Read Ebook: Erick and Sally by Spyri Johanna

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Ebook has 584 lines and 39246 words, and 12 pages

"Of course," said Edi with a dignified air; "who would think of going to Lower Wood to School?"

"Of course, who would go there to school?" observed Ritz.

Then the three in perfect harmony entered the schoolhouse. But no strange face was to be seen in the whole schoolroom; everything went on in the usual way to the end of the morning. Then everyone hurried away in different directions. Sally was standing there, somewhat undecided; she would like to have heard something new of the strange boy and his mother, for she loved to hear news, and now not even Kaetheli, with whom she talked things over, had been in school. But now she saw Edi soaring along like an arrow into the midst of a crowd of boys, and they all acted so strangely and they shouted so strangely that Sally thought that something particular must be in preparation there, and no doubt concerned the new-comers. Then she could hear something from Edi. She went slowly on and kept on turning round, but Edi did not come, and only after Sally had long since greeted the mother and was about to call her father out of his study for dinner, did the two brothers come running along, their faces red as fire, and breathless, for they had lingered to the last moment. The father was just leaving his study when both rushed toward him and now it began: "We have--the Middle Lotters--with the Lower Wooders--"

"Hush, hush," said the father. "First get your breath, then relate, one after the other; but before anything, first the soup." With these words the father took Ritz's hand, and Sally and Edi followed them into the dining-room. Sally pulled Edi a little back and whispered:

"Tell me quickly, what did they tell about the strange boy?"

"About him?" returned Edi in a somewhat scornful tone. "I had forgotten all about him! We have something else to do than to talk about a strange boy, of whom one does not even know whether he will come to Upper Wood to school."

This answer was somewhat unexpected to Sally and had a saddening effect; but she always could find a way out of an unpleasant situation. So she sat as still as a mouse during the whole time the soup was eaten, and her thoughts were hard at work.

Now the father turned to Edi and said: "Now you can relate your adventure, while Ritz remains quiet, and afterwards his turn will come." Ritz looked quite obedient for he had two large noodles on his plate to work with.

"'Of Upper Wood the boys They in their minds rejoice Because they think that they the cleverest are, But if ever they must fight They are in sorry plight And they turn round and run for ever so far.'

"How do you like that song, Papa?"

"Well, that is such as Lower Wooders would make," said the father.

"And then," Edi continued, "we have made a song for an answer, that goes thus:

"'And of Lower Wood the crowd They always yell so loud That they never, never stay within their den, For all dispute and strife They are much alive For they use their fists when they ought to use their pen.'

"How do you like this one, Papa?"

"Just about the same. And who has sung about the Middle Lot?" asked the father.

"The Lower Wooders and we together; they too had to have a song, but the shortest, as it ought to be. It runs so:

"'And they of Middle Lot They all together plot That they are striving zealously for peace, But with quarrelling they never cease.'

"And how do you like that, Papa?"

"They are, all three of them, kind of fighting songs, Edi," answered the father, "and I should prefer that you keep busy with your history studies, instead of taking sides in these party-fights. One never knows where one comes out, and such poetry usually ends with lumps on the heads."

Edi seemed much disappointed as he attacked his noodles with a visibly spoiled appetite.

"And what has been your experience, Sally? Why are you so pensive?" the father continued.

"Kaetheli was not at school," reported Sally, "and I had so much to talk over with her. Perhaps she is sick; may I go to see her this afternoon? We have no school, you know."

"Aha, Sally wants to see the strange boy," the sharp-witted Edi remarked.

"You may go, Sally," the mother said, answering a questioning look from the father. "But you will not go into any house where you have no business, just to look at strangers. I know you are capable of doing such things. You can start soon after dinner."

Sally was very happy. She quickly fetched her straw hat and took leave. But outside she did not run straight through the passage-way as she usually did in similar cases, but went to the kitchen door and peeped in, and when she saw 'Lizebeth at the sink, where the latter was scraping her pans, she went in very close to the old woman and said somewhat mysteriously: "'Lizebeth, does Edi or Ritz perhaps have a torn mattress on their bed?"

'Lizebeth stopped scraping and turned round. She looked at Sally from head to foot, put her hands on her hips and said very slowly and importantly: "May I ask what you mean by that question, Sally? Do you think this household is so carried on that one lies about on ragged mattresses and sleeps, until a little one, who is far from old enough to turn a mattress, thinks of coming to ask 'does not this one or that one have a ragged mattress' on his bed? Yes, Sally, what cobwebs you do have in your head."

"I do not care about the mattress, it is on account of Marianne that I ask," Sally explained. "Do you know, she now has some new people in her house and I should so much like to see them, and therefore I wanted so much to know whether you could not sacrifice a mattress so that Marianne could pull the horsehair for a mattress, for Mother will not let me go into the house without a good excuse."

"Oh, so! that is different," said 'Lizebeth quite mildly, for she had also been wondering what kind of people her old friend had taken into her home, and now, perhaps, she could learn something about them through Sally.

"I can help you, Sally," she said. "You go to Marianne and tell her that I send my greetings, and I have long since intended to come and see her, but the likes of us cannot get away when we want to; we never know what may happen if we are out of the house for five minutes; but tell her that I will surely come some fine Sunday. Now then go, and give my message."

Sally ran with a joyous heart, first through the garden, then away over the meadow and down the hill as far as the fir wood, where the dry road lay for a long stretch in the shade. Here Sally slackened her pace a little. It was so beautiful to walk along in shade of the trees, where above in their tops the wind rustled so delightfully and all the birds sang in confusion. She also had to consider how she would arrange her calls, whether she would go first to Kaetheli or to Marianne; but this time old Marianne had a stronger attraction than Kaetheli and Sally felt that she must go there first and give her message. Now her thoughts fell on the strange people and she had to imagine how they looked and what she was going to say, and what they would say when she knocked and asked for Marianne. Thus she thought everything well out, for Sally had a great power of imagining things.

In this way she came to the first houses of Middle Lot. She turned away from the road and went toward Marianne's house, which stood a little way from the road and lay almost hidden behind a hedge. As Sally had been accustomed to do, she now ran right into the house, although the house door was also the kitchen door. After entering the front door she stood in the small kitchen and was at once before another door which led into the living-room. This door stood wide open and Sally found herself suddenly in the presence of a lady dressed in black, who sat in that room sewing and who lifted her head at Sally's noisy entrance, and with large sad eyes she looked at the child in silence.

Sally grew as red as fire and in her embarrassment remained standing near the door like one rooted to the floor.

Now the lady held out her hand and said in a friendly tone, "Come here, dear child, what brings you to me?"

Sally was quite confused. She did not remember why she had come, for she had really not come to see Marianne. She had invented that--to get into the house where she had arrived now so unexpectedly. She approached the lady and wanted to say something, but nothing came out. Sally grew crimson and stood there more helpless than ever before in her life.

The lady took the child's hand and stroked her glowing cheeks.

"Come, sit down beside me, dear child," she then said, with a voice so sweet that it went deep into Sally's heart. "Come, we shall come gradually to know each other a little."

Now there came from out of a corner a quick noise of moving; Sally did not know what it was, for until now she had not dared to look around the room, but now she looked up.

A boy, a little taller than she, was carrying a small easy chair and placed it before Sally. He looked at her with such a merry face as the restrained laughter came so visibly out of his eyes, that the sight brought a complete reversion in Sally's feelings, and she, all at once, laughed right out; upon which, the boy too, relieved his feelings by a bright peal of laughter, for the rushing in and then the confusion of the unexpected guest had long since tempted him to laugh; but he was too well trained to dare to break out.

"Well, my child," said the mother with that winning voice, "and what has brought you to me?"

"I have--I ought to--I wanted," Sally began hesitatingly, "I wanted to give a message to Marianne--" Sally could not stop at half the truth. The sad, friendly eyes of the lady were penetratingly resting on hers, so everything had to come out as it was.

"That is lovely and friendly of you, that you want to see us, dear little girl. How did you hear of us?" asked the lady, and took off Sally's straw hat, while she put the question to the child. She placed the hat on the table and smoothed her hair with a mother's touch.

Now Sally related all in full confidence how it had happened, and that she and her two brothers had wanted to come yesterday to find out who was coming to live with Marianne, and to find out how the piano and all the other things could find room in the little house. Sally now, for the first time, looked around the room and she had to wonder a little, for she saw only the piano and four bare walls, and then there were the two easy chairs on which she and the lady were sitting, and the small table. She knew that besides this room there was a very small bedroom, where two beds could hardly find room. Sally could not set herself to rights; all was so different from what she had imagined. She had expected to see strange and foreign things standing about everywhere and now she saw nothing besides an old piano. And yet the lady who sat before her in a black silken dress looked more aristocratic than Sally could ever have imagined; and the boy in his velvet suit looked quite like the old knights in Edi's beautiful picture book, and he had brought her a seat without anyone telling him, and was more refined and courteous than she had ever before seen a boy.

When Sally turned her surprised eyes again to the lady, she saw such a painful expression in her face that it came involuntarily into her mind how the mother had said, that of course "she would not go there for the sake of staring at the people," and she felt that she was doing something very much like it. Sally rose. All at once she remembered to whom she really wanted to go, so she said hastily: "I must go to Kaetheli; she may be sick." With these words she quickly offered her hand to the lady.

The lady, too, had risen; she took the proffered hand, held it between both of hers, and looked once more so lovingly into the child's eyes, that her little heart was moved. Then she kissed her forehead and said: "You dear child, you were a friendly picture in our quiet room."

Then she let go of her hand, and Sally went through the open door into the small kitchen. The boy, meanwhile, had opened the house door and now he stood outside quite courteously, like a doorkeeper, to bid Sally good-bye.

"Are you not coming to school tomorrow?"

"Yes, indeed," was the answer.

That pleased Sally very much and she at once decided that he must become Edi's friend, for she had taken a great liking to the boy and when he was Edi's friend then he would be hers too, and he must come every Sunday afternoon and spend it with them and they would teach him all kinds of games; and many undertakings passed through her brain, for with this friend everything could be carried out; he was so entirely different from other boys and girls in the school. "Then you are coming to-morrow?" she asked with happy expectation.

"Where shall I come?" he questioned in return.

"To school, of course."

"Yes, indeed, I'll come to school."

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