When the wild geese had passed Halland Ridge and gone a distance into
Skåne, Akka called out:
"Now look down! Look all around! It is like this in foreign lands."
Just then they flew over Söder Ridge. The whole long range of hills was clad in beech woods, and beautiful, turreted castles peeped out here and there.
Among the trees grazed roe-buck, and on the forest meadow romped the hares. Hunters' horns sounded from the forests; the loud baying of dogs could be heard all the way up to the wild geese. Broad avenues wound through the trees and on these ladies and gentlemen were driving in polished carriages or riding fine horses. At the foot of the ridge lay Ring Lake with the ancient Bosjö Cloister on a narrow peninsula.
"Does it look like this in foreign lands?" asked the goslings.
"It looks exactly like this wherever there are forest-clad ridges," replied Akka, "only one doesn't see many of them. Wait! You shall see how it looks in general."
Akka led the geese farther south to the great Skåne plain. There it spread, with grain fields; with acres and acres of sugar beets, where the beet-pickers were at work; with low whitewashed farm- and outhouses; with numberless little white churches; with ugly, gray sugar refineries and small villages near the railway stations. Little beech-encircled meadow lakes, each of them adorned by its own stately manor, shimmered here and there.
"Now look down! Look carefully!" called the leader-goose. "Thus it is in foreign lands, from the Baltic coast all the way down to the high Alps. Farther than that I have never travelled."
When the goslings had seen the plain, the leader-goose flew down the Öresund coast. Swampy meadows sloped gradually toward the sea. In some places were high, steep banks, in others drift-sand fields, where the sand lay heaped in banks and hills. Fishing hamlets stood all along the coast, with long rows of low, uniform brick houses, with a lighthouse at the edge of the breakwater, and brown fishing nets hanging in the drying yard.
"Now look down! Look well! This is how it looks along the coasts in foreign lands."
After Akka had been flying about in this manner a long time she alighted suddenly on a marsh in Vemminghög township and the boy could not help thinking that she had travelled over Skåne just to let him see that his was a country which could compare favourably with any in the world. This was unnecessary, for the boy was not thinking of whether the country was rich or poor.
From the moment that he had seen the first willow grove his heart ached with homesickness.
HOME AT LAST
Tuesday, November eighth.
The atmosphere was dull and hazy. The wild geese had been feeding on the big meadow around Skerup church and were having their noonday rest when Akka came up to the boy.
"It looks as if we should have calm weather for awhile," she remarked, "and I think we'll cross the Baltic to-morrow."
"Indeed!" said the boy abruptly, for his throat contracted so that he could hardly speak. All along he had cherished the hope that he would be released from the enchantment while he was still in Skåne.
"We are quite near West Vemminghög now," said Akka, "and I thought that perhaps you might like to go home for awhile. It may be some time before you have another opportunity to see your people."
"Perhaps I had better not," said the boy hesitatingly, but something in his voice betrayed that he was glad of Akka's proposal.
"If the goosey-gander remains with us, no harm can come to him," Akka assured. "I think you had better find out how your parents are getting along. You might be of some help to them, even if you're not a normal boy."
"You are right, Mother Akka. I should have thought of that long ago," said the boy impulsively.
The next second he and the leader-goose were on their way to his home. It was not long before Akka alighted behind the stone hedge encircling the little farm.
"Strange how natural everything looks around here!" the boy remarked, quickly clambering to the top of the hedge, so that he could look about.
"It seems to me only yesterday that I first saw you come flying through the air."
"I wonder if your father has a gun," said Akka suddenly.
"You may be sure he has," returned the boy. "It was just the gun that kept me at home that Sunday morning when I should have been at church."
"Then I don't dare to stand here and wait for you," said Akka. "You had better meet us at Smygahök early to-morrow morning, so that you may stay at home over night."
"Oh, don't go yet, Mother Akka!" begged the boy, jumping from the hedge.
He could not tell just why it was, but he felt as if something would happen, either to the wild goose or to himself, to prevent their future meeting.
"No doubt you see that I'm distressed because I cannot get back my right form; but I want to say to you that I don't regret having gone with you last spring," he added. "I would rather forfeit the chance of ever being human again than to have missed that trip."
Akka breathed quickly before she answered.
"There's a little matter I should have mentioned to you before this, but since you are not going back to your home for good, I thought there was no hurry about it. Still it may as well be said now."
"You know very well that I am always glad to do your bidding," said the boy.
"If you have learned anything at all from us, Thumbietot, you no longer think that the humans should have the whole earth to themselves," said the wild goose, solemnly. "Remember you have a large country and you can easily afford to leave a few bare rocks, a few shallow lakes and swamps, a few desolate cliffs and remote forests to us poor, dumb creatures, where we can be allowed to live in peace. All my days I have been hounded and hunted. It would be a comfort to know that there is a refuge somewhere for one like me."
"Indeed, I should be glad to help if I could," said the boy, "but it's not likely that I shall ever again have any influence among human beings."
"Well, we're standing here talking as if we were never to meet again," said Akka, "but we shall see each other to-morrow, of course. Now I'll return to my flock."
She spread her wings and started to fly, but came back and stroked
Thumbietot up and down with her bill before she flew away.
It was broad daylight, but no human being moved on the farm and the boy could go where he pleased. He hastened to the cow shed, because he knew that he could get the best information from the cows.
It looked rather barren in their shed. In the spring there had been three fine cows there, but now there was only one—Mayrose. It was quite apparent that she yearned for her comrades. Her head drooped sadly, and she had hardly touched the feed in her crib.
"Good day, Mayrose!" said the boy, running fearlessly into her stall.
"How are mother and father? How are the cat and the chickens? What has become of Star and Gold-Lily?"
When Mayrose heard the boy's voice she started, and appeared as if she were going to gore him. But she was not so quick-tempered now as formerly, and took time to look well at Nils Holgersson.
He was just as little now as when he went away, and wore the same clothes; yet he was completely changed. The Nils Holgersson that went away in the spring had a heavy, slow gait, a drawling speech, and sleepy eyes. The one that had come back was lithe and alert, ready of speech, and had eyes that sparkled and danced. He had a confident bearing that commanded respect, little as he was. Although he himself did not look happy, he inspired happiness in others.
"Moo!" bellowed Mayrose. "They told me that he was changed, but I couldn't believe it. Welcome home, Nils Holgersson! Welcome home! This is the first glad moment I have known for ever so long!"
"Thank you, Mayrose!" said the boy, who was very happy to be so well received.
"Now tell me all about father and mother."
"They have had nothing but hardship ever since you went away," said Mayrose. "The horse has been a costly care all summer, for he has stood in the stable the whole time and not earned his feed. Your father is too soft-hearted to shoot him and he can't sell him. It was on account of the horse that both Star and Gold-Lily had to be sold."
There was something else the boy wanted badly to know, but he was diffident about asking the question point blank. Therefore he said:
"Mother must have felt very sorry when she discovered that Morten
Goosey-Gander had flown?"
"She wouldn't have worried much about Morten Goosey-Gander had she known the way he came to leave. She grieves most at the thought of her son having run away from home with a goosey-gander."
"Does she really think that I stole the goosey-gander?" said the boy.
"What else could she think?"
"Father and mother must fancy that I've been roaming about the country, like a common tramp?"
"They think that you've gone to the dogs," said Mayrose. "They have mourned you as one mourns the loss of the dearest thing on earth."
As soon as the boy heard this, he rushed from the cow shed and down to the stable.
It was small, but clean and tidy. Everything showed that his father had tried to make the place comfortable for the new horse. In the stall stood a strong, fine animal that looked well fed and well cared for.
"Good day to you!" said the boy. "I have heard that there's a sick horse in here. Surely it can't be you, who look so healthy and strong."
The horse turned his head and stared fixedly at the boy.
"Are you the son?" he queried. "I have heard many bad reports of him.
But you have such a good face, I couldn't believe that you were he, did
I not know that he was transformed into an elf."
"I know that I left a bad name behind me when I went away from the farm," admitted Nils Holgersson. "My own mother thinks I am a thief. But what matters it—I sha'n't tarry here long. Meanwhile, I want to know what ails you."
"Pity you're not going to stay," said the horse, "for I have the feeling that you and I might become good friends. I've got something in my foot—the point of a knife, or something sharp—that's all that ails me. It has gone so far in that the doctor can't find it, but it cuts so that I can't walk. If you would only tell your father what's wrong with me, I'm sure that he could help me. I should like to be of some use. I really feel ashamed to stand here and feed without doing any work."
"It's well that you have no real illness," remarked Nils Holgersson. "I must attend to this at once, so that you will be all right again. You don't mind if I do a little scratching on your hoof with my knife, do you?"
Nils Holgersson had just finished, when he heard the sound of voices. He opened the stable door a little and peeped out.
His father and mother were coming down the lane. It was easy to see that they were broken by many sorrows. His mother had many lines on her face and his father's hair had turned gray. She was talking with him about getting a loan from her brother-in-law.
"No, I don't want to borrow any more money," his father said, as they were passing the stable. "There's nothing quite so hard as being in debt. It would be better to sell the cabin."
"If it were not for the boy, I shouldn't mind selling it," his mother demurred. "But what will become of him, if he returns some day, wretched and poor—as he's likely to be—and we not here?"
"You're right about that," the father agreed. "But we shall have to ask the folks who take the place to receive him kindly and to let him know that he's welcome back to us. We sha'n't say a harsh word to him, no matter what he may be, shall we mother?"
"No, indeed! If I only had him again, so that I could be certain he is not starving and freezing on the highways, I'd ask nothing more!"
Then his father and mother went in, and the boy heard no more of their conversation.
He was happy and deeply moved when he knew that they loved him so dearly, although they believed he had gone astray. He longed to rush into their arms.
"But perhaps it would be an even greater sorrow were they to see me as I now am."
While he stood there, hesitating, a cart drove up to the gate. The boy smothered a cry of surprise, for who should step from the cart and go into the house yard but Osa, the goose girl, and her father!
They walked hand in hand toward the cabin. When they were about half way there, Osa stopped her father and said:
"Now remember, father, you are not to mention the wooden shoe or the geese or the little brownie who was so like Nils Holgersson that if it was not himself it must have had some connection with him."
"Certainly not!" said Jon Esserson. "I shall only say that their son has been of great help to you on several occasions—when you were trying to find me—and that therefore we have come to ask if we can't do them a service in return, since I'm a rich man now and have more than I need, thanks to the mine I discovered up in Lapland."
"I know, father, that you can say the right thing in the right way," Osa commended. "It is only that one particular thing that I don't wish you to mention."
They went into the cabin, and the boy would have liked to hear what they talked about in there; but he dared not venture near the house. It was not long before they came out again, and his father and mother accompanied them as far as the gate.
His parents were strangely happy. They appeared to have gained a new hold on life.
When the visitors were gone, father and mother lingered at the gate gazing after them.
"I don't feel unhappy any longer, since I've heard so much that is good of our Nils," said his mother.
"Perhaps he got more praise than he really deserved," put in his father thoughtfully.
"Wasn't it enough for you that they came here specially to say they wanted to help us because our Nils had served them in many ways? I think, father, that you should have accepted their offer."
"No, mother, I don't wish to accept money from any one, either as a gift or a loan. In the first place I want to free myself from all debt, then we will work our way up again. We're not so very old, are we, mother?" The father laughed heartily as he said this.
"I believe you think it will be fun to sell this place, upon which we have expended such a lot of time and hard work," protested the mother.