Nils Holgerssons underbara resa. English

by Selma Lagerlöf

hissedCrawlie, like all the rest.

  By that time Grayskin's patience was exhausted. He walked up to thesnake, and raised a forefoot.

  "Do you think of crushing me as you crushed the old water-snake?" hissedCrawlie.

  "Did I kill a water-snake?" asked Grayskin, astonished.

  "The first day you were in the forest you killed the wife of poor oldHelpless," said Crawlie.

  Grayskin turned quickly from the adder, and continued his walk withKarr. Suddenly he stopped.

  "Karr, it was I who committed that crime! I killed a harmless creature;therefore it is on my account that the forest is being destroyed."

  "What are you saying?" Karr interrupted.

  "You may tell the water-snake, Helpless, that Grayskin goes into exileto-night!"

  "That I shall never tell him!" protested Karr. "The Far North is adangerous country for elk."

  "Do you think that I wish to remain here, when I have caused a disasterlike this?" protested Grayskin.

  "Don't be rash! Sleep over it before you do anything!"

  "It was you who taught me that the elk are one with the forest," saidGrayskin, and so saying he parted from Karr.

  The dog went home alone; but this talk with Grayskin troubled him, andthe next morning he returned to the forest to seek him, but Grayskin wasnot to be found, and the dog did not search long for him. He realizedthat the elk had taken the snake at his word, and had gone into exile.

  On his walk home Karr was too unhappy for words! He could not understandwhy Grayskin should allow that wretch of a water-snake to trick himaway. He had never heard of such folly! "What power can that oldHelpless have?"

  As Karr walked along, his mind full of these thoughts, he happened tosee the game-keeper, who stood pointing up at a tree.

  "What are you looking at?" asked a man who stood beside him.

  "Sickness has come among the caterpillars," observed the game-keeper.

  Karr was astonished, but he was even more angered at the snake's havingthe power to keep his word. Grayskin would have to stay away a long longtime, for, of course, that water-snake would never die.

  At the very height of his grief a thought came to Karr which comfortedhim a little.

  "Perhaps the water-snake won't live so long, after all!" he thought."Surely he cannot always lie protected under a tree root. As soon as hehas cleaned out the caterpillars, I know some one who is going to bitehis head off!"

  It was true that an illness had made its appearance among thecaterpillars. The first summer it did not spread much. It had only justbroken out when it was time for the larvae to turn into pupae. From thelatter came millions of moths. They flew around in the trees like ablinding snowstorm, and laid countless numbers of eggs. An even greaterdestruction was prophesied for the following year.

  The destruction came not only to the forest, but also to thecaterpillars. The sickness spread quickly from forest to forest. Thesick caterpillars stopped eating, crawled up to the branches of thetrees, and died there.

  There was great rejoicing among the people when they saw them die, butthere was even greater rejoicing among the forest animals.

  From day to day the dog Karr went about with savage glee, thinking ofthe hour when he might venture to kill Helpless.

  But the caterpillars, meanwhile, had spread over miles of pine woods.Not in one summer did the disease reach them all. Many lived to becomepupas and moths.

  Grayskin sent messages to his friend Karr by the birds of passage, tosay that he was alive and faring well. But the birds told Karrconfidentially that on several occasions Grayskin had been pursued bypoachers, and that only with the greatest difficulty had he escaped.

  Karr lived in a state of continual grief, yearning, and anxiety. Yet hehad to wait two whole summers more before there was an end of thecaterpillars!

  Karr no sooner heard the game-keeper say that the forest was out ofdanger than he started on a hunt for Helpless. But when he was in thethick of the forest he made a frightful discovery: He could not hunt anymore, he could not run, he could not track his enemy, and he could notsee at all!

  During the long years of waiting, old age had overtaken Karr. He hadgrown old without having noticed it. He had not the strength even tokill a water-snake. He was not able to save his friend Grayskin from hisenemy.

  RETRIBUTION

  One afternoon Akka from Kebnekaise and her flock alighted on the shoreof a forest lake.

  Spring was backward--as it always is in the mountain districts. Icecovered all the lake save a narrow strip next the land. The geese atonce plunged into the water to bathe and hunt for food. In the morningNils Holgersson had dropped one of his wooden shoes, so he went down bythe elms and birches that grew along the shore, to look for something tobind around his foot.

  The boy walked quite a distance before he found anything that he coulduse. He glanced about nervously, for he did not fancy being in theforest.

  "Give me the plains and the lakes!" he thought. "There you can see whatyou are likely to meet. Now, if this were a grove of little birches, itwould be well enough, for then the ground would be almost bare; but howpeople can like these wild, pathless forests is incomprehensible to me.If I owned this land I would chop down every tree."

  At last he caught sight of a piece of birch bark, and just as he wasfitting it to his foot he heard a rustle behind him. He turned quickly.A snake darted from the brush straight toward him!

  The snake was uncommonly long and thick, but the boy soon saw that ithad a white spot on each cheek.

  "Why, it's only a water-snake," he laughed; "it can't harm me."

  But the next instant the snake gave him a powerful blow on the chestthat knocked him down. The boy was on his feet in a second and runningaway, but the snake was after him! The ground was stony and scrubby; theboy could not proceed very fast; and the snake was close at his heels.

  Then the boy saw a big rock in front of him, and began to scale it.

  "I do hope the snake can't follow me here!" he thought, but he had nosooner reached the top of the rock than he saw that the snake wasfollowing him.

  Quite close to the boy, on a narrow ledge at the top of the rock, lay around stone as large as a man's head. As the snake came closer, the boyran behind the stone, and gave it a push. It rolled right down on thesnake, drawing it along to the ground, where it landed on its head.

  "That stone did its work well!" thought the boy with a sigh of relief,as he saw the snake squirm a little, and then lie perfectly still.

  "I don't think I've been in greater peril on the whole journey," hesaid.

  He had hardly recovered from the shock when he heard a rustle above him,and saw a bird circling through the air to light on the ground rightbeside the snake. The bird was like a crow in size and form, but wasdressed in a pretty coat of shiny black feathers.

  The boy cautiously retreated into a crevice of the rock. His adventurein being kidnapped by crows was still fresh in his memory, and he didnot care to show himself when there was no need of it.

  The bird strode back and forth beside the snake's body, and turned itover with his beak. Finally he spread his wings and began to shriek inear-splitting tones:

  "It is certainly Helpless, the water-snake, that lies dead here!" Oncemore he walked the length of the snake; then he stood in a deep study,and scratched his neck with his foot.

  "It isn't possible that there can be two such big snakes in the forest,"he pondered. "It must surely be Helpless!"

  He was just going to thrust his beak into the snake, but suddenlychecked himself.

  "You mustn't be a numbskull, Bataki!" he remarked to himself. "Surelyyou cannot be thinking of eating the snake until you have called Karr!He wouldn't believe that Helpless was dead unless he could see it withhis own eyes."

  The boy tried to keep quiet, but the bird was so ludicrously solemn, ashe stalked back and forth chattering to himself, that he had to laugh.

  The bird heard him, and, with a flap of his wings, he was up on therock. The boy rose
quickly and walked toward him.

  "Are you not the one who is called Bataki, the raven? and are you not afriend of Akka from Kebnekaise?" asked the boy.

  The bird regarded him intently; then nodded three times.

  "Surely, you're not the little chap who flies around with the wildgeese, and whom they call Thumbietot?"

  "Oh, you're not so far out of the way," said the boy.

  "What luck that I should have run across you! Perhaps you can tell mewho killed this water-snake?"

  "The stone which I rolled down on him killed him," replied the boy, andrelated how the whole thing happened.

  "That was cleverly done for one who is as tiny as you are!" said theraven. "I have a friend in these parts who will be glad to know thatthis snake has been killed, and I should like to render you a service