CHAPTER XVI

IN A DEN OF THIEVES

Magnus slept as he sat on the sled and rested his tired, strained bones and sinews. Kitty slept and rested deathly frightened nerves, and limbs twisted almost out of joint. Owls hooted and shrieked shrilly koo-hu-u, and kle-vitt in the mountains that were reflected in the ice so that it looked coal black near the shore.

But out on the lake the ice gleamed red, yellow, green, as the northern-light flames over the heavens were reflected on its shining surface.

Andy and Maglena, not to mention little Magnus, would have thought it both dismal and creepy to be out alone on such a night if they had not been cheered up over saving the cat.

As they now walked and talked and led Golden Horn between them, they reached the last fir on the lake. It, like the other guiding firs, had lost a solid foothold in the last thaw, and now leaned sadly to one side.

They had a more sure foothold on land on a driven road. Golden Horn dived like lightning into the thicket to get a meal of pine branches and willow buds.

Kitty didn’t want to stay any longer either, but was ready at once to take to her feet. Maglena caught her. She stuffed her into her shawl and held her fast with both hands.

Andy alone drew the sled with Magnus, who still slept heavily. He bent his steps toward the first big farmhouse he caught sight of. Light shone from all the windows of a red painted two-story house a bit back from the road. They understood that there was either a funeral or a wedding going on there. So it was not for such wandering people to go to such a place. Therefore, they approached the first-named house, also a big two-story house, but this one was gray and unpainted. Not really finished either, old as it was, for boards were still nailed across some of the windows instead of glass.

The fence that surrounded the place was ragged for long stretches, and the gate hung by one hinge on the gatepost. The gate had not, as is generally done in the fall, been carried in to protect it from the heavy snow. Trash and rubbish and broken bottles lay everywhere and glittered in the moonlight.

Kitty fought and struggled in Maglena’s shawl as if she had suddenly gone wild. She clawed and snarled, no matter how Maglena tried to calm her.

The door to the right in the hallway leading into the house creaked. Now there was no holding the cat. With one twist, she tore herself loose and flew like a shot away from Maglena out into the yard.

A boy about Andy’s size came slouching out on the step, followed by a gray dog.

The gray dog barked and growled at them with drawn-up nose and angrily gleaming teeth.

Magnus woke up and gave a shriek. Golden Horn fled behind Andy.

But Maglena did as she used to when she, in so strange a way, succeeded in calming and taming animals.

She sat down on the ground and opened her arms to the dog without minding how he bit at her and tore away part of the shawl fringes.

‘So-o-o, so-o! You don’t want to do us any harm, we who are small and alone.’

The dog quieted down, but growled with arched back. He looked dangerous when he, with sly glances and stealthy steps, went around the children and sniffed after the goat, who had crept in between them.

‘Boy,’ called Maglena with her pretty, ringing, soft, but at the same time decided, voice. ‘Boy, call your dog. You can see that we are small and alone. You are big, and ought to help us,’ she added when the boy only whistled and did not seem to listen to what she said.

‘Call your dog at once!’ Maglena’s voice became commanding. The dog was impressed by it. He stood still as if ashamed.

The boy came down the step, kicked loose a piece of ice, and threw it into the group. It struck the dog, who whined and with a look of hatred and fear at Grels, the boy, the farm’s oldest son, lumbered out through the gateway.

Grels followed the dog out through the gate, but leered slyly back. He saw how the children went to the woodshed with the goat creature they had with them.

Yes, there she was safe, the goat!

All three children went to the shed with Golden Horn whom they tied lightly near a pile of chips. There she could lie down until they, as usual, could get her into the barn. Generally only one of them attended to Golden Horn. But to-day it seemed that they did not dare be separated a single moment.

They held each other’s hands tightly when they went up the steps into the hallway and opened the door into the big room or kitchen where light streamed out through the windows.

Yes, no doubt the room was big and fine. It could have looked exactly like the big kitchen at Karl Nilsson’s. Here, too, there was an over-bed, a rosy Dalecarlian clock, and blue painted cupboards. But it was slovenly, untidy. No curtains at the windows and no hangings in front of the beds. On the table were seen wooden bowls and wooden spoons left since the evening meal.

A well-grown, pretty, but carelessly dressed servant girl stood with one foot on a bench, and scraped the mush kettle out of which she was eating.

‘Make a move, there, grandfather,’ she screamed angrily at an old man who, tremblingly and clumsily, sat whittling kindling wood.

‘You’ve been up long enough. You’ve had all you’re going to get. Get out now!’ snapped a still young mistress with delicate but sharp features. She stood by the fire combing the hair of a girl about Maglena’s age.

Andy and the children stepped noiselessly in through the door. They felt a burning desire to turn and, if possible, flee to the wilderness again. But it was so late. They were tired and frozen and longed for something warm, for a little water gruel or mush.

Two small boys of about Per-Erik’s and Magnus’s age caught sight of them.

‘Usch! Mother, see what a tatterpack we have here,’ bawled one.

The mistress turned around. The children seemed to feel her sharp eyes and pointed nose bore into them. They crept together and made themselves as small as they could.

‘What are you doing here? This ain’t any hotel. We haven’t any more than we eat up ourselves,’ she screamed, and advanced toward the children with her hand raised.

‘Barbara-Carrie--listen, you,’ called a hollow voice from the lower bed. ‘Don’t hurt those children. It will bring bad luck to the house. I saw them in a dream last night.’

‘Shut up, old woman!’ almost barked the woman. But still it seemed that the words had impressed her, for she turned away from the children and went on with her work.

‘Give them the cold mush that was left after I fed the chickens this morning. There is a little goats’ milk on the table in a bowl, and you can give them the bread crusts that are left.’

‘Give them yourself,’ snapped the maid. ‘I’m going to get dressed to go to the “wedding-farm” with the milk. All the rest of the milkmaids are there already. But here there is never any order with anything.’

She went, but stopped hesitatingly at the door.

Grandmother called to her from the lower bed: ‘Brita, look out, girl! I laid out the cards for you to-day--and there was only poverty and no bread, with a jack of hearts between. You can take away the danger by doing something good. Well, well, look out, you.’

Brita closed the door with her foot and came in again. She threw the unappetizing bits of food at the children. More with fear than with cold, they crept tremblingly to the hearth bench where the food had been thrown.

‘Oh, you got my milk-bowl,’ yelled the younger boy, Johnnie.

And at once he had run forward and was trying to jerk it away from Maglena. She held fast to it, and looked him steadily in the eyes.

‘Your mother said we could have it, so you can’t take it away from us.’

‘Mother!’ He stuck out his tongue at his mother. ‘I----’ he said something coarse, but which meant ‘I don’t care for mother, or what she says.’

Strangely enough, Maglena kept the bowl. This was a disappointment to Erika, who had just jerked herself away from her mother’s hands to see how the fight between the bad-tempered, stingy brother and the strange beggar girl would end.

The little wanderers ate cold, watery mush, sour milk, and crusts of bread--quiet, unhappy.

Grels came in just as the children were devoutly thanking God for food. He looked wicked and odious. The old man, who fumbled with the stick of wood trying to cut off a last piece, stood up hastily. He looked for his crutch. But as usual the children had taken it from the back of his chair and thrown it out on the floor. They howled with laughter when the old man, half-creeping, with one leg dragging behind him, worked himself over the floor to get it.

Andy, who saw where the crutch lay, went at once and picked it up. He gave it to the old man, who with confused, bleary eyes looked up at him.

‘Where d-d-did this b-b-boy c-come from?’ he stammered with suspicion and surprise in his voice.

‘Get away from the fire, young ones, so I can get there with the coffee-pot,’ said the mistress to the strange children without paying any attention to the behavior of her own.

‘Andy, help grandfather; he walks like mother did at the last,’ whispered Maglena. ‘It’s so slippery on the step.’

Andy went slowly, as if ashamed, after the old man. But when he came out where no one made fun of him, he took fast hold of the old man’s arm and helped him carefully down the steps and down the slippery, uneven path that led to the little cottage where he lived.

The peasants’ old parents up in Norrland are called ‘receivers of food’ or ‘old folks’ when they have given up their farm to the son and his wife. The old people are given what they need of milk, flour, potatoes, and such things. If the children on that farm are not good and generous, it can be very hard for the old people.

The little cottage into which grandfather now stumbled was cold and uncared-for, because old grandmother was sick and lay in the lower bed up at the house. She lay there, not in order to get better care, but because no one wanted to go down and cook for the old man now that the old woman could not do it, and then one did not have to think about attending to her. The servant, who usually kept a fire and looked out for the old folks, had something else to think about to-night.

[Illustration: HE WAS TOO STIFF AND FROZEN TO BE ABLE TO PUT WOOD IN THE GRATE AND LIGHT A FIRE. ANDY DID IT FOR HIM]

Shivering with cold, the old man prepared to lie down fully dressed under the sheepskin in the lower bed. He was too stiff and frozen to be able to put wood in the grate and light a fire.

Andy did it for him. He also put over the fire the coffee-pot that stood on the hearth.

The old man sat on the edge of the bed, and looked at the boy. To him he looked like an angel, gray and mended as his clothes were.

‘Y-you c-c-can s-sleep in the upper b-b-bed to-to-night,’ he stammered.

‘Maglena and Magnus too?’ asked Andy eagerly. He thought that life here with the old man, who looked at him with friendly eyes, in the cold, uncared-for cottage, was greatly preferable to the big light kitchen where they only quarreled with one another. Lighter of heart, he ran up to the house, after he had seen that the fire had caught and the old man undressed, and in bed.

Grels stood on the step when Andy came up. He was noticeably humble--actually friendly when he began to talk to Andy.

‘We’re going to go and look on at the wedding. Brita is going with the milk and we’re going to follow and peek in at the bride.’

‘That will be fun for you,’ said Andy, and tried to pass Grels. But he stood in the way.

‘Well, it will be just as much fun for you and the others as for us.’

‘They can’t go and look on here, can they?’

‘Any one can go to look. The boys in this village are mad at this bride ’cause she, who is so rich and pretty, took a man from outside the parish who ain’t got a homestead and is such a fool that he says “no” to gin. And so we’re going to act up to-night and scare them. We small boys from this village and others too are going to be along when it happens.’

‘But not us. Maglena and Magnus are tired and ought to go to bed.’

‘They’re the ones that want to go, and Brita and I have promised them. They don’t look as though they’ve had much fun,’ added Grels with a certain sympathy in his voice that moved Andy.

‘Well, if they want to, I’ll let them,’ said he.

Grels let him go by at once. Andy did not notice the evil gleam in his eyes.

Maglena and Magnus came eagerly to meet him. Fatigue and discouragement had left them. They were going to go and see the bride at the neighboring farm. The minister’s wife herself had dressed her, and she was so beautiful that the queen herself couldn’t be more so--in a golden crown and her whole head covered with roses, and a red silk sash and black silk skirt and bodice--and--and----!

‘Mons and Johnnie are real good to us now,’ they assured Andy.

‘Come,’ yelled Grels, and jerked Andy’s arm, ‘we’re going now. Brita is all dressed up.’

The children, strangers and farm-children together, went off. Grels pulled them with him when they wanted to stop and say good-night to Golden Horn.