CHAPTER XIX

FIRE

‘You were an awfully long time getting back,’ said Maglena, when Andy came running back to the sled where she and Magnus had squeezed themselves in beside Golden Horn.

‘It was a little hard to leave grandfather. But I got this from him.’ Andy’s eyes shone as he held up the silver watch that actually ticked and kept good time, as he spread the new robe over the goat.

A strange happiness came over the children; they talked about how good the old people were there, and how spiteful the children were toward them.

They chattered pantingly. The road led uphill, and was bumpy and uneven where the lumbermen had driven over it with the heavy sleds.

‘We’ve got to hurry as fast as we can,’ said Andy. ‘They can be after us any minute.’

‘A man on horseback came from the wedding-farm,’ enlightened Maglena. ‘Maybe he went after the sheriff. Several of those that had blood-red shirts have run away too in different directions.’

‘The farmhand can be home any time now too,’ said Andy.

He braced the stout hob-nailed shoes against the clumps of ice and pulled with all his strength.

It had grown very cold during the night, after yesterday’s thaw.

The crusted snow lay like a field of ice on either side of the road. They pulled the sled up away from the tiring, uneven timber-road. And then they were off over the blue snow-crust, over level meadow-land where the snow still lay like a blanket, over ice-covered rocks, streams, and marshes.

Andy took his directions from the stars, saw that Orion was in the south, and the morning star straight in front of him. In general they followed the river’s meanderings. On both sides of it lay the Dalecarlian parishes extending far up toward woods and mountains, though broken by great stretches of forest land and big lakes.

The river ran from west to east, out to the ocean, and the children followed the same direction.

But now the thing to do was to get away from the settlement and into the deep woods, to escape dangerous pursuit on the roads, and to get past the village through the protecting woods into another parish.

Morning had already come. The sun peeped out as if in play from behind the pointed mountain-tops in the distance, where Maglena thought the world came to an end. Then it hid behind another mountain-top. It looked forth again and shone on all the little cottage windows and into the eyes of sleep-dazed children. Once more the sun played peek-a-boo behind a high rounded peak.

But then it came forth, rising, shining brightly, casting a gleaming carpet of thin gold over the whole snowy country. It spread gold over mountain-tops and green firs, and over pines, gold on every single pine needle, and over tree-trunks that now shone a golden red.

It was matchlessly beautiful. The children felt no fatigue, not even hunger. They had sat down quietly on the edge of the sled and watched how the sun rose and rose.

Now it not merely shone. They began to feel warmth from it too. Maglena took Magnus by the hands. She felt free and absolutely happy far away from a settlement, not a farm in sight. Songs and dance melodies floated through her head. She wanted to dance, and she hopped out on the crusted snow in polka rhythm with Magnus.

‘You are my rose, my very heart, Nothing shall us ever part.’

And down she plumped with one foot through the snow. ‘Did you ever? The sun tripped me up!’ She laughed and scrambled up again.

‘Yes, and drives us away into the woods to find shelter. I don’t know how we are going to find a tree with really big branches,’ said Andy, who was sun-blind and saw black and yellow and red everywhere, for he had sat and stared earnestly right at the sun, which rose so rapidly over the mountains.

They had come in upon a clearing where the snow-crust no longer hid cut timber, stumps, and brush-heaps, and hurried now into the deep woods where the snow still bore.

Golden Horn felt better, or perhaps it was because the bumps against the tree-trunks now and then did not appeal to her. Without warning, she kicked herself free of the robe and jumped away into the woods in her invalid’s bandages of apron and muffler around her stomach and neck.

With unbelievable ease the goat found the big close fir which could serve as a house, just the kind the children had sought in vain all morning.

Golden Horn stood right under the giant fir whose branches spread themselves out like an impenetrable roof. The snow had melted away under it, or perhaps it had never been able to gather there.

‘Ma-a-a,’ bleated Golden Horn. ‘Ma-a-a. Here lives a wise goat who, although she lay on a sled with an apron around her stomach, kept her eyes open. Ma-a-a. Step in, little man-kids, and I’ll treat you to warm milk, soft moss to rest on, and sweet frozen whortleberries and juniper berries to feast on. Ma-a-a, if you please!’

‘She’s inviting us in. See how big and proud she looks,’ smiled Maglena. ‘Now I’m going to stand at the door until she asks me to come in and sit down.’

Maglena lifted a heavy close branch, went in, and stood still, looking roguishly at the goat.

Magnus followed and took up the same attitude, as when one comes on a visit to people.

‘Ma-a-a-a,’ said Golden Horn, ‘you’re welcome; come in and sit down.’

She tripped in toward the big tree-trunk where the high roots made comfortable resting-places for both humans and goats.

Andy came ‘in,’ dragging the sled after him. He cleared it of the knapsack, the dry tarred wood, and the robes. Then he tipped it upside down on all four posts. Maglena set out the little bowls of foamy warm milk, and the bread and rolls from the wedding-farm.

‘The table’ stood beside the root-benches. The children repeated their little prayer before a meal, ate slowly and quietly, and felt like rich farmers in their own cottage.

Maglena ‘cleared off the table,’ arranged a comfortable place to sit on the other side of the tree-trunk, and then washed the bowls with a ‘dish-cloth’ of snow. Then she tipped them against each other in an orderly row.

She made up a bed for them all in one of the spaces between the roots, with the old robe under and the new over.

Andy and she whispered together so that Golden Horn should not hear what they said. They wondered if they could take her with them in the nicely made bed.

‘She’ll have to be the old folks with us,’ said Maglena hurriedly, when Golden Horn, who felt entirely at home, without the least doubt or thought as to whether it was fitting or not, climbed up and lay down on the robe.

‘Yes, and then we’ll have to be really good to her,’ said Andy eagerly. ‘I’ll go out and get some young birch and pine branches for her! Because, of course, she hasn’t any teeth, and it will be like soft bread and coffee for old grandmother.’

‘Just think, she is smarter than I am,’ said Magnus, coming with two fists full of frozen whortleberries for his brother and sister. He had picked them practically ‘in the house.’

‘’Cause when I went and scratched and hunted for water, she ran right down to a little creek right near here. And now she goes to bed, ’cause she thinks that we ought to do as she does, after walking all day and all night.’

‘But it’s the middle of the day,’ objected Andy, who thought that a sensible suggestion ought to come from him, and not from the little boy or the goat.

‘Well, then the sunshine will have to be moonlight for me,’ Maglena entered into the conversation. ‘I am so tired that I can’t even undress and dry my shoes in front of the fire.’ She pretended to warm her hands over a fire.

‘I can’t dry them for you either, Magnus,’ she added. ‘So you’ll have to put them by the bed.’ Maglena was entirely serious.

‘I think I’ll throw myself down just as I am,’ thought Magnus, ‘’cause I just came from the woods and I’m all tired out. I’ve been cutting down some small trees in the clearing and my back and arms are nearly broken.’

‘But don’t you think you ought to close the damper so it gets warm?’ smiled Andy, a little roguishly.

‘Dear me, yes! But I was almost afraid it would smoke, you see.’ But Maglena stretched herself up laboriously and pushed a branch to the side.

With the tired, worried look of the mistress of the house she dragged herself to the bed, where she found it hard to keep up the fun. ‘The old folks’ here on the farm knew how to keep the upper hand with the children, for Grandmother Golden Horn braced herself against the stout and solid trunk and stuck out all four feet as if she meant to have the bed all to herself. If she hadn’t been ‘the old folks,’ one could almost have been angry with her.

The mistress stood at a loss for beds for the young folks and children. But then she understood what old grandmother wanted. She was in pain. She wanted a new bandage over her stomach.

And she got it.

The whole household crept to bed in one heap, with the robe over their eyes to keep out the ‘moonlight’ which forced its way in between the thick, close tree-trunks and warmed the air, so that the children dreamed that they slept in a heated house with the new thick cover over them.

[Illustration: HERE UNDER THE TREE, WITH THE THICK BRANCHES RESTING ON THE GROUND, THEY COULD BE SAFE]

Golden Horn lay on top of them to warm them and herself. She lay there chewing her cud and blinking with long narrow eyes at the rays of sunlight, listening and observant of every sound. There were wild animals in the woods to look out for, and there were people and dogs. Golden Horn heard them!

Proudly she gazed around. Here under the tree, with the thick branches resting on the ground, they could be safe; here no one could see them. The goat chewed her cud all day long with half-closed yet watchful eyes. The silver watch, which hung on a knot in the tree-trunk, ticked away hour after hour. The ‘moonlight’ paled and cooled, sank into a rosy red evening light. That too paled and died away. And all the time the children slept.

They slept when the real moon, accompanied by frost, came up into the sky, slept although distant steps and the noise of people and of barking dogs could be heard not far away, slept when the woods became quiet and dead.

But then they woke up. Something furry and warm came creeping, stealthily creeping, and slipped softly in under the sheepskin robe, at which Golden Horn, with one jump and short indignant bleatings, darted away.

‘Purr-r-r.’

Maglena and Andy sat up at the same time--absolutely astounded at the close dark ceiling that they had over them. They recognized the cat that had awakened them by her mewing. It was the spotted gray ‘ice cat.’

So surprised were they that she had been able to follow them the tortuous way they had come that they forgot to think how unpleasant it was to wake up in the dark woods in the middle of the night and without fire. But they remembered it when they were so cold that their teeth chattered.

If only they had had a match, just one, it certainly would have been possible to have a fire. The whole bunch of tarred sticks lay where Maglena had marked out the fireplace. She shook so with cold that she could scarcely talk.

‘I can’t get up, and I can’t milk. We’ll just freeze to death.’

‘There isn’t anything to do but creep down under the robe again and lie there like Charles the Twelfth’s army and wait for morning, when the sun comes,’ said Andy, and prepared bravely to creep down under the cover again.

‘But the cat must have milk; she hasn’t had any for so long, so I’ve got to get up,’ shivered Maglena.

She threw father’s old coat over her.

While she sat and milked with the coat over her shoulders, a fir cone fell down on her head with a popping sound and then hopped down into one of the yawning empty jacket pockets.

‘This is a fine cow.[12] Magnus shall have it as soon as he wakes up,’ thought Maglena, perfectly content when she put her hand into the pocket and pulled forth the fir cone, soft and pliable, sticky with resin.

[12] Swedish children have whole dairy farms of fir cones of different sizes, so a fir cone always means a new ‘cow’ to them.

Maglena felt as do all others who find anything. She felt a desire to find out if there was more of the same kind, so she dug again into the pocket where she had found the ‘cow.’

Yes, there was actually something more!

There was something which all at once drove away the awful, frozen sensation of fear of the dark which had weighed upon Maglena and tortured her as she sat in the blackness under the tree and milked.

Why, it was like a miracle--as if mother had been with her children again, and helped them. For Maglena’s fingers, groping about in the pocket had found two--_matches_!

As long as they had carried the old jacket, used it as a blanket and thrown it about, they had never noticed that there was anything in the pockets.

Of course, the matches had been there since ages ago, when father still worked in the woods and sometimes smoked his little pipe.

Maglena held the little sticks in her hand. She smelled of them. Good! They had the real phosphorus smell.

She was so happy she could have shrieked aloud. Her lightning-like thought was to call the joyous news to Andy.

But--no, it was best to be quiet. For just think if the matches didn’t light! Then she would only have lured Andy to be happy over something that would then become only greater unhappiness and disappointment.

Maglena, stooping and stumbling, groped her way hastily to the fireplace. Near there on a branch she had hung the knapsack.

She fumbled and searched for it, pitch dark as it was.

Yes, there it was at last. And right under it lay the bundle of dry tarred wood which she had placed in the ‘pretend stove.’

Oh, if--if--_if_ there only was life in the little bits of phosphorus!

She struck the match with a trembling hand, one, two, three, four times against the sole of her warm little boot, which of course she had not taken off.

But she was too eager, too impetuous. The match gleamed and shone a moment just when Maglena had seized it so bravely that--it broke--and then sank down on the wet moss--and went out.

She was ready to cry aloud with fright and sorrow. Yes, to shriek like a tiny child.

Must she give up hope of fire now when she had so nearly succeeded?

Fire! It was warmth for frozen limbs. Fire! It was light and comfort for the lonely little ones out in the wilderness. Fire! Fire meant house and home.

And only one match! Such a weak miserable little wretch.

Maglena’s heart beat fast. She stood with the match between her fingers without daring to try again.

Her hands trembled, and she seemed to feel the match bending in her fingers as if ready to break.

At last she sat down determinedly on the ground--spread out her apron on the moss, placed the wood on top. Then she put out her shod foot. She struck once--twice--thrice--

Tears came into her eyes, her lips trembled.

But once more--steadily, so as not to break the match, calmly, lightly--

‘Ratsch!’

A bright little yellow and blue flame sprang forth!

Quick ‘as a spark’ Maglena thrust the bright little flame against the dry stick.

It caught fire at once! It burned with a bright red light, the smoke curled up into the air, black, with the odor of tar.

‘Andy,’ called Maglena in a muffled voice as if afraid that the very sound of her voice would put out the fire.

Andy, who had lain with closed eyes and imagined that he was one of Charles the Twelfth’s doughty warriors, looked up.

He shot up like an arrow and threw the robe aside.

‘Why, girl! Well--but--Maglena! What in the world?’

Maglena told him proudly and smilingly the whole wonderful adventure of the fire.