The Wonderful Adventures of Nils by Selma Lagerlöf (i can read book club TXT) 📕

glad meeting awaited the boy when he came down to the heath. For there, in the heather, he spied something white, and toward him came the white goosey-gander, accompanied by Dunfin. When the white one saw the boy running with such speed, he thought that dreadful fiends were pursuing him. He flung him in all haste upon his back and flew off with him. The Old Peasant Woman

Thursday, April fourteenth.

Three tired wanderers were out in the late evening in search of a night harbour. They travelled over a poor and desolate portion of northern Småland. But the sort of resting place which they wanted, they should have been able to find; for they were no weaklings who asked for soft beds or comfortable rooms.

“If one of these long mountain-ridges had a peak so high and steep that a fox couldn’t in any way climb up to it, then we should have a good sleeping-place,” said one of them.

“If a single one of the big swamps was thawed out, and was so marshy and wet that a fox wouldn’t dare venture out on it, this, too, would be a right good night harbour,” said the second.

“If the ice on one of the large lakes we travel past were loose, so that a fox could not come out on it, then we should have found just what we are seeking,” said the third.

The worst of it was that when the sun had gone down, two of the travellers became so sleepy that every second they were ready to fall to the ground. The third one, who could keep himself awake, grew more and more uneasy as night approached. “Then it was a misfortune that we came to a land where lakes and swamps are frozen, so that a fox can get around everywhere. In other places the ice has melted away; but now we’re well up in the very coldest Småland, where spring has not as yet arrived. I don’t know how I shall ever manage to find a good sleeping-place! Unless I find some spot that is well protected, Smirre Fox will be upon us before morning.”

He gazed in all directions, but he saw no shelter where he could lodge. It was a dark and chilly night, with wind and drizzle. It grew more terrible and disagreeable around him every second.

This may sound strange, perhaps, but the travellers didn’t seem to have the least desire to ask for houseroom on any farm. They had already passed many parishes without knocking at a single door. Little hillside cabins on the outskirts of the forests, which all poor wanderers are glad to run across, they took no notice of either. One might almost be tempted to say they deserved to have a hard time of it, since they did not seek help where it was to be had for the asking.

But finally, when it was so dark that there was scarcely a glimmer of light left under the skies and the two who needed sleep journeyed on in a kind of half-sleep, they happened into a farmyard which was a long way off from all neighbours. And not only did it lie there desolate, but it appeared to be uninhabited as well. No smoke rose from the chimney; no light shone through the windows; no human being moved on the place. When the one among the three who could keep awake, saw the place, he thought: “Now come what may, we must try to get in here. Anything better we are not likely to find.”

Soon after that, all three stood in the house-yard. Two of them fell asleep the instant they stood still, but the third looked about him eagerly, to find where they could get under cover. It was not a small farm. Beside the dwelling house and stable and smokehouse, there were long ranges with granaries and storehouses and cattlesheds. But it all looked awfully poor and dilapidated. The houses had gray, moss-grown, leaning walls, which seemed ready to topple over. In the roofs were yawning holes, and the doors hung aslant on broken hinges. It was apparent that no one had taken the trouble to drive a nail into a wall on this place for a long time.

Meanwhile, he who was awake had figured out which house was the cowshed. He roused his travelling companions from their sleep, and conducted them to the cowshed door. Luckily, this was not fastened with anything but a hook, which he could easily push up with a rod. He heaved a sigh of relief at the thought that they should soon be in safety. But when the cowshed door swung open with a sharp creaking, he heard a cow begin to bellow. “Are you coming at last, mistress?” said she. “I thought that you didn’t propose to give me any supper tonight.”

The one who was awake stopped in the doorway, absolutely terrified when he discovered that the cowshed was not empty. But he soon saw that there was not more than one cow, and three or four chickens; and then he took courage again. “We are three poor travellers who want to come in somewhere, where no fox can assail us, and no human being capture us,” said he. “We wonder if this can be a good place for us.”

“I cannot believe but what it is,” answered the cow. “To be sure the walls are poor, but the fox does not walk through them as yet; and no one lives here except an old peasant woman, who isn’t at all likely to make a captive of anyone. But who are you?” she continued, as she twisted in her stall to get a sight of the newcomers.

“I am Nils Holgersson from Vemminghög, who has been transformed into an elf,” replied the first of the incomers, “and I have with me a tame goose, whom I generally ride, and a gray goose.”

“Such rare guests have never before been within my