Christmas with Selma Lagerlöf. Selma Lagerlöf
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isn't as handsome as yours," said the sister, "but he's much more courageous and daring!"
"How do you know he is?" challenged Dunfin.
"For some time past there has been weeping and wailing amongst the sea gulls and wild ducks on the island. Every morning at daybreak a strange bird of prey comes and carries off one of them."
"What kind of a bird is it?" asked Dunfin.
"We don't know," replied the sister. "One of his kind has never before been seen on the island, and, strange to say, he has never attacked one of us geese. But now my intended has made up his mind to challenge him to-morrow morning, and drive him away."
"Oh, I hope he'll succeed!" said Dunfin.
"I hardly think he will," returned the sister. "If my goosey-gander were as big and strong as yours, I should have hope."
"Do you wish me to ask Morten Goosey-Gander to meet the strange bird?" asked Dunfin.
"Indeed, I do!" exclaimed Prettywing excitedly. "You couldn't render me a greater service."
The next morning the goosey-gander was up before the sun. He stationed himself on the highest point of the island and peered in all directions. Presently he saw a big, dark bird coming from the west. His wings were exceedingly large, and it was easy to tell that he was an eagle. The goosey-gander had not expected a more dangerous adversary than an owl, and how he understood that he could not escape this encounter with his life. But it did not occur to him to avoid a struggle with a bird who was many times stronger than himself.
The great bird swooped down on a sea gull and dug his talons into it. Before the eagle could spread his wings, Morten Goosey-Gander rushed up to him. "Drop that!" he shouted, "and don't come here again or you'll have me to deal with!" "What kind of a lunatic are you?" said the eagle. "It's lucky for you that I never fight with geese, or you would soon be done for!"
Morten Goosey-Gander thought the eagle considered himself too good to fight with him and flew at him, incensed, biting him on the throat and beating him with his wings. This, naturally, the eagle would not tolerate and he began to fight, but not with his full strength.
The boy lay sleeping in the quarters where Akka and the other wild geese slept, when Dunfin called: "Thumbietot, Thumbietot! Morten Goosey-Gander is being torn to pieces by an eagle."
"Let me get up on your back, Dunfin, and take me to him!" said the boy.
When they arrived on the scene Morten Goosey-Gander was badly torn, and bleeding, but he was still fighting. The boy could not battle with the eagle; all that he could do was to seek more efficient help.
"Hurry, Dunfin, and call Akka and the wild geese!" he cried. The instant he said that, the eagle flew back and stopped fighting.
"Who's speaking of Akka?" he asked. He saw Thumbietot and heard the wild geese honking, so he spread his wings.
"Tell Akka I never expected to run across her or any of her flock out here in the sea!" he said, and soared away in a rapid and graceful flight.
"That is the self-same eagle who once brought me back to the wild geese," the boy remarked, gazing after the bird in astonishment.
The geese had decided to leave the island at dawn, but first they wanted to feed awhile. As they walked about and nibbled, a mountain duck came up to Dunfin.
"I have a message for you from your sisters," said the duck. "They dare not show themselves among the wild geese, but they asked me to remind you not to leave the island without calling on the old fisherman."
"That's so!" exclaimed Dunfin, but she was so frightened now that she would not go alone, and asked the goosey-gander and Thumbietot to accompany her to the hut.
The door was open, so Dunfin entered, but the others remained outside.
After a moment they heard Akka give the signal to start, and called
Dunfin. A gray goose came out and flew with the wild geese away from the
island.
They had travelled quite a distance along the archipelago when the boy began to wonder at the goose who accompanied them. Dunfin always flew lightly and noiselessly, but this one laboured with heavy and noisy wing-strokes. "We are in the wrong company. It is Prettywing that follows us!"
The boy had barely spoken when the goose uttered such an ugly and angry shriek that all knew who she was. Akka and the others turned to her, but the gray goose did not fly away at once. Instead she bumped against the big goosey-gander, snatched Thumbietot, and flew off with him in her bill.
There was a wild chase over the archipelago. Prettywing flew fast, but the wild geese were close behind her, and there was no chance for her to escape.
Suddenly they saw a puff of smoke rise up from the sea, and heard an explosion. In their excitement they had not noticed that they were directly above a boat in which a lone fisherman was seated.
However, none of the geese was hurt; but just there, above the boat,
Prettywing opened her bill and dropped Thumbietot into the sea.
STOCKHOLM
SKANSEN
A few years ago, at Skansen—the great park just outside of Stockholm where they have collected so many wonderful things—there lived a little old man, named Clement Larsson. He was from Hälsingland and had come to Skansen with his fiddle to play folk dances and other old melodies. As a performer, he appeared mostly in the evening. During the day it was his business to sit on guard in one of the many pretty peasant cottages which have been moved to Skansen from all parts of the country.
In the beginning Clement thought that he fared better in his old age than he had ever dared dream; but after a time he began to dislike the place terribly, especially while he was on watch duty. It was all very well when visitors came into the cottage to look around, but some days Clement would sit for many hours all alone. Then he felt so homesick that he feared he would have to give up his place. He was very poor and knew that at home he would become a charge on the parish. Therefore he tried to hold out as long as he could, although he felt more unhappy from day to day.
One beautiful evening in the beginning of May Clement had been granted a few hours' leave of absence. He was on his way down the steep hill leading out of Skansen, when he met an island fisherman coming along with his game bag. The fisherman was an active young man who came to Skansen with seafowl that he had managed to capture alive. Clement had met him before, many times.
The fisherman stopped Clement to ask if the superintendent at Skansen was at home. When Clement had replied, he, in turn, asked what choice thing the fisherman had in his bag. "You can see what I have," the fisherman answered, "if in return you will give me an idea as to what I should ask for it."
He held open the bag and Clement peeped into it once—and again—then quickly drew back a step or two. "Good gracious, Ashbjörn!" he exclaimed. "How did you catch that one?"
He remembered that when he was a child his mother used to talk of the tiny folk who lived under the cabin floor. He was not permitted to cry or to be naughty, lest he provoke these small people. After he was grown he believed his mother had made up these stories about the elves to make him behave himself. But it had been no invention of his mother's, it seemed; for there, in Ashbjörn's bag, lay one of the tiny folk.
There was a little of the terror natural to childhood left in Clement, and he felt a shudder run down his spinal column as he peeped into the bag. Ashbjörn saw that he was frightened