When they had viewed the entire farm, he noticed that the door of the cow shed was open.
“Look in here a moment,” he said, “then you will see how I lived in former days. It was very different from camping in swamps and morasses, as we do now.”
The goosey-gander stood in the doorway and looked into the cow shed.
“There’s not a soul in here,” he said. “Come along, Dunfin, and you shall see the goose pen. Don’t be afraid; there’s no danger.”
Forthwith the goosey-gander, Dunfin, and all six goslings waddled into the goose pen, to have a look at the elegance and comfort in which the big white gander had lived before he joined the wild geese.
“This is the way it used to be: here was my place and over there was the trough, which was always filled with oats and water,” explained the goosey-gander.
“Wait! there’s some fodder in it now.” With that he rushed to the trough and began to gobble up the oats.
But Dunfin was nervous.
“Let’s go out again!” she said.
“Only two more grains,” insisted the goosey-gander. The next second he let out a shriek and ran for the door, but it was too late! The door slammed, the mistress stood without and bolted it. They were locked in!
The father had removed a sharp piece of iron from the horse’s hoof and stood contentedly stroking the animal when the mother came running into the stable.
“Come, father, and see the capture I’ve made!”
“No, wait a minute!” said the father. “Look here, first. I have discovered what ailed the horse.”
“I believe our luck has turned,” said the mother. “Only fancy! the big white goosey-gander that disappeared last spring must have gone off with the wild geese. He has come back to us in company with seven wild geese. They walked straight into the goose pen, and I’ve shut them all in.”
“That’s extraordinary,” remarked the father. “But best of all is that we don’t have to think any more that our boy stole the goosey-gander when he went away.”
“You’re quite right, father,” she said. “But I’m afraid we’ll have to kill them tonight. In two days is Morten Gooseday8 and we must make haste if we expect to get them to market in time.”
“I think it would be outrageous to butcher the goosey-gander, now that he has returned to us with such a large family,” protested Holger Nilsson.
“If times were easier we’d let him live; but since we’re going to move from here, we can’t keep geese. Come along now and help me carry them into the kitchen,” urged the mother.
They went out together and in a few moments the boy saw his father coming along with Morten Goosey-Gander and Dunfin—one under each arm. He and his wife went into the cabin.
The goosey-gander cried:
“Thumbietot, come and help me!”—as he always did when in peril—although he was not aware that the boy was at hand.
Nils Holgersson heard him, yet he lingered at the door of the cow shed.
He did not hesitate because he knew that it would be well for him if the goosey-gander were beheaded—at that moment he did not even remember this—but because he shrank from being seen by his parents.
“They have a hard enough time of it already,” he thought. “Must I bring them a new sorrow?”
But when the door closed on the goosey-gander, the boy was aroused.
He dashed across the house yard, sprang up on the boardwalk leading to the entrance door and ran into the hallway, where he kicked off his wooden shoes in the old accustomed way, and walked toward the door.
All the while it went so much against the grain to appear before his father and mother that he could not raise his hand to knock.
“But this concerns the life of the goosey-gander,” he said to himself—“he who has been my best friend ever since I last stood here.”
In a twinkling the boy remembered all that he and the goosey-gander had suffered on icebound lakes and stormy seas and among wild beasts of prey. His heart swelled with gratitude; he conquered himself and knocked on the door.
“Is there someone who wishes to come in?” asked his father, opening the door.
“Mother, you shan’t touch the goosey-gander!” cried the boy.
Instantly both the goosey-gander and Dunfin, who lay on a bench with their feet tied, gave a cry of joy, so that he was sure they were alive.
Someone else gave a cry of joy—his mother!
“My, but you have grown tall and handsome!” she exclaimed.
The boy had not entered the cabin, but was standing on the doorstep, like one who is not quite certain how he will be received.
“The Lord be praised that I have you back again!” said his mother, laughing and crying. “Come in, my boy! Come in!”
“Welcome!” added his father, and not another word could he utter.
But the boy still lingered at the threshold. He could not comprehend why they were so glad to see him—such as he was. Then his mother came and put her arms around him and drew him into the room, and he knew that he was all right.
“Mother and father!” he cried. “I’m a big boy. I am a human being again!”
The Parting with the Wild Geese
.
The boy arose before dawn and wandered down to the coast. He was standing alone on the strand east of Smyge fishing hamlet before sunrise. He had already been in the pen with Morten Goosey-Gander to try to rouse him, but the big white gander had no desire to leave home. He did not say a word, but only stuck his bill under his wing and went to sleep again.
To all appearances the weather promised to be almost as perfect as it had been that spring day when the wild geese came to Skåne. There was hardly a ripple on the water; the air was still and the boy thought of the good passage the geese would have. He
