Top of the World Stories for Boys and Girls Part 2

He could see nothing but he could hear how the whole hill rang with laughter; the elves formed a ring around him, danced over him, nipped him on the cheeks like gnats, and were beside themselves with joy over their comical trick.

"Lie there and starve until you can be satisfied with a dewdrop and a gnat leg," said the elves.

Knut fell to pleading with them. "Listen now, little elves," said he. "I shall be content if I may bite on a small piece of reed I have in my jacket pocket. Will not some of you be so good as to stick it into my mouth?"

The elves thought it would be inexpressibly amusing to see this greedy human child eat a piece of reed; so four of them climbed into his jacket pocket and with their united strength drew forth the magic pipe, which, with great effort, they succeeded in putting into his mouth. Thereupon they danced more merrily than ever around and over him, and the hill resounded with their delicate laughter. It was like the humming of a million swarms of gnats.

Knut no sooner felt the pipe between his lips than he began to blow; and this time the tone was _p?_, _p?_. At once the merry laughter came to an end, and sobbing was heard from every direction,--a sound as of a hundred thousand sobbing together, not unlike what one hears in summer when the beating rain lashes the hill.

Knut could not see, but he knew that the elves were crying and he felt that it was a sin, no matter what they had done, to make such merry creatures sob so grievously.

"Set me free and you shall laugh again," said Knut to the weeping elves.

Now it is the elves' greatest joy to laugh. Indeed, they laugh away their short lives in the summer evenings knowing nothing of sorrow.

At Knut's words, hundreds of elves began immediately to chase away the spiders, and to set free the prisoner, loosening his arms and his legs, and unplastering his eyelids. Knut could now see his tiny enemies and his anger rose again, so that he blew _p?_ once more. Oh, how the poor little creatures grimaced and trembled! They wished so much to laugh and yet they must weep because of that frightful _p?_!

Knut had not the heart to tease them any longer. He changed the note to _pu_ and the elves became almost crazy with joy. They leaped so high in the air that they nearly overtook the larks, and as they came down, some of them alighted upon Knut and he had to shake them off. He did not notice that one elf had fallen into his pocket and remained there.

"Good-bye, little elves," said Knut as he hastily set off again on his way through the forest.

"I must watch out well for that other troll, the Forest King," thought Knut. "He is said to be the worst of all. Where was I in the Catechism?

Oh, yes. 'What does that mean?'"

After a while Knut came to a swamp at the roadside where cloudberries grew in profusion.

"It can't be wrong to pick a few of these berries as I pa.s.s by, since I sha'n't have any food until four o'clock this afternoon," thought Knut.

To reach the swamp he had to climb over a huge fallen pine-tree, which lay in the way. Scarcely did he find himself clambering across its gnarly trunk and thick close branches than the pine-tree, to Knut's great fright, raised itself high in air, and roared with a gruff voice:

"Good-day, Knut Spelevink. Why do you look so poorly to-day?"

Knut, hanging over the road in the pine-tree's top, still found courage to answer:

"Why shouldn't I look poorly when I have had nothing to eat since yesterday noon except Catechism, and bar iron, and frozen quicksilver and a gnat's leg?"

"Well, why did you interrupt my midday nap?" asked the pine-tree. "Don't you know that I am the King of the Forest and rule over all the trees and swamps for seven times seven miles around! Here you see my palace.

Haven't I a fine place to live in?"

Knut saw nothing but a bleak wilderness, so did not answer the question but ventured to inquire most humbly if he might not get down and pick some cloudberries to eat.

"What is that? Cloudberries?" roared the Forest King. "Take a fir-tree for a ladle and ladle into yourself seven cartloads of swamp mud. That is what I call a regular meal. It is my favorite food."

"Perhaps you would give me one load of apple marmalade, and a moderately big ditch full of wild honey instead!" suggested merry Knut.

"Apple marmalade? Humph! I shall make marmalade of you for disturbing me in my nap. My Lord Eagle, I give the boy to you. You can tear him into Scotch collops for your young ones."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PINE-TREE RAISED ITSELF HIGH IN AIR.--_Page 31_.]

Knut now became aware of an enormous eagle sitting in the top of the tree and staring at him with ravenous eyes. He could not jump down, for the pine-tree held him fast by his arms and legs. He should soon be torn into Scotch collops.

Knut Spelevink had never eaten collops, but however much he liked food, it seemed unbearable that he himself should become food for eagles.

The situation was indeed dangerous, but at this critical moment Knut felt something light as a flower creeping up his arm, up to his jacket collar, then to his chin and finally to his mouth. It was the little elf that had hidden in Knut's pocket, and was now creeping along and, with incredible difficulty, dragging after him the magic pipe which was seven times as long as himself.

"Blow!" said the elf.

Knut felt the pipe in his mouth and began to blow with a will. This time the tone was again _pa_.

The Forest King yawned, stretched out his branches, and mumbled something about having been disturbed in his midday nap. Then he threw himself down at full length beside the swamp, and in his fall crushed beneath his huge trunk the big ravenous eagle which the magic pipe had made too drowsy to fly away.

As Knut crept from among the branches, he heard a snoring through the forest as loud as if a hundred bears were growling their best for a wager; and he again took to his heels as nimbly as he could.

"I must certainly look out," thought Knut. "It is indeed dangerous here in the forest."

Without stopping for cloudberries or anything else, he continued to run and run while he could, but it was not easy, and by and by he had to walk slowly for the path was almost overgrown. The bramble-bushes seemed to have a spite against his trousers, tree branches caught hold of his jacket, and clung fast to it; the heather and the twigs of the blueberry-bushes p.r.i.c.ked his bare feet But to The Ridge he meant to get and to The Ridge he did get without further adventure, arriving,--tired, hungry and blowsy,--at precisely four o'clock in the afternoon.

"Welcome, Knut Spelevink," said Mr. Peterman. "You look right cheerful this afternoon!"

"Why shouldn't I look cheerful when I have been offered feasts of hot bar iron, frozen quicksilver, a dewdrop and a gnat's leg, and seven cartloads of mud?" laughed Knut.

"Why, that is a good many courses for one day," said Mr. Peterman. "One ought not to think much about food. When any one constantly thinks of what he can get to eat, he is in danger of encountering trolls and such like, who only fool him. But perhaps you are hungry, my boy?"

Knut blinked in embarra.s.sment, squeezed his cap between his hands and said that he was not yet exactly starved to death.

"Now that rejoices me!" exclaimed Mr. Peterman. "I ate a late breakfast and the servants have not yet had time to pluck all the birds. You just wait until eight o'clock and then you shall have some supper."

This was worse than hot bar iron and seven cartloads of mud, Knut thought; but he bit his nails and answered that he could wait, of course, adding to himself, however, "I had better say the Catechism over again to pa.s.s the time."

Now this Mr. Peterman was a great joker and was only teasing Knut. He had himself been a poor boy and knew well enough what it meant, when famished, to wait four hours more for food.

"Knut Spelevink," said he, "I perceive that you can do more than think about things to eat. Do you realize that conquering one's self and being able to give up, even to the very necessities of life, what one craves here in this world is a kind of heroism? You can conquer yourself like a hero and keep your merry humor through everything. I like you, my boy, and I am sure you will make a fine man if you have enough to eat and go to school as I mean you shall; for I am going to look after you from this time on.

"But what does that mean?" continued Mr. Peterman, sniffing. "It seems to me I smell roast bird! Walk in, my boy. You shall sit with me, at my own table, and for once in your life eat all you want."

When Mr. Peterman said "What does that mean?" Knut thought it sounded as if catechising were going to begin; but the door to the dining-room was thrown open at that moment, and there stood a dinner-table laden with smoking-hot savory food awaiting the hungry guests.

Mr. Peterman led Knut in by the hand and Knut sat at the table like a lord; and there he might have been sitting yet if he had not long since carried home the promised piece of cheese to his grandmother, and been sent to school.

As for the magic pipe, he had used that three times and once more, and it had served him well in Kiikkala Forest; but try as he might he could never again get the magic tones from it, and one day he lost it. The Catechism, however, stayed in his mind, and Knut could recite it from end to end any time he was asked.

--_Z. Topelius_.

[1] p.r.o.nounced K'nut Spa-le-veenk.

[2] "Spelevink" may be translated "Merrymouth."

[Ill.u.s.tration]