Edwin Björkman

“ The place was empty except for a few closed and abandoned booths. But at the foot of it lay rows of one-masted sailing vessels loaded halfway up their masts with piles of fire-wood. In the background, beyond a small sheet of water crossed by a low iron bridge, rose abruptly the rocky walls of the South End, with funny old houses perched precariously along their edges. Keith stared so hard at all the new things that not a single question had a chance to escape him before they entered another street and stopped in front of a stone house that to him looked like a castle. ”

“ It looked almost as if he were still afraid of that white-haired, fragile, tight-lipped little woman, and the sight of him filled Keith with a vague uneasiness.
"Please sit down," said the grandmother at last. "I did not mean to disturb you, and Keith looks as if he might fall in a heap any moment."
"Why don't you stand up straight, Keith," asked his mother. "You will never grow up unless you do, and your grandmother will think worse of you than she already does." ”

“ Keith blurted out in a moment of desperation--which was unfortunate.
"Children have no likings of their own," said the father, putting down his spoon. "They must like what their parents give them. And you will finish that soup--if I have to feed you myself to make you do it."
Two more spoonfuls went down by an heroic effort. Then Keith burst into tears, and his father's face grew still darker as he asked scornfully:
"Are you a boy or a girl?"
Keith did not care at that moment. In fact, he thought that if girls had a right to cry, he would rather be one. ”

“ But Keith heard, and a glow of pride swelled his chest. It was the crowning climax of a scene that touched the boy with a sense of joy bordering on pain. "Beautiful" was a word used repeatedly by the grown-up people about him. He knew now that beauty was something that turned ordinary life into a pleasure more keen than could be had out of eating, or playing, or reading, or getting presents at Christmas even. ”

“ Both women hurried into the parlour. Keith stood irresolute for a moment. Then he made for the kitchen door and ran downstairs at top speed. He was afraid of missing Murray.
All during that day a thought would bother his brain like a buzzing fly: how peculiar that a man could want to order a new suit of clothes a few hours before he died. There was something irrational about it that stumped him. For a moment he thought of speaking to Murray about it, but it was as if some one had put a hand firmly over his mouth every time he tried to do so. ”

“ The fifth grade now was merely a continuation of the fourth and a stepping stone to the sixth. And Keith's class was the first one to miss the honours of which successive generations had dreamed as far back as the school had existed. It was a thing no one had considered when the great news was passed around in the spring. Now it was brought home to those most nearly concerned with that poignancy of realization of which only youth is capable. It gave to the whole class a peculiar atmosphere as if it had been marked in advance for defeat. ”

“ Until then it had been collective and impersonal. Now it became intensely personal. Every one wanted to hear. Necks were craned, whispered questions asked. It was as if a sudden breeze had stirred waters which until then had been still as the mirroring surface of a forest pool. Keith's mood changed with the rest, and he grew painfully conscious of himself and his surroundings.
Starting with the lowest grade, the Rector read out the names of the prize winners, the character of the prizes, and sometimes the reasons why they were bestowed. ”

“ Every so often a piece of furniture would disappear and a better one take its place, to be studied and admired and tried out again and again. Back of every improvement lay a unifying ambition. Its key-word was mahogany. The superior social respectability of this wood could not be disputed, and it had a sort of natural dignity that harmonized with the father's solid taste--though the mother might have preferred something lighter and brighter. And a microcosm of mahogany might, after all, be worth living for when loftier illusions had gone on the scrap heap. ”

“ Keith stared hard at his father and tried to imagine himself doing the same thing, but his fancy did not seem to work well in that direction. Later, when he was in bed, the father's story came back to him. Somehow it made him feel very proud, but also uneasy. He felt that there nothing more wonderful than to fight some one stronger than oneself and win, and soon he was busy slaying giants and dragons and bears and other monsters that he had heard Granny tell about. But he tried to think of himself as fighting a real boy in the way as his father, his dreams seemed to peter out ignominiously. ”

“ Later in the day Keith was permitted to look out through one of the front windows. The whole world had changed and looked much brighter in spite of the failing light. The Quay was covered by a carpet of white that made the waters beyond look doubly dark and cold. The trees on the opposite shore looked as if they had been painted from the topmost twig to the root. Down in the lane, two of the workers in the distillery were pelting each other with snowballs while a third one was shouting at the top of his voice:
"We'll have a white Christmas this year, thank heaven." ”

“ When the great day came, the home, always scrupulously neat, shone with cleanliness. Every one worked up to the last minute. Cupboards and pantries were full of unfamiliar and enticing supplies. The dining table, opened to its utmost length, groaned under the burden of innumerable cold dishes of tempting appearance, while from the kitchen came the odours of more substantial courses still in the making. A one end of Granny's bureau stood a battery of multicoloured bottles. ”

“ There was no doubt that Lector Booklund could feel it, and every day he watched Keith with more undisguised hostility. At last he could not speak to the boy without losing his temper, and so for days at a time he would not speak to him at all. At such times Keith's state of mind presented a riddle hard to solve. He posed to himself and others as tremendously gratified at being left alone and not having to answer any bothersome questions. Inwardly, however, he was more hurt and offended by that neglect than by any other rebuke the teacher could have devised. ”

“ He listened to what his parents talked, but always in a spirit of utter indifference, as if what they said could have no possible bearing on his own life.
One evening the servant girl--her name was Hilda at the time--brought word that Herr Stangenberg wanted very badly to see Fru Wellander for a few minutes.
"I think he knows at last that the end is near," Keith's mother said as she rose to go into the parlour. "What am I going to say if he asks me?"
"Nothing," replied the father quietly. "Leave that to the doctor." ”

“ Thus might a queen be greeted, but only by those nearest and dearest to her. What struck the boy most of all, however, was the world of difference lying between that tone and the one in which the father addressed his wife even in moments of closest understanding. It gave Keith his first clear glimpse of the distinction between love and respect, between sympathy and trust.
"So you are home, Carl," the grandmother remarked in her usual quiet, matter-of-fact manner. Then she turned to her daughter-in-law, who had also risen to her feet: "Is your head as bad as usual, Anna?" ”

“ Loth's father was a prosperous storekeeper on West Long Street and lived in a spacious and richly furnished apartment above the store. It was a home like that revealed to Keith through his shortlived friendship with Harald. The impression on Keith, however, was quite different because of his own growth since that first year at school. And the actions of the eight or ten boys who were the other guests impressed him still more. They wore gloves when they arrived. They showed neither forwardness nor timidity, but greeted each other and their host with grown-up dignity and formality. ”

“ If no one was in the living-room, Keith might shout a greeting to his playmate below, but it was not much fun, and Johan had a contemptuous way of asking why he did not come out and play.
Yet the season was not without its compensations. Stores of every kind were laid in to last through the winter. One might have thought that a severance of communications with the outside world was feared. Keith marvelled at the magnificence of it, and once in a while he asked why it had to be done. ”

“ The old women living like nightbirds in the garret, would drop in frequently, and almost invariably with some tale of woe that sooner or later drew from the mother relief in one form or another. And one of Keith's earliest tasks, half coveted and half feared, was to walk up to one of the attics with a plate of soup or a saucer full of jam or some other tidbit. Others would come from the outside, and they, too, were mostly old women. They always wanted to pat Keith, and he objected passionately to all of them. ”

“ The general effect on his mind was one of bewilderment, that soon lapsed into bored indifference. Then he discovered that most of the men on the stage were armed, and that some of them acted as if they might put their weapons into use at any moment. And he, the ardent participant in all the bloody deeds of Siegfried and Dietrich and Kriemhild, he, the passionate hunter of big game on five continents, became so nervous that nothing but fear of his father kept him from burying his head in his mother's lap in order not to see any more. ”

“ At one time, before her daughter was old enough to assume a share of the burden, Granny had actually had to fall back on the coarsest and humblest menial work--scrubbing and washing by the day in strange houses. Yet she and her daughter appeared throughout that ordeal to have remained on terms of pleasant intimacy with friends of the class to which they regarded themselves as properly belonging.
Another problem never solved for Keith was what kind of schooling his mother had had. Her own failure to tell suggested that it must have been of the slightest. ”

“ It happen now and then that a larger group was formed for some unusual exploit and that Keith became part of it by chance rather than choice. Once he accompanied such a group to that part of the harbour where tall-masted fullriggers with foreign flags lay nose by stern in unbroken line along the quay. Strange odours, fragrant or repulsive, filled the air. Jolly, loud-voiced men toiled mightily or lounged like monarchs among piles of casks and bags and boxes. For once Keith lost his usual timidity under such circumstances and threw himself whole-heartedly into anything the gang suggested. ”

“ He had no chum of his very own with whom to exchange secrets or lay plans for common adventures. And but for Dally, he would probably have spent most of his free time in the classroom.
It was worse when the big pause came at eleven and every one went home for lunch, or when three o'clock brought school to a close for the day. Going to school alone was an experience shared by all, but on leaving it, the hurrying horde of youngsters, exuberant with freedom as so many colts, broke into little groups of two or three that had homes in the same neighbourhood. ”

“ Hardly any memory left behind by Keith's childhood was more acute than the image of Granny seated in the centre of the kitchen, her stolid, yet pleasant old face bent over some household task, and her whole figure instinct with a passive protest against her enforced dependency or, maybe against life's arbitrariness in general. ”

“ Carlsson is very ungrateful," said Lena. "There are thousands of old people who would give anything to have a nice home and nothing to worry over."
"Anybody can talk, but it takes a head to keep silent," said Granny impersonally, quoting another old saw. Then her manner changed abruptly and she turned to Keith effusively.
"Give me a kiss! You love your old Granny, don't you? You don't despise her, do you, because she has nothing and is nothing? And can be sure she loves you more than anybody else." ”

“ And most company seemed unwelcome, although at times, when the right persons appeared at the right moment, he could be happy as a child and unbend in a manner that made Keith gape with wonder. When her good mood prevailed, the mother, too, was touchingly eager for the diversion provided by a chance visit, but when the dark moments came, she shunned everybody, while at the same time she watched any prolonged failure to call with morbid suspiciousness, ascribing it promptly to a sense of superiority toward herself and her family. ”

“ Oscar was especially eloquent when he spoke of the love his parents had for each other. He gave examples that seemed exaggerated to Keith, but nevertheless impressed him. In return Keith boasted similarly of his own parents, and he meant every word he said, but always what he had to tell fell short of the pictures drawn by Oscar.
"You don't understand," cried Oscar one day when again they were debating this fascinating topic all by themselves. "It's all right for your mother to kiss your father when he leaves and when he returns, and to be looking for him all the time. ”

“ The temptation to explore was irresistible.
"When the cat's away, the rats dance on the tray," the old grandmother muttered as if to herself.
"I'll just have a peep," Keith explained, turning to her for a moment. Then he made for the open door again.
The landing with its bare stone floor was familiar to him and quite barren of interest. What drew him magnetically was the tall archway leading to the mysterious upper regions known as the garret, where strange old women lived in hermit cells, and whence disturbing noises issued day and night. ”