"What pleases you, mother" asked Gertrude.
"See for yourself, only be very quiet!"
Then Gertrude put her eye to the keyhole. Inside, benches and desks had been pushed against the wall, and in the centre of the schoolroom, amid a cloud of dust, Ingmar Ingmarsson was whirling round, with a chair in his arms.
"Has Ingmar gone mad!" exclaimed Gertrude.
"Ssh!" warned the mother, drawing her away from the door and down the stairs. "He must be trying to teach himself to dance. I suppose he wants to learn how, so he"ll be able to dance at the party," she added, with smirk. Then Mother Stina began to shake with laughter.
"He came near frightening the life out of me," she confessed.
"Thank G.o.d he can be young for once!" When she had got over her fit of laughing, she said: "You"re not to say a word about this to anybody, do you hear!"
Sat.u.r.day evening the four young people stood on the steps of the schoolhouse, ready to start. Mother Stina looked them over approvingly. The boys had on yellow buckskin breeches and green homespun waistcoats, with bright red sleeves. Gunhild and Gertrude wore stripe skirts bordered with red cloth, and white blouses, with big puffed sleeves; flowered kerchiefs were crossed over their bodices, and they had on ap.r.o.ns that were as flowered as their kerchiefs.
As the four of them walked along in the twilight of a perfect spring evening, nothing was said for quite a long time. Now and then Gertrude would cast a side glance at Ingmar thinking of how he had worked to learn to dance. Whatever the reason--whether it was the memory of Ingmar"s weird dancing, or the antic.i.p.ation of attending a regular dance--her thoughts became light and airy. She managed to keep just a little behind the others, that she might muse undisturbed. She had made up quite little story about how the trees had come by their new leaves.
It happened in this way, she thought: the trees, after sleeping peacefully and quietly the whole winter, suddenly began to dream.
They dreamt that summer had come. They seemed to see the fields dressed in green gra.s.s and waving corn; the hawthorn shimmered with new-blown roses; brooks and ponds were spread with the leaves of the water-lily; the stones were hidden under the creeping tendrils of the twin flower, and the forest carpet was thick with star flowers. And amid all this that was clothed and decked out, the trees saw themselves standing gaunt and naked. They began to feel ashamed of their nakedness, as often happens in dreams.
In their confusion and embarra.s.sment, the trees fancied that all the rest were making fun of them. The b.u.mblebees came buzzingly up to mock at them, the magpies laughed them to scorn, while the other birds sang taunting ditties.
"Where shall we find something to put on?" asked the trees in despair; but they had not a leaf to their names on either twig or branch, and their distress was so terrible that it awakened them.
And glancing about, drowsy like, their first thought was: "Thank G.o.d it was only a dream! There is certainly no summer hereabout.
It"s lucky for us that we haven"t overslept."
But as they looked around more carefully, they noticed that the streams were clear of ice, gra.s.s blades and crocuses beeped out from their beds of soil, and under their own ark the sap was running. "Spring is here at all events," said the trees, "so it was well we awoke. We have slept long enough for this year; now it"s high time we were getting dressed."
So the birches hurriedly put on some sticky pale green leaves, and the maples a few green flowers. The leaves of the alder came forth in such a crinkly and unfinished state that they looked quite malformed, but the slender leave: of the willow slipped out of their buds smooth and shapely from the start.
Gertrude smiled to herself as she walked along and thought this up. She only wished she had been alone with Ingmar so she could have told it all to him.
They had a long way to go to get to the Ingmar Farm--more than an hour"s tramp. They followed the riverside; all the while Gertrude kept walking a little behind the others. Her fancy had begun to play around the red glow of the sunset, which flamed now above the river, now above the strand. Gray alder and green birch were enveloped by the shimmer, flashing red one instant, the next taking on their natural hues.
Suddenly Ingmar stopped, and broke off in the middle of something he was telling.
"What"s the matter, Ingmar?" asked Gunhild.
Ingmar, pale as a ghost, stood gazing at something in front of him.
The others saw only a wide plain covered with grain fields and encircled by a range of hills, and in the centre of the plain a big farmstead. At that moment the glow of sunset rested upon the farm; all the window pans glittered, and the old roofs and walls had a bright red glimmer about them.
Gertrude promptly stepped up to the others, and after a quick glance at Ingmar, she drew Gunhild and Gabriel aside.
"We mustn"t question him about anything around here," she said under her breath. "That place over yonder is the Ingmar Farm. The sight of it has probably made him sad. He hasn"t been at home in two years--not since he lost all his money."
The road which they had taken was the one leading past the farm and down to Strong Ingmar"s cabin, at the edge of the forest.
Soon Ingmar came running after, calling, "Hadn"t we better go this way instead?" Then he led them in on a bypath that wound around the edge of the forest, and by which they could reach the cabin without having to cross the farm proper.
"You know Strong Ingmar, I suppose?" said Gabriel.
"Oh, yes," young Ingmar replied. "We used to be good friends in the old days."
"Is it true that he understands magic?" asked Gunhild.
"Well--no!" Ingmar answered rather hesitatingly, as if half-believing it himself.
"You may as well tell us what you know," persisted Gunhild.
"The schoolmaster says we mustn"t believe in such things."
"The schoolmaster can"t prevent a person seeing what he sees and believing what he knows," Gabriel declared.
Ingmar wanted to tell them all about his home; memories of his childhood came back to him at sight of the old place. "I can tell you about something that I saw once," he said. "It happened one winter when father and Strong Ingmar were up in the forest working at the kiln. When Christmas came around, Strong Ingmar offered to tend the kiln by himself, so that father could come home for the holidays. The day before Christmas, mother sent me up to the forest with a basket of good fare for Strong Ingmar. I started early, so as to be there before the midday dinner hour. When I came up, father and Strong Ingmar had just finished drawing a kiln, and all the charcoal had been spread on the ground to cool. It was still smoking and, where the coals lay thickest, it was ready to take fire, which is something that must not happen. To prevent that is the most important part of the entire process of charcoal making.
Therefore, father said as soon as he saw me: "I"m afraid you"ll have to go home alone, little Ingmar. I can"t leave Strong Ingmar with all this work." Strong Ingmar walked along the side of the heap where the smoke rose thickest. "You can go, Big Ingmar," he said. "I"ve managed worse things than this." In a little while the smoke grew less. "Now let"s see what kind of a Christmas treat Brita has sent me," said Strong Ingmar, taking the basket from me.
"Come, let me show you what a fine house we"ve got here." Then he took me into the hut where he and father lived. At the back was a rude stone, and the other walls were made up of branches of spruce and blackthorn. "Well, my lad, you never guessed that your father had a royal castle like this in the forest, eh?" said Strong Ingmar. "Here are walls that keep out both storm and frost," he laughed, thrusting his arm clean through the spruce branches.
"Soon father came in laughing. He and the old man were black with soot and reeking with the odour of sour charcoal smoke. But never had I seen father so happy and full of fun. Neither of them could stand upright in the hut, and the only furniture in the place were two bunks made of spruce twigs and a couple of flat stones on which they had built a fire; yet they were perfectly contented. They sat down, side by side, on one of the bunks, and opened the basket. "I don"t know whether you can have any of this," said Strong Ingmar to father, "for it"s my Christmas dinner, you know." "Seeing it"s Christmas Eve you must be a good to me," said father. "At a time like this I suppose it would never do to let a poor old charcoal burner starve," Strong Ingmar then said.
"They carried on like that all the time they were eating. Mother had sent a little brandy along with the food. I marvelled that people could be so happy over food and drink. "You"ll have to tell your mother that Big Ingmar has eaten up everything," said the old man, "and that she will have to send more to-morrow." "So I see,"
said I.
"Just then I was startled by a crackling noise in the fireplace. It sounded as if some one had cast a handful of pebbles on the stones.
Father did not notice it, but at once Strong Ingmar said: "What, so soon?" Yet he went on eating. Then there was more crackling; this time it was much louder. Now it sounded as if a shovelful of stones had been thrown on the fire. "Well, well, is it so urgent!" Strong Ingmar exclaimed. Then he went out. "The charcoal must be afire!"
he shouted back. "Just you sit still, Big Ingmar. I"ll attend to this myself." Father and I sat very quiet.
"In a little while Strong Ingmar returned, and the fun began anew.
"I haven"t had such a merry Christmas in years," he laughed. He had no sooner got the words out of his mouth than the crackling started afresh. "What, again? Well, I never!" and out he flew in a jiffy.
The charcoal was afire again. When the old man came back for the second time, father said to him: "I see now that you have such good help up here that you can get along by yourself." "Yes, you can safely go home and keep your Christmas, Big Ingmar, for here there are those who will help me." Then father and I went home, and everything was all right. And never, either before or afterward, was any kiln tended by Strong Ingmar known to get afire."
Gunhild thanked Ingmar for his story, but Gertrude walked on in silence, as if she had become frightened. It was beginning to get dark; everything that had looked so rosy a while ago was now either blue or gray. Here and there in the forest could be seen a shiny leaf that gleamed in the twilight like the red eye of a troll.
Gertrude was astonished at Ingmar having talked so much and so long. He seemed like another person since coming in on home ground; he carried his head higher than usual, and stepped with firmer tread. Gertrude did not quite like this change in him; it made her feel uneasy. All the same she s.p.u.n.ked up, and began to tease Ingmar about his going home to dance.
Then at last they came to a little gray hut. Candles were burning inside, the windows being too small to let in much light. They caught the sound of violin music and the clatter of dancing feet.
Still the girls paused, wonderingly. "Is it here?" they questioned.
"Can any one dance here? The place looks too small to hold even one couple."
"Go along inside," said Gabriel; "the hut isn"t as tiny as looks."
Outside the door, which was open, stood a group of boys and girls who had danced themselves into a warm glow; the girls were fanning themselves with their headshawls, and the boys had pulled off their short black jackets in order to dance in their bright green red-sleeved waistcoats.
The newcomers edged their way through the crowd by the door into the hut. The first person they saw was Strong Ingmar--a little fat man, with a big head and a long beard.
"He must be related to the elves and the trolls," thought Gertrude.
The old man was standing upon the hearth, playing his fiddle, so as not to be in the way of the dancers.
The hut was larger than it had appeared from the outside, but it looked poor and dilapidated. The bare pine walls were worm-eaten, and the beams were blackened by smoke. There were no curtains at the windows, and no cover on the table. It was evident that Strong Ingmar lived by himself. His children had all left him and gone to America, and the only pleasure the old man had in his loneliness was to gather the young folks around him on a Sat.u.r.day evening, and let them dance to his fiddle.