The Most Beloved Works and Christmas Books of Selma Lagerlöf. Selma Lagerlöf

can wait for you a little longer," said Father Bear. "But after that you'll get no more grace. You must know that it's the fault of the iron that the human kind can live here on the property of the bears. And now you understand why I would be rid of the work."

      The boy meant to use the last moment to think out some way to save himself, but, anxious and distraught as he was, his thoughts wandered again. Now he began thinking of all that he had seen when he flew over the mining districts. It was strange that there should be so much life and activity and so much work back there in the wilderness.

      "Just think how poor and desolate this place would be had there been no iron here!

      "This very foundry gave employment to many, and had gathered around it many homes filled with people, who, in turn, had attracted hither railways and telegraph wires and—"

      "Come, come!" growled the bear. "Will you or won't you?"

      The boy swept his hand across his forehead. No plan of escape had as yet come to his mind, but this much he knew—he did not wish to do any harm to the iron, which was so useful to rich and poor alike, and which gave bread to so many people in this land.

      "I won't!" he said.

      Father Bear squeezed him a little harder, but said nothing.

      "You'll not get me to destroy the ironworks!" defied the boy. "The iron is so great a blessing that it will never do to harm it."

      "Then of course you don't expect to be allowed to live very long?" said the bear.

      "No, I don't expect it," returned the boy, looking the bear straight in the eye.

      Father Bear gripped him still harder. It hurt so that the boy could not keep the tears back, but he did not cry out or say a word.

      "Very well, then," said Father Bear, raising his paw very slowly, hoping that the boy would give in at the last moment.

      But just then the boy heard something click very close to them, and saw the muzzle of a rifle two paces away. Both he and Father Bear had been so engrossed in their own affairs they had not observed that a man had stolen right upon them.

      "Father Bear! Don't you hear the clicking of a trigger?" cried the boy.

       "Run, or you'll be shot!"

      Father Bear grew terribly hurried. However, he allowed himself time enough to pick up the boy and carry him along. As he ran, a couple of shots sounded, and the bullets grazed his ears, but, luckily, he escaped.

      The boy thought, as he was dangling from the bear's mouth, that never had he been so stupid as he was to-night. If he had only kept still, the bear would have been shot, and he himself would have been freed. But he had become so accustomed to helping the animals that he did it naturally, and as a matter of course.

      When Father Bear had run some distance into the woods, he paused and set the boy down on the ground.

      "Thank you, little one!" he said. "I dare say those bullets would have caught me if you hadn't been there. And now I want to do you a service in return. If you should ever meet with another bear, just say to him this—which I shall whisper to you—and he won't touch you."

      Father Bear whispered a word or two into the boy's ear and hurried away, for he thought he heard hounds and hunters pursuing him.

      The boy stood in the forest, free and unharmed, and could hardly understand how it was possible.

      The wild geese had been flying back and forth the whole evening, peering and calling, but they had been unable to find Thumbietot. They searched long after the sun had set, and, finally, when it had grown so dark that they were forced to alight somewhere for the night, they were very downhearted. There was not one among them but thought the boy had been killed by the fall and was lying dead in the forest, where they could not see him.

      But the next morning, when the sun peeped over the hills and awakened the wild geese, the boy lay sleeping, as usual, in their midst. When he woke and heard them shrieking and cackling their astonishment, he could not help laughing.

      They were so eager to know what had happened to him that they did not care to go to breakfast until he had told them the whole story. The boy soon narrated his entire adventure with the bears, but after that he seemed reluctant to continue.

      "How I got back to you perhaps you already know?" he said.

      "No, we know nothing. We thought you were killed."

      "That's curious!" remarked the boy. "Oh, yes!—when Father Bear left me I climbed up into a pine and fell asleep. At daybreak I was awakened by an eagle hovering over me. He picked me up with his talons and carried me away. He didn't hurt me, but flew straight here to you and dropped me down among you."

      "Didn't he tell you who he was?" asked the big white gander.

      "He was gone before I had time even to thank him. I thought that Mother

       Akka had sent him after me."

      "How extraordinary!" exclaimed the white goosey-gander. "But are you certain that it was an eagle?"

      "I had never before seen an eagle," said the boy, "but he was so big and splendid that I can't give him a lowlier name!"

      Morten Goosey-Gander turned to the wild geese to hear what they thought of this; but they stood gazing into the air, as though they were thinking of something else.

      "We must not forget entirely to eat breakfast today," said Akka, quickly spreading her wings.

      THE FLOOD

       Table of Contents

       THE SWANS

       THE NEW WATCH-DOG

      THE SWANS

       Table of Contents

      May first to fourth.

      There was a terrible storm raging in the district north of Lake Mälar, which lasted several days. The sky was a dull gray, the wind whistled, and the rain beat. Both people and animals knew the spring could not be ushered in with anything short of this; nevertheless they thought it unbearable.

      After it had been raining for a whole day, the snowdrifts in the pine forests began to melt in earnest, and the spring brooks grew lively. All the pools on the farms, the standing water in the ditches, the water that oozed between the tufts in marshes and swamps—all were in motion and tried to find their way to creeks, that they might be borne along to the sea.

      The creeks rushed as fast as possible down to the rivers, and the rivers did their utmost to carry the water to Lake Mälar.

      All the lakes and rivers in Uppland and the mining district quickly threw off their ice covers on one and the same day, so that the creeks filled with ice-floes which rose clear up to their banks.

      Swollen as they were, they emptied into Lake Mälar, and it was not long before the lake had taken in as much water as it could well hold. Down by the outlet was a raging torrent. Norrström is a narrow channel, and it could not let out the water quickly enough. Besides, there was a strong easterly wind that lashed against the land, obstructing the stream when it tried to carry the fresh water into the East Sea. Since the rivers kept running to Mälaren with more water than it could dispose of, there was nothing for the big lake to do but overflow its banks.

      It rose very slowly, as if reluctant to injure its beautiful shores; but as they were mostly low and gradually sloping, it was not long before the water had flooded several acres of land, and that was enough to create the greatest alarm.

      Lake