CHAPTER II

WOLVES’ TRACKS

It began to grow dark, and still the children were in the woods. Andy was more and more inclined to stop and listen to their chatter, even if it was so full of grumbling and complaining that it cut into his heart like knives. But he himself was so tired, so hungry, and, too, so thoroughly down-hearted. For, after all, it was he, Andy, who had partly coaxed, partly forced, his brothers and sisters to leave a known world thus alone and unprotected.

He had not been able to bear the thought that the little girls whom mother had loved so tenderly should go to strange people. He was afraid that the community would put them up at auction so that any poor creature at all, in this year of need, could take them, only to get a coin from the parish.

Even if the little girls, and the boys too, should get food at the places they went to, it was not said that they would hear a kind word or be taught what mother held to so sturdily. She had insisted that they tell the truth, be courteous, and do well whatever they were set to do. She had taught them not to whimper without cause, but to know and understand that when they were alone without father and mother, they still had One who cared for them, the good and powerful Father in heaven.

Andy had felt, therefore, that it was altogether right and proper that he, now that they were alone, should hold them together. Food and what they needed he believed they would get when they reached the people and settlements which had not suffered so much from the frost, and which therefore would surely have something left for them.

But already, even the first day, he felt into what hardship he had brought them. It was worst of all that he himself grew tired, since he had eaten sparingly of both the water gruel, the goat’s-milk cheese, and the bits of bread that kind people had given them after their mother’s death: so tired that his legs bent under him, and the little sisters on the sled seemed to him as heavy as blocks of wood.

All the signs told him that more snow was coming. The cold had broken; he felt that, warm as he was pulling the sled, and knew it too because the snow no longer creaked and shrieked under feet and sled-runners as it had all day, ever since early morning, when, under the northern lights and moonlight, they had left the little gray cottage, which, with the dying fire gleaming through the little window-pane, had gazed somehow sadly after the departing children.

That snow was coming and a real storm, Andy knew because of the squirrels that darted like arrows between the firs. They took the cones between their paws, threw off the sharp scales, and gathered together the soft fragrant mass that remained. They ran with such dizzy haste that it was hardly possible to follow their movements with the eye. Even the wood-grouse, which in fair weather moves calmly and with dignity, developed haste. Mountain-ash trees with berries were not so plentiful in a pine forest, and to live only on pine and pine needles was too monotonous, thought he. A real snowstorm could keep one in the nest quite long enough.

Rabbits in white winter outfits checkered the snow with comical tracks, three and three, in clusters like an embroidered pattern.

Fox tracks extended in a straight line with small round holes. And then----!

Andy--who was awake to all signs in the woods, even where it was level, laid waste by forest fires, or cut down--Andy suddenly saw big coarse slightly oblong tracks in a row. Tracks that went abreast of each other, tracks of several, of many feet, of _wolves’_ feet----!

He seized the rope anew, twisted it fast around cold-stiffened fingers, and pulled his cap down over a forehead wet with the cold sweat of agony and fear.

Then he turned square around to the children behind him.

‘You talk too much. We’ll sing now, instead, and then we’ll soon be out of the woods. You start, Maglena.’

Maglena complied with her brother’s command without hesitation. In a ringing voice she took up the song about Canaan:

‘What has my Jesus done for me? Yes, He descended into Canaan. Heavenly Canaan. Come, let us go to Canaan.’

All the children sang, while Maglena with her sweet ringing voice led the song.

They went on through the forest, gloomy in the early twilight, over which arched a leaden gray sky, heavy with snow.

But now it seemed as though they had never thought of or known anything except singing. The little girls, who sat enfolded in Maglena’s arms, woke up, hungry, stiff, shivering with cold. They did not cry, though at this moment they certainly wanted to, but hearing the others singing, they joined in, as had been the habit in the little gray cottage with mother.

‘Heavenly Canaan, Come, let us go to Canaan.’

The song rang out so beautifully among the firs and pines. It was as if an angel choir were advancing. The wood held its breath to listen. Not a sound of yelping fox, of frightful hooting horned owl or small owl. Only the children’s song was heard.

Andy sang, too, strongly and loudly. He kept his eyes lifted beseechingly toward the dreary, comfortless sky. He sang in the belief of help, though his strong voice really served best to reach and wake the wolves, the child murderers, so many tracks of which he had just seen abreast of each other.

Of course Andy had known before that the wolves in this winter of need had begun to sneak about out in the open, and of course on stormy nights when it was so cold that the corners of the cottage rumbled and creaked he had heard their starved howlings in the wood.

But this far down in the settlements he believed that they would be free of them. Andy thought that he and the children had gone so far from the home parish that all conditions would be changed. And now to see such tracks! One comfort was that _he alone_ understood what they meant.

Now the Canaan song was over. He himself started a new song, and the others joined in:

‘I know a land of purest light, which--’

Andy got no further.

‘Children! There is smoke, and sparks flying out of the chimney of a house! Thank God, we are in the settlements, and I hear dogs barking.’

He seized the rope more firmly and began to run as if he were pulling an empty sled. Anna-Lisa pushed the scarf up from her face so violently that her eyebrows were pulled up toward her hair, giving her Chinese eyes. She lifted her feet as lightly as though she already wore the royal shoes.

But Maglena crept into her shawl hiding her whole face. She was shy and afraid of strange people--especially those who lived out in the settlements. One could never know whether they were as real people ought to be, whether they looked as did the people in Barren Moor. Maybe these had one eye in the back of the head and one in the forehead; and maybe they walked on their hands and ate with their feet.

Ugh, but it was awful----! What sort of language would they talk, do you suppose? The Barren Moor language was of course especially fine, so you couldn’t really expect that such people outside the parish should speak like that. After journeying as far as they had this day, any one could understand that everything would be different and topsy-turvy.

Golden Horn felt as Maglena did, that it was most unpleasant to come to strange people, where dogs could already be heard whining and barking, and she fell back behind the sled with her nose between the sled and Anna-Lisa, whom she imperiously pushed aside.

Per-Erik and Magnus were brave men from the very moment they heard the barking of a village dog. They spat, to find out which one of them could throw the spittle farthest, and they put their hands down into mother’s old jackets which they had on as overcoats and convinced themselves firmly that they thrust them into pockets. They chattered and wondered if there was any one in the crowd who possibly had been tired or frightened on such a day and on such a long dangerous journey. For their own part, they had conducted themselves bravely. One isn’t men-folk for nothing!

They were in such high spirits that they condescended to play with the little girls. They made their very worst and ugliest faces at them, and seized them by the throat to make them laugh.

In this happiness of spirit the children now came out of the forest toward a village. The main road which they had followed through the wood was marked closely on both sides with small firs. This was so that one would be able to drive right in the road with the snow-plough when there was so much snow that one could not otherwise know where the road was.

Only a narrow path tramped down in the snow led to the nearest house, a little gray cottage much like their own. It was not exactly easy to get through with the sled. The gray dog there barked too, as though he wanted to eat them all up. Perhaps it would have been better for them to go to one of the big houses, which shone red with white corners against the snow. But the little gray cottage up under the mountain looked so safe and cozy that they went there without hesitation.

They understood the gray dog’s barking well. He said, like all gray dogs, and such were to be found at nearly every house, that there were people coming.

The children understood, too, by the barking that the dog did not have much respect for them.

‘Bow-wow!--only trash! Shall I chase them away, I wonder!’

The gray dog was silent a moment. He stood still on the little steps that took the place of a porch outside the cottage. Then he lowered his head and growled thoughtfully.

‘Only little people, after all, puppies so to speak. Such can’t hurt either people or house----’

He bowed his head, yelped meaninglessly, though dutifully, as a conscientious gray dog always does. But then he got scent of the goat, his eyes on Golden Horn who peeped out with her head between the sled-posts and Anna-Lisa.

‘Aha, that’s another matter! Not ordinary people! Not with honorable dog guard! They have a goat as a dog! Impudence!’

The gray dog began to bark, growl, and yelp as angrily as if he had seen thieves in a church.

The children slackened their pace. None of them opened their mouths.

‘It is only because we are so poorly dressed,’ mumbled Anna-Lisa at last. ‘If we came like Sven Paul’s children at catechism parties with “bought” clothes and leather shoes, then the dog would fawn on us and bark as if inviting us to come in and make ourselves at home.’

‘But, girl,’ objected Andy, ‘now we are _not_ coming to a catechism party, but to ask people for food and a place to sleep. The dog sees that, and knows that they don’t have much in the little cottage, and that’s why he’s mad.’

‘Here--here!’ called Andy, and tried to get into the favor of the angrily barking dog, who now rushed at them.

Maglena rolled out of the sled.

She tore the shawl from her head, ran toward the dog, and bent down toward it with outspread arms.

‘Here--here! You aren’t mad at us! You can see that we are small and alone!’

It seemed as though the dog understood her. He became quiet, sidled uneasily sideways, yawned, as dogs do when ashamed. Suddenly he pricked up his ears as if he had seen something threatening from the mountain-side. And then he began to bark and yelp, with his head in that direction, dry, affected, without meaning in his bark: barked like that until the children were in the cottage.