The Modern Vikings

The white children were children of earth, not, as Thorwald had imagined, angels from heaven. It is a custom in Norway for the children of the poor to go about on Christmas eve, from house to house, carrying a large canvas star, with one or more lanterns within it, and sing Christmas carols. They are always dressed in white robes, and people call them star-children. Whenever they station themselves in the snow before the front door, and lift up their tiny, shrill voices, old and young crowd to the windows, and the little boys and girls who are born to comfort and plenty, and never have known want, throw pennies to them, and wish them a merry Christmas. When they have finished singing, they are invited in to share in the mirth of the children of the house, and are made to sit down with them to the Christmas table, and perhaps to dance with them around the Christmas tree.

It was a company of these star-children who now found Thorwald lying senseless in the forest, and whose sweet voices he had heard in the distance. The oldest of them, a boy of twelve, hung up his star on the branch of a fir-tree, and stooped down over the pale little face, which, from the force of the fall, was half buried in the snow. He lifted Thorwald’s head and gazed anxiously into his features, while the others stood in a ring about him, staring with wide-open eyes and frightened faces.

“This is Thorwald, the judge’s son,” he said. “Come, boys, we must carry him home. He must have been taken ill while he was running on skees. But let us first make a litter of branches to carry him on.”

The boys all fell to work with a will, cutting flexible twigs with their pocket-knives, and the little girls sat down on the snow and twined them firmly together, for they were used to work, and, indeed, some of them made their living by weaving baskets. In a few minutes the litter was ready, and Thorwald, who was still unconscious, was laid upon it. Then six boys took hold, one at each corner and two in the middle, and as the crust of the snow was very thick, and strong enough to bear them, it was only once or twice that any of them broke through. When they reached the river, however, they were very tired, and were obliged for a while to halt. Some one proposed that they should sing as they walked, as that would make the time pass more quickly, and make their burden seem lighter, and immediately some one began a beautiful Christmas carol, and all the others joined in with one accord. It was a pretty sight to see them as they went marching across the river, one small boy of six walking at the head of the procession, carrying the great star, then the six larger boys carrying the litter, and at last twelve little white-robed girls, tripping two abreast over the shining surface of the ice. But, in spite of their singing, they were very tired by the time they had gained the highway on the other side of the river. They did not like to confess it; but when they saw the light from Wise Marthie’s windows, the oldest boy proposed that they should stop there for a few minutes to rest, and the other five said, in a careless sort of way, that they had no objection. Only the girls were a wee bit frightened, because they had heard that Wise Marthie was a witch. The boys, however, laughed at that, and the little fellow with the star ran forward and knocked at the door, with Thorwald’s skee-staff.

“Lord ha’ mercy on us!” cried Marthie, as she opened the peeping-hole in her door, and saw the insensible form which the boys bore between them; then flinging open both portions of the door, she rushed out, snatched Thorwald up in her arms, and carried him into the cottage.

“Come in, children,” she said, “come in and warm yourselves for a moment. Then hurry up to the judge’s, and tell the folk there that the little lad is here at my cottage. You will not go away empty-handed; for the judge is a man who pays for more than he gets. And this boy, you know, is the apple of his eye. Lord! Lord! I sent his dog, Hector, after him, and I knew the beast would let me know if the boy came to harm; but, likely as not, the wind was the wrong way, and the poor beast could not trace the skee-track on the frozen snow. Mercy! mercy! and he is in a dead swoon.”

IV

When Thorwald waked up, he lay in his bed, in his own room, and in his hand he held a pale-blue flower. He saw the doctor standing at his bedside.

“Mamma – my mamma,” he whispered.

“Yes, it is time that we should go to your mamma,” said the doctor, and his voice shook.

And he took the boy by the hand and led him to his mother’s bed-chamber. Thorwald began to tremble – a terrible dread had come over him; but he clutched the flower convulsively, and prayed that he might not come too late. A dim, shaded lamp burned in a corner of the room, his father was sitting on a chair, resting his head in his palms, and weeping. To his astonishment, he saw an old woman stooping over the pillow where his mother’s head lay; it was Wise Marthie. Unable to contain himself any longer, he rushed, breathless with excitement, up to the bedside.

“Mamma! Mamma!” he cried, flourishing his prize in the air. “I am going to make you well. Look here!”

He thrust the flower eagerly into her face, gazing all the while exultantly into her beloved features.

“My sweet, my darling child,” whispered she, while her eyes kindled with a heavenly joy. “How can a mother die who has such a noble son?”

And she clasped her little boy in her arms, and drew him close to her bosom. Thus they lay long, weeping for joy – mother and son. An hour later the doctor stole on tiptoe toward the bed, and found them both sleeping.

When the morrow’s sun peeped in through the white curtains, the mother awoke from her long, health-giving slumber; but Thorwald lay yet peacefully sleeping at her side. And as the mother’s glance fell upon the flower, now limp and withered, yet clutched tightly in the little grimy, scratched and frost-bitten fist, the tears – happy tears – again blinded her eyes. She stretched out her hand, took the withered flower, pressed it to her lips, and then hid it next to her heart. And there she wears it in a locket of gold until this day.

BIG HANS AND LITTLE HANS

I

On the northwestern coast of Norway the mountains hide their heads in the clouds and dip their feet in the sea. In fact, the cliffs are in some places so tall and steep that streams, flowing from the inland glaciers and plunging over their sides, vanish in the air, being blown in a misty spray out over the ocean. In other places there may be a narrow slope, where a few potatoes, some garden vegetables, and perhaps even a patch of wheat, may be induced to grow by dint of much coaxing; for the summer, though short, is mild and genial in those high latitudes, and has none of that fierce intensity which, with us, forces the vegetation into sudden maturity, and sends our people flying toward all the points of the compass during the first weeks in June.

It was on such a sunny little slope, right under the black mountain-wall, that Halvor Myrbraaten had built his cottage. Halvor was a merry fellow, who went about humming snatches of hymns and old songs and dance-melodies all day long, and sometimes mixed up both words and tune wofully; and when his memory failed him, sang anything that popped into his head. Some people said they had heard him humming the multiplication table to the tune of “Old Norway’s Lion,” and whole pages out of Luther’s Catechism to jolly dance-tunes. Not that he ever meant to be irreverent; it was just his way of amusing himself. He was an odd stick, people thought, and not of much use to his family. Whatever he did, “luck” went against him. But it affected his temper very little. Halvor was still light-hearted and good-natured, and went about humming as usual. If he went out hunting, and came home with an empty pouch, it did not interfere in the least with his gayety; but knowing well the reception which was in store for him; it did occasionally happen that he paused with a quizzical look before opening the door, and perhaps, after a minute’s reflection, concluded to spend the night in the barn; for Turid, his wife, had a mind of her own, and knew how to express herself with emphasis. She was, as everyone admitted, a very worthy and competent woman, and accomplished more in a day than her husband did in a fortnight. But worthy and competent people are not invariably the pleasantest people to associate with, and the gay and genial good-for-nothing Halvor, with his bright irresponsible smile and his pleasant ways, was a far more popular person in the parish than his austere, estimable, over-worked wife. For one thing, with all her poverty, she had a great deal of pride; and people who had never suspected that one so poor could have any objection to receiving alms had been much offended by her curt way of refusing their proffered gifts. Halvor, they said, showed a more realizing sense of his position: he had the humble and contrite heart which was becoming in an unsuccessful man, and accepted with equal cheerfulness and gratitude whatever was offered him, from a dollar bill to a pair of worn-out mittens. It was, in fact, this extreme readiness to accept things which first made difficulty between Halvor and his wife. It seemed to him a pure waste of labor to work for a thing which he could get for nothing; and it seemed to her a waste of something still more precious to accept as a gift what one might have honestly earned by work. But as she could never hope to have Halvor agree with her on this point, she comforted herself by impressing her own horror of alms-taking upon her children; and the children, in their turn, impressed the same sound principles upon their pet kid and the pussy cat.

There were five children at Myrbraaten. Hans, the eldest, was ten years old, and Dolly, the youngest, was one, and the rest were scattered between. It was a pretty sight to see them of a summer afternoon on the grass plot before the house, rolling over one another and gambolling like a sportive family of kittens; only you could hardly help feeling vaguely uneasy about the mountain, the steep, black wall of which, sparsely clad with pines, rose so threateningly above them. It seemed as if it must, some day, swoop down upon them and crush them. The mother, it must be admitted, was occasionally oppressed by some such fear; but when she reflected that the mountain had stood there from time immemorial, and had never yet moved, or harmed anyone, she felt ashamed of her apprehension, and blamed herself for her distrust of God’s providence.

Besides the children there was another young inhabitant of the Myrbraaten cottage, and surely a very important one. He too, was named Hans, but, in order to distinguish him from the son of the house, the word “Little” was prefixed, and the latter, although he was really the smaller of the two, was called, by way of distinction, Big Hans. The most remarkable thing about Little Hans was that he had, in spite of his youth, a very well-developed beard. Big Hans, who had not a hair on his chin, rather envied him this manly ornament. Then, again, Little Hans was a capital fighter, and could knock you down in one round with great coolness and sweet-tempered seriousness, as if he were acting entirely from a sense of duty. He never used any hard words; but the moment his adversary attempted to rise, Little Hans quietly gave him another knock, and winked wickedly at him, as if warning him to lie still. He never bragged of his victories, but showed a modest self-appreciation to which very few of his age ever attain. Big Hans, who valued his friend and namesake above others, and had a hearty admiration for his many fine qualities, declared himself utterly unable to rival him in combativeness, modesty, and coolness of temper. For Big Hans, I am sorry to say, was sometimes given to bragging of his muscle and of his skill in turning hand-springs and standing on his head, and he could easily be teased into a furious temper. Now, Little Hans could not turn hand-springs, nor could he stand on his head; but, though he promptly resented any trifling with his dignity, I never once knew him to lose his temper. He never laughed when anything struck him as being funny; in fact, he seemed to regard every boisterous exhibition of feeling as undignified. He only turned his head away and stood chewing a piece of paper or a straw, with his usual look of comical gravity in his eye.

Many people wondered at the fast friendship which bound Big Hans and Little Hans together. Their tastes, people said, were dissimilar; in temperament, too, they had few points of resemblance. And yet they were absolutely inseparable. Wherever Big Hans went, Little Hans was sure to follow. Often they were seen racing along the beach or climbing up the mountain-side; and, as Little Hans was a capital hand (or ought I to say foot?) at climbing, Big Hans often had hard work to keep up with him. Sometimes Little Hans would leap up a rock which was so steep that it was impossible for his friend to climb it, and then he would grin comically down at Big Hans, who would stand below calling tearfully to his companion until he descended, which usually was very soon. For Little Hans was very fond of Big Hans, and could never bear to see him cry. And that is not in the least to be wondered at, as Big Hans had saved him from starvation and death when Little Hans was really in the sorest need. Their acquaintance began in the following manner: one day when Big Hans was up in the mountains trapping hares, he heard a feeble voice in a cleft of the rocks near by, and hurrying to the spot, he found Little Hans wedged in between two great stones, and his leg caught in so distressing a manner that it cost Big Hans nearly an hour’s work to set it free. Then he dressed the bruised foot with a rag torn from the lining of his coat, and carried Little Hans home in his arms. And as Little Hans’ parents had never claimed him, and he himself could give no satisfactory account of them, he had thenceforth remained at Myrbraaten, where all the children were very fond of him. Turid, their mother, on the other hand, had no great liking for him, especially after he had devoured her hymn-book (which was her most precious property) and eaten with much appetite a piece of Dolly’s dress. For, as I intimated, Little Hans’ tastes were very curious, and nothing came amiss when he was hungry. He had a trick of pulling off Dolly’s stockings when she was sitting out on the green, and if he were not discovered in time, he was sure to make his breakfast off of them. With these tastes, you will readily understand, Big Hans could have no sympathy, and the only thing which could induce him to forgive Little Hans’ eccentricities was the fact that Little Hans was a goat.

II

In the winter of 187–, a great deal of snow fell on the northwestern coast of Norway. The old pines about the Myrbraaten cottage were laden down with it; the children had to be put to work with snow-shovels early in the morning, in order to hollow out a tunnel to the cow-stable where the cow stood bellowing with hunger. The mother, too, worked bravely, and sometimes when the thin roof of snow caved in and fell down upon them, they laughed heartily, and their mother too, could not help laughing because they were so happy. Little Hans also made a pretence of working, but only succeeded in being in everybody’s way, and when the cold snow drizzled down upon his nose he grinned and made faces so queer that the children shouted with merriment.

Day after day, and week after week, the snow continued to descend. Big Hans and his friend sat at the window watching the large feathery flakes, as they whirled slowly and silently through the air and covered the earth far and near with a white pall. Soon there was a scarcity of wood at the Myrbraaten cottage, and Halvor was obliged to get into his skees and go to the forest. Humming the multiplication table (so far as he knew it) to the tune of a hymn, he pulled on his warmest jacket, took his axe from its hiding-place under the eaves, and went in a slanting line up the mountain-side; but before he had gone many rods it struck him that it was useless to go so far for wood, when the whole mountain-slope was covered with pines. Fresh pine would be a little hard to burn, to be sure, but then pine was full of pitch and would burn anyhow. He therefore took off his skees, dug a hole in the snow, and felled three or four trees only a few hundred rods above the cottage. When his wife heard the sound of his axe so near the house, she rushed out and cried to him:

“Halvor, Halvor, don’t cut down the trees on the slope! They are all that keep the snow from coming down upon us in an avalanche, and sweeping us into the ocean!”

“Oh, the Lord will look out for his own,” sang Halvor, cheerily.

“The Lord put the pine-trees there to protect us,” replied his wife.

But the end was that, in spite of his wife’s protests, Halvor continued to fell the trees.

The heavy fall of snow was followed in the course of a week by a sudden thaw.

Strange creaking and groaning sounds stole through the forest. Sometimes when a large load of snow fell, it rolled and grew as it rolled, until it dashed against a huge trunk and nearly broke it with its weight.

Then, one night, there came down a great load which fell with a dull thud and rolled down and down, pushing a growing wall of snow before it, until it reached the clearing where Halvor had cut his wood; there, meeting with no obstructions, it gained a tremendous headway, sweeping all the snow and the felled trunks with it, and rushed down in a great mass, carrying along stones, shrubs, huge trees, and the very soil itself, leaving nothing but the bare rock behind it. How terrible was the sight! A smoke-like cloud rose in the darkness, and a sound as of a thousand thundering cataracts filled the night. On it swept, onward, with a wild, resistless speed! At the jutting rock, where the juniper stood, the avalanche divided, tearing up the old spruces and the birches by the roots and hurling them down, but leaving the juniper standing alone on its barren peak. It was but a moment’s work. The avalanche shot downward with increased speed – hark! – a sharp shriek, a smothered groan, then a fierce hissing sound of waves that rose toward the sky and returned with a long thundering cannonade to the strand! The night was darker and the silence deeper than before.

III

Where the Myrbraaten cottage had stood, the bare rock now stares black and dismal against the sun. The rumor of the calamity spread like wild-fire through the valley, and the folk of the whole parish came to gaze upon the ruin which the avalanche had wrought. All that was left of Myrbraaten was the cow-stable, where the cow and Little Hans and Big Hans had slept. Little Hans had been very ill-behaved the night before, so Turid had sent him to sleep with the cow; and Big Hans, who thought it would be cruel to ask his companion to spend the night in that dark stable, with only a cow for company, had gone with him and slept with him in the hay. Thus it happened that Little Hans and Big Hans both were saved. It was pitiful to see them shivering in the wet snow. Big Hans was crying as if his heart would break; and the women who crowded about him were unable to comfort him. What should he, a small boy of ten, do alone in this wide world? His father and his mother and his little brothers and sisters were all gone, and there was no one left who cared for him. Just then Little Hans, who was anxious to express his sympathy, put his nose close to Big Hans’ face and rubbed it against his cheek.

“Yes, you are right, Little Hans,” sobbed the boy, embracing his faithful friend; “you do care for me. You are the only one I have left now, in all the world. You and I will stand by each other always.”

Little Hans then said, “Ma-a-a,” which in his language meant, “Yes.”

The question soon arose in the parish – what was to be done with Big Hans? He had no relatives except a brother of his mother, who had emigrated many years before to Minnesota; and there was no one else who seemed disposed to assume the burden of his support. It was finally decided that he should be hired out as a pauper to the lowest bidder, and that the parish should pay for his board. But when the people who bid for him refused to take Little Hans too, the boy determined, after some altercation with the authorities, to seek his uncle in America. One thing he was sure of, and that was that he would not part from Little Hans. But there was no one in the parish who would board Little Hans without extra pay. Accordingly, the cow and the barn were sold for the boy’s benefit, and he and his comrade went on foot to the city, where they bought a ticket for New York.

Thus it happened that Big Hans and Little Hans became Americans. But before they reached the United States some rather curious things happened to them. The captain of the steamship, Big Hans found, was not willing to take a goat as a passenger, and Big Hans was forced to return with his friend to the pier, while the other emigrants thronged on board. He was nearly at his wits’ end, when it suddenly occurred to him to put Little Hans in a bag and smuggle him on board as baggage. This was a lucky thought. Little Hans was quite heavy, to be sure, but he seemed to comprehend the situation perfectly, and kept as still as a mouse in his bag while Big Hans, with the assistance of a benevolent fellow-passenger, lugged him up the gang-plank. And when he emerged from his retirement some time after the steamer was well under way, none of the officers even thought of throwing the poor goat overboard; for Little Hans became a great favorite with both crew and passengers, although he played various mischievous pranks, in his quiet, unostentatious way, and ate some shirts which had been hung out to dry.

It was early in April when the two friends arrived in New York. They attracted considerable attention as they walked up Broadway together; and many people turned around to laugh at the little emigrant boy, in his queer Norwegian costume, who led a full-grown goat after him by a halter. The bootblacks and the newsboys pointed their fingers at them, and, when that had no effect, made faces at them, and pulled Big Hans by his short jacket and Little Hans by his short tail. Big Hans was quite frightened when he saw how many of them there were, but, perceiving that Little Hans was not in the least ruffled, he felt ashamed of himself, and took heart again. Thus they marched on for several blocks, while the crowd behind them grew more and more boisterous and importunate. Suddenly, one big boy, who seemed to be the leader of the gang, sprang forward with a yell and knocked off Big Hans’ hat, while all the rest cheered loudly; but just as he was turning around to enjoy his triumph, Little Hans turned around too, and gave him a bump from behind which sent him headlong into the gutter. Then, rising on his hind legs, Little Hans leaped forward again and again, and despatched the second and third boy in the same manner, whereupon all the rest ran away, helter-skelter, scattering through the side streets. It was all done in so quiet and gentlemanly a manner that not one of the grown-up spectators who had gathered on the sidewalk thought of interfering. Big Hans, however, who had intended to see something of the city before starting for the West, was so discouraged at the inhospitable reception the United States had given him, that he gave up his purpose, and returned disconsolately to Castle Garden. There he spent the rest of the day, and when the night came, he went to sleep on the floor, with his little bundle under his head; while Little Hans, who did not seem to be sleepy, lay down at his side, quietly munching a piece of pie which he had stolen from somebody’s luncheon-basket.

Early the next morning Big Hans was awakened by a gentle pulling at his coat-collar; and, looking up, he saw that it was Little Hans. He jumped up as quickly as he could, and he found that it was high time, for all the emigrants had formed into a sort of a procession and were filing through the gate on their way to the railway station. There were some seven or eight hundred of them – toil-worn, sad-faced men and women, and queer-looking children in all sorts of outlandish costumes. Big Hans and his friend ran to take their places at the very end of the procession, and just managed to slip through the gate before it was closed. At the railway station the boy exhibited his ticket which he had bought at the steamship office in Norway, and was just about to board the train, when the conductor cried out:

“Hold on, there! This is not a cattle-train! You can’t take your goat into the passenger-car!”

Big Hans did not quite comprehend what was said, but from the expression of the conductor’s voice and face, he surmised that there was some objection to his comrade.

“I think I have money enough to buy a ticket for Little Hans, too,” he said, in his innocent Norwegian way, as he pulled a five-dollar bill from his pocket.

“I don’t want your money,” cried the conductor, who knew as little of Norwegian as Big Hans did of English.

“Get out of the way there with your billy-goat!”

And he hustled the boy roughly out of the way to make room for the other emigrants, who were thronging up to the platform.

“Well, then,” said Big Hans, “since they don’t want us on the train, Little Hans, we shall have to walk to Minnesota. And as this railroad is going that way, I suppose we shall get there if we follow the track.”

Little Hans seemed to think that this was a good plan; for, as soon as the train had steamed off, he started at a brisk rate along the track, so that his master had great difficulty in keeping up with him. For several hours they trudged along cheerfully, and both were in excellent spirits. Minnesota, Big Hans supposed, might, perhaps, be a day’s journey off, and if he walked fast he thought he would probably be there at nightfall. When once he was there, he did not doubt but that everybody would know his Uncle Peter. He was somewhat puzzled, however, when he came to a place where no less than three railroad tracks branched off in different directions; and, as there was no one to ask, he sat down patiently in the shade of a tree and determined to wait. Presently a man came along with a red flag.

“Perhaps you would kindly tell me if this is the way to Minnesota,” said Big Hans, taking off his cap and bowing politely to the man.