think of nothing else than to follow it as long as possible.

But the balloon moves ahead rapidly, and one has to be a good skater not to be left behind. The crowd chasing after it thins down, but in the lead of those who keep up the pursuit the two little boys are seen. Afterwards people said there was something strange about them. They neither laughed nor shouted, but on their upturned faces there was a look of transport—as though they had seen a heavenly vision.

The balloon also affects the boys like a celestial guide, who has come to lead them back to the right path and teach them how to go forward with renewed courage. When the boys see it, their hearts bound with longing to begin work again on the great invention. Once more they feel confident and happy. If only they are patient, they'll probably work their way toward success. A day will surely come when they can step into their own airship and soar aloft in space. Some day they will be the ones who travel up there, far above the people, and their airship will be more perfect than the one they now see. Theirs shall be an airship that can be steered and turned, lowered and raised, sail against wind and without wind. It shall carry them by day and by night, wherever they may wish to travel. They shall descend to the highest mountain peaks, travel over the dreariest deserts, and explore the most inaccessible regions. They shall behold all the glories of the world.

"It isn't worth while to lose heart, Hugo," says Lennart. "We'll have a fine time if we can only finish it!"

Father and his ill-luck are things which do not concern them any more. One who has something as great to strive for as they have cannot let himself be hindered by anything so pitiable!

The balloon gains in speed the farther out it comes. The skaters have ceased following it. The only ones who continue the chase are the two little boys. They move ahead as swiftly and lightly as if their feet had taken on wings.

Suddenly the people who stand on the shore and can look far out across the fiord send up a great cry of horror and fear. They see that the balloon, pursued all the while by the two children, sails away toward the fairway, where there is open sea. "Open sea! It is open sea out there!" the people shout.

The skaters down on the ice hear the shouts and turn their eyes toward the mouth of the fiord. They see how a strip of water shimmers in the sunlight yonder. They see, also, that two little boys are skating toward this strip, which they do not notice because their eyes are fixed on the balloon; and not for a second do they turn them toward earth.

The people are calling out with all their might and stamping on the ice. Fast runners are hurrying on to stop them; but the little ones mark nothing of all this, where they are chasing after the airship. They do not know that they alone are following it. They hear no cries back of them. They do not hear the splash and roar of the water ahead of them. They see only the balloon, which as it were carries them with it. Lennart already feels his own airship rising under him, and Hugo soars away over the North Pole.

The people on the ice and on the shore see how rapidly they are nearing the open sea. For a second or two they are in such breathless suspense that they can neither move nor cry out. It seems as if the two children are under a magic spell—in their chase after a shining heavenly vision.

The air-sailors up in the balloon have also caught a glimpse of the little boys. They see that they are in danger and scream at them and make warning gestures; but the boys do not understand them. When they notice that the air-sailors are making signs at them, they think they want to take them up into the car. They stretch their arms toward them, overjoyed in the hope of accompanying them through the bright upper regions.

At this moment the boys have reached the sailing channel, and, with arms uplifted, they skate down into the water and disappear without a cry for help. The skaters, who have tried to reach them in time, are standing a couple of seconds later on the edge of the ice, but the current has carried their bodies under the ice, and no helping hand can reach them.

Now I'm going to tell a pretty story.

A good many years ago there was to be a very big wedding at Svartsjö parish in Vermland.

First, there was to be a church ceremony and after that three days of feasting and merrymaking, and every day while the festivities lasted there was to be dancing from early morning till far into the night.

Since there was to be so much dancing, it was of very great importance to get a good fiddler, and Juryman Nils Olafsson, who was managing the wedding, worried almost more over this than over anything else.

The fiddler they had at Svartsjö he did not care to engage. His name was Jan Öster. The Juryman knew, to be sure, that he had quite a big name; but he was so poor that sometimes he would appear at a wedding in a frayed jacket and without shoes to his feet. The Juryman didn't wish to see such a ragtag at the head of the bridal procession, so he decided to send a messenger to a musician in Jösse parish, who was commonly called Fiddler Mårten, and ask him if he wouldn't come and play at the wedding.

Fiddler Mårten didn't consider the proposition for a second, but promptly replied that he did not want to play at Svartsjö, because in that parish lived a musician who was more skilled than all others in Vermland. While they had him, there was no need for them to call another.

When Nils Olafsson received this answer, he took a few days to think it over, and then he sent word to a fiddler in Big Kil parish, named Olle in Säby, to ask him if he wouldn't come and play at his daughter's wedding.

Olle in Säby answered in the same way as Fiddler Mårten. He sent his compliments to Nils Olafsson, and said that so long as there was such a capable musician as Jan Öster to be had in Svartsjö, he didn't want to go there to play.

Nils Olafsson didn't like it that the musicians tried in this way to force upon him the very one he did not want. Now he considered that it was a point of honor with him to get another fiddler than Jan Öster.

A few days after he had the answer from Olle in Säby, he sent his servant to fiddler Lars Larsson, who lived at the game lodge in Ullerud parish. Lars Larsson was a well-to-do man who owned a fine farm. He was sensible and considerate and no hotspur, like the other musicians. But Lars Larsson, like the others, at once thought of Jan Öster, and asked how it happened that he was not to play at the wedding.

Nils Olafsson's servant thought it best to say to him that, since Jan Öster lived at Svartsjö, they could hear him play at any time. As Nils Olafsson was making ready to give a grand wedding, he wished to treat his guests to something a little better and more select.

"I doubt if you can get any one better," said Lars Larsson.

"Now you must be thinking of answering in the same way as fiddler Mårten and Olle in Säby did," said the servant. Then he told him how he had fared with them.

Lars Larsson paid close attention to the servant's story, and then he sat quietly for a long while and pondered. Finally he answered in the affirmative: "Tell your master that I thank him for his invitation and will come."

The following Sunday Lars Larsson journeyed down to Svartsjö. He drove up to the church knoll just as the wedding guests were forming into line to march to the church. He came driving in his own chaise and with a good horse and dressed in black broadcloth. He took out his fiddle from a highly polished box. Nils Olafsson received him effusively, thinking that here was a fiddler of whom he might be proud.

Immediately after Lars Larsson's arrival, Jan Öster, too, came marching up to the church, with his fiddle under his arm. He walked straight up to the crowd around the bride, exactly as if he were asked to come and play at the wedding.

Jan Öster had come in the old gray homespun jacket which they had seen him wearing for ages. But, as this was to be such a grand wedding, his wife had made an attempt at mending the holes at the elbow by sewing big green patches over them. Jan Öster was a tall handsome man, and would have made a fine appearance at the head of the bridal procession, had he not been so shabbily dressed, and had his face not been so lined and seamed by worries and the hard struggle with misfortune.

When Lars Larsson saw Jan Öster coming, he seemed a bit displeased. "So you have called Jan Öster, too," he said under his breath to the Juryman Nils Olafsson, "but at a grand wedding there's no harm in having two fiddlers."

"I did not invite him, that's certain!" protested Nils Olafsson. "I can't comprehend why he has come. Just wait, and I'll let him know that he has no business here!"

"Then some practical joker must have bidden him," said Lars Larsson. "But if you care to be guided by my counsel, appear as if nothing were wrong and go over and bid him welcome. I have heard said that he is a quick-tempered man, and who knows but he may begin to quarrel and fight if you were to tell him that he was not invited?"

This the Juryman knew, too! It was no time to begin fussing when the bridal procession was forming on the church grounds; so he walked up to Jan Öster and bade him be welcome. Thereupon the two fiddlers took their places at the head of the procession. The bridal pair walked under a canopy, the bridesmaids and the groomsmen marched in pairs, and after them came the parents and relatives; so the procession was both imposing and long.

When everything was in readiness, a groomsman stepped up to the musicians and asked them to play the Wedding March. Both musicians swung their fiddles up to their chins, but beyond that they did not get. And thus they stood! It was an old custom in Svartsjö for the best fiddler to strike up the Wedding March and to lead the music.

The groomsman looked at Lars Larsson, as though he were waiting for him to start; but Lars Larsson looked at Jan Öster and said, "It is you, Jan Öster, who must begin."

It did not seem possible to Jan Öster that the other fiddler, who was as finely dressed as any gentleman, should not be better than himself, who had come in his old homespun jacket straight from the wretched hovel where there were only poverty and distress. "No, indeed!" said he. "No, indeed!"

He saw that the bridegroom put forth his hand and touched Lars Larsson. "Larsson shall begin," said he.

When Jan Öster heard the bridegroom say this, he promptly lowered his fiddle and stepped aside.

Lars Larsson, on the other hand, did not move from the spot, but remained standing in his place, confident and pleased with himself. Nor did he raise the bow. "It is Jan Öster who shall begin," he repeated stubbornly and resistingly, as one who is used to having his own way.

There was some commotion among the crowds over the cause of the delay. The bride's father came forward and begged Lars Larsson to begin. The sexton stepped to the door of the church and beckoned to them to hurry along. The parson stood waiting at the altar.

"You can ask Jan Öster to begin, then," said Lars Larsson. "We musicians consider him to be the best among us."

"That may be so," said a peasant, "but we peasants consider you the best one."

Then the other peasants also gathered around them. "Well, begin, why don't you?" they said. "The parson is waiting. We'll become a laughing-stock to the church people."

Lars Larsson stood there quite as stubborn and determined as before. "I can't see why the people in this parish are so opposed to having their own fiddler placed in the lead."

Nils Olafsson was perfectly furious because they wished in this way to force Jan Öster upon him. He came close up to Lars Larsson and whispered: "I comprehend that it is you who have called hither Jan Öster, and that you have arranged this to do him honor. But be quick, now, and play up, or I'll drive that ragamuffin from the church grounds in disgrace and by force!"

Lars Larsson looked him square in the face and nodded to him without displaying any irritation. "Yes, you are right in saying that we must have an end of this," said he.

He beckoned to Jan Öster to return to his place. Then he himself walked forward a step or two, and turned around that all might see him. Then he flung the bow far from him, pulled out his case-knife, and cut all four violin strings, which snapped with a sharp twang. "It shall not be said of me that I count myself better than Jan Öster!" said he.

It appears that for three years Jan Öster had been musing on an air which he couldn't get out over the strings because at home he was bound down by dull, gray cares and worries, and nothing ever happened to him, either great or small, to lift him above the daily grind. But when he heard Lars Larsson's strings snap, he threw back his head and filled his lungs. His features were rapt, as though he were listening to something far away; and then he began to play. And the air which he had been musing over for three years became all at once clear to him, and as the tones of it vibrated he walked with proud step down to the church.

The bridal procession had never before heard an air like that! It carried them along with such speed that not even Nils Olafsson could think of staying back. And every one was so pleased both with Jan Öster and with Lars Larsson that the entire following entered the church, their eyes brimming with tears of joy.

No one in Ullerud could say anything of fiddler Lars Larsson but that he was both meek and modest in his later years. But he had not always been thus, it seems. In his youth he had been so overbearing and boastful that people were in despair about him. It is said that he was changed and made over in a single night, and this is the way it happened.

Lars Larsson went out for a stroll late one Saturday night, with his fiddle under his arm. He was excessively gay and jovial, for he had just come from a party where his playing had tempted both young and old to dance. He walked along, thinking that while his bow was in motion no one had been able to sit still. There had been such a whirl in the cabin that once or twice he fancied the chairs and tables were dancing too! "I verily believe they have never before had a musician like me in these parts," he remarked to himself. "But I had a mighty rough time of it before I became such a clever chap!" he continued. "When I was a child, it was no fun for me when my parents put me to tending cows and sheep and when I forgot everything else to sit and twang my fiddle. And just fancy! they wouldn't so much as give me a real violin. I had nothing to play on but an old wooden box over which I had stretched some strings. In the daytime, when I could be alone in the woods, I fared rather well; but it was none too cheerful to come home in the evening when the cattle had strayed from me! Then I heard often enough, from both father and mother, that I was a good-for-nothing and never would amount to anything."

In that part of the forest where Lars Larsson was strolling a little river was trying to find its way. The ground was stony and hilly, and the stream had great difficulty in getting ahead, winding this way and that way, rolling over little falls and rapids—and yet it appeared to get nowhere. The path where the fiddler walked, on the other hand, tried to go as straight ahead as possible. Therefore it was continually meeting the sinuous stream, and each time it would dart across it by using a little bridge. The musician also had to cross the stream repeatedly, and he was glad of it. He thought it was as though he had found company in the forest.

Where he was tramping it was light summer-night. The sun had not yet come up, but its being away made no difference, for it was as light as day all the same.

Still the light was not quite what it is in the daytime. Everything had a different color. The sky was perfectly white, the trees and the growths on the ground were grayish, but everything was as distinctly visible as in the daytime, and when Lars Larsson paused on any of the numerous bridges and looked down into the stream, he could distinguish every ripple on the water.

"When I see a stream like this in the wilderness," he thought, "I am reminded of my own life. As persistent as this stream have I been in forcing my way past all that has obstructed my path. Father has been my rock ahead, and mother tried to hold me back and bury me between moss-tufts, but I stole past both of them and got out in the world. Hay-ho, hi, hi! I think mother is still sitting at home and weeping for me. But what do I care! She might have known that I should amount to something some day, instead of trying to oppose me!"

Impatiently he tore some leaves from a branch and threw them into the river.

"Look! thus have I torn myself loose from everything at home," he said, as he watched the leaves borne away by the water. "I am just wondering if mother knows that I'm the best musician in Vermland?" he remarked as he went farther.

He walked on rapidly until he came across the stream again. Then he stopped and looked into the water.

Here the river went along in a struggling rapid, creating a terrible racket. As it was night, one heard from the stream sounds quite different from those of the daytime, and the musician was perfectly astonished when he stood still and listened. There was no bird song in the trees and no music in the pines and no rustling in the leaves. No wagon wheels creaked in the road and no cow-bells tinkled in the wood. One heard only the rapid; but because all the other things were hushed, it could be heard so much better than during the day. It sounded as though everything thinkable and unthinkable was rioting and clamoring in the depths of the stream. First, it sounded as if some one were sitting down there and grinding grain between stones, and then it sounded as though goblets were clinking in a drinking-bout; and again there was a murmuring, as when the congregation had left the church and were standing on the church knoll after the service, talking earnestly together.

"I suppose this, too, is a kind of music," thought the fiddler, "although I can't find anything much in it! I think the air that I composed the other day was much more worth listening to."

But the longer Lars Larsson listened to the music of the rapid, the better he thought it sounded.

"I believe you are improving," he said to the rapid. "It must have dawned upon you that the best musician in Vermland is listening to you!"

The instant he had made this remark, he fancied he heard a couple of clear metallic sounds, as when some one picks a violin string to hear if it is in tune.

"But see, hark! The Water-Sprite himself has arrived. I can hear how he begins to thrum on the violin. Let us hear now if you can play better than I!" said Lars Larsson, laughing. "But I can't stand here all night waiting for you to begin," he called to the water. "Now I must be going; but I promise you that I will also stop at the next bridge and listen, to hear if you can cope with me."

He went farther and, as the stream in its winding course ran into the wood, he began thinking once more of his home.

"I wonder how the little brooklet that runs by our house is getting on? I should like to see it again. I ought to go home once in a while, to see if mother is suffering want and hardship since father's death. But busy as I am, it is almost impossible. As busy as I am just now, I say, I can't look after anything but the fiddle. There is hardly an evening in the week that I am at liberty."

In a little while he met the stream again, and his thoughts were turned to something else. At this crossing the river did not come rushing on in a noisy rapid, but glided ahead rather quietly. It lay perfectly black and shiny under the night-gray forest trees, and carried with it one and another patch of snow-white scum from the rapids above.

When the musician came down upon the bridge and heard no sound from the stream but a soft swish now and then, he began to laugh.

"I might have known that the Water-Sprite wouldn't care to come to the meeting," he shouted. "To be sure, I have always heard that he is considered an excellent performer, but one who lies still forever in a brook and never hears anything new can't know very much! He perceives, no doubt, that here stands one who knows more about music than he, therefore he doesn't care to let me hear him."

Then he went farther and lost sight of the river again. He came into a part of the forest which he had always thought dismal and bleak to wander through. There the ground was covered with big stone heaps, and gnarled pine stumps lay uprooted among them. If there was anything magical or fearsome in the forest, one would naturally think that it concealed itself here.

When the musician came in among the wild stone blocks, a shudder passed through him, and he began to wonder if it had not been unwise of him to boast in the presence of the Water-Sprite. He fancied the large pine roots began to gesticulate, as if they were threatening him. "Beware, you who think yourself cleverer than the Water-Sprite!" it seemed as if they wanted to say.

Lars Larsson felt how his heart contracted with dread. A heavy weight bore down upon his chest, so that he could scarcely breathe, and his hands became ice-cold. Then he stopped in the middle of the wood and tried to talk sense to himself.

"Why, there's no musician in the waterfall!" said he. "Such things are only superstition and nonsense! It's of no consequence what I have said or haven't said to him."

As he spoke, he looked around him, as if for some confirmation of the truth of what he said. Had it been daytime, every tiny leaf would have winked at him that there was nothing dangerous in the wood; but now, at night, the leaves on the trees were closed and silent and looked as though they were hiding all sorts of dangerous secrets.

Lars Larsson grew more and more alarmed. That which caused him the greatest fear was having to cross the stream once more before it and the road parted company and went in different directions. He wondered what the Water-Sprite would do to him when he walked across the last bridge—if he might perhaps stretch a big black hand out of the water and drag him down into the depths.

He had worked himself into such a state of fright that he thought of turning back. But then he would meet the stream again. And if he were to turn out of the road and go into the wood, he would also meet it, the way it kept bending and winding itself!

He felt so nervous that he didn't know what to do. He was snared and captured and bound by that stream, and saw no possibility of escape.

Finally he saw before him the last bridge crossing. Directly opposite him, on the other side of the stream, stood an old mill, which must have been abandoned these many years. The big mill-wheel hung motionless over the water. The sluice-gate lay mouldering on the land; the mill-race was moss-grown, and its sides were lined with common fern and beard-moss.

"If all had been as formerly and there were people here," thought the musician, "I should be safe now from all danger."

But, at all events, he felt reassured in seeing a building constructed by human hands, and, as he crossed the stream, he was scarcely frightened at all. Nor did anything dreadful happen to him. The Water-Sprite seemed to have no quarrel with him. He was simply amazed to think he had worked himself into a panic over nothing whatever.

He felt very happy and secure, and became even happier when the mill door opened and a young girl came out to him. She looked like an ordinary peasant girl. She had a cotton kerchief on her head and wore a short skirt and full jacket, but her feet were bare.

She walked up to the musician and said to him without further ceremony, "If you will play for me, I'll dance for you."

"Why, certainly," said the fiddler, who was in fine spirits now that he was rid of his fear. "That I can do, of course. I have never in my life refused to play for a pretty girl who wants to dance."

He took his place on a stone near the edge of the mill-pond, raised the violin to his chin, and began to play.

The girl took a few steps in rhythm with the music; then she stopped. "What kind of a polka are you playing?" said she. "There is no vim in it."

The fiddler changed his tune; he tried one with more life in it.

The girl was just as dissatisfied. "I can't dance to such a draggy polka," said she.

Then Lars Larsson struck up the wildest air he knew. "If you are not satisfied with this one," he said, "you will have to call hither a better musician than I am."

The instant he said this, he felt that a hand caught his arm at the elbow and began to guide the bow and increase the tempo. Then from the violin there poured forth a strain the like of which he had never before heard. It moved in such a quick tempo he thought that a rolling wheel couldn't have kept up with it.

"Now, that's what I call a polka!" said the girl, and began to swing round.

But the musician did not glance at her. He was so astonished at the air he was playing that he stood with closed eyes, to hear better. When he opened them after a moment, the girl was gone. But he did not wonder much at this. He continued to play on, long and well, only because he had never before heard such violin playing.

"It must be time now to finish with this," he thought finally, and wanted to lay down the bow. But the bow kept up its motion; he couldn't make it stop. It travelled back and forth over the strings and jerked the hand and arm with it; and the hand that held the neck of the violin and fingered the strings could not free itself, either.

The cold sweat stood out on Lars Larsson's brow, and he was frightened now in earnest.

"How will this end? Shall I sit here and play till doomsday?" he asked himself in despair.

The bow ran on and on, and magically called forth one tune after another. Always it was something new, and it was so beautiful that the poor fiddler must have known how little his own skill was worth. And it was this that tortured him worse than the fatigue.

"He who plays upon my violin understands the art. But never in all my born days have I been anything but a bungler. Now for the first time I'm learning how music should sound."