A Day in June
But there are people on Seacrow Island. Not many, at most twenty—that is, in the winter. But in the summer there are the summer visitors as well.
Just such a family of summer visitors was aboard Seacrow I one day in June a few years ago. It consisted of a father and his four children, and their name was Melkerson. They lived in Stockholm and none of them had been to Seacrow Island before. And so they were very excited, especially Melker, the father.
“Seacrow Island,” he said. “I like the name. That was why I took the house.”
Malin, his nineteen-year-old daughter, looked at him and shook her head. What a scatterbrained father she had! He was almost fifty, but he was as impulsive as a child and more irresponsible than his own sons. Now he was standing there as excited as any child on Christmas Eve, expecting them all to be wildly enthusiastic about his idea of taking a summer cottage on Seacrow Island.
“It’s like you, Daddy,” said Malin, “it’s exactly like you to take a cottage on an island which you have never even seen, just because you like the name.”
“That’s what I would have thought everybody did,” Melker replied. He thought for a moment and then said, “Or perhaps one has to be an author and be more or less crazy to do a thing like that. Only a name—Seacrow Island! Perhaps other people would have gone and looked at the place before taking it.”
“Lots would have—but not you.”
“Well, never mind, I’m on my way there now,” said Melker cheerfully.
And he gazed around him with his gay, blue eyes. He saw all the things he loved most: the pale waters, the islands and reefs, the old gray rocks, the shore with its old houses and jetties and boathouses—he felt as if he wanted to stretch out his hand and caress them. Instead, he grasped Johan and Niklas by the nape of the neck.
“Do you realize how beautiful it all is? Do you realize how lucky you are to live in the midst of all this for a whole summer?”
Johan and Niklas said that they did realize it and Pelle said he realized it too.
“Well, why don’t you shout for joy then?” said Melker. “Would you mind my asking for a spot of jubilation?”
“How do you do it?” Pelle asked. He was only seven years old and could not show joy to order.
“You yodel,” said Melker, and laughed. Then he tried to yodel a little himself and all his children giggled obediently.
“You sound like a cow mooing,” said Johan, and Malin remarked, “Wouldn’t it be better, just to be on the safe side, to wait until we’ve seen the cottage before you start crowing?”
Melker did not think so. “The agent said the cottage was wonderful, and one has to believe what people say. He assured me that it was an old, homey, delightful cottage.”
“If only we could get there soon,” said Pelle. “I want to see the cottage now.”
Melker looked at his watch. “In an hour’s time, my boy! By that time we shall all be very hungry, and guess what we shall be doing then?”
“Eating,” suggested Niklas.
“Exactly. We’ll sit outside the house in the sunshine and eat the wonderful meal that Malin will have cooked for us. We shall be having it on the green grass, of course—and we will just sit there and feel that summer has come!”
“Oh!” said Pelle. “I’ll soon be shouting for joy.”
But then he decided to do something else. His father had said there was an hour to go, and there must still be things he could do aboard this boat. He had done most of the exploring. He had climbed up all the companionways and looked in all the exciting corners and cupboards. He had put his nose into the pilot’s room and been chased away. He had tried to get up to the captain on the bridge and had been sternly ordered off. He had stood looking down into the engine room, watching all the machinery as it went around and around. He had drunk lemonade and eaten rolls and had thrown bits of his rolls to the hungry gulls. He had chatted with almost everybody on board. He had tried to see how fast he could run from one end of the boat to the other, and he had got in every-body’s way at every stopping place as the crew threw baggage ashore. Now he began to look around for something new, and it was then that he discovered a couple of passengers he had not noticed before.
Far astern he saw an old man sitting with a little girl, and on the seat beside the girl was a cage with a raven in it. A live raven! That made Pelle hurry, for he loved all living creatures, everything that moved, flew, or crawled beneath the sky, every bird, fish, and four-footed animal. “Dear little animals,” he called them all and he included frogs, wasps, grasshoppers, beetles, and other small insects. But now here was a raven, a real live raven.
The little girl smiled at him, a sweet, toothless smile, as he stopped in front of the cage.
“Is this your raven?” he asked, and poked a finger between the bars to try to stroke the bird. But this was a mistake, for the raven immediately pecked at his finger and he hurriedly drew it back.
“Be careful!” said the little girl. “Yes, he is my raven, isn’t he, Grandpa?”
The old man beside her nodded. “Yes, of course, it’s Stina’s raven,” he explained to Pelle. “At any rate, while she’s with me on Seacrow Island.”
“Do you live on Seacrow Island?” said Pelle, delighted. “I’m going to live there too this summer. I mean, Father and I are going to live on Seacrow Island.”
The old man looked at him in an interested way. “Are you, indeed? Then I suppose it’s you who have taken the old Carpenter’s Cottage?”
Pelle nodded eagerly. “Yes, it’s us. Is it nice there?”
The old man put his head on one side and looked as if he were thinking. Then he broke into a funny little laugh. “Yes, it’s nice, but of course it depends on what you like.”
“What do you mean?” asked Pelle.
The old man laughed again. “Well, either you like it when it rains in through the roof or you don’t.”
“Or you don’t,” came as a sort of echo from the little girl. “I don’t.”
Pelle grew rather thoughtful. He must tell Daddy that, but not just now. Now he wanted to look at the raven. It must be fun to have a raven, because everyone would want to come and look at it, especially a big boy like him. Of course, Stina was only a little girl, at most five years old, but Pelle was willing to put up with her as a friend for the sake of the raven, at any rate until he had found something better.
“I’ll come to see you one day,” he said kindly. “Which house do you live in?”
“In a red one,” said Stina, which was a lead, but not much more.
“You can ask where old man Söderman lives,” said her grandfather. “Everyone knows it.”
The raven blustered about in its cage and seemed very restless. Pelle had another try at poking in his finger, but the bird pecked him again.
“He’s very wise,” said Stina. “The wisest bird in all the world, Grandpa says.”
Pelle thought this was boasting, as neither Stina nor her grandfather could possibly know which bird was the wisest in the world.
“My grandma has a parrot,” said Pelle, “and she can say ‘Go to blazes’!”
“There’s nothing difficult in that,” said Stina. “My grandmother can say that too.”
Pelle laughed loudly. “It isn’t my grandma who says it! It’s the parrot!”
Stina did not like being laughed at. She was offended. “You should say what you mean then,” she said crossly. She turned her head away and looked out over the rail. She did not want to talk to Pelle any more.
“Good-bye,” said Pelle and went off to find his scattered family. He found Johan and Niklas on the upper deck, and as soon as he saw them he knew that something was wrong. Both of them looked so gloomy that Pelle felt anxious. Had he done something he shouldn’t have done? “What is it?” he asked.
“Look over there,” said Niklas, and pointed with his thumb. Leaning against the rail a little farther away stood Malin and beside her a tall young man in a light-blue polo-necked sweater. They were chatting and laughing together and the boy in the sweater was looking at Malin, their Malin, as if he had just found a beautiful little nugget of gold where he least expected it.
“Here we go again,” said Niklas. “I thought it would be better when we got away from town.”
Johan shook his head. “Don’t you believe it! If you put Malin on a rock in the middle of the Baltic, there’d be some boy or other swimming out to the rock within five minutes.”
Niklas glared at the polo-necked sweater. “We ought to put up a notice beside her, Anchorage Forbidden!”
Then he looked at Johan and they both laughed. They did not really mind when anyone began to pay attention to Malin, which, according to Johan, happened about once every quarter of an hour. They were not really serious, but in spite of it all they were secretly a little anxious. What if Malin fell in love one fine day and it all ended in an engagement and marriage and that sort of thing?
“How would we get on without Malin?” Pelle would say, and that was what they all thought and felt. For Malin was the family’s anchor and support. Ever since the day their mother had died, when Pelle was born, Malin had been like a mother to all the boys, including Melker, a childish and very unhappy little mother for the first few years, but by degrees more and more capable of “wiping their noses, washing, scolding, and baking” as she herself described it.
“But you only scold when you really have to,” Pelle always maintained. “Usually you are as soft and kind and good as a rabbit.”
Until recently Pelle had not understood why Johan and Niklas had been so against Malin’s admirers. He had felt absolutely sure that Malin would go on belonging to the family forever, no matter how many polo-necks circled around her. It was Malin herself who had disturbed his peace of mind. It happened when Pelle was in bed one night, trying to go to sleep. Malin was in the bathroom next door and was singing a song, which finished, “She left school, got married, and had a family.”
“Left school.” Yes, that was just what Malin had done, and then . . . then he supposed you just waited for the rest. Now he understood what would happen! Malin would marry and they would be left all alone with Mrs. Nilsson, who came for four hours a day and then went. It was an unbearable thought, and Pelle rushed in despair to his father. “Daddy, when will Malin get married and have a family?” he asked in a trembling voice.
Melker looked surprised. He had not heard that Malin had any plans of that sort, and he did not realize that it was a question of life and death to Pelle.
“When is it going to happen?” Pelle insisted.
“That day and hour must remain hidden from us,” joked Melker. “There’s no need for you to worry about it, son.”
But Pelle had worried about it ever since, not all the time, of course, or even every day, but now and then on special occasions, like now, for instance. Pelle stared toward Malin and the polo-necked sweater. As a matter of fact they were just saying good-bye, because the young man was getting off at the next stop.
“Good-bye, Krister,” shouted Malin.
And the sweater shouted back, “I’ll come over with my motorboat one day and look you up!”
“You’d better not,” muttered Pelle angrily. And he decided to ask his father to put up one of those notices Niklas had talked about—Anchorage Forbidden—on the jetty at Seacrow Island. Obviously it would have been easier to have Malin to themselves in peace if she had not been so pretty. Pelle realized that. Not that he had looked at her particularly, but he knew she was pretty. Everybody said so. They thought that fair hair and green eyes like Malin’s were very pretty. No doubt the polo-necked sweater thought so too.
“Who was that?” asked Johan, when Malin came over to the boys.
“No one in particular. Just someone I met at a party the other day. Quite nice.”
“You be careful,” said Johan. “Write those words in your diary in capital letters.”
For Malin was not the daughter of an author for nothing. She wrote too, but only in her secret diary. In it she gave free rein to all her secret thoughts and dreams and described all the exploits of the Melkerson boys, including Melker’s.
“You wait until I publish my secret diary, then you’ll all be laughing on the other side of your faces.”
“Ha, ha! You’ll come out the worst of anyone,” Johan assured her. “I’m sure you’re careful to mention all your sheiks in the right order.”
“Keep a list, so you’ll never forget any of them,” suggested Niklas. “Olaf the Fourteenth, Karl the Fifteenth, Lennart the Sixteenth, Johan the Seventeenth. It’ll be a lovely little list.”
And Johan and Niklas were convinced that the polo-necked sweater would be Krister the Eighteenth.
“I would like to know how she describes him in her diary,” said Niklas.
“A boy with very short hair,” suggested Johan. “Generally foul and sloppy.”
“That’s only what you think,” said Niklas.
But Malin did not write a word about Krister the Eighteenth in her diary. He got off at his stop and left no lasting impression, for only a quarter of an hour later Malin had a much more important meeting, which made her forget everything else. It was when the boat arrived at the next jetty and she saw Seacrow Island for the first time. Of this meeting she wrote:
“Malin, Malin, where have you been so long? This island has been lying here waiting for you, calmly and quietly, for such a long time, with its little boathouses, its old village street, its jetties and fishing boats and all its beauty, and you have not even known of its existence. Isn’t that dreadful? I wonder what God thought when He made this island. ‘I will have a little bit of everything,’ I expect He thought. ‘I will have bare, gray rocks, green trees, oaks and birch trees, meadows with flowers, yes, the whole island will be adrift with red roses and white hawthorn on the June day one thousand million years ahead when Malin Melkerson arrives.’ Yes, dear Johan and Niklas, I know what you would think if you ever read this. ‘Must you be so conceited!’ But I am not being conceited. I am only glad that God made Seacrow Island just as it is and not in any other way, and that He then thought of placing it, like a jewel, farthest out in the sea, where it has remained in peace just as He first created it, and that He has allowed me to come here.”
Melker had said, “You’ll see—all the islanders will come down to the quay
to welcome us. We’ll be a sensation.”
But it was not quite like that. It was pouring rain when the steamer
arrived, and on the quay stood one solitary little person and a dog. This
person was female and about seven years old. She stood absolutely still as if
she had grown up out of the quay. The rain poured down on her but she did
not move. It seemed almost as if God had made her as part of the island,
thought Malin, and had put her there to be the ruler and guardian of the
island to all eternity.
“ ‘Tjorven,’ she said. Just that!
“ ‘And your dog?’ I said.
“She looked me straight in the eye and asked calmly, ‘Do you want to know if he’s my dog or what his name is?’
“ ‘Both,’ I said.
“ ‘He is my dog and his name is Bosun,’ she said, and it was as if a queen had deigned to present her favorite animal. And what an animal! He was a St. Bernard, the biggest one I’ve ever seen in my life. He was just as majestic as his owner and I began to wonder whether all the creatures on this island were of the same breed and very superior to us humble beings from the city. But then a friendly soul arrived, who turned out to be the island’s shopkeeper. He seemed to be a normal human being, for he welcomed us to Seacrow Island and told us that his name was Nisse Grankvist. But then he said rather surprisingly, ‘Go home, Tjorven,’ to the majestic child. Just imagine, he dared command her and he was actually her father! But his command did not have much effect.
“ ‘Who said so?’ asked the child sternly. ‘Did Mummy?’
“ ‘No, I say so,’ said her father.
“ ‘Then I won’t go home,’ said the child. ‘I’m here to meet the boat.’
“As the shopkeeper was busy checking his goods from the boat, he had no time to deal with his obstreperous daughter, so she stood there watching while we collected our belongings. We must have been a sorry sight just then, and nothing escaped her, for I felt her eyes on us as we set off toward Carpenter’s Cottage.
“There were other eyes watching us besides Tjorven’s. Behind the curtains of the windows all along the street, eyes were looking out at us as we trailed along. It was pouring rain and even Father began to look rather thoughtful.
“When it was coming down at its very hardest, Pelle said, ‘Daddy, did you know that it rains in through the roof of Carpenter’s Cottage?’
“Daddy stopped dead in the middle of a puddle and asked, ‘Who says?’
“ ‘Old man Söderman,’ said Pelle, and it sounded as if he were speaking of an intimate friend.
“Daddy pretended to be quite indifferent. ‘Oh, I see! Old man Söderman, whoever this prophet of woe may be, says so! And of course old man Söderman knows, although the agent said nothing of the sort to me.’
“ ‘Didn’t he know?’ I said. ‘Didn’t he say it was a pleasant old summer residence, particularly when it rained, because then there was a delightful little swimming pool in the middle of the living room?’
“Daddy gave me a long look but did not answer. And then we arrived.
“ ‘Hello, Carpenter’s Cottage,’ said Daddy. ‘Allow me to introduce the Melkerson family—Melker and his poor little children.’
“It was a red one-story house, and the moment I saw it I had no doubt at all that it did rain in through the roof. But I liked it. I liked it from the very start. Daddy, on the other hand, was horrified. I don’t know anyone who goes from one extreme to the other as quickly as he does. He stood quite still and stared despondently at the summer cottage he had rented for himself and his children.
“ ‘What are you waiting for?’ I said. ‘Nothing’s going to change it.’
“So he took heart and we all went in.”
Carpenter’s Cottage
“Ask me whenever you want,” said Melker afterwards, “and I will tell you exactly what it was like. A moldy smell, icy cold bed linen, Malin with that little frown between her eyes, which she thinks I never notice, and me with a lump of anxiety in my chest. Had I done something absolutely crazy? But the boys were as happy as squirrels and rushed in and out, I remember that. And I remember the blackbird singing in the whitebeam tree outside the cottage, and the waves lapping against the jetty, and how quiet it was. And I was suddenly filled with wild excitement and thought, ‘No, Melker, you haven’t done anything crazy this time. This is something good, something really wonderful, something tremendously good!’ But, of course, there was that old, musty smell and . . .”
“And then you lit the kitchen stove,” said Malin. “Do you remember that?”
But Melker did not remember . . . he said.
“That stove doesn’t look to me as if it were meant for cooking,” said Malin, letting all her parcels and bags slide onto the kitchen floor. The stove was the first thing she had seen on coming in. It was rusty and looked as if it had not been used since the turn of the century. But Melker was encouraging.
“Those old stoves are fantastically good. It only needs a little handling and I’ll fix it. But let’s look at the rest of the house first.”
There was something of the turn of the century about the whole of Carpenter’s Cottage, a very dilapidated old cottage. The tenants of many summers had not treated it well, but long ago it must have been a cherished and well-cared-for craftsman’s home, for even in decay it had something wonderfully homey about it, which everyone felt.
“It’ll be fun living in this old dump,” said Pelle, and giving Malin a hasty hug he rushed after Johan and Niklas to see what they were finding in the attic.
“Carpenter’s Cottage,” said Malin. “What sort of carpenter lived here, Daddy?”
“A young, happy carpenter who married in 1908 and moved in here with his sweet, young wife and made cupboards, tables and chairs and sofas for her exactly as she wanted them, and kissed her madly and said, ‘It shall be called Carpenter’s Cottage and it shall be our home on earth!’ ”
Malin stared at him. “Do you know all that or are you just making it up?”
Melker smiled a little shyly. “Um . . . yes . . . it’s something I made up, although I shouldn’t wonder if it isn’t true.”
“Well,” said Malin, “at any rate, there must have been someone once long ago who was happy with this furniture and polished and dusted it and spring-cleaned it. Who does the house belong to?”
Melker thought for a moment. “Someone called Mrs. Sjöberg or Mrs. Sjöblom or something like that. An old lady . . .”
“Perhaps she’s your carpenter’s wife,” said Malin, laughing.
“She lives in Norrtälje at present,” said Melker. “A man called Mattsson acts as her agent and rents the place during the summer. It looks to me as if it has been rented mostly to vandals with very destructive little children.”
He looked around at what had once, no doubt, been a very pleasant living room. It was not very beautiful now, but Melker was quite content.
“This,” he said, “this is going to be our sitting room.” And he patted the whitewashed stove. “We’ll sit here in the evenings in front of the wood fire, listening to the storm outside.”
“While our ears flap in the draft,” said Malin and pointed to the window, where one of the panes was broken.
She still had her little anxiety frown between her eyes, but Melker, who had already taken Carpenter’s Cottage to his heart, was not worried about a cracked window.
“Don’t fuss, my dear. Your clever father will put in a new pane of glass tomorrow, don’t you worry!”
Malin did not stop worrying altogether, for she knew Melker and she thought with a mixture of impatience and tenderness: He thinks he will be able to do it, he really does, but he forgets what usually happens. If he tries to put in a new pane of glass it means three more will be broken. I must ask that man Nisse Grankvist if there is anyone who can help me.
Aloud she said, “Now I think it’s time we got down to it. Did you say you were going to light the kitchen stove, Daddy?”
Melker rubbed his hands together, full of business. “Just that! You can’t leave that sort of thing to women and children!”
“Well, then,” said Malin, “the women and children will go to look for the well. I hope there is such a thing!”
She heard the boys tramping around upstairs and shouted to them, “Come on, boys! We must fetch some water!”
The rain had stopped, for the moment at any rate. The evening sun was making brave but futile attempts to break through the clouds, eagerly encouraged by the blackbird in the old whitebeam tree. He went on singing regardless, until he saw the Melkerson children come out into the wet grass with their water pails. Then he stopped.
“Isn’t it wonderful that Carpenter’s Cottage has its own guardian tree!” said Malin and touched the whitebeam with loving tenderness as she passed it.
“What are guardian trees for?” asked Pelle.
“To be loved,” said Malin.
“To climb, can’t you see?” said Johan.
“And that will be the first thing we do tomorrow morning,” Niklas declared. “I wonder if Daddy had to pay extra because there’s a fabulous climbing tree.”
Malin laughed at that, but the boys continued to think of things they thought Melker should pay extra for: the jetty and the rowboat which was moored to it, the attic, which they had already investigated and which was full of exciting things.
“And the well, if it’s fairly good water,” suggested Malin. But that Johan and Niklas did not think could be considered worth paying extra for.
Johan pulled up the first pailful and Pelle gave a shriek of delight. “Look, there’s a tiny frog at the bottom!”
A little groan of anguish came from Malin.
Pelle looked at her in surprise. “What’s the matter? Don’t you like frogs?”
“Not in drinking water,” said Malin.
But Pelle jumped about in excitement. “Oh, can I have it?” he said. Then he turned to Johan. “Do you think Daddy had to pay extra for frogs in the well?”
“Depends on how many there are,” said Johan. “If there are lots, I expect he’s been let off cheap.” He looked at Malin to see how much frog she could stand, but it did not look as if she had heard.
Malin’s thoughts had wandered off in another direction. She was thinking about the cheerful carpenter and his wife. Had they lived happily in their Carpenter’s Cottage? Had they had lots of children, who one by one had begun to climb in the whitebeam and perhaps had fallen into the sea now and then? Were there just as many wild rose bushes in the garden in June then as now? And was the path to the well white with fallen apple blossoms then as now?
Then she suddenly remembered that the cheerful carpenter and his wife had been dreamed up by Melker. But she decided to believe in them all the same. She decided one more thing: However many frogs there were in the well, however many broken windowpanes, however dilapidated Carpenter’s Cottage was, nothing would stop her from being happy here and now. For now it was summer. It should always be a June evening, she thought, dreamy and still, like this one. And quiet. Beyond the jetty the seagulls circled and now and then one of them uttered a wild shriek or two, but otherwise this unbelievable silence, which seemed to tingle in the ears. A thin mist of rain lay over the sea and it was lovely in a melancholy way. Drops of water fell from the bushes and trees and there was the feel of more rain in the air and of earth and salt water and wet grass.
“Sit out in the garden in the sunshine and eat our supper and feel that summer has come”—that was what Melker had imagined doing on their first evening at Carpenter’s Cottage. This was something quite different, but it was still summer. Malin felt that so strongly that tears came to her eyes. But she felt hungry too and she wondered how far Melker had got with the kitchen stove.
He had not got very far.
“Malin, where are you?” he yelled as he always did as soon as anything went wrong. But Malin was out of hearing and he realized reluctantly that he was alone and would have to manage by himself.
“Alone with my God and an iron stove, which is shortly to be heaved out of the window,” he murmured bitterly. But then he had to cough and could not say more. He glared at the stove, which did nothing but angrily billow out smoke at him, although he had done it no harm, apart from lighting a fire in it with great tenderness and care. He raked the fire with the poker and a fresh cloud of smoke billowed out over him. Coughing wildly, he rushed to open all the windows, and just as he had done that the door opened and someone came in. It was the majestic child who had been standing on the jetty when they arrived, the child with the strange name— Korven, or Tjorven, or whatever it was. She looked like a well-fed sausage, thought Melker, round and wholesome. The face which was visible under the slicker was, as far as he could see through the smoke, a particularly clear, charming child’s face, broad and good-humored with a pair of bright, inquiring eyes. She had the enormous dog with her, which seemed even more colossal indoors than out. He seemed to fill the whole kitchen.
Tjorven had stopped on the threshold. “It’s smoking,” she said.
“You don’t say,” replied Melker bitterly. “I hadn’t noticed.” Then he coughed until tears came into his eyes.
“Yes, it is,” Tjorven assured him. “Do you know what? Perhaps there’s a dead owl in the chimney. We had one once.” Then she looked curiously at Melker and smiled broadly. “Your face is black all over.”
Melker coughed. “I’m a kipper, a freshly smoked herring. You can call me Uncle Melker.”
“Oh, is that your name?” said Tjorven.
Melker did not have to answer for luckily Malin and the boys came back at that moment.
“Daddy, we found a frog in the well,” said Pelle eagerly, but then he forgot all about frogs because of the fantastic dog which he had seen on the jetty a short while ago and which was now standing in his own kitchen.
Melker looked hurt. “A frog in the well? Really? That agent said this was a homey little summer residence. But he forgot to tell me that it was a zoo with owls in the chimney and frogs in the well and giant dogs in the kitchen. Johan, go and see if there’s an elk in the bedroom!”
His children laughed as they were expected to—Melker would have been hurt otherwise—but Malin said, “Oh dear, it’s smoking!”
“Are you surprised?” said Melker. He pointed accusingly at the iron stove. “I am going to write to the Ankarsrum Foundry to complain about the stove. I am going to say, ‘You delivered an iron stove in April 1908 which is a disgrace to you. What do you mean by it?’ ”
No one was listening, except Malin. The others had crowded round Tjorven and her dog and were plying her with questions.
Tjorven told them kindly that she lived in the next house to Carpenter’s Cottage. Her father had a shop there, but the house was so large that there was room for them all. “Me and Bosun and Mummy and Daddy and Teddy and Freddy—”
“How old are Teddy and Freddy?” asked Johan eagerly.
“Teddy is thirteen and Freddy is twelve and I am six and Bosun is two. I can’t remember how old Mummy and Daddy are, but I can go home and ask,” she said obligingly.
Johan assured her that this was not necessary. He and Niklas looked at each other happily. Two boys, exactly their own age in the house next door! It was almost too good to be true.
“What in the world are we going to do if we can’t get this stove to work?” wondered Malin.
Melker tore his hair. “I suppose I had better get up on the roof to see if there really is a dead owl in the chimney as that child suggested.”
“Oh dear,” said Malin. “Be careful! Remember, we’ve only got one father.”
But Melker was already outside the door. He had seen that there was a ladder against the wall so that it ought not to be too difficult for him to get up onto the roof. His boys followed him, even Pelle. Not even the world’s largest dog could keep him in the kitchen when Daddy was going to get owls out of the chimney, and Tjorven, who had already selected Pelle as her friend and follower although Pelle did not know it, strolled out after them in a leisurely way to see if anything amusing was going to happen.
It looks as if it might be fun, she thought. Uncle Melker had taken the poker with him to try to get the owl out and he was having to hold it between his teeth while he climbed up the ladder. Exactly like Bosun when he fetches a bone, thought Tjorven. She could not imagine anything more amusing than that, and she laughed quietly to herself under the apple tree where she stood. Then one of the rungs gave way and Uncle Melker slid down a couple of feet. Pelle was frightened, but Tjorven laughed again, silently and heartily.
Then she stopped laughing, for now Uncle Melker was up on the roof and she thought it looked dangerous. Melker thought so too.
“This is a nice house,” he murmured, “but rather high.”
He began to wonder if it were not a little too high to balance on for someone who would soon be fifty.
“If I ever live to be that old,” he muttered, and wobbled along the ridge of the roof with his eyes glued to the chimney. Then he cast a glance downward and almost fell when he saw his sons’ upturned, anxious faces so far below him.
“Hold on, Daddy,” shrieked Johan.
Melker staggered and almost lost his temper. Above him was nothing but the open sky. What was he to hold on to? Then from down below he heard Tjorven’s penetrating voice.
“Tell you what, Uncle Melker, hold on with the crook of the poker!”
But now Melker had happily reached safety next to the chimney. He looked down into it. There was nothing there but murky darkness.
“Hey, Tjorven, you said something about owls—dead ones,” he yelled. “There aren’t any owls up here.”
“Not even an old shriek owl?” called Niklas.
Then Melker shouted angrily, “There aren’t any owls up here! I’ve already said so!” And again he heard Tjorven’s penetrating voice.
“Do you want one? I know where there is one—but he isn’t dead.”
Afterward the atmosphere in the kitchen was a little strained.
“We’ll have to live out of cans for the time being,” said Malin.
They all gazed sadly at the stove which would not behave itself. Just now there seemed nothing they would rather have had than a little warm food.
“It’s a hard life,” said Pelle, because his father used to say that sometimes.
Then there was a knock on the door and in came a strange woman in a red raincoat. She hastily put down an enamel saucepan on the stove and smiled a great big smile at them all.
“Good evening! Oh, there you are, Tjorven! I thought so! How badly it’s smoking,” she said, and before anyone could do anything she went on. “I’d better tell you who I am. My name is Marta Grankvist. We are next-door neighbors. Welcome!” She spoke quickly and smiled the whole time and, before anyone in the family noticed, she had crossed to the stove and was looking up into the chimney. “Have you opened the damper? It would be better if you had!”
Malin burst out laughing, but Melker looked hurt.
“Yes, of course I opened the damper. It was the first thing I did,” he assured them.
“Well, it’s closed now,” said Marta Grankvist. “And now it’s open,” she said as she turned it around. “Probably it was open when you came and Mr. Melkerson shut it.”
“He’s always so careful,” said Malin.
They all laughed, even Melker and most of all Tjorven.
“I know this stove,” said Marta Grankvist, “and it’s first-rate.”
Malin looked at her thankfully. Everything seemed so much better since this wonderful person had come into the kitchen. She was so gay and spread a feeling of security around her. What luck to have her as neighbor, thought Malin.
“I made a little stew to welcome you,” said Marta Grankvist, and pointed to the saucepan.
The tears came to Melker’s eyes. That often happened when people were nice to him and his children.
“To think that there are such kind people!” he stammered.
“Yes, we’re all kind here on Seacrow Island,” laughed Marta Grankvist. “Come on, Tjorven. We must go home now. If there’s anything more you need, just tell me.”
“Well, there is a cracked windowpane in there,” said Malin shyly, “but we can’t ask too much.”
“I’ll send Nisse over later when you have eaten,” said Marta Grankvist.
“Yes, because it’s him who puts in all the windowpanes on Seacrow Island,” said Tjorven, “and it’s me and Stina who break them.”
“What did you say?” said her mother sternly.
“But never on purpose, of course,” Tjorven hastened to explain. “It just happens like that.”
“Stina—I know her,” said Pelle.
“Do you?” said Tjorven, and for some reason she did not seem very pleased.
Pelle had been strangely quiet for a long time. Why bother to talk to people when there was a dog like Bosun in the room? Pelle was hanging around his neck and he whispered in his ear, “I like you.”
And Bosun let himself be hugged. He just looked at Pelle with friendly, rather sad eyes, with a gaze that bared the whole of his steadfast dog’s soul for anyone who cared to see.
But now Tjorven was going home, and where Tjorven went Bosun went too.
“Come on, Bosun,” she said, and then they were gone.
But the kitchen window was open and they all heard Tjorven’s voice as she went past outside.
“Mummy, do you know what? When he walked on the roof, Uncle Melker held on with the poker.”
They heard Marta Grankvist’s reply too. “They come from the town, you see, Tjorven, and I suppose they have to hold on with pokers.”
The Melkersons all looked at one another.
“She’s sorry for us,” said Johan. “She needn’t be.”
But as far as the stove was concerned Marta was quite right. It was splendid and burned so briskly that it soon became glowingly red and spread wonderful warmth through the whole kitchen.
“The blessed fire of the home,” said Melker. “Humans had no home until they discovered fire.”
“And found out about stews,” said Niklas, and began to eat so that he could say no more.
They sat around the kitchen table and ate, and it was a time of deep, comfortable homeyness. The fire roared in the stove and the rain roared outside.
It was raining harder than ever when Johan and Niklas went to bed. Unwillingly they left the warm kitchen and went up to their attic, which was cold and damp and very unpleasant in spite of the fire in the stove. But Pelle was already asleep there, wrapped in blankets and with a warm cap on his head, pulled well down.
Johan stood shivering at the window and tried to see over to the Grankvists, their neighbors, but the rain was so heavy that it was like looking through a dense curtain of streaming water. Shop—he could make out the sign. And the house—that was red, just like their own cottage, and the garden sloped down toward the sea and there was a boat jetty just like their own.
“Tomorrow we may be able to make friends with those boys who . . .” said Johan. But then he suddenly stopped, for something was happening over at their neighbors’ house. A door opened and someone came running out into the rain. It was a girl in a bathing suit, and her fair hair streamed behind her as she galloped down toward the jetty.
“Come here, Niklas. Something interesting for you to see . . .” said Johan. Then he stopped again, for now the door was opening again and another girl came out. She was in a swimsuit too, and she galloped down toward the jetty after the other one. The first girl was already there. She dove in and as soon as her nose was above water again she shrieked, “Freddy, did you bring the soap?”
Johan and Niklas looked silently at each other.
“Those are the ‘boys’ we were going to see tomorrow,” said Niklas at last.
“Oh dear,” said Johan.
They lay awake for a long time that evening.
“You can’t possibly get to sleep until your feet have thawed at least a little bit,” said Niklas.
Johan agreed. Then they were silent for a long time.
“Well, at any rate it’s stopped raining now,” said Johan finally.
“No, it hasn’t,” said Niklas. “It’s only just begun over here in my bed.”
Either you like it when it rains in through the ceiling or you don’t. . . .
Niklas did not exactly like it dripping down on his bed but it didn’t bother him too much, for he was only twelve years old and rather easygoing by nature. On the other hand both he and Johan realized that Malin would have a sleepless night if they reported this misery to her just now. So they moved Niklas’s bed very quietly to one side and put a pail to catch the drips from the ceiling.
“That noise makes you sleepy,” mumbled Johan when he had got back to bed again. “Plop, plop!”
Downstairs Malin sat blissfully ignorant of the plopping and wrote in her diary, for she wanted to remember the first day on Seacrow Island.
“I am sitting here alone,” she finally wrote, “but it feels as if someone is watching me. Not a person. Just the house—Carpenter’s Cottage! Carpenter’s Cottage, do please like us. You’d better make up your mind to it, because you are going to have to put up with us. You don’t know who we are yet, you say? I’ll tell you. That tall, gangling fellow who is lying in bed in the little room by the kitchen and spouting poetry aloud to send himself to sleep is Melker. You must guard against him, particularly if you see him with a hammer or a saw or some other tool in his hand. Otherwise he is very nice and quite harmless. As for the three scruffy little boys in one of the attics, I hope you are fond of children and are used to all sorts of goings-on. I suppose the carpenter’s children could not always have been so very good. The person who is going to clean your windows and scrub your floors with love, but with more and more roughened hands, is yours truly, Malin. Although I’ll make the others help too, you can be sure of that. We’ll all try to make everything look its best here. Good night, Carpenter’s Cottage, we’d better go to sleep now. A cold attic is waiting for me too—but you can be sure of my staying down here a little longer in this nice warm kitchen with its glowing range, for here I feel in touch with your warmly beating heart.”
Then Malin suddenly noticed how late it was. A new day had already begun, a day in which the rain had stopped so that it would be bright and clear, as she saw when she went to the window. She stood there for a long time.
“What a wonderful kitchen window,” she murmured. And she knew that she had never seen anything she liked better than what she saw outside. The still water in the light of dawn, the jetty, the gray stones on the shore, everything. She opened the window and heard the bird song which jubilantly wafted in over her. It issued from a host of small throats, but above them all she could hear the blackbird in the whitebeam. He had just wakened and was full of the joy of life. And poor Melker in the little room by the kitchen was still not asleep, but he yawned, Malin could hear that. He was still reciting poetry in a loud voice. She felt that he was happy.
Row, Row to Fish Island
“IT FEELS as if we have lived on Seacrow Island all our lives,” wrote Malin
a week later. “I already know all the people who live here. First of all there
are Nisse and Marta, who keep the shop. I know that they are the world’s
kindest (especially him) and the world’s most capable (especially her)
people.
“He looks after the shop. She looks after the shop, too, but she also deals
with the telephone exchange, the post office, her children, Bosun, and the
household in general, and in addition whenever anyone on the island needs
help she goes and helps them. It was typical of Marta to come to us with a
hot stew on our first evening—‘Just because you all looked so lost,’ as she
said.
“What else do I know? That old man Söderman’s stomach rumbles
terribly—he told me so himself—and he is going to the doctor to get
something for it.
“And I know that Westerman does not look after his land properly, and
spends his time fishing and hunting. Mrs. Westerman told me all about it.
“Marta and Nisse, old man Söderman, the Westermans—are there any
others? Yes, the Janssons, of course. They have a farm and we get our milk
from them. It is one of our country pleasures to walk through the cow field
in the evening to get milk from the farm.
“The island also has a schoolmaster, a young man called Björn Sjöblom.
I met him when I went for the milk on Wednesday evening, and he seemed
to be a nice, honest young man, absolutely straightforward and frank.
“And the children here, thank God for them! Pelle plays with Tjorven
and Stina, especially with Tjorven. I think there is a little rivalry about him
going on between them. Something on the lines of ‘I saw him first.’ But
Tjorven has taken him over completely, I expect. Anything else would be
impossible. She is a remarkable child, everyone’s darling, although no one
really knows why. The atmosphere brightens wherever her good-natured,
funny face appears. Daddy insists that she has something of the eternal
child about her, confident and warm and sunny. She is the whole of
Seacrow Island’s Tjorven, wandering about all the paths and into all the
cottages. Wherever she goes she is greeted with ‘Why, there’s our Tjorven!’
just as if she were the nicest thing that could happen at that moment. When
she is angry—and that happens sometimes, for she’s no angel—it is as if
some natural force has been let loose, and then there’s thunder and
lightning, no mistake! But it soon passes.
“Stina is a quite different type. A funny, cute little child, with a
remarkable toothless charm. I can’t think how she managed it, but she has
knocked out all her front teeth at the same time, and it gives her a wild,
picturesque look when she laughs. She is the island’s greatest storyteller,
fantastically persistent. Even Daddy, who is fond of all children and likes to
talk to them, has already become a little wary of Stina, and often makes a
slight detour when he sees her coming, although he denies it.
“ ‘On the contrary,’ he said the other day, ‘it’s one of the best things I
know when Stina comes and tells me stories—because it’s such a relief
when she finishes!’
“Johan and Niklas lead a happy and contented existence with Teddy and
Freddy, who are a pair of little Amazons, although they are very charming. I
don’t see much of my brothers nowadays, especially when it comes to
washing up. I just hear in passing that ‘We’re going out fishing,’ ‘We’re
going swimming,’ ‘We’re going to build a hut,’ ‘We’re going to make a
raft,’ or ‘We’re going to the island to lay nets.’ This last is what they are
doing this evening. Tomorrow they will be going out to take them up, they
tell me. At five o’clock. If they ever manage to wake up that early.”
They did. They woke at five o’clock, dressed quickly and ran down to the
Grankvist jetty, where Teddy and Freddy were waiting with their boat.
Bosun had woken up early too. He stood there on the jetty, looking
reproachfully at Teddy and Freddy. Were they really going out to sea
without taking him with them?
“Oh, well, come on,” said Freddy. “Where should a bosun be if not in a
boat? But you know Tjorven will be furious when she wakes up.”
It seemed as if Bosun hesitated for a moment when he heard Tjorven’s
name, but only for a moment. Then he jumped softly down into the boat,
which shuddered under his great weight.
Freddy patted him. “Perhaps you think you’ll get home before Tjorven
wakes up, but you’re wrong there, little Bosun.” Then she took the oars and
began to row.
“Dogs can’t reason like that,” said Johan. “Bosun doesn’t think anything
at all. He just jumped into the boat because he saw you and Teddy in it.”
Both Teddy and Freddy declared that Bosun could think and feel like a
human being.
“But better,” said Teddy. “I bet there’s never been an unkind thought in that dog’s skull,” she said, and caressed the giant head.
“What about this skull then?” asked Johan and gave Teddy’s blond head a tap.
“It’s chock-full of terrible thoughts sometimes,” Teddy confessed. “Freddy’s kinder. She’s much more like Bosun.”
They had to row for almost an hour to reach Fish Island, and they passed the time talking about the thoughts inside their various skulls.
“Now, Niklas, what do you think about when you see something like this, for example?” asked Teddy and made a sweeping gesture which took in the whole beautiful newly awakened morning with the white summer clouds in the sky and the glint of the sun on the sea.
“I think about food,” said Niklas.
Teddy and Freddy stared at him. “About food? Why?”
“Well, that’s what I think about most of the time,” said Niklas with a grin, and Johan agreed with him.
“Yes, there are only two other thoughts at most slopping around in there,” he said, tapping Niklas’s forehead.
“But thoughts are as thick as a shoal of minnows inside Johan’s head,” said Niklas. “Sometimes they come tumbling out of his ears when it gets too crowded. It’s because he reads too many books.”
“I do too,” said Freddy. “Thoughts may suddenly come bursting out of my head as well. I wonder how it will feel!”
“I think different thoughts when I am Teodora from when I am Teddy,” said Teddy.
Johan looked at her in surprise. “Teodora?”
“Why, didn’t you know? My real name’s Teodora, and Freddy’s is Frederika.”
“That was Daddy’s idiotic suggestion,” declared Freddy. “Mummy turned it into Teddy and Freddy.”
“My Teodora thoughts are like a dream, they are so lovely,” said Teddy. “When they come to me I write poems and decide to go to Africa to work among the lepers, or perhaps to be an astronaut or the first woman on the moon or something like that.”
Niklas looked at Freddy, who was working hard at the oars. “And what are your Frederika thoughts then?”
“Don’t have any,” said Freddy. “I’m Freddy all the time, but my Freddy thoughts are fairly sound. Would you like to hear the latest?”
Johan and Niklas were curious. Of course they wanted to hear the latest Freddy thought.
“It’s this,” said Freddy. “Can’t either of those lazy boys row for a bit?”
Johan quickly relieved her of the oars, but he was a little anxious as to how he would get along. He and Niklas had rowed in the evenings in the old boat belonging to Carpenter’s Cottage. They had practised in complete secrecy so that they wouldn’t feel too awkward when they were in a boat with Teddy and Freddy.
“We do know something about boats, even though we aren’t island dwellers,” Johan had assured the two girls when they had first met, and Freddy had said a little scornfully, “You’ve carved bark boats, have you?”
Freddy and Teddy had both been born on Seacrow Island so they were islanders through and through. They knew almost everything about boats and weather and wind, and how to fish with every kind of net and line. They could clean herrings and skin perch. They could splice ropes and tie knots and row the boat with one oar just as well as they could with two. They knew where the perch grounds were and the reed beds where you could find a pike if you were lucky. They could recognize all the sea birds’ eggs and calls, and they knew their way around the confusing world of island reefs and creeks which made up the archipelago around Seacrow Island better than they knew their mother’s kitchen.
They did not boast about their knowledge. Apparently they thought it was something you were born with if you were an island girl, just as a duck is born with webbed feet.
“Aren’t you afraid of growing fins?” their mother used to ask them, when she needed help with the telephone exchange or in the shop, and as usual had to fetch her daughters out of the sea. They were there in all weathers, and they moved in the water just as easily as they jumped about on the jetties or climbed up the masts of the old shipwrecked trawlers in the creek.
Johan had blisters on his hands when at last they reached the island. They smarted, but he was happy, for he had rowed well. It was quite enough to make him happy and excited, almost too much so.
“Poor boy, he’ll be just like his father,” Melker used to say. “Up and down all the time.”
Just now Johan was very “up.” All four were. If Bosun was, he hid it very well. He wore the same melancholy look as always, but perhaps he was happy somewhere deep down in his dog’s soul, as he lay comfortably on the warm rock with his back against the gray, sun-warmed wall of an old boathouse. From where he lay he could see the children in the boat, taking up the nets. They shrieked and shouted so much that Bosun became anxious. Were they in danger and needing help? It sounded as if they were, and Bosun could not possibly know that they were simply shrieking with delight over their catch.
“Eight perch!” said Niklas. “Malin won’t like this. She said that she wanted to have perch with mustard sauce for supper tonight, but not for a whole week!”
Johan grew more and more excited. “Oh, wonderful!” he shrieked. “Who can possibly say that fishing for perch isn’t fun?”
“Only the perch,” said Freddy quietly.
For a short moment Johan was sorry for the perch, and he knew someone who would have been even sorrier for them if he had been there. “It’s lucky we haven’t got Pelle with us,” said Johan. “He wouldn’t have liked all this.”
Bosun up on his rock cast one last anxious look toward the boat and the children, but he realized that they did not need his help, so he yawned and let his head sink down between his paws. Now he could sleep.
And if it was true, as Teddy and Freddy insisted, that Bosun could think and feel like a human being, perhaps he wondered before he fell asleep what Tjorven was doing at home and whether she was awake yet.
She was. Very much awake. When she discovered that Bosun was not beside her bed as usual she began to wonder. And when she had wondered for a while she realized what had happened, and then she was extremely angry, exactly as Freddy had foreseen she would be.
She climbed crossly out of bed. Bosun was her dog. No one had the right to take him out to sea. But Teddy and Freddy were always doing it—and without even asking her. It couldn’t go on like this.
Tjorven marched straight to her parents’ bedroom to complain. Her parents were asleep, but Tjorven burst in anyway, went straight to her father and began to shake him.
“Daddy, do you know what?” she said furiously. “Teddy and Freddy have taken Bosun out to the island with them.”
Nisse opened an unwilling eye and looked at the alarm clock. “Must you come at six o’clock in the morning to tell me that?”
“Yes, I couldn’t come before,” said Tjorven. “I’ve only just found out about it.”
Her mother moved sleepily. “Don’t make such a fuss, Tjorven,” she murmured. It would soon be time for Marta to get up and begin a new day of hard work. This last half hour before the alarm clock rang was as precious to her as gold, but Tjorven did not understand that.
“I’m not making a fuss. I’m just angry,” she said.
No one, unless they were stone deaf, could go on sleeping in a room where Tjorven was being angry. Marta felt herself becoming grimly wide awake and she said impatiently, “What in the world are you making this fuss about? I suppose Bosun’s not allowed to have a little fun now and again!”
Then it burst out. “But what about me!” shrieked Tjorven. “Aren’t I ever going to have a little fun? It’s not fair!”
Nisse groaned and buried his head in the pillow. “Go away, Tjorven. Go somewhere else if you’re going to be angry—somewhere where we can’t hear it.”
Tjorven stood in silence. She was quiet for a few seconds and her parents began to hope that the silence would continue. They didn’t understand that Tjorven had only just begun.
“Well, all right then!” she shouted at last. “I will go away. I’ll go and never come back again! But you’ll be sorry when you start to moan about not having your Tjorven any more.”
Then Marta understood that this was a serious matter and she stretched out her hand toward Tjorven in an attempt to calm her down. “Surely you won’t disappear altogether, little Bumble?”
“Yes, I will. That’ll be the best thing,” said Tjorven. “Then you can sleep and sleep all you want.”
Marta explained to her that they wanted their own little Tjorven always—but perhaps not at six o’clock in the morning in their bedroom. But Tjorven would not listen. She stormed out, slamming the door behind her.
She went out into the garden in her nightgown. “Go on, sleep, then!” she muttered, and there were tears of bitterness in her eyes.
But then it began to dawn on her that she had woken up too early. The day seemed very new. She could feel it in the air and in the dewy grass that chilled her bare feet and she could see that the sun was not yet where it ought to be. Only the seagulls were awake and screaming as usual. One of them sat at the top of the flagpole and looked as if he owned the whole of Seacrow Island.
Tjorven did not feel quite so furious now. She stood there thoughtfully, pulling up little bits of grass with her toes. It annoyed her when she had behaved so childishly. Run away from home—only babies did that sort of thing, and Daddy and Mummy knew it as well as she did. But it would be impossible to turn back now, not just like that. There must be some honorable way of getting out of the difficulty. She thought hard and pulled up a great many tufts of grass before she finally realized what she must do. Then she ran to her parents’ open bedroom window and poked in her head. Her parents were dressing and were as wide awake as she could wish.
“I’m going to be Söderman’s maid,” announced Tjorven. She thought it was a very good suggestion. Now Mummy and Daddy would understand that this was what she had meant all the time and nothing as childish as running away.
Söderman lived alone in his cottage down by the sea. And he often complained that he had no help in the house.
“Can’t you be my maid, Tjorven?” he had said to her once. But Tjorven had not had time then. What a good thing that she had remembered it now. You wouldn’t need to remain a maid for very long. Then you could come home to Mummy and Daddy again and be their own Tjorven as if nothing had ever happened.
Nisse stretched out a fatherly hand through the window and stroked Tjorven’s cheek. “So you’re not angry any longer, little Bumble?”
Tjorven shook her head shyly. “No.”
“Well, that’s good,” said Nisse. “It’s no good losing your temper, you know, Tjorven. It doesn’t get you anywhere.”
Tjorven agreed.
“Do you think that Söderman really wants a maid?” asked Marta. “He’s got Stina.”
Tjorven had not thought of this. It was last winter when Söderman had asked her and then there had been no Stina, for then she had been living in town with her mother. Tjorven thought, but not for long. “A maid has to be strong,” she said, “and I’m that.”
And then she set off at a run to tell Söderman about his luck as soon as possible. But her mother called her back.
“Maids can’t go to work in their nightgowns,” she said, and Tjorven understood that.
Söderman was behind his cottage sorting his nets when Tjorven at last appeared.
“They have to be strong, tra-la-la,” she sang. “Fantastically strong, tra-lala.” She interrupted herself when she saw Söderman. “Söderman, do you know what?” said Tjorven. “Guess who’s going to wash up for you today?”
Before he had had time to guess a head popped out of the open window behind him. “I am,” said Stina.
“No,” Tjorven answered her, “you’re not strong enough.”
It took quite a long time to convince Stina of this, but at last she had to give in.
Tjorven had a very hazy idea of the duties of a maid. Such a being had never set foot on Seacrow Island as yet, but she believed that they must be strong, iron-hard people, something like the icebreakers which came when the ice had to be broken up for the boat in winter. She began to wash up with just about the same sort of strength in Söderman’s kitchen.
“You have to break something,” she assured Stina, as Stina exclaimed when a couple of plates fell to the ground.
Tjorven emptied a liberal supply of soap into the basin so that everything became one glorious mass of froth. She washed up energetically and sang so loudly that her voice traveled as far as Söderman, while Stina with a sour face sat on a chair, watching. She was the lady of the house, Tjorven had declared.
“They do not need to be so strong. Not so fantastically strong at any rate,” sang Tjorven. Then she suddenly announced, “I’m going to make pancakes too.”
“How do you do that?” Stina wondered.
“You just stir and stir,” said Tjorven. She had finished the washing up and she quickly emptied the basin out of the window. But underneath the window Matilda, Söderman’s cat, lay sunning herself. She jumped up with a terrified yowl and rushed through the kitchen door, enveloped in a cloud of froth.
“You shouldn’t wash cats,” said Stina sternly.
“It was an accident,” said Tjorven. “But if you do wash them you have to dry them too.”
She took the dish towel and they both began to dry Matilda and calm her. It was clear that Matilda thought she was being shamefully treated because she yowled angrily now and again and afterward she went off to sleep.
“Where’s the flour?” asked Tjorven when she finally got around to thinking about her pancakes again. “Get it out!”
Stina obediently climbed up on a chair and pulled out the flour tin from the cupboard. It was difficult because she had to stretch to reach it and it was heavy. And really Tjorven was right; Stina was not strong enough.
“Help! I’m dropping it!” she shrieked. The flour tin tipped in her weak hands so that most of the flour showered on Matilda, who had just fallen asleep on the floor below.
“Looks like a different cat,” said Tjorven, amazed.
Normally Matilda was black, but the animal that now flew shrieking out of the door was as white as a ghost and its eyes were wild.
“She’ll frighten the life out of every cat on the whole of Seacrow Island,” said Tjorven. “Poor Matilda, she’s really having a bad day.”
The raven, Hop-ashore Charlie, was shrieking in his cage; it sounded as if he was laughing at Matilda’s misfortunes. Stina opened the cage and let the raven out.
“I’m teaching him to speak,” she said to Tjorven. “I’m going to teach him to say ‘Go to blazes.’ ”
“Why?” asked Tjorven.
“Because Pelle’s grandmother can say it,” said Stina. “And her parrot can too.”
Then they saw someone standing in the doorway, and it was none other than Pelle himself.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Making pancakes,” said Tjorven. “But Matilda has run away with almost all the flour, so I don’t think we can do much.”
Pelle came in. He felt at home in Söderman’s cottage as all children did. It was the smallest cottage on the island, only a kitchen and a little bedroom, but there were so many things to look at, not only Hop-ashore Charlie, although for Pelle he was the most important, but a stuffed eider duck and a couple of bundles of old comics and a strange picture of people in black clothes driving coffins on sleighs over the ice. Cholera is raging, said the caption underneath. And then Söderman had a bottle with a whole sailing ship inside it. Pelle never tired of looking at it, and Stina never tired of showing it to him.
“How did they get the boat into the bottle?” Pelle wondered.
“There, you see!” said Stina. “Your grandma can’t do that!”
“No, because it’s one of the most difficult things to do,” said Tjorven. “Look at me,” she added.
And then they forgot the ship in the bottle as they looked at Tjorven. She was standing in the middle of the floor and on her head sat the raven. It was a wonderful fairy-tale sight which struck them quite dumb.
Tjorven felt the bird’s claws in her thick hair and she smiled happily. “Just think if he lays an egg in my hair!”
But Pelle soon dashed her hopes. “He can’t. It has to be a female for that, you know.”
“But,” said Tjorven, “if he can learn to say ‘Go to blazes’ then he can learn to lay an egg.”
Pelle looked longingly at the raven and said with a sigh, “How I wish I had an animal. I’ve only got some wasps.”
“Where are they?” asked Stina.
“At home at Carpenter’s Cottage there’s a wasps’ nest right under the eaves. Daddy’s been stung already.”
Stina smiled a contented, toothless smile. “I’ve got lots of animals—a raven and a cat and two little lambs.”
“But they aren’t yours,” said Tjorven. “They belong to your grandfather.”
“I have them as mine when I’m here with him,” said Stina. “So there.”
Tjorven’s face clouded over and she said gloomily, “I’ve got a dog. If only those beasts would bring him home.”
Her Bosun! At that moment he was wandering around the island entirely on his own. And those so-called beasts had not even noticed he was gone.
They were having a wonderful morning. “Let’s swim first,” Teddy had said and so they did. The water was as it always is in the month of June. Only lunatics of twelve and thirteen would throw themselves voluntarily into anything so bitterly cold. But they were lunatics and they did not die of it. On the contrary they thrived on it. They threw themselves into the water from the rocks and dove and swam and played and raced in the water until they were quite blue with cold. Then they lit their campfire in a sheltered spot and sat around it and felt in their blood all the Indians, settlers, headhunters, and Stone Age men that have ever sat around campfires as long as the human race has lived on the earth. They were fishers and hunters now, living the free life of the wild country, and they grilled their prey over the glowing ashes while seamews and seagulls shrieked above them and tried to tell them that all fish on the island were really theirs.
But the trespassers stayed there regardless, eating their delicious fish and making the most appalling noise. “Craak, craak, craak,” they croaked like cormorants, for they had just formed a secret club, the secret name of which was to be the Four Seacrows, and it was to remain a secret forever. But their war cries were not secret. All the seamews and seagulls heard it and did not like it. “Craak, craak, craak!” echoed over the islets, islands, and creeks, but no one heard anything else for the rest was secret.
The glow from their fire turned into ashes. Then Freddy caught sight of a drifting boat out in the bay. It was so far away that they could scarcely see it, but it was empty, they could make out that much.
“How some people tie up their boats!” said Johan.
Then Teddy stood up as a grim thought occurred to her. “You can say that again,” she said when she had taken a look. In the little creek into which they had dragged their boat there was no boat to be seen. Teddy looked sternly at Johan. “Yes, you can say that again. How do you tie up a boat actually?”
It was Johan who had said that he would see to mooring the boat—and he had added that it would be done properly.
“Isn’t it odd how a boy can be so exactly like his father?” Malin used to say of Johan. And it certainly was odd.
They could still see the boat far out in the sunshine. Freddy stood up on a stone and waved to it with both hands. “Good-by, good-bye, little boat. Give our love to Finland!”
Johan had become very red in the face. He looked shamefacedly at the others. “It’s all my fault. Are you very angry with me?”
“No,” said Teddy. “That sort of thing can happen to anyone.”
“But how are we going to get away from here?” wondered Niklas, trying not to sound as anxious as he felt.
Teddy shrugged her shoulders. “I suppose we will have to wait until someone passes. Although that may be a couple of weeks,” she said. It was a temptation to frighten everyone just a little.
“Bosun will starve to death by then,” said Johan. He knew the vast amount Tjorven’s dog could eat.
That made them think of Bosun. Where was he? They had not seen him for a long time, it suddenly occurred to them.
Freddy shouted for him but he did not come. They all shouted so that the seagulls flew away terrified, but no dog appeared.
“No dog and no boat. Tell me what else we haven’t got,” said Teddy.
“No food,” said Niklas.
But then Freddy pointed triumphantly to her knapsack, which she had put in a cleft in the rock.
“We’ve got that, though! A whole knapsack full of sandwiches! And seven fish!”
“Eight,” said Johan.
“No,” Freddy reminded him, “we’ve eaten one.”
“No, there are eight,” said Johan. “You can count me in. The biggest silly fish in the whole archipelago.”
They all stood there not knowing what to do next. Something of the glamour of the day began to fade and now they began to long to get home.
“Besides,” said Teddy, and she suddenly looked anxious, “besides, I think there’s a mist coming up out there.”
But at that very moment they heard the friendly dunk, dunk, dunk of a motorboat out on the sea, very faint at first but getting stronger and stronger.
“Look, it’s Björn’s boat,” said Freddy, and both she and Teddy began to jump and shriek like wild things. “And, look, he’s towing our boat!”
“Who’s Björn?” asked Niklas while they waited, watching the motorboat coming nearer and nearer.
Teddy waved to the man in the boat. He was a sunburned young man with a pleasant rugged appearance. He looked like a fisherman, because the boat he had was the type that real fishermen used.
“Hi, Björn,” shrieked Teddy, “you’ve come at just the right time! He’s our schoolmaster,” she explained to Niklas.
“Do you call him Björn?” said Johan in surprise.
“That’s his name,” Teddy assured him. “We’re friends with him, of course.”
The boat slowed and came in toward the rock on which the children stood.
“Here’s your old boat,” yelled Björn and threw the line to Teddy. “Just how do you tie up these days?”
Teddy laughed. “In lots of different ways.”
“Oh, is that so?” said Björn. “Well, I don’t think you should use this last way again. You can’t be sure I’ll always come along to pick up all your lost things.” Then he added, “Get off home immediately! There’s a fog coming up and you’ll have to hurry if you want to get home before it.”
“And what about you?” asked Freddy.
“I’m going to Har Island,” said Björn, “otherwise I could tow you.”
And then he left them and they heard the dunk, dunk, dunk of the motorboat disappearing in the distance.
If Bosun had been there they would have set off immediately, and then Melker would not have needed the tranquilizers that evening. But life consists of great and small events and they hang together as closely as peas in a pod. And one single little fish can cause a great deal of bother, forcing grown men like Melker to take tranquilizers.
It was not so small, that little fish. It was a tough old fish weighing about two pounds with which Bosun on his wanderings round the island had become acquainted. The acquaintanceship consisted of glaring at each other for just over an hour, Bosun on a rock on the shore, the fish in shallow water close by. Bosun had never before met such a glance as he now got from those cold fish eyes, and he could not drag himself away from it. And the fish looked as if it was thinking, Don’t go on staring, you big idiot. You’ll never frighten me. I’ll stay here as long as I like!
But many precious moments were wasted with that fish. It was a long time before dog and children and fish and nets and bathing suits and knapsacks were at last collected into the boat. Meanwhile, the fog rolled closer and closer. Huge, formless banks of fog came in from the sea and the children were not far from their island before they sat wrapped in fog as if in a damp, gray, woolly blanket.
“It’s like a dream,” said Johan.
“Not the sort of dream I like,” said Niklas.
Somewhere, far away, they heard the tooting of a foghorn. Otherwise, all was silent. Whether Niklas liked it or not, it was as silent as a dream.
Lost in the Fog
AT HOME on Seacrow Island the sun was still shining and Melker was painting garden furniture. The furniture had once been white but now the paint was peeling and gray. “How unfair!” he complained to Malin. “It ought to be fixed up immediately.” And, after all, nowadays painting was so easy. No need to mess with brushes and paint. You only needed a handy little spray—and besides it was so quick, he added.
“You think so?” said Malin.
On their arrival she had asked Nisse Grankvist at the shop to refuse to sell Melker various things he might ask for, but which he ought not to be allowed to have.
(FORMAT FOR THIS BOOK - chapter title: largest and italicized, with one space above and one space below, both largest size. chapter contents: medium, and after you've already moved on to the next chapter, come back and make everything "normal" instead of paragraph, but you have to have already moved on to the next chapter and put down a paragraph from that one.)
