The Wonderful Adventures of Nils Part 58

"Ask her! Is she already here?"

"She's down at the camp."

"What, Ola! Have you taken her in before knowing her father's wishes?"

"What do I care for her father! If he isn't dead, he's probably the kind of man who cares nothing for his child. He may be glad to have another take her in hand."

The fisherman threw down his rod and rose with an alertness in his movements that bespoke new life.

"I don't think her father can be like other folk," continued the mountaineer. "I dare say he is a man who is haunted by gloomy forebodings and therefore can not work steadily. What kind of a father would that be for the girl?"

While Ola was talking the fisherman started up the strand.

"Where are you going?" queried the Lapp.

"I'm going to have a look at your foster-daughter, Ola."

"Good!" said the Lapp. "Come along and meet her. I think you'll say that she will be a good daughter to me."

The Swede rushed on so rapidly that the Laplander could hardly keep pace with him.

After a moment Ola said to his companion:

"Now I recall that her name is Osa--this girl I'm adopting."

The other man only kept hurrying along and old Ola Serka was so well pleased that he wanted to laugh aloud.

When they came in sight of the tents, Ola said a few words more.

"She came here to us Samefolk to find her father and not to become my foster-child. But if she doesn't find him, I shall be glad to keep her in my tent."

The fisherman hastened all the faster.

"I might have known that he would be alarmed when I threatened to take his daughter into the Lapps' quarters," laughed Ola to himself.

When the man from Kiruna, who had brought Osa to the tent, turned back later in the day, he had two people with him in the boat, who sat close together, holding hands--as if they never again wanted to part.

They were Jon Esserson and his daughter. Both were unlike what they had been a few hours earlier.

The father looked less bent and weary and his eyes were clear and good, as if at last he had found the answer to that which had troubled him so long.

Osa, the goose girl, did not glance longingly about, for she had found some one to care for her, and now she could be a child again.

HOMEWARD BOUND!

THE FIRST TRAVELLING DAY

_Sat.u.r.day, October first_.

The boy sat on the goosey-gander's back and rode up amongst the clouds.

Some thirty geese, in regular order, flew rapidly southward. There was a rustling of feathers and the many wings beat the air so noisily that one could scarcely hear one's own voice. Akka from Kebnekaise flew in the lead; after her came Yksi and Kaksi, Kolme and Nelja, Viisi and Kuusi, Morten Goosey-Gander and Dunfin. The six goslings which had accompanied the flock the autumn before had now left to look after themselves.

Instead, the old geese were taking with them twenty-two goslings that had grown up in the glen that summer. Eleven flew to the right, eleven to the left; and they did their best to fly at even distances, like the big birds.

The poor youngsters had never before been on a long trip and at first they had difficulty in keeping up with the rapid flight.

"Akka from Kebnekaise! Akka from Kebnekaise!" they cried in plaintive tones.

"What's the matter?" said the leader-goose sharply.

"Our wings are tired of moving, our wings are tired of moving!" wailed the young ones.

"The longer you keep it up, the better it will go," answered the leader-goose, without slackening her speed. And she was quite right, for when the goslings had flown two hours longer, they complained no more of being tired.

But in the mountain glen they had been in the habit of eating all day long, and very soon they began to feel hungry.

"Akka, Akka, Akka from Kebnekaise!" wailed the goslings pitifully.

"What's the trouble now?" asked the leader-goose.

"We're so hungry, we can't fly any more!" whimpered the goslings. "We're so hungry, we can't fly any more!"

"Wild geese must learn to eat air and drink wind," said the leader-goose, and kept right on flying.

It actually seemed as if the young ones were learning to live on wind and air, for when they had flown a little longer, they said nothing more about being hungry.

The goose flock was still in the mountain regions, and the old geese called out the names of all the peaks as they flew past, so that the youngsters might learn them. When they had been calling out a while:

"This is Porsotjokko, this is Sarjaktjokko, this is Sulitelma," and so on, the goslings became impatient again.

"Akka, Akka, Akka!" they shrieked in heart-rending tones.

"What's wrong?" said the leader-goose.

"We haven't room in our heads for any more of those awful names!"

shrieked the goslings.

"The more you put into your heads the more you can get into them,"

retorted the leader-goose, and continued to call out the queer names.

The boy sat thinking that it was about time the wild geese betook themselves southward, for so much snow had fallen that the ground was white as far as the eye could see. There was no use denying that it had been rather disagreeable in the glen toward the last. Rain and fog had succeeded each other without any relief, and even if it did clear up once in a while, immediately frost set in. Berries and mushrooms, upon which the boy had subsisted during the summer, were either frozen or decayed. Finally he had been compelled to eat raw fish, which was something he disliked. The days had grown short and the long evenings and late mornings were rather tiresome for one who could not sleep the whole time that the sun was away.

Now, at last, the goslings' wings had grown, so that the geese could start for the south. The boy was so happy that he laughed and sang as he rode on the goose's back. It was not only on account of the darkness and cold that he longed to get away from Lapland; there were other reasons too.

The first weeks of his sojourn there the boy had not been the least bit homesick. He thought he had never before seen such a glorious country.

The only worry he had had was to keep the mosquitoes from eating him up.