Pippi Longstocking

"Please, please, miss," begged Thunder-Karlsson, "forgive us. We were only joking. Don't hurt us. We are just two tramps who came in to ask for food."

  Bloom even began to cry a bit.

  Pippi put the suitcase neatly back on the wardrobe. Then she turned to her prisoners. "Can either of you dance the schottische?"

  "Why, yes," said Thunder-Karlsson, "I guess we both

  yy

  can.

  "Oh, what fun!" cried Pippi, clapping her hands.

  Pippi Entertains Two Burglars81"Can't we dance a little? I've just learned, you know."

  "Well, certainly, by all means," said Thunder-Karls-son, a bit confused.

  Pippi took some large scissors and cut the ropes that bound her guests.

  "But we don't have any music," she said in a worried voice. Then she had an idea. "Can't you blow on a comb?" she said to Bloom. "And I'll dance with him." She pointed to Thunder-Karlsson.

  Oh, yes, Bloom could blow on a comb, all right. And blow he did, so that you could hear it all through the house. Mr. Nilsson sat up in bed, wide awake, just in time to see Pippi whirling around with Thunder-Karlsson. She was dead serious and danced as if her life depended on it.

  At last Bloom said he couldn't blow on the comb any longer because it tickled his mouth unmercifully. And Thunder-Karlsson, who had tramped the roads all day, began to feel tired.

  "Oh, please, just a little longer," begged Pippi, dancing on, and Bloom and Thunder-Karlsson could do nothing but continue.

  At three in the morning Pippi said, "I could keep on dancing until Thursday, but maybe you're tired and hungry."

  That was exactly what they were, though they hardly dared to say so. Pippi went to the pantry and took out bread and cheese and butter, ham and cold roast and milk; and they sat around the kitchen table-

 

  Bloom and Thunder-Karlsson, and Pippi-and ate until

  they were almost four-cornered.

  Pippi poured a little milk into her ear. "That's good for earache," she said.

  "Poor thing, have you got an earache?" asked Bloom.

  "No," said Pippi, "but I might get one."

  Finally the two tramps got up, thanked Pippi for the food, and begged to be allowed to say good-by.

  "It was awful jolly that you came. Do you really have to go so soon?" said Pippi regretfully. "Never have I seen anyone who can dance the schottische the way you do, my sugar pig," she said to Thunder-Karlsson. And to Bloom, "If you keep on practicing on the comb, you won't notice the tickling."

  As they were going out of the door Pippi came running after them and gave them each a gold piece. "These you have honestly earned," she said.

 

  Pippi Goes

  to a Coffee

  Party

 
  t

  ommy's and Annika's mother had invited a few ladies to a coffee party, and as she had done plenty of baking she thought Tommy and Annika might invite Pippi over at the same time. The children would entertain each other and give no trouble to anyone.

  Tommy and Annika were overjoyed when their mother told them and immediately dashed over to Pippi's to invite her. Pippi was in the garden, watering the few flowers still in bloom with an old rusty watering can. As it was raining cats and dogs that day Tommy told Pippi her watering seemed hardly necessary.

  "Yes, that's what you say," said Pippi grudgingly, "but I've lain awake all night thinking what fun it was going to be to get up and water, and I'm not going to let a little rain stand in my way."

 

  Now Annika came forth with the delightful news about the coffee party.

  "A coffee party! Me!" cried Pippi, and she was so excited that she began to water Tommy instead of the rosebush she intended to sprinkle. "Oh, what will hap* pen? Oh, I'm so nervous. What if I can't behave myself?"

  "Of course you can," said Annika.

  "Don't you be too certain about that," said Pippi. "You can be sure I'll try, but I have noticed several times that people don't think I know how to behave even when I'm trying as hard as ever I can. At sea we were never so fussy about things like that. But I promise that I'll take special pains today so you won't have to be ashamed of me."

  "Good," said Tommy, and he and Annika hurried home again in the rain.

  "This afternoon at three o'clock, don't forget," cried Annika, peeking out from under the umbrella.

  At three o'clock a very stylish young lady walked up the steps of the Settergrens' house. It was Pippi Longstocking. For this special occasion she had un-braided her pigtails, and her red hair hung like a lion's mane around her. With red crayon she had painted her mouth fiery red, and she had blackened her eyebrows so that she looked almost dangerous. With the crayon she had also painted her fingernails, and she had put big green rosettes on her shoes.

  "I should imagine I'll be the most stylish person of

  Pippi Goes to a Coffee Party85all at this party," she said contentedly to herself as sherang the doorbell.

  In the Settergrens' living room sat three fine ladies, and with them Tommy, Annika, and their mother. A wonderful coffee table had been spread, and in the fireplace a fire was burning brightly. The ladies were talking quietly with one another, and Tommy and Annika were sitting on the sofa, looking at an album. Everything was so peaceful.

  Suddenly the peace was shattered.

  "Atten-shun!" A piercing cry came from the hall, and the next minute Pippi Longstocking stood in the doorway. She had cried out so loudly and so unexpectedly that the ladies had jumped in their seats.

  "Forward march!" came the next command, and Pippi, with measured steps, walked up to Mrs. Setter-gren.

  "Halt!" She stopped. "Arms forward, one, two" she cried and with both hands gripped one of Mrs. Settergren's and shook it heartily.

  "Knees bend!" she shrieked and curtsied prettily. Then she smiled at Mrs. Settergren and said in her ordinary voice, "You see, I am really very shy, so if I didn't give myself some commands I'd just stand in the hall and not dare to come in."

  Then she rushed up to the other ladies and kissed them on the cheek.

  "Charming, charming, upon my honor!" said she, for she had once heard a stylish gentleman say that

 

  to a lady. Then she sat down in the best chair she could find. Mrs. Settergren had intended the children to have their party up in Tommy's and Annika's room, but Pippi stayed calmly in her chair, slapped herself on the knee, and said, looking at the coffee table, "That certainly looks good. When do we begin?"

  At that moment Ella, the maid, came in with the coffee pot, and Mrs. Settergren said, "Please come and have some coffee."

  "First!" cried Pippi and was up by the table in two skips. She heaped as many cakes as she could onto a plate, threw five lumps of sugar into a coffee cup, emptied half the cream pitcher into her cup, and was back in her chair with her loot even before the ladies had reached the table.

  Pippi stretched her legs out in front of her and placed the plate of cakes between her toes. Then she merrily dunked cakes in her coffee cup and stuffed so many in her mouth at once that she couldn't have uttered a word no matter how hard she tried. In the twinkling of an eye she had finished all the cakes on the plate. She got up, struck the plate as if it were a tambourine, and went up to the table to see if there were any cakes left. The ladies looked disapprovingly at her, but that didn't bother her. Chatting gaily, she walked around the table, snatching a cake here and a cake there.

  "It certainly was nice of you to invite me," she said. "I've never been to a coffee party before."

 

  On the table stood a large cream pie, decorated in the center with a piece of red candy. Pippi stood with her hands behind her back and looked at it. Suddenly she bent down and snatched the candy with her teeth. But she dived down a little too hastily, and when she came up again her whole face was covered with whipped cream.

  "Goody!" laughed Pippi. "Now we can play blind-man's buff, for we've certainly got a blind man all made to orde
r! I can't see a thing!"

  She stuck out her tongue and licked away the cream. "This was indeed a dreadful accident," said she. "And the pie is all ruined now anyway, so I may as well eat it all up at once."

  She dug into it with the pie server, and in a few minutes the whole pie had disappeared. Pippi patted her stomach contentedly. Mrs. Settergren had gone out into the kitchen so she knew nothing about the accident to the cream pie, but the other ladies looked very sternly at Pippi. No doubt they would have liked a little pie too. Pippi noticed that they looked disappointed and decided to cheer them up.

  "Now you mustn't feel bad about such a little accident," she said comfortingly. "The main thing is that we have our health. And at a coffee party you should have fun."

  She then picked up a sugar bowl and tipped all the lump sugar in it out on the floor. "Well, my goodness!" she cried. "Now look what I've done! How could

  88Pippi LongstockingI make such a mistake? I thought this was the granulated sugar. Bad luck seems to follow me today."

  Thereupon she took a sugar spoon out of another bowl and began to sprinkle granulated sugar all over the floor. "I hope you notice," she said, "that this is the kind of sugar you sprinkle on things. So it's perfectly all right for me to do this. Because why should there be the kind of sugar to sprinkle on things if somebody doesn't go and sprinkle it?-that's what I'd like to know.

  "Have you ever noticed what fun it is to walk on a floor that has had sugar sprinkled all over it?" she asked the ladies. "Of course it's even more fun when you're barefoot," she added as she pulled off her shoes and stockings. "You ought to try it too, because nothing's more fun, believe me!"

  At that moment Mrs. Settergren came in, and when she saw the sugar all over the floor she took Pippi firmly by the arm and led her over to the sofa to Tommy and Annika. Then she went over to the ladies and invited them to have more coffee. That the cream pie had disappeared only made her happy, because she thought the ladies had liked it so much that they had eaten it all.

  Pippi, Tommy, and Annika sat talking quietly on the sofa. The fire crackled on the hearth. The ladies drank their coffee, and all was quiet and peaceful again. And as so often happens at coffee parties, the ladies began to talk about their servant problems. Apparently they

  Pippi Goes to a Coffee Party89had not been able to get very good servants, for theywere not at all satisfied with them, and they agreedthat it really was better not to have any servants at all.It was much more satisfactory to do things yourselfbecause then you at least knew that things were doneright.

  Pippi sat on the sofa listening, and after the ladies had been talking a while she said, "Once my grandmother had a servant named Malin. She had chilblains on her feet, but otherwise there was nothing wrong with her. The only annoying thing was that as soon as company came she would rush at them and bite their legs. And bark! Oh, how she would bark! You could hear it all through the neighborhood, but it was only because she was playful. Only, of course, strangers didn't always understand that. The dean's wife, an elderly woman, came to see Grandmother once soon after Malin first came, and when Malin came dashing at her and bit her in the ankle, the dean's wife screamed so loudly that it scared Malin, so that her teeth clamped together and she couldn't get them apart. There she sat, stuck to the dean's wife's ankle until Friday. And Grandmother had to peel the potatoes herself. But at least it was well done. She peeled so well that when she was done there were no potatoes left-only peelings. But after that Friday the dean's wife never came to call on Grandmother again. She just never could take a joke. And poor Malin who was always so good-natured and happy! Though for that mat-90

  Pippi Longstockingter she was a little touchy at times, there's no denyingthat. Once when Grandmother poked a fork in her earshe howled all day."

  Pippi looked around and smiled pleasantly. "Yes, that was Malin for you," she said and twiddled her thumbs.

  The ladies acted as if they had heard nothing. They continued to talk.

  "If my Rosa were only clean," said Mrs. Bergren, "then maybe I could keep her. But she's a regular

  pig-"

  "Say, you ought to have seen Malin," Pippi interrupted. "Malin was so outrageously dirty that it was a joy to see her, Grandmother said. For the longest time Grandmother thought she had a very dark complexion but, honest and true, it was nothing but dirt that would wash off. And once at the bazaar at the City Hotel she got first prize for the dirt under her nails. Mercy me, how dirty that girl was!" said Pippi happily. Mrs. Settergren looked at her sternly.

  "Can you imagine!" said Mrs. Granberg. "The other evening when Britta was going out she borrowed my blue satin dress without even asking for it. Isn't that dreadful?"

  "Yes, indeed," said Pippi, "she certainly seems to be cut from the same piece of cloth as Malin, from what you say. Grandmother had a pink undershirt that she was specially fond of. But the worst of it was that Malin liked it too. And every morning Grandmother and

  Pippi Goes to a Coffee Party91Malin argued about who was to wear the undershirt. Atlast they decided it would be fair to take turns andeach wear it every other day. But imagine how trickyMalin could be! Sometimes she'd come running in whenit wasn't her turn at all and say, 'No mashed turniptoday if I can't wear the pink woolen undershirt!'Well, what was Grandmother to do? Mashed turnip washer very favorite dish. There was nothing for it but togive Malin the shirt. As soon as Malin got the shirt shewent out into the kitchen as nice as could be and beganto mash turnip so that it spattered all over the walls."

  There was silence for a little while, and then Mrs. Alexandersson said, "I'm not absolutely certain but I strongly suspect that my Hulda steals. In fact I've noticed that things disappear."

  "Malin," began Pippi, but Mrs. Settergren interrupted her. "Children," she said decidedly, "go up to the nursery immediately!"

  "Yes, but I was only going to tell that Malin stole too," said Pippi. "Like a raven! Everything she could lay her hands on. She used to get up in the middle of the night and steal; otherwise she couldn't sleep well, she said. Once she stole Grandmother's piano and tucked it into her own top bureau drawer. She was very clever with her hands, Grandmother said."

  Tommy and Annika took hold of Pippi and pulled her out of the room and up the stairs. The ladies began on their third cups of coffee, and Mrs. Settergren said,

 

  "It's not that I want to complain about my Ella, but she does break the china."

  A red head appeared over the stair rail.

  "Speaking of Malin," said Pippi, "maybe you are wondering if she used to break any china. Well, she did. She set apart one day a week just to break china. It was Tuesday, Grandmother said. As early as five o'clock on Tuesday morning you could hear this jewel of a maid in the kitchen, breaking china. She began with the coffee cups and glasses and little things like that and then went on to the soup bowls and dinner plates, and she finished up with platters and soup tureens. There was such a crash bang in the kitchen all morning that it was a joy to hear it, Grandmother said. And if Malin had any spare time late in the afternoon, she would go into the drawing room with a little hammer and knocked down the antique East Indian plates that were hanging on the walls. Grandmother bought new china every Wednesday," said Pippi and disappeared up the stairs as quickly as a jack-in-the-box.

  But now Mrs. Settergren's patience had come to an end. She ran up the stairs, into the nursery, and up to Pippi, who had just begun to teach Tommy to stand on his head.

  "You must never come here again," said Mrs. Setter-gren, "when you can't behave any better than this."

  Pippi looked at her in astonishment and her eyes slowly filled with tears. "That's just what I was afraid of," she said. "That I couldn't behave properly. It's no

  Pippi Goes to a Coffee Party93use to try; I'll never learn. I should have stayed on theocean."

  She curtsied to Mrs. Settergren, said good-by to Tommy and Annika, and went slowly down the stairs.

  The ladies were now getting ready to go ho
me too. Pippi sat down in the hall near the shelf where rubbers were kept and watched the ladies putting on their hats and coats.

  "Too bad you don't like your maids," said she. "You should have one like Malin. Grandmother always said there was nobody like her. Imagine! One Christmas when Malin was going to serve a little roast pig, do you know what she did? She had read in the cookbook that roast pig must be served with frilled paper in the ears and an apple in the mouth. But poor Malin didn't understand that it was the pig who was supposed to have the apple. You should have seen her when she came in on Christmas Eve with her best apron on and a big Gravenstein apple in her mouth. 'Oh, Malin, you're crazy!' Grandmother said to her, and Malin couldn't say a word in her own defense, she could only wiggle her ears until the frilled paper rustled. To be sure, she tried to say something, but it just sounded like blubb, blubb, blubb. And of course she couldn't bite people in the leg as she usually did, and it would be a day when there was a lot of company. Poor little Malin, it wasn't a very happy Christmas Eve for her," said Pippi sadly.

  The ladies were now dressed and said a last good-by to Mrs. Settergren. And Pippi ran up to her and whis-

 

  pered, "Forgive me because I couldn't behave myself. Good-by!"

  Then she put on her large hat and followed the ladies. Outside the gate their ways parted. Pippi went toward Villa Villekulla and the ladies in the other direction.

  When they had gone a little way they heard someone painting behind them. It was Pippi who had come racing back.

  "You can imagine that Grandmother mourned when she lost Malin. Just think, one Tuesday morning when Malin had had time to break only about a dozen teacups she ran away and went to sea. And Grandmother had to break the china herself that day. She wasn't used to it, poor thing, and she got blisters all over her hands. She never saw Malin again. And that was a shame because she was such an excellent maid, Grandmother said."

  Pippi left, and the ladies hurried on, but when they had gone a couple of hundred feet, they heard Pippi, from far off, yelling at the top of her lungs, "she

  NEVER SWEPT UNDER THE BEDS."

 

  Pippi Acts

  as a

  Lifesaver

  o

  ne Sunday afternoon Pippi sat wondering what to do. Tommy and Annika had gone to a tea party with their mother and father, so she knew she couldn't expect a visit from them.

  The day had been filled with pleasant tasks. She had got up early and served Mr. Nilsson fruit juice and buns in bed. He looked so cute sitting there in his light blue nightshirt, holding the glass in both hands. Then she had fed and groomed the horse and told him a long story of her adventures at sea. Next she had gone into the parlor and painted a large picture on the wallpaper. The picture represented a fat lady in a red dress and a black hat. In one hand she held a yellow flower and in the other a dead rat. Pippi thought it a very beautiful picture; it dressed up the whole room. Then she had sat down in front of her chest and looked at all her birds' eggs and shells, and thought about the wonderful places where she and her father had col-