Page 19 of Seacrow Island


  “I feel much better now that I know it wasn’t Bosun,” he said to Melker. But then he turned his head and said in a low voice, “Although Yoka felt just the same, whoever it was who did it.”

  At night he dreamed about Yoka, a living Yoka, who came leaping up to him, asking for dandelion leaves. But morning came and there was no Yoka any more. Not even his hutch was there. Johan and Niklas had taken it away so that Pelle would not see it. How nice they were, his brothers. Niklas had given him a little model boat which he had built, and Johan had given him his old sheath knife. Pelle was so grateful that he could have burst. Still, it was a sad morning and he wondered, if it was always going to be like this, how he was ever going to endure the long days.

  That evening they buried Yoka in Jansson’s cow meadow in a little glade with saxifrage in the grass and high birches around it.

  HERE LIES YOKA

  Pelle had carved this on a bit of wood and now he knelt, pressing down the turf on Yoka’s grave, while Tjorven, Stina, and Bosun looked on. It would be lovely for Yoka here with saxifrage swaying over him and the thrushes singing for him in the evening, exactly as now.

  Tjorven and Stina wanted to sing. It was always done at funerals. They had buried dead birds many times and they had always sung the same hymn that they now sang for Yoka.

  “All the world’s an isle of sorrow,

  Here today and gone tomorrow.”

  “No, let’s not sing that one,” said Tjorven hastily. What was the matter with Pelle? He was sitting on a stone with his back to them and they could hear small, strange sobs. They looked at each other and Stina said anxiously, “Perhaps he’s crying because the world is an isle of sorrow.”

  “But it isn’t,” said Tjorven. And she shouted to Pelle, “No, Pelle, the world isn’t really an isle of sorrow. It’s only something we’re singing for Yoka.” On no account did she want there to be any more crying. In some way or other she must make Pelle happy, and suddenly she knew how to do it. “Pelle, I’ll give you something if you will promise not to be sad any more.”

  “What?” said Pelle morosely, without turning around.

  “I’ll give you Moses!”

  Then he turned around and stopped crying. He stared unbelievingly at Tjorven, but she assured him, “Yes, I’ll give him to you for your very own.”

  And for the first time since that moment of sorrow when Yoka had disappeared, Pelle smiled again. “How kind you are, Tjorven!”

  She nodded. “Yes, I am. But then, of course, I have Bosun.”

  Stina beamed. “Now all of us have got animals again. But we must go and tell Moses, mustn’t we?”

  They were all agreed about that. Moses must know to whom he belonged; besides which, he needed food, the nuisance.

  “Good-bye, little Yoka,” said Pelle tenderly. And then he ran away without looking back.

  And suddenly it was as if a cramp had let go of him. Suddenly he was another Pelle, a wild, excited, happy boy, who jumped and ran the whole way to Dead Man’s Creek and finally threw himself on the ground and rolled down the slope toward the boathouse.

  “Are you so happy just because I’ve given you Moses?” asked Tjorven.

  Pelle thought. “I don’t know. Perhaps. But it’s so sad to be sad that you can’t stay like that for as long as you’d like.”

  “Wait till you see Moses,” said Tjorven and opened the door to the boathouse.

  They stood and stared, aghast, into emptiness. There was no Moses there. He had disappeared.

  “He’s run away,” said Tjorven.

  “Run away! And fastened the latch on the door by himself?” said Pelle.

  Moses had not run away. Someone must have taken him.

  Tjorven turned to Stina. “Did anyone see you when you came yesterday?”

  Stina thought. “No, nobody, except Westerman. He wanted to hear the story of Little Red Riding Hood.”

  “Anyone can take you in,” said Tjorven.

  “Oh, that Westerman, what a robber!” Tjorven kicked Moses’s sleeping box so hard that it flew over to the wall. “I’ll pull out all his hair. He’s a thief. I’ll shoot him,” she shrieked in rage.

  “I know what we’ll do,” said Pelle. “We’ll steal Moses back. I bet you he’s put him into his boathouse, and I bet there’s a latch on that door too.”

  Tjorven’s rage abated. “Tonight—when Westerman is asleep,” she said eagerly.

  Stina was eager too, but there was one thing that worried her.

  “But what if we go to sleep before Westerman?”

  “We won’t do that,” Tjorven assured her, threateningly. “Not when we’re as angry as all this.”

  Stina was obviously not angry enough, for she could not keep awake. But Tjorven and Pelle could and, what was stranger still, no one saw them when they crept out.

  There had been a fox hunt on Seacrow Island that evening. Everybody had gathered together to frighten the fox out of his lair and they had managed to frighten him, but no fox was shot. For when they got him in a tight corner out on Crow Point and he saw no other way out he slunk into the water and swam away. He was a fox who was used to getting away and it was not far to the nearest island. Nisse Grankvist fired after him, but missed.

  Pelle was pleased when he heard this. “Why shouldn’t a fox live too?” he said. “And on the island he’s gone to there aren’t any rabbits or sheep or hens, anyhow.”

  “So he’ll have a tough time,” said Tjorven, contented. “The nasty creature, why should he kill Yoka?”

  “He only did it because he was a fox,” Pelle explained to her. “And he had to behave like a fox, you see.”

  “Well, he may be a fox, but that needn’t stop him from behaving like a human being,” said Tjorven and refused to understand the fox.

  But . . . behave like a human being? Like Westerman for example? Would that be much better? Stealing a poor little baby seal just to sell him! But he wasn’t going to get away with that, Tjorven asserted. “If only Cora doesn’t bark,” she said.

  But Cora did. She stood outside her kennel and barked as loudly as she could when she saw Tjorven and Pelle creeping past her. But Pelle had planned on this beforehand and had brought a bone for her, which he now held out, speaking kind words, and after that she was quiet. But it was anxious work, in any case, for they did not know whether anyone would come out to see why she had been barking. They lay for a long time hidden behind the lilac bush at the gate and waited, but when no one came they crept cautiously into the garden. Up on a rise stood the house, which they would have to pass to get down to the boathouse. All was silent and dark. The house lay like a black, threatening square with the light night sky behind it. No one appeared.

  “They are sleeping like logs,” said Tjorven. But she spoke too soon, for suddenly a light appeared in a window and Tjorven gasped. Mrs. Westerman had just lit the oil lamp over the table. They ran frantically straight toward the window and threw themselves down on the ground. In a panic, they lay there and waited. Had she seen them or hadn’t she? Perhaps she had been standing in the darkness before she lit the lamp, had looked out from behind the curtains and seen them come in through the gate. No one could really hide himself on a light June evening on this little hilly promontory, where there was not so much as a bush to crouch behind.

  But when Mrs. Westerman did not come out they began to take courage. She could not possibly see them unless she leaned out and looked down on them, and that they hoped she would not do—because if Mrs. Westerman began to bark they would not be able to silence her with a bone, they knew that. They hardly dared to move or whisper, scarcely to breathe. They could only lie still and listen. They could hear Mrs. Westerman moving about inside. The window was open and she was so close that they could have stretched up over the window sill and said hello, had they wished to. Suddenly she began to read aloud to herself. Tjorven groaned. It would have been all right if she had read something out of the daily paper, but to lie here as quiet as a shrimp and have to
listen to things she did not understand was more than she could bear.

  Pelle did not understand it either, but it sounded like something out of the Bible. She had a monotonous voice, but she read without hesitation and Pelle listened. Suddenly there came some words which stood out from all the other meaningless ones and began to shine, as words could shine for him sometimes.

  “If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,” read Mrs. Westerman. Then she sighed before she went on.

  Pelle did not pay any attention to what came afterward; it was just those words he could not forget. And he murmured them silently to himself.

  “If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea . . .” Like Carpenter’s Cottage, for example. That was a dwelling in the uttermost parts of the sea. And that was where you wanted to be when you were at home in the town. Just think, if only one had the wings of the morning and could fly there across the water, how wonderful that would be! To your dwelling in the uttermost parts of the sea—to Carpenter’s Cottage!

  Pelle was so absorbed in his thoughts that he did not notice that Mrs. Westerman had stopped reading until Tjorven poked him. What would happen now? She put out the lamp and it was dark inside. And suddenly Pelle heard someone breathing heavily just above his head. He did not dare look up, but he realized that Mrs. Westerman was standing at the open window. It was terrifying, lying there hunched up, just listening and waiting. Now—now she would see them, he was sure of it. But just when he felt he could not endure it a second longer, she shut the window with such a slam that they both jumped, and then everything was quiet. They lay still for a time and heard their own hearts beating, and then they ran quickly, bent almost double, around the house and down to the boathouse.

  “Moses, are you there?” whispered Tjorven.

  And it was obvious that Moses was there for he wailed like a ghost. Tjorven opened the door.

  Stina shivered when they told her everything the next day. How Moses squealed and how they got hold of him and how Westerman came out in his shirt sleeves and swore at them just as they were going out of the garden gate, and how Cora barked, and how they finally got Moses into his cart, and how they rushed home to Carpenter’s Cottage with him while Westerman shouted after them, “You wait till I catch you, Tjorven!”

  “It was a good thing I wasn’t with you,” said Stina. “I would have died on the spot.”

  Moses had slept beside Pelle’s bed that night. Johan and Niklas were amazed but not at all displeased when they woke next morning and saw their new roommate.

  “I must keep him here, so that Westerman won’t come and take him,” explained Pelle. “But now you must help me to talk to Daddy.”

  His father certainly had objections. “It’s all right for Tjorven to give you Moses,” said Melker, “but it’s not a good thing for you two and Westerman to be carrying on a sort of gangster warfare, stealing seals from each other at night.”

  They all tried to figure out a better way. The whole family was sitting around the breakfast table and they could hear Moses floundering around up in the boys’ room.

  Malin was not particularly pleased about her new lodger, but for Pelle’s sake she had to put up with him. Pelle needed Moses just now, she understood that, and Westerman would have to be made to understand too.

  “It’s only money he wants,” said Johan. “Can’t you give him a few hundred crowns, Daddy, so that Pelle can keep his seal?”

  “Give him a few hundred crowns yourself,” said Melker.

  “We must all help.”

  “You aren’t generally at much of a loss when it’s a question of earning money. You get going!”

  So they got going. Every child on Seacrow Island wanted to take part in what Melker called Operation Moses. It was like a game. Suddenly it was much more fun to weed strawberry beds and carry water and bail out the boats and tar the jetties and carry luggage for summer visitors when one knew that with every penny earned, the sum that was going to buy Moses free from Westerman increased.

  Westerman sneered when he came into the shop and heard about Operation Moses. “That’s all right by me,” he said. “It doesn’t matter to me who buys the seal. But two hundred crowns I must have this week, otherwise I’ll sell him elsewhere.”

  “Go to blazes, Westerman,” said Tjorven, straight out.

  Westerman threw a few coppers to her. “A little help for Moses,” he said. “I think you’ll need it. I don’t expect you’ll collect two hundred crowns by Saturday, and I’m not waiting longer than that.”

  “Oh, go to blazes,” said Tjorven once more for safety’s sake. But she took the coppers and put them in Moses’s savings box, which stood on the counter.

  “No, Tjorven, we don’t talk like that,” said Nisse sternly, and then he turned to Westerman. “You really are a skunk, Westerman, do you know that?”

  But Westerman only grinned.

  Operation Moses continued, growing more intensive every day.

  “You see, Moses? I’ve got blisters on my hands for your sake,” said Freddy, after she had been beating rugs a whole morning.

  But Moses lived his own life and paid no attention to anyone. He was quite indifferent to Operation Moses. Obviously he had not got along very well during his solitary sojourns in various boathouses. He was scarcely recognizable, he was so nervous and restless. Almost bad-tempered. He squealed and hissed more than ever, and sometimes he even tried to bite.

  “He isn’t exactly the kind of animal I like having in the house,” said Malin, but she did not let Pelle hear her saying this.

  Pelle adored Moses in the same way he had adored Yoka, and when Moses hissed at him he only patted him.

  “Poor little Moses, what’s the matter? Aren’t you happy with me?”

  But nowadays it did not seem that Moses was happy anywhere. He would not stay in the boathouse nor in his pool. He preferred to be down by the water’s edge, but Pelle did not dare leave him there for long, for Uncle Nisse had warned him, “Keep him in his pool, otherwise he’ll run away one of these days.”

  And Pelle kept Moses shut up in the pool and wondered sadly what it would be like to have an animal which did not want to run away. Yoka had run away—to his own cost—but Pelle had hoped it would be different with a seal. Poor Moses, why was he so restless?

  Tottie’s leg was almost well again but he had not moved back to the sheep meadow. He followed Stina wherever she went and Bosun again followed Tjorven. He had not done so immediately, for he was not a dog who pushed himself forward before he knew whether he was wanted. He had gone quietly to his usual place beside the steps until Tjorven came and threw her arms around him.

  “Now then, Bosun, you are not to lie here any more, ever again!”

  Then he had followed her and from that moment he had never left her side.

  Wherever Tjorven and Stina went their animals followed them. But Pelle had no one following him.

  “Although, of course, he is your seal,” said Tjorven.

  Pelle looked thoughtful. “I’m beginning to think that Moses belongs to himself,” he said.

  And then it was Saturday, the day when Westerman was to have his two hundred crowns.

  There was a feeling of nervousness in the Seacrow shop, for now the money was to be counted. The shop was full of people. This was something which had interested the whole island. None of the islanders envied Westerman a penny. To treat Tjorven, their Tjorven, so badly—he should never have done it! They were all agreed on that.

  Westerman felt this and so he looked more cocksure than usual when he came into the shop, exactly at the time arranged, and pushed his way to the counter. Behind it stood all the children in a row, glaring at him. All the Melkersons and all the Grankvists. Tjorven glared at him most angrily of all. It was the limit that Westerman should be paid for a seal that he had given her and which had cost her so much in milk, herrings, and care.

  Westerman grinned at her and was
full of jokes. “How nice you look, Tjorven! You think you’re going to have a seal now, don’t you?”

  “We shall see,” said Nisse and opened the savings box, pouring the money out on to the counter. The whole shop was absolutely silent as he began to count. No one made a sound. Nothing could be heard but the clink of money and Nisse’s mumbling.

  Pelle had climbed up on a margarine box behind the counter. It was horrible to hear that clinking. What if there wasn’t enough money? Poor Moses, what if Westerman took him and sold him to Petter?

  Then he had a thought which hurt him a little. Who said it would be so much worse for Moses? Perhaps it was more fun to swim about in the sea with a radio apparatus on you than to splash in the pool on Seacrow Island. Though, of course, the very best thing for a seal, thought Pelle, was to swim about in the sea, absolutely free, without any radio apparatus or anything, just like an ordinary seal among other seals.

  In the middle of his thoughts he heard Uncle Nisse’s voice.

  “One hundred and sixty-seven crowns and eighty öre.”

  A murmur of disappointment went through the crowd in the shop and everyone glared at Westerman as if it were his fault that there was not enough money in the savings box. Nisse looked him straight in the eyes.

  “I suppose you’ll be willing to bargain a little?”

  Westerman looked straight back at him. “Do you usually bargain with your customers?”

  Then suddenly Tjorven stood in front of Westerman. “Westerman, do you know what? I never asked you for that baby seal. You gave him to me. Do you remember that?”

  “Don’t begin that all over again,” said Westerman.

  Tjorven eyed him from top to toe. “You really are a skunk, Westerman, did you know that?” she said.

  But then Marta took charge. “No, Tjorven, you really mustn’t talk like that!”

  “But that’s what Daddy said,” said Tjorven, and everyone laughed.

  Westerman turned red with fury. He could stand anything but people laughing at him.