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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Soul of a Child, by Edwin Bjorkman
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Soul of a Child
+
+Author: Edwin Bjorkman
+
+Release Date: May 6, 2004 [EBook #12283]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SOUL OF A CHILD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Nicole Apostola, Charlie Kirschner and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SOUL OF A CHILD
+
+BY
+
+EDWIN BJOeRKMAN
+
+1922
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+PART I.
+PART II.
+PART III.
+PART IV.
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+
+I
+
+The oldest part of Stockholm is a little rocky island. Once it was the
+whole city. Popularly it is still spoken of as "The City." At one end of
+it stands the huge square-cut pile of the Royal Palace, looking with
+solemn indifference toward the more modern quarters across the ever
+hurried waters of the North River. Nearer the centre, and at the very
+top of the island, lies an open place called Great Square, which used to
+play a most important part in Swedish history, but which now serves no
+better purpose than to house the open-air toy market that operates the
+last week before Christmas.
+
+Long narrow streets loop concentrically about Great Square. They are
+lined with massive structures of stone and brick, four and five stories
+high, that used to be the homes of court and government officials, of
+army and navy officers, of burghers made prosperous by an extensive
+domestic and foreign trade, while on the ground floors were located the
+choicest shops of the country's capital. The shops are still there, but
+they have grown dingy and cheap, and they administer only to the casual
+needs of the humble middle-class people crowded into the old-fashioned,
+gloomy apartments above.
+
+From the square to the water-fronts radiate a number of still more
+narrow and squalid lanes, harbouring a population which is held inferior
+to that of the streets in social rank without yet being willing to have
+itself classed with the manual toilers of the suburbs. Halfway down the
+slope of such a lane, and almost within the shadow of the palace, stood
+the house where Keith first arrived at some sort of consciousness of
+himself and the surrounding world.
+
+On the fourth floor his parents occupied a three-room flat. The parlour
+and the living-room had two windows each, looking into the lane. The
+kitchen in the rear opened a single window on the narrowest, barest,
+darkest courtyard you ever saw, its one redeeming feature being a
+glimpse of sky above the red-tiled roof of the building opposite.
+
+In such surroundings Keith spent the better part of his first sixteen
+years.
+
+He was an only son, much loved, and one of his first conscious
+realizations was a sharp sense of restraint, as if he had been tied to a
+string by which he was pulled back as soon as anything promised to
+become interesting.
+
+At first he thought the world made up entirely of those three rooms,
+where he, his parents, Granny--his maternal grandmother--and a more or
+less transient servant girl had lived for ever. Visitors drifted in, of
+course, but he seemed to think that they had come from nowhere and would
+return to the same place. What instilled the first idea of a wider
+outside world in his mind was leaning out through one of the windows,
+with his mother's arm clutched tightly about his waist.
+
+There was something symbolic in that clutch, for his mother was always
+full of fear that dire things befall him. She was afraid of many other
+things besides, and the need of being constantly worried was probably
+his second clear realization.
+
+But the clasp of his mother's arm was soft and tender for all that. Her
+inclination to humour him in sundry respects not implying too much
+freedom of movement contrasted favourably with the sterner restraint
+exercised by his father. And so it was only natural that, to begin with,
+he should cling no less closely to her than she to him.
+
+Leaning out of the front windows was one of the favorite pursuits of his
+earliest childhood, and during the summer it could be indulged to a
+reasonable extent.
+
+Across the lane, not more than twenty-five feet distant, was another
+building, the upper parts of which he could see even when the windows
+were closed. It was much darker of aspect than their own house, and he
+knew that no people lived in it. He called it the distillery, just as he
+heard his parents do, without knowing what the word meant. Staring as he
+might into its dark windows, he could as a rule see nothing but the
+grimy panes, because in the back of it there was no courtyard at
+all--nothing but a solid wall without a single opening in it.
+
+Now and then however, he would spy the flickering light of an open-wick
+lamp move about on the floor level with their own. In the fitful,
+smoke-enshrouded glow of that lamp he would catch fleeting glimpses of
+clumsy figures and spooklike faces bending over huge round objects,
+while at the same time, if the windows were open, he would hear much
+mysterious tapping and knocking. It was all very puzzling and not quite
+pleasant, so that on midwinter afternoons, when he was still awake after
+dark, he would not care to look very long at the house opposite, and
+the drawing of the shades came as an actual relief.
+
+Letting his glance drop straight down from one of their windows, he saw,
+at a dizzying depth, the cobbles of the lane, lined on either side by a
+gutter made out of huge smooth stones. There was often water in the
+gutter even on dry days, when the intense blueness of the sky-strip
+overhead showed that the sun must be shining brightly. Sometimes the
+water was thick and beautifully coloured, and then he yearned to get
+down and put his hands into it. But to do so, he gathered from his
+mother, would not only be dangerous and contrary to her will and wish,
+but quite out of the question for some other reason that he could not
+grasp. His mother's standing expression for it was:
+
+"No _nice_ little boy would ever do that."
+
+Keith's third realization in the way of self-consciousness was an uneasy
+doubt of his own inherent nicety, for he soon discovered that whatever
+was thus particularly forbidden seemed to himself particularly
+desirable.
+
+At times he saw children playing down there--perhaps in the very gutter
+for which he was longing. To him they appeared entirely like himself,
+but to his mother's eye they were evidently objectionable in the same
+way as the gutter. There were not many of them, however, and it was a
+long time before two or three of them began to return with sufficient
+regularity to assume a distinct identity in his mind.
+
+Older people came and went, but never many of them, and hardly ever more
+than one or two at a time. Nor did he care very much. More attractive
+was the sight of long, horse-drawn carts with narrow bodies resting on
+two small wheels set about the centre. Generally they stopped in front
+of the distillery to load or unload heavy casks or barrels of varying
+size. The loading was more exciting by far, especially when the barrels
+were large, for then the men had to use all their strength to roll them
+up the gangway of two loose beams laid from the pavement to the cart,
+and to time their efforts they shouted or chanted noisily--much to
+Keith's joy and the disgust of his mother. On such occasions the air of
+the lane was apt to take on a special pungency, and as he sniffed it, he
+would have a sensation of mixed pleasure and revulsion. At other times
+when the carts stopped in front of the warehouse below the distillery,
+odours of an exclusively enjoyable character would tickle his
+nostrils--odours that later he might encounter in their own kitchen and
+identify with matters pleasing to the palate as well as to the nose.
+
+There were in all only eight houses on both sides of the lane. Four of
+these were the rear parts of the corner houses facing respectively on
+the Quay, at the foot of the lane and on East Long Street, at its head.
+Beyond the latter there was nothing but another wall full of windows,
+just like the walls flanking the lane itself. The traffic on the street
+was more lively and varied, but there was not much about it to catch and
+hold his interest.
+
+Almost invariably Keith turned his head in the other direction the
+moment he had poked it out of the window and been pulled back by his
+mother to a position of greater safety. There, at the foot of the lane,
+only a stone's throw distant, opened the stony expanse of the quay
+across which surged a veritable multitude of men and animals and
+vehicles at all hours of the day. At the end of the Quay, silhouetted
+against blue or grey or green water, appeared commonly the blunt nose or
+the flag-draped stern of a big steamer, but hardly ever the middle part
+of a hull with bridge or masts. And Keith could never recall whether the
+complete shape of a full-sized vessel was finally revealed to him by
+reality or by that reflection of it which, at an uncannily premature
+age, he began to find in books.
+
+The main feature of the view, however--a sort of narrow Japanese panel
+where childish eyes perceived everything as on a flat surface--was that
+it continued upwards: first, a lot of water, ripped and curled by busily
+scurrying steam launches and tugs, streaked by plodding rowboats, and,
+at rare times, adorned by a white-sailed yacht; then, still higher up, a
+shore with many trees that drew the soul magnetically by their summer
+verdure; and, finally, a brightly red, toylike fort, crowned by a small
+embattled tower flying the blue and yellow Swedish flag at the top. Here
+was another world, indeed, larger and brighter by far, and more richly
+varied, than that of his home and the lane below and the dingy courtyard
+in the back.
+
+So he began to ask questions, and one of the first things he learned, to
+his great astonishment, was that he had not always lived in the same
+place--that he had been born, whatever that meant, in another and
+unmistakably more desirable part of the city.
+
+"But why did we come here," he asked, trying instinctively to keep his
+voice from sounding regretful or petulant.
+
+"Because the bank owns this house," his mother replied. "And because
+papa acts as landlord for it, and we don't have to pay any rent here."
+
+Out of this confusing answer he retained a single idea: the bank. It was
+in the home air, so to speak. Evidently his father was closely connected
+with it, and this was good for the whole family. For a little while the
+boy imagined that his father was the bank. Later he began to think of it
+as some sort of superlatively powerful being that, alone in the whole
+world, ranked above his father even. Still later--much later--he began
+to suspect a relationship between the bank and his father resembling
+that between his father and himself. And he read out of his father's
+words and miens a sense of dissatisfaction not unlike the one he felt
+when he was forced to do what he did not want, or prevented from doing
+what he wanted.
+
+This was his fourth fundamental realization: of powers beyond those
+directly represented within the home; powers of compelling importance
+that might, or might not, be kindly; powers before which all and
+everything within his own narrow world had to bow down in helpless
+submission. In the end this one undoubtedly became the most significant
+of all his early realizations. It tended gradually to lessen his awe of
+parental authority so that, at a very early age, he developed the
+courage to shape his own life and opinions regardless of his immediate
+surroundings. At the same time, strange as it may seem, it inspired him
+with a general respect for established authority from which he could
+never quite free himself.
+
+
+
+II
+
+"Why don't I remember when we came here," Keith asked his mother one day
+after she had let out the startling fact of his being born elsewhere.
+
+"Because it happened before you began to remember things," she said a
+little warily.
+
+As frequently was the case, her reply puzzled him more than the fact it
+was meant to explain, and so he asked no more questions that time.
+
+On the whole, he lived completely in the present, and rather on the edge
+nearest the future, so that a teacher later said of him that he was in
+constant danger of "falling off forward." Highstrung and restless,
+sitting still did not come naturally until he had learned to read books
+all by himself, and he could hardly be called introspective. While prone
+to futile regrets, largely under the influence of his mother's morbid
+attitude, he gave little attention as a rule to what was past and gone.
+
+Here was an exception, however--something concerning the past that
+stirred his curiosity powerfully--and it became his first subject
+for brooding.
+
+He could remember all sorts of things, of course. And it seemed that he
+had always remembered them. Yet his mother was able to tell him things
+of which he knew nothing at all, although they had happened to himself.
+There might be any number of such things. What were they? Could he
+recall any of them by thinking hard enough?
+
+When this problem laid hold of his mind he would retire to the corner
+between the big bureau and the right-hand window in the living-room,
+which, by formal conferment, was reserved for him as his own
+"play-room." The space in that nook was large enough to hold a small
+chair, a table to match, and a few toy boxes. There he would sit staring
+blindly at his toys until his mother anxiously inquired what was the
+matter with him.
+
+The great question taking precedence of all the rest was: what was the
+very first thing he could remember?
+
+With puckered brows and peering pupils he would send his gaze back into
+the misty past, and out of it emerged invariably the same image.
+
+He saw himself seated on a small wooden horse fastened to a little
+platform with wheels under it. The horse was black with white spots, and
+possessed a nobly curved neck, a head with ears on top of it, and a pair
+of fiercely red nostrils.
+
+The next thing recurring to his mind was a sense of swift, exhilarating
+movement. His father stood at one end of the living-room, his mother at
+the other, and the horse with himself on it was being pushed rapidly
+back and forth between them.
+
+He could even hear his own joyous shouts as his father sent the horse
+careering across the floor by an extra strong push. The general
+impression left behind by the whole scene was one of happiness so acute
+that nothing else in his life compared with it.
+
+Was it a real memory? If so, when did it happen? And what had become of
+the horse?
+
+Finally the pressure from within became too strong and he blurted out
+the whole story to his mother in order to make sure of what it meant.
+
+"You never had a horse large enough to sit on," she declared
+emphatically.
+
+"You have been dreaming, child," Granny put in.
+
+"What would the neighbours below have said," his mother continued. "And
+the rag carpets on the floor would have caught the wheels, anyhow."
+
+Removing the rag carpets except for purposes of cleaning was one of the
+unforgivable sins, by the bye.
+
+"And it isn't like your father either," Granny added after a while, not
+without a suggestion of bitterness in her voice.
+
+"Carl is always tired when he comes home," Keith's mother rejoined in a
+tone that put an end to further discussion.
+
+Granny's point made an impression on Keith's mind nevertheless. As far
+as he could actually remember, his father had on no occasion showed such
+a jolly spirit or done anything that could be used as basis for a belief
+in that one questionable recollection.
+
+At all times of the day Keith was enjoined to keep quiet--because his
+mother was not well, or because of the neighbours, or just because "nice
+children should not make a noise"--but it was only after his father's
+return home that these injunctions must be taken quite seriously. The
+father's appearance brought an instantaneous change in the atmosphere of
+the place, the boy strove instinctly to be as little noticeable as
+possible. If his mercurial temperament lured him into temporary
+forgetfulness, a single stern word from the father sent him back into
+silence and the refuge of his own corner--or into bed.
+
+But the more he considered and conceded the unlikeliness of the scene
+projected by some part of his mind with such persistency, the more
+passionately he craved it to be a real memory of something that had
+really happened to himself.
+
+Perhaps it was merely a dream, as Granny had suggested. Perhaps it was
+something he had wished....
+
+Anyhow, he did wish that his father would let him come a little closer
+to himself at times--not in the same way his mother did, but as he did
+in the dream--or whatever it was....
+
+Once more he fell into a deep study of when he had begun to remember so
+hard that he could still remember it. Out of this he was awakened by his
+mother's voice:
+
+"What _is_ the matter, Keith?"
+
+"I don't know what to play," he replied out of policy, as it might bring
+him something either in the way of a diversion or a treat. There were
+still some of mother's delectable ginger snaps left over from the
+Christmas baking.
+
+"Your soldiers are right in front of you," his mother said in a voice
+holding out no hope.
+
+So Keith returned to the tin soldiers that were his most cherished
+toys--perhaps because they drew fewer protests from above than anything
+else, as being least conductive to outbursts of youthful vivacity.
+Judging by the earnest attention with which he manoeuvred them on his
+own little table or, in moments of special dispensation, on the
+collapsible dining table placed against the wall between the two
+windows in the living-room, he ought to have ended as a general.
+
+
+
+III
+
+All through his life Keith retained a queer inclination to arrange
+furniture very precisely at right angles to the wall as close to it as
+possible. It was a direct outcome of his first and most deeply rooted
+impressions, received in that parental living-room, where every inch of
+space had been carefully calculated, and where the smallest nook was
+filled by a chair, or a footstool, or some other minor object. In later
+years he often wondered how a single room of modest proportions could
+hold so much of furniture and of life.
+
+It was bedroom and study, dining-room and nursery, workroom and parlour.
+There the morning toilet was made, and there his first lessons were
+learned. There the father did his reading, of which he was very fond,
+and there the mother sewed, darned, embroidered, wrote letters, gave
+household orders, told fairy tales, and received visitors. There the
+simple daily meals were served for all but Granny, who clung obstinately
+to the kitchen, and there friends were feasted and cards played at
+nameday and birthday parties. And there three people slept every night.
+
+Of course, excursions could be made, particularly to the kitchen where
+Granny was always restlessly waiting for "one more kiss," and once in a
+great while to the "best room" which mostly was occupied by some
+stranger whose small weekly rent paid the servant's wages. But to the
+living-room one always returned in the end, and during his first years
+this narrow confinement did not strike Keith as a hardship.
+
+The room seemed quite large to him at that time, with distances and
+vistas and diversions sufficient for his childish fancy. It was a
+pleasant room, with brightly striped rag carpets on the floor and two
+pretty large windows framed by snow-white lace curtains. Crammed as it
+was with objects needed for its many different uses, it was always kept
+in a state of the most scrupulous order and instant disaster followed
+any attempt as a disarrangement.
+
+It was a whole world by itself, full of interesting things for a small
+boy to puzzle over. It was also a world in evolution. 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.
+
+Practically everything in the room had a history as well as a special
+place. There was the main chest of drawers, for instance, known as
+"mamma's bureau" and placed near one of the windows, where a good light
+fell on the swinging mirror forming a separate piece on top of it. A
+journeyman carpenter had made that chest to prove himself a master of
+his trade under the old gild rules. Then he put it up at lottery to
+raise money with which to open a shop of his own. Keith's father bought
+a lot while still engaged, and won the prize which became the chief
+wedding present of his bride--to be cherished above all other objects to
+her dying day.
+
+It was really a fine piece of work, of mahogany, with daintily carved
+and twisted columns along the front corners, and so highly polished that
+Keith could see his own face in the rich brown glimmer of its surfaces.
+It had four drawers. The three lower ones were divided between the
+parents and held all sorts of things, from shirts and socks to mother's
+mahogany yard stick, which had a turned handle and a tapering blade that
+made it pass excellent muster as a sword. The top drawer could only be
+pulled out halfway, but then the front of it came down and it changed
+into a writing desk, with an intriguing array of small drawers and
+pigeonholes at the back of it, and a suspicion of alluring and
+unattainable treasures in every separate receptacle. To ransack all of
+these was Keith's most audacious dream, but when the dream came true at
+last, it was fraught with no ecstasy of realization, for he was a
+middle-aged man, and in the room behind him his mother lay dead....
+
+The mirror was flanked by two small square mahogany boxes, one holding
+medicines and the other tobacco. Little mats, some crocheted and some
+wonderfully composed of differently coloured glass beads, were used to
+protect the boxes as well as the top of the bureau from being
+scratched, and on them stood several small groups and figures of
+porcelain. One of these was Keith's special favourite and his first
+introduction to that world where beauty takes precedence of goodness and
+truth. It showed a lady and a gentleman in dresses of a colour and cut
+wholly unlike anything seen by Keith on the real persons coming within
+his ken. They were seated on a richly ornamented sofa before a tea
+table, and there was something about the manner in which they looked at
+each other that spoke more loudly than their bright costumes of things
+lying beyond ordinary existence.
+
+There was also a nice little girl with a doll viewing herself
+complacently in a real mirror, and a lady in bloomers, apparently of
+Oriental pattern, who rowed a boat hardly larger than herself, that was
+raised almost on end by terrific waves. All three groups had this in
+common, that when you removed the ornamental upper part, a previously
+unsuspected inkstand was revealed. There was a period when Keith
+seriously believed that all specimens of the keramic art were inkstands
+in disguise.
+
+Art not represented on the bureau alone, however. The walls contained a
+number of steel engravings in gilt frames, quaint old coloured prints,
+family photographs, and pink-coloured reliefs of various Swedish kings
+made out of wax and mounted under convex glass panes on highly polished
+black boards. But all of those objects were flat and distant and
+colourless in comparison with the things on the bureau that could be
+touched as well as seen. As for the group with the lady and the
+gentlemen, it had only one rival in the boy's mind, and that was the
+big clock in a wooden case that hung on the wall between the windows
+over the dining table. The hide-and-seek of the restless pendulum with
+its shining brass disc was a constant source of fascination in itself,
+and so were the strange operations performed by the father in front of
+the clock every Sunday morning, when diversions were particularly
+welcome on account of the extra restrictions on play. But its main charm
+rested in the strangely pleasing sounds it produced every so often,
+preceded by a funny rattle that warned small folk and big of what was
+going to happen. It was Keith's first acquaintance with music.
+
+The parents' bed occupied the centre of the right-hand wall, between
+mamma's bureau and another chest of drawers known as "Granny's bureau."
+It was all wood and made in two parts that slid into each other,
+reducing the daytime width of the bed by one-half. It stood parallel to
+the wall, instead of at right angles, and the extension took place
+sideways. At night it looked like an ordinary double bed. In the day it
+almost disappeared beneath a rectangular pile of bed-clothing, covered
+by a snow-white spread that was pulled and smoothed and tucked until it
+hung straight as a wall.
+
+Granny's bureau, old-fashioned and clumsy, but made of some native wood
+that glimmered like gold, was largely devoted to linen ware for bed and
+table. At the top it had two small drawers instead of a long, and one of
+these constituted the first storage place set aside for Keith's special
+use. His impression was that it had always been his, and once he asked
+his mother if it really had been his before he was born.
+
+"Of course it was," she said with a sly smile, "but we took the liberty
+to use it for other purposes until you arrived"
+
+At first glance this seemed quite reasonable to Keith, though nothing to
+smile at so far as he could see. Later he became conscious of a vague
+sense of annoyance. It would have been more pleasant if no one else had
+ever used that drawer.
+
+Across the room from Granny's bureau, in the corner just inside the door
+to the kitchen, towered the characteristic Swedish oven--a round column
+of white glazed bricks, with highly polished brass shutters in front of
+the small cubical fire-place, where nothing but birchwood was burned. In
+the narrow crack between the oven and the wall rested always a birch
+rod, which was often referred to at critical moments. A new rod, with
+brightly coloured feathers attached to the tip of every twig, appeared
+regularly on Shrove Tuesday and tended slightly to spoil that otherwise
+glorious day, when large cross buns stuffed with a mixture of crushed
+almond and sugar were served in hot milk for dinner. Though the rod was
+little more than a symbol of family discipline, Keith always disliked
+its presence as a threat to his dignity if not to his hide.
+
+A double washstand, looking like a document chest in the daytime, the
+chaiselongue on which Keith slept at night, and the door to the best
+room occupied all the rest of that wall except a corner by the window,
+where stood his mother's high-backed easy chair, with the little
+work-table beside it and a hassock in front of it. To that chair she
+would retire whenever her household duties permitted, and thither Keith
+would be drawn even more powerfully than to his own "play-room" at the
+opposite corner--especially when his mother seemed in a happy mood.
+There he would kneel on the hassock, with his head in her lap, and if he
+could think of nothing else, he would say:
+
+"Tell me about the time you were in London."
+
+
+
+IV
+
+While still in her early twenties, Keith's mother had spent two years
+with an English family living in Sweden. She always described her
+position as that of "lady companion" to the mistress of the house. As a
+little boy, Keith did not know enough to ask any embarrassing questions.
+Having learned more of life, he began to suspect that his mother's place
+might have been little better than that of a servant, and the thought of
+it made his soul shrink and wither.
+
+When the family moved back to England, Keith's mother went along and
+spent a whole year in London. It was her great adventure, the phase of
+her past of which she spoke most eagerly and lovingly. She had formed a
+passionate liking for the English language, of which she had picked up a
+good deal, as well as for English character and English manners. She
+never tired of telling about the great city of London, and Keith never
+tired of listening.
+
+"I was so homesick when I first got there," she would say, "that I cried
+day and night. Then, one night, I heard a cat mewing on the roof outside
+my window. It was the first Swedish sound I had heard since I came to
+England, and after that I felt much better."
+
+"Why didn't you stay," asked Keith.
+
+"Because then there would have been no little Keith," she explained, her
+face lighting up with the kind of grown-up smile that always provoked
+and perplexed the boy.
+
+"Are there no boys in England," he persisted.
+
+"Yes, plenty of them, and fine ones at that. But I wanted no one but
+you, and you were here, and so I had to come back to get you."
+
+"Here," he repeated. "Where here?"
+
+"In Sweden, of course," his mother rejoined, and then she started
+hurriedly to describe the wonders of London shopping.
+
+"But why did you go at all," he interrupted after listening a while to
+what seemed less interesting to him than certain other points. "I might
+have been lost while you were away."
+
+"You might," she assented, "but I had to take the risk because I had to
+get a name for you and I could never have found the one you have
+in Sweden."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because it is English. And it should be pronounced _Keeth_ instead of
+_Kite_ as they say here. I found it in a book over there, and I fell in
+love with it the moment I saw it, and I made up my mind that if I ever
+had a boy, that would be his name."
+
+"_If_ you had a boy," Keith took her up. "But you knew I was here?"
+
+"Of course, I knew," said his mother in the tone that always warned him
+that a change of occupation would be in order. "Run along and play in
+your own corner now. I must get some work done."
+
+At other times, when the talk didn't drift off into dangerous by-paths,
+his mother would tell little anecdotes in English learned from her
+former mistress, and generally end up by singing a little song about a
+ball--probably one that had something to do with cricket. And Keith
+would exultantly repeat the last line, which was the only one he
+could remember:
+
+"And then she _popped_, and then she died."
+
+It was the word _popped_ that caught his fancy, partly because it was so
+funny in itself, and partly because it had to be uttered with a sort of
+explosion on a very high note. As far as his rendering of the rest was
+concerned--well, it was early discovered and reluctantly admitted that,
+like his father, he could not even sing "Old Man Noah," which is the
+simplest melody imaginable to a musical mind in Sweden.
+
+His failure in this respect gave his mother a slight pang every time it
+was brought home to her, although she made fun of it and pretended she
+didn't care. Music had been her young heart's dream. It was the only art
+for which she showed a genuine regard. And two of her pet grievances
+were that she didn't have a piano, and that, if she had one, she could
+not play on it.
+
+But his father used to say that the only instrument he cared to hear was
+a drum.
+
+
+
+V
+
+His mother's chief grievance was her health. She was rarely quite well,
+and they had a family physician who would appear from time to time
+without being sent for. Yet her illness seemed, as a rule, not to
+prevent her from being about and attending to her household duties.
+
+Once, however, while Keith was still too small to receive clear
+impressions, she had to keep in bed for a long time and during much of
+that time she seemed to have forgotten him entirely. The father was more
+taciturn and reserved than usual, and even the boy could see that he was
+worried. Friends and relatives came and went with a quite uncommon
+frequency, and all of them spoke to Keith in a strange manner that,
+although not unpleasant, had a tendency to make him choke. A hundred
+times a day he was told that he must keep quiet for his mother's sake,
+and that it was no time for boisterous playing--if he really must play
+at all. Most of the time he was in the kitchen, and on a few occasions
+he was even permitted to stay all by himself in the parlour, where there
+were all sorts of big books with any number of pictures on the fine oval
+table standing in front of an old sofa so huge that to crawl up on its
+seat was almost like going off into another room.
+
+Finally he was taken to the home of Aunt Brita, his father's married
+sister, in another part of the town and kept there, a bewildered
+prisoner in a strange land, until one day his aunt told him that his
+mother was well and wanted him to come home, but that he would have to
+be a more than usually good boy for a long time yet, unless he wanted to
+lose his mother forever.
+
+When, at last, he was home again, his mother pulled him up to herself in
+the bed, embraced him passionately and sobbed as if it had been a
+farewell instead of a greeting. He wept, too, and clung to his mother as
+if in fright, while she told him that he must always do just what she
+told him and, above all, not scare her by going off so that she did not
+know where he was.
+
+The father stood beside the bed watching them. And as Keith happened to
+look up once, he saw that his father's eyes were moist with tears. The
+boy could hardly believe it, and a little later he wondered whether he
+had been mistaken, for his father spoke just then in his sternest tone,
+and all he said was:
+
+"Yes, I hope you will behave a little better after this than you have
+done before."
+
+Many more weeks went before his mother was herself again. Even then a
+difference remained. She was more given to worry than before and clung
+to husband and child with a concern that frequently became oppressive.
+
+Then, one fine day, she was all gay and smiling again, and bustled about
+the home with new eagerness, and told Keith a lot of things about
+England, and once actually danced across the floor while he was vainly
+trying to keep step with her. And the father tried hard to look his
+grouchiest when he returned home that night, but failed. And Keith was
+allowed to stay up quite late, and when he was in bed at last, and
+almost asleep, he thought he saw his father in the big easy chair by the
+window, with the mother seated on his lap kissing him. And just as he
+was dropping off, he heard, as if in a dream, his father's voice saying:
+
+"Look out! I think the Crown Prince is still awake!"
+
+
+
+VI
+
+Some persons said that Keith looked like his father, others that he was
+the very image of his mother.
+
+"He has my light hair and Carl's brown eyes," said his mother often when
+that topic was under discussion, and saying it seemed to make her happy.
+
+"As a baby he was so pretty that people would stop us on the street to
+ask whose child he was," Granny might put in, if she happened to be
+within hearing. Then she would add with a glance at Keith: "But that is
+all gone now."
+
+Keith himself never gave much thought to his looks, but any comparison
+with his mother struck him as quite foolish.
+
+He liked to look at her, especially at her hair, which was very
+plentiful and in colour like beaten copper with glints of gold in it.
+Her skin was very fair and soft as the softest velvet. Her eyes were
+blue, and in bright moments they had the softness of the sky of a
+Swedish summer night. But when the clouds of depression closed in upon
+her, they grew pale and light less and disturbingly furtive, so that
+Keith's glance found it hard to meet them.
+
+Her gaiety sparkled when she was herself, and she had a passionate love
+of everything that was bright and pleasant. Once she had always been
+that way and at times she would tell Keith what a wonderful time she had
+as a girl, and how she used to be the centre and inspiration of every
+social gathering in which she took part. She had a quick mind, too, and
+a heart full of impulsive generosity. But from one extreme she would go
+to another, so that, when the dark moments came, she would even regret
+kindnesses conferred while the sun was still shining. In such moments
+she would sometimes speak to the boy of her ailment as if he were in
+some mysterious way responsible for it.
+
+Yet she loved the boy to distraction and became filled with unreasoning
+anxiety the moment he was out of sight. Her attitude toward her husband
+was the same. He could never leave the home or return to it without
+being kissed. The moment he was outside the kitchen door, she hastened
+to the window and leaned out of it so that she might watch him until he
+vanished about the corner at the head of the lane. And there she
+generally lay waiting for him when he came home. If he was late, which
+happened almost every day, she would be the victim of a thousand fears
+as she made more and more frequent trips between the kitchen and the
+living-room window. When he finally came, she acted as if she had not
+seen him for months while he pretended to be more or less bored by her
+attentions.
+
+But there were moments, too, when her tenderness flared into startling
+outbursts of bleak, cutting anger, giving way in the end to floods of
+hysterical tears. A couple of such tempests formed part of Keith's
+earliest reliable memories.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+As a rule Keith slept far too soundly to be aroused by anything. One
+night, however, there was so much loud talking in the room that he woke
+up completely. For a while he lay quite still, but with wide-open
+eyes and ears.
+
+The big lamp had been placed on the washstand back of the chaiselongue
+on which he was lying, evidently in order to prevent its light from
+falling on his face.
+
+His mother was seated, fully dressed, on the edge of the bed across the
+room. Her face was white as snow. Her eyes blazed with a sort of cold
+fire. Her whole body seemed to tremble with a feeling so tense that he
+could not find words for it.
+
+The father was leaning far backwards on an ordinary chair, with his
+outstretched right arm resting on the dining table. His face was flushed
+and the thick fringe of black hair about the bald top of his head was
+slightly disordered. He tried to smile, but the smile turned into a
+grin. When he spoke, his voice was a little thick.
+
+"I can't keep entirely away from my comrades." he said. "They think
+already that I am too stuck up to associate with them. I haven't been
+out for two weeks. I haven't had a drop more tonight than I can stand.
+And it isn't twelve o'clock yet."
+
+All of a sudden Keith saw the cold, angry light go out of his mother's
+eyes. Her face twisted convulsively. She sank into a heap on the bed,
+sobbing as if her heart would break then and there.
+
+"Carl," she screamed between two sobs. "You'll kill me if you talk like
+that to me!"
+
+"Like that," he repeated in a stunned toneless voice. Then his face
+flushed almost purple. A hard look came into his eyes, and he rose so
+abruptly that the chair upset behind him. At the same time he brought
+down his fist with such violence that the table nearly toppled over.
+
+"I'll be damned if I stand this kind of thing one moment longer," he
+shouted hoarsely.
+
+But even as he spoke, his eyes fell on the boy. As if by magic, his
+self-control returned.
+
+"The boy is awake," he said in his usual tone of stern reserve.
+
+There was a moment's silence. A few more sobs came from the mother. Then
+she sat up, wiped her eyes, and spoke in a tone that was almost calm:
+
+"Go to sleep again, Keith. Your father and I were merely talking about
+some things that you don't understand yet."
+
+When she saw that the boy was crying, she came over to him, kneeled down
+beside him and put her arms about him. Soon her kisses and her soothing
+words had their wonted effect, and he dropped off once more into the
+deep, deathlike slumber of childhood.
+
+The air remained tense in the household for several days, but nothing
+further happened until one night when the father arrived a little later
+than usual from his work, looking just as he did the night of the
+quarrel. Again his speech was a little thick, and the mother's face
+assumed an ominous look. She said nothing about what was nearest her
+heart, however, she started instead to complain of some petty
+disobedience on the part of Keith.
+
+"If you spanked him a little more and humoured him la little less, he
+would obey more readily," said the father.
+
+His words carried no particular menace, and there seemed no reason why
+the boy should be scared. But perhaps there was something else in the
+atmosphere that affected his sensitive nerves and sent him unexpectedly
+into a paroxysm of weeping.
+
+"Stop it," cried his father dark with sudden anger. "Stop it, I tell
+you."
+
+"You leave the boy alone," cried the mother, her face as white as the
+father's was red.
+
+"We'll see whether he'll obey or not!"
+
+As he spoke, the father sat down on the nearest chair, picked up the boy
+and put him face down across his knees.
+
+Keith's heart seemed to stop. He even ceased weeping. Then he heard his
+mother cry out:
+
+"If you touch the boy, I'll throw myself out of the window!"
+
+"Oh, hell!" came back from the father. With that he half dropped and
+half flung the boy to the floor, so that the latter rolled across the
+room and landed under the chaiselongue.
+
+There Keith lay, still as a mouse, until he was pulled out by his
+mother. He didn't begin to cry again, and he was no longer scared or
+upset. A few moments later he was undressing and going to bed as if
+nothing had happened.
+
+Another week had hardly passed, when Keith was waked up again at night,
+but this time by a noise as if the house was falling. As he sat up in
+bed, staring wildly about him, his nostrils became filled with a smell
+that was quite new to him. It was like smoke, but more pungent.
+
+The living-room was dark, but the door to the parlour stood open, and
+light came through it. Not a sound could be heard for a few moments.
+
+Then his mother came running into the room and flung herself on her
+knees beside the chaiselongue.
+
+"Oh, my boy, my boy, my boy!" she cried over and over again as she
+pressed Keith to her breast, rocking him back and forth.
+
+A few seconds later the father also came in carrying the lamp in one
+hand. Having put it on the dining table, he dropped down on a chair as
+if too exhausted to stand up.
+
+His face showed a pallor quite strange to it and for the first and only
+time in his life Keith thought that his father looked scared.
+
+"Don't, Anna," the father said after a while, sitting up straight on the
+chair. "It's all right now--"
+
+Then a thought or a memory seemed to recur to him, and he said in a
+voice that nearly broke:
+
+"God, but it was a close call for both of us! And if it had happened to
+you, I would have followed you on the spot!"
+
+"Carl, Carl!" cried the mother, letting Keith go and throwing her arms
+about her husband instead. "What would have become of Keith?"
+
+It was the first time the boy was taken into his parents' confidence to
+some extent. He was still too young to grasp all the implications, but
+the main facts were plain enough even to him.
+
+The parlour was rented as usual, but the man occupying it was not at
+home. The parents had gone in there together on some errand. Seeing a
+small pistol hanging on the wall above the big sofa, the father took it
+down and began to play with it, never for a moment suspecting it of
+being loaded.
+
+First he pointed it at himself, then at Keith's mother. Each time he was
+about to pull the trigger, and each time something seemed to hold him
+back. Finally he turned the weapon toward the wall and pressed down with
+his finger. As he did so, the shot rang out that waked the boy.
+
+The next day Keith was permitted to examine the mark made by the bullet
+in the wall. It was all very exciting. But the final result of that
+incident was as unforeseen as the shot itself.
+
+The whole affair evidently made a deep impression on Keith's father. He
+ceased almost completely to go out by himself at night. In fact he
+became so averse to leaving his home that it was hard to get him out
+when the mother wanted him to go. And never again did Keith hear his
+parents quarrel openly.
+
+But now and then when his father came home from work, Keith would
+notice that same slight thickness of speech which had forced itself on
+his attention on two extraordinary occasions.
+
+He was a man himself before he realized what that thickness signified in
+his father's life.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+"Oh, mamma, you mustn't!" cried Keith's mother one day when she came out
+into the kitchen and found the boy munching a slice of white bread with
+butter on it.
+
+"He likes it so much," replied Granny easily.
+
+"But you know what Carl has said," the mother rejoined rather
+impatiently. "He'll find out sooner or later if you disregard it, and
+then he'll be furious."
+
+"So he will anyhow," muttered Granny.
+
+"Mamma!" protested the mother. "It's for the boy's own good. He should
+only eat hard bread except on Sundays and when we have company. It is
+much better for his teeth. And it makes him stronger too. You want to be
+big and strong, don't you Keith?"
+
+"It's a wonder his father lets him have anything at all to eat," Granny
+put in before Keith had a chance to answer.
+
+"You must not talk like that, mamma," said the mother sharply. "Least of
+all when the boy hears it." Then she turned to Keith again: "Don't you
+believe what Granny says. Your father is merely thinking of what is
+good for you. He loves you just as much as I do--or your grandmother.
+But he thinks we are spoiling you. And he wants you to grow up and be a
+real man. That's why he hates to see you cry."
+
+There was a pause while Keith pondered the matter--not seriously
+concerned on the whole, as long as the tidbit was not taken away
+from him.
+
+"Don't you love your father," his mother asked suddenly.
+
+"Ye-es," Keith answered mechanically.
+
+Then he began to ponder again. His feelings toward his father were far
+too complicated for utterance. They seemed to have nothing whatsoever to
+do with love, if that was what he felt for his mother. There was
+undoubtedly a great deal of fear in his attitude toward the father, and
+also resentment that at times would flare into something bordering on
+hatred. But this attitude was combined with a lot of respect, not to say
+admiration. At times it would also be tinged with a longing that he
+could not explain or express. And if ever the father gave him the
+slightest evidence of friendliness, he would be thrown into a rapture of
+happiness that nothing done by his mother could equal.
+
+He adored his mother, and clung to her, and relied on her and wheedled
+her, but it was an open question whether, at heart, he felt any
+particular respect for her--although he was quite proud of certain
+things about her. And as for Granny, whom, in a way, he loved more than
+anybody else, because she petted him and indulged his slightest whims,
+there could simply be no talk about respecting her. Even Keith realized
+that she was not in the respected class.
+
+His father was, on the other hand. There could be no doubt about that.
+If he had only been willing to unbend a little now and then....
+
+
+
+IX
+
+The kitchen had other attractions than Granny, though she ranked
+foremost.
+
+As Keith came out from the living-room, he had on his right the huge,
+old-fashioned fire-place--a regular fortress of brick, with a modern
+cook stove of iron set into one corner of it. It was entirely covered by
+a smoke-hood of painted metal sheeting, with a flange on its outside
+edge along which were placed a number of lids.
+
+On his left was a set of shelves filled from top to bottom with pots and
+pans and kettles of every possible size and shape, including a cauldron
+so huge and heavy that it took two people to get it out with ease from
+its place on the bottom shelf. An overwhelming majority of these
+utensils were of copper and so highly polished that they shone like suns
+setting through a fog bank. Some of them made good toys, but "things for
+use and not for play" was an old maxim often quoted by both parents and
+grudgingly repeated by Granny herself.
+
+A big sofa, in which the grandmother slept at night stood along the
+centre of the wall on the left. The corner beyond held a wall-fast
+cupboard so large that it looked like a closet built into the room. It
+serves both as pantry and buffet, and was full of things tempting to a
+young palate.
+
+In the opposite corner, beyond the window and right by the outside door,
+stood an open water barrel holding about twenty gallons. There was no
+running water above the ground floor. Every drop had to be carried three
+flights of stairs from the courtyard. What was needed for drinking and
+cooking was kept in a copper can, two feet high, with a lid on top and a
+spout in front that made it look like a badly overgrown tea kettle.
+Water for all other uses had to come out of the barrel. To keep both
+vessels filled was a heavy task, and waste of water was regarded as
+little short of a crime. The sacredness of the barrel and its contents
+was a mystery to Keith until he grew old enough to do some of the
+carrying. Then he began to understand.
+
+Most of the water went to the stove, where operations of one kind or
+another were carried on from morning till night, tempting the boy with
+their mysteries or their promises. In the uppermost corner of the hood
+was a square opening covered by an iron lid. When the lid was down and
+you crawled right up into the fire-place, you could see the sky through
+the chimney.
+
+One day, when Keith had sneaked into the kitchen uninvited, he noticed
+something unusual going on in the fire-place. All the paraphernalia had
+been cleared away. The lid was open, and from the chimney issued strange
+noises. Then soot began to fall in masses, and finally appeared a pair
+of human feet, quite bare and all black.
+
+It was very funny and very disconcerting. Keith watched with bulging
+eyes and trembling heart, until at last a whole big man came out of the
+chimney. As he crouched for a moment on the fire-place before getting
+down on the floor, he turned on Keith a pair of eyes that seemed to be
+all white and big as moons.
+
+At that moment fear got the better of curiosity, and Keith made haste to
+bury his face in Granny's lap.
+
+"Yes, Keith had better look out," grinned the servant girl, "for the
+chimney sweep takes all bad little boys."
+
+"I'll take you, if you talk like that," the black figure in the
+fire-place shot back at her.
+
+The tone of his voice made Keith steal another glance at him. The white
+eyes shone right at him in a rather friendly fashion, and further down a
+huge red slit in the black face framed two rows of teeth no less white
+than the eyes. Keith guessed that the dark visitor from the chimney was
+smiling at him in a fashion that seemed to bode no harm.
+
+In another minute the man was gone, and Keith hurried back to the
+living-room to ask a question of his mother:
+
+"Could he really take me?"
+
+"Not unless we gave him leave," she replied. "But sometimes, when little
+boys are very, _very_ bad, their parents turn them over to the sweep as
+apprentices, because they are not good for anything else."
+
+Keith thought long and hard.
+
+"I ain't bad," he declared at last.
+
+"Not exactly," his mother remarked diplomatically "But you could be a
+great deal better. What were you doing in the kitchen just now? I have
+told you not to run out there all the time. Lena does not like you to
+get in her way, you know."
+
+"But Granny is there," Keith protested.
+
+"Yes, of course, and you must be nice to her, but...."
+
+As his mother did not go on, Keith asked: "Why does Granny always stay
+in the kitchen?"
+
+"Because she wants to," his mother answered.
+
+"But why does she want to?"
+
+"It is her way--a sort of pride she has. And I have long ago given up
+trying to persuade her."
+
+Her tone indicated clearly that further discussion of the subject was
+not desirable.
+
+
+
+X
+
+Keith was playing in his own corner that very evening, trying to keep as
+quiet as possible while his father had an unusually late dinner. His
+mother had gone out into the kitchen a few moments earlier. Thence she
+returned suddenly with a half empty bottle in her hand and a look of
+extreme annoyance on her face.
+
+"Carl," she said, "look what I just found in a corner of the cupboard."
+
+"Humph," the father grunted with a sideglance at the bottle. "Ours is
+locked up, is it not?"
+
+"Yes, but that is neither here nor there. She would rather die, she
+says, than touch a drop of ours."
+
+"Where does she get it?"
+
+"I can't make it out. Somebody must bring it in, of course. I fear it
+is Mrs. Karlgren, and I am simply going to tell her to keep away
+hereafter. The idea of her coming here practically begging, and then
+doing such a thing, after all I have done for her!"
+
+"But you are not sure," the father objected earnestly, and Keith paid
+special notice to his objection because he had already learned, or
+divined, that his father could not bear the sight of the poor woman
+in question.
+
+"No, it is impossible to be sure," the mother admitted. Then she added
+after a pause: "What puzzles me more than anything else is where she
+gets the money."
+
+Though no name was mentioned, Keith knew perfectly well that they were
+speaking of Granny. And he recalled having laughed at her in the kitchen
+earlier in the evening before the father came home. Her eyes had a funny
+look and seemed a little inflamed. Her still thick braids were loosened
+and about to come entirely undone. She was talking more than usual and
+in a tone that suggested defiance.
+
+As he recalled all this, Keith forgot to listen to his parents, who went
+on discussing so intently that he was able to leave his corner and reach
+the door to the kitchen unnoticed. An irresistible desire to see Granny
+at once had seized him. Back of it lay a vaguely sensed mixture of
+curiosity and sympathy.
+
+Granny was in her favourite place beside the kitchen sofa, seated on a
+footstool almost as large as an ordinary chair, but somewhat lower. That
+stool was the one bone of contention between her and Keith, because he
+was carrying it off as often as he could get at it. Turned upside down,
+with Keith seated snugly between its four legs, it became a sleigh
+drawn across icy plains by a team of swift reindeer, or a ship rocking
+mightily on the high seas.
+
+The kitchen was full of a peculiar sweetish smell, by which Keith knew
+without looking that Granny was dressing the old wound on her left leg
+that had developed "the rose" and would not heal. She was leaning far
+over, busy with a bandage which she wound tightly about her leg, from
+the ankle to the knee. The boy sniffed the familiar smell with a vague
+sense of discomfort, which, however, did not prevent him from going up
+to the grandmother and putting one arm about her neck.
+
+"Old hurt is hard to mend," she muttered quoting one of the old saws
+always on her lips. Then without raising her head, she added in the
+peevish, truculent tone of a thwarted child: "You had better go back in
+there before they come and get you. I am nothing but a servant, and as
+such I know my place and keep it. I am less than a servant, for they
+wouldn't dare do to Lena what they do to me."
+
+"Oh, yes, they would," Lena put in from across the room. "And they would
+have a right, too."
+
+As if she had not heard at all, Granny sat up straight and looked hard
+at the boy.
+
+"Whatever you do, Keith," she said, and he noticed that her voice
+sounded a little strange, "see that you make a lot of money when you
+grow up. To be poor is to have no rights, and the worst thing of all is
+to be dependent on others, no matter how near they are to you."
+
+"I think Mrs. 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."
+
+The boy's feelings were so mixed that he really could not feel anything
+at all. His arm was still about the grandmother's neck, mechanically he
+gave her the kiss she asked for, but it was with real relief he saw his
+mother open the door to the living-room and responded to her demand that
+he go to bed at once.
+
+
+
+XI
+
+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. One moment she seemed to
+be brooding deeply, and the next she looked as if there was not a
+thought in her head. For one reason or another, her anomalous position
+and peculiar attitude occupied Keith's mind a great deal, and many of
+the questions with which he plied his mother were concerned with Granny.
+They were fairly discreet as a rule, but on the morning after the scene
+just described, some impulse of which he had no clear understanding made
+him perplex his mother with the abrupt question:
+
+"Why does Granny drink?"
+
+They were alone in the living-room at the time, she seated in her big
+easy chair by the window and he, as usual, kneeling on the hassock
+at her feet.
+
+She looked up at him with as much surprise as if he had hit her
+viciously. A deeper red flowed into her cheeks that kept their soft
+pinkness even when she was thought at death's door and lost it only
+under the pressure of extreme anger.
+
+At the same time a look came into her eyes that gave Keith a momentary
+scare. It was only a flash, however, and changed quickly into something
+like the helplessness that used to characterize her glance in moments of
+heavy depression. Her voice trembled a little as she spoke:
+
+"Because Granny's life has been very hard, and not very happy."
+
+"Tell me about it," urged the boy.
+
+There was a long pause during which he watched his mother's face
+closely. Gradually its expression changed into one of resignation, and
+then into determination, as if she had made up her mind to be done once
+for all with a task that could not be avoided indefinitely. It was a
+long story she told, at first hesitatingly, then with an eagerness that
+betrayed an awakening purpose. Everything she said stuck deeply in the
+boy's mind, and whenever he thought of Granny's life afterwards, he had
+the impression of having learned all about it at that one time, although
+the likelihood is that many details were picked up by degrees and
+dovetailed into the memory of that first narrative as integral parts
+of it.
+
+"Your grandmother was not born to be a servant," his mother began. "She
+was a rich man's daughter, and there was not a thing her father didn't
+want to do for her. Yet he left her in the hands of strangers who
+cheated her of her rights and treated her as if she had been a
+beggar...."
+
+"Why did they do it," the boy asked, quite unable to grasp the idea of
+such a thing.
+
+"Because they could make a little more money that way, and because they
+cared for nothing but money. Promise me, Keith, that whatever happens to
+you, and whatever the temptation be, you will never put money above
+everything else."
+
+Keith shook his head earnestly, meaning it to be sign of assent. He was
+a highly impressible child, and when his mother spoke to him like that,
+he used literally to choke with a feeling that he could never, never do
+anything but what she asked, but when another rush of feeling swept over
+him, the old promises were also likely to be swept out of his mind.
+
+"Those people did the worst thing any one can do to anybody else. They
+twisted Granny's life so that it could never be set right again. And so
+she became what you see her now...."
+
+"You mean she just couldn't help herself," Keith put in.
+
+"Yes, that's what I mean," she agreed. Then she stopped as if struck by
+another thought, and said very slowly:
+
+"Although, if she had been really strong...."
+
+Once more she stopped and returned abruptly to her story:
+
+"Your great-grandfather made and sold hats, and he earned a lot of
+money, and they made him a City Councillor...."
+
+"Where," Keith broke in again.
+
+"In Skara," his mother explained, "which is a city that lies a long way
+from here, and when you begin to learn geography, you will know where it
+is.... Everybody liked your great-grandfather...."
+
+"What was his name," Keith couldn't help asking.
+
+"Lack," she said, "and now you mustn't interrupt me any more if you want
+me to go on."
+
+"Please," Keith pleaded. "I won't!"
+
+"The reason they liked him," she resumed, "was that he was so
+good-hearted that he couldn't say no to anybody or anything. He didn't
+seem to care for money at all, and he used to say: 'What's money between
+friends?' Everybody wanted to be friends with him in those days, and
+everybody borrowed from him, until he didn't have enough left for his
+business, and then they laughed at him. He tried in his turn to borrow,
+but no one could spare a penny, and when things went entirely wrong with
+him, one of those who had got most from him made a funny saying about
+him: 'Now Lack lacks everything because everybody has what Lack lacks.'
+So, you see, you mustn't think too little of money either, but learn to
+be careful and keep what you have."
+
+Keith nodded dutifully, but where the right road lay, he could not see.
+
+"The worst thing was," the mother went on, "that your great-grandmother
+died when Granny was only nine. There were brothers and sisters, too,
+and she was the youngest. And it was then that her father got the idea
+to send her to some farmer people he knew, quite some distance from
+where he lived. He did it partly for the sake of Granny's health, and
+partly because he was too worried about other things to look after her
+properly himself. And he paid a lot of money for her board, and sent her
+fine clothes, and arranged that she was to be taught by the pastor of
+the parish, and he sent friends to ask about her, but he never came
+himself. The people who were to take care of Granny kept the money and
+the clothes, and put her to work as if she had been a servant, and
+didn't let her get the least bit of schooling. And when her father's
+friends came and asked about her, they told all sorts of tales about how
+well she was doing, but she was so shy, they said, that she always ran
+away when any visitor came to the place."
+
+"Did she," asked Keith.
+
+"Yes, she really did," the mother admitted. "She was ashamed of the way
+she looked and was dressed, and yet she was quite pretty, and she had
+the most wonderful hair that reached to her feet when she let it down."
+
+"But, why didn't she tell somebody?" Keith insisted, his blood running
+hot with wrath at the injustice to which Granny had been submitted.
+
+"Oh, because ..." said his mother wearily, "because your grandmother
+has always been peculiar in that way when she knew she was being
+wronged. 'What is the use?' she says. And then word came that her father
+had gone bankrupt and had died soon after. No one seemed to pay the
+least attention to her. She stayed where she was, and she couldn't work
+any harder than she had done all the time. But when she was to be
+confirmed, and had to go to church every week with all the other
+children of her own age, she was the poorest of them all, both in fact
+and in appearance, she didn't have one person in the world to whom she
+could turn. She has told me that she used to lie awake nights crying and
+thinking of running away, but she couldn't make up her mind to
+that either."
+
+She stopped, and Keith waited in vain for the rest of the story.
+
+"And then," he urged.
+
+"Oh, then she came to Stockholm and married your grandfather--my papa,
+you know. And now Lena is waiting for me to tell her what we are to have
+for dinner."
+
+Keith went back to his own corner for a while. Then he made a dash for
+the kitchen, where he found Granny seated in her usual place peeling
+potatoes. Having placed a smaller foot-stool beside the large one in
+which she was seated, he got up on it so that he could put both arms
+about her neck. Pressing his own soft cheek against hers, he
+asked brokenly:
+
+"Are you very unhappy, Granny?"
+
+"No," she answered placidly, "not when you are willing to give me a
+kiss."
+
+"All right," he said without enthusiasm as he complied with her
+request. At the same time he recalled suddenly that he had not played a
+single game with his tin soldiers that whole morning.
+
+
+
+XII
+
+The boy had a logical mind. He knew that Granny's story had not been
+finished, and he wanted all of it. At the first opportune moment he
+asked his mother:
+
+"Was Granny a little girl when she came to Stockholm?"
+
+"No," said his mother unsuspectingly, "she was already a young woman."
+
+"What did she do before?"
+
+"I told you," the mother replied, now on her guard.
+
+"You told me what she did as a little girl, but not afterwards. I want
+to know."
+
+"Oh, she worked, I suppose."
+
+There was evidently nothing more to be had in that direction.
+
+"And what did she do in Stockholm," Keith pushed on.
+
+"She married your grandfather, as I told you, and then I was born."
+
+"What was he?"
+
+The mother remained silent for a good long while, and Keith repeated his
+question, not yet having learned that unanswered questions generally
+are unwelcome questions.
+
+"He was a _vaktmaestare_," she said finally, and Keith knew that, for
+some reason, she found the word unpleasant.
+
+The boy reflected a while before he observed:
+
+"That's what papa is."
+
+"Your father's position is quite different," his mother rejoined
+sharply. "It's a shame that he and his comrades in the bank have no
+other title--although some of them deserve nothing better."
+
+"What should they be called?"
+
+"I don't know exactly--collectors, I think, because they go around and
+collect the money that is due to the bank."
+
+"And what are real _vaktmaestare_ doing?"
+
+"The real ones work in government departments--not as officials, but
+just as attendants--it's something you can't understand yet."
+
+Keith nodded. He didn't understand, but the words stuck and the
+understanding came later.
+
+"And those that are not real," he persisted.
+
+His mother laughed and patted him on the head.
+
+"There is a lot of them," she said. "They look after coats and hats in
+theatres and restaurants, and wait at dinners, and do all sorts
+of things."
+
+"Was that what grandfather was doing?"
+
+A queer look came into his mother's eyes and sent a glow of
+self-satisfaction through his whole being. The look was familiar to him
+and meant that his mother was annoyed by the question but pleased with
+his cleverness in thinking of it.
+
+"No," she answered, "not exactly...."
+
+"What did he do," asked Keith, and as he spoke he sent a look of
+anticipation toward his own corner.
+
+"He was an attendant in the big club where all the rich business-men go
+to spend their evenings, and he died when I was a little girl ... have
+you nothing else to ask about?"
+
+"What was papa's father," Keith ventured after a pause.
+
+"He worked in the royal palace." Again the mother's tone served as a
+warning, but also as a goad to the boy's curiosity.
+
+"What did he do there," he demanded eagerly.
+
+The lines about his mother's mouth grew tighter and harder, and she
+spoke as if the words hurt her--but she did not refuse to answer, and
+she did not send him away:
+
+"He was a lackey."
+
+From the moment he began to speak, Keith had showed an unusual sense for
+the value and peculiarities of words. They interested him for their own
+sake, one might say. He treasured them, and he gave more thought to them
+than to people. The word lackey he had heard before, and he had formed a
+distinct opinion about it as not desirable.
+
+"Then he was a servant," he blurted out.
+
+"In a way," his mother admitted. "And we are all servants, for that
+matter. But working in the king's palace is not like--working as Lena
+does here, for instance."
+
+The last part of her remark went by unheeded by Keith. His thoughts
+leapt instead to his paternal grandmother--a strict and unapproachable
+little lady who visited them at rare intervals dressed in a quaint old
+shawl and a lace-trimmed cap. A great wonder, not unmixed with pleasure,
+rose in his mind at the thought that her husband had been a sort of
+servant after all. For some reason utterly beyond him, there was solace
+as well as humiliation in the consciousness of a stigma, if such it be,
+that attached equally to both his grandfathers, and not only to his
+mother's parent. Then a new idea prompted a new question.
+
+"Was Granny a servant when she came to Stockholm?"
+
+"She was obliged to take service in order to live," his mother replied
+very gently. "There is nothing about that to be ashamed of.... I have
+known fine ladies who started in the kitchen. But, of course, one
+doesn't like to talk of it to everybody."
+
+Keith recognized the hint in her final words, but thought it needless.
+He was already on his way back to his own corner, tired for the time of
+asking questions, when he suddenly turned and said:
+
+"We are just as good as anybody else, are we not?"
+
+It was a phrase he had overheard sometime. Now it seemed to fit the
+occasion, and it sounded good to him.
+
+"There is the royal family," his mother rejoined enigmatically. "But one
+of Granny's cousins was a lieutenant-colonel in the army."
+
+"Where is he now," Keith demanded, agog with interest.
+
+"He is dead, and--and we have never had anything to do with his family."
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+The inquisitiveness of Keith with regard to his ancestors and the past
+life of his parents continued for quite a while. Other family
+connections seemed unreal and did not interest him. Having no sister or
+brother of his own, relationships of that kind were meaningless to him.
+Parents, on the other hand, constituted a tangible personal experience,
+and the presence of Granny taught that this experience was common to
+grown-up people as well as children.
+
+The curiosity he evinced was queerly impersonal, however, and might well
+be called intellectual. The information he received had no power over
+his own life. He could have been told anything, and he would have
+accepted it calmly as something not affecting himself. The only thing
+that influenced him was the manner of the person answering his
+questions. To that manner he was almost morbidly sensitive, and from it
+he concluded whether the various details related should please or
+disturb him.
+
+Instinctively he pressed his inquiries at points eliciting marked
+resistance. And it was not what he actually learned, but the evasions
+encountered, that produced the sensitiveness about his own backgrounds
+which later often influenced his attitude harmfully at moments when he
+most needed complete self-assurance. It was the reluctance with which
+certain parts of the family history were told, and the total
+withholding of others, that taught him to be ashamed of things for which
+he could not be held personally responsible. The effect of this lesson
+on his character was the more fatal because it remained unconscious so
+long. Having become doubtful as to the worth of the roots of the tree,
+it was only natural that he should also feel doubts about the fruit.
+
+Concerning the real character of his forbears he learned next to
+nothing. All that he heard related to external circumstances that were,
+or were not, judged respectable and presentable. One fact in particular
+was subject to the most rigid exclusion from all family conversations,
+and yet it leaked down to Keith at a time when he was utterly incapable
+of appreciating its significance. It piqued him mightily without
+disturbing him.
+
+One day they were visited by his father's married sister, who was
+lacking in sentimentality and had a disturbing way of calling a spade a
+spade. The inevitable testing of the boy's cleverness by making him tell
+his own name led to a discussion of family names in general, Keith's
+mother expressing a great admiration for that of Wellander.
+
+"Oh, yes, it's good enough," remarked her sister-in-law, "but it is not
+the right one, you know, and the old one was much finer."
+
+"I know," said the mother, "but I don't know what the name used to be."
+
+"Cederskjoeld, and I think it was recognized as noble. I never knew the
+inside of it, but it looks peculiar. Carl's and my father and his
+brother and two sisters took common action to get the family name
+changed to Wellander. I am sure my grandfather must have been up to
+some rather striking deviltry, and for all I know he might have
+been hanged."
+
+"Hush," cried Keith's mother with a quick glance at the boy who was
+taking in everything with wide-open eyes and ears.
+
+Keith did not wait for anything more, but sneaked off by himself to
+think. The change of the name seemed nothing at the time, but the
+suggestion that his great-grandfather had been hanged was startling
+enough to give food for many meditations. Fortunately, or unfortunately,
+his aunt's manner had been too nonchalant to give him any clues. And
+from the manner of his mother he gathered merely that the asking of
+questions would be useless. So it came about that Keith for the first
+time in his life regretted the premature death of his paternal
+grandfather, from whom, otherwise, he might have elicited some more
+satisfactory information.
+
+Both grandfathers were dead long before Keith was born. He never saw a
+portrait of either of them, or had an idea of how they looked. He could
+not even recall having heard their Christian names. The personality of
+his paternal grandfather always remained a total blank to him. Of the
+other one he knew a little more. The fashionable club where his mother's
+father served was notorious for its conviviality and reckless gambling,
+and the men were like the masters to some extent. This one of his
+grandfathers used to love wine, women, cards and everything else that
+helped to modify life's general drabness. He must have been something of
+a wit, too, in his own circles, having any number of boon companions.
+Keith never heard what kind of a man he was at home. He made good money
+while he lived and spent it as carelessly as he earned it. At forty-two
+he died, leaving a penniless widow to look after a daughter still in her
+early teens. Keith's paternal grandfather died in the same way, but his
+widow, who was a hard-headed little woman of old peasant stock--the best
+in Sweden--did better with four children than the other grandmother
+with one.
+
+There were gaps in the stories of his mother and Granny concerning which
+he never got a direct reply from them, but by degrees he picked up many
+missing details from other sources. What he learned in this way
+indicated merely that they had been very poor at times, and poverty had
+forced them to earn a living by work that was quite honest and decent,
+but not "socially respectable." 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. Yet Keith never thought of her as ignorant. She had a
+bright, eager mind that, when not clouded, acted as a goad on his own.
+It was she who taught him to read and filled him with an awe for books
+and book-learning that was, perhaps, not entirely wholesome. She herself
+read eagerly, though fitfully, her interest in all such matters varying
+greatly with her mood and condition. Her day-dreaming was to a large
+extent directed toward matters literary and artistic. Sometimes, when
+she had read some novel with a markedly sentimental appeal, she talked
+vaguely of old ambitions to write, but as a rule it was her ignorance of
+music that she deplored. In the meantime her lace-making and her
+embroidery proved an artistic sense not wholly confined to dreams. She
+was always busy with some work of that kind, but her longings went far
+beyond it, and it happened more than once that she let her work drop in
+her lap while she looked at Keith with an expression he could not
+understand.
+
+"If only I had had your chance in life," she exclaimed on one occasion
+of that kind.
+
+"What do you mean," asked the boy, snuggling close to her.
+
+"I mean that you will study and be able to do things," she answered,
+bending down to kiss him.
+
+At that very moment the father entered and heard what she said.
+
+"Nonsense," he broke in. "The boy is going to learn a trade, and I think
+we'll ask Uncle Granstedt to make a carpenter of him."
+
+To Keith it was all meaningless, and his mother said nothing at the
+time, but a slight stiffening of her face warned him that his father's
+remark pointed in a direction not held desirable by her. And from that
+sign the boy took his cue.
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+The outside door stood open and no one was in the kitchen but Granny.
+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. Even as he looked up there, he could hear a
+spookish grating that seemed to symbolize the spirit of the place. He
+shuddered a little, but not unpleasantly, for he knew what caused it.
+
+In the brick wall ending the upward vista, he could see a square open
+hole with an iron shutter held open at right angles by an iron rod. As
+the wind shook the shutter, the rod scraped against the socket that held
+its hooked end. That was all--but on dark winter afternoons the effect
+was most disturbing.
+
+"I'm not afraid," Keith announced, sensing his own bravery rather
+keenly.
+
+"Why should you be," asked Granny.
+
+Then he noticed the tall iron door fastened to one side of the arch in
+front of it. Now it was doubled up length-wise and folded back so as to
+leave the passage free.
+
+"What's that for," he asked, pointing to the door.
+
+"In case of fire," said Granny. "If it should begin to burn up there,
+they would close that door to keep the flames from the rest of
+the house."
+
+"Would it burn much," Keith wondered.
+
+"Your father has five cords of good birch wood stored in the top attic,
+so I think the whole city would see the blaze."
+
+"And the people up there?"
+
+"They would have to come before we closed the doors, but God have mercy
+on us if it ever gets that far. Remember, boy, there is nothing worse
+than fire so you must always be careful never play with matches."
+
+"I know," said Keith, nodding sagely.
+
+But he really did not know what fire meant until a few nights later. The
+whole family was sound asleep, Keith on the chaiselongue, his father and
+mother in the big bed on the other side of the room. While still half
+asleep he could hear his mother crying his father's name in a strangely
+agitated voice.
+
+Then he woke fully and looked up. Every object in the room was clearly
+visible, but the light coming through the windows was not daylight. It
+was reddish and glaring, and the very reflection of it within the room
+filled the boy with vague uneasiness.
+
+The father jumped out of bed and ran to the window.
+
+"It is fire," he said. "Something terrible. My Lord, half the town must
+be burning. The whole sky is a mass of flames. And it's in the direction
+of the bank."
+
+Suddenly he turned back and began to dress in wordless haste.
+
+"Must we get out," asked the mother.
+
+"No, it is not very close yet, but you had better get up and dress--and
+get everybody dressed."
+
+By that time he was putting on his overcoat.
+
+"Where are you going, Carl," demanded the mother, evidently more scared
+by his going out than by the fire.
+
+"To the bank," answered the father, grimly.
+
+"You mustn't, Carl! I won't let you go out! Think if anything should
+happen to you!"
+
+"Nonsense," he said. "I am in no danger--but I must see what's happening
+to the bank, and help if things have to be taken out."
+
+"Carl, Carl...." was all the mother could get over her lips.
+
+"Don't worry, Ann," he pleaded, bending over her for a minute, and his
+voice took on a tenderness Keith seemed never to have heard before. "I
+shall be careful, but I must go. If the fire should come this way, I'll
+be back in time to help you all out."
+
+She tried to cling to him, but he freed himself with gentle firmness. In
+a minute more he was gone, and in the next second Keith's mother was at
+the window looking out, though she had only her night-linen on and it
+was late autumn. Unobserved and unrebuked, Keith joined her, and when he
+looked up at the sky, his heart almost stopped beating.
+
+A ghastly stillness reigned outside--except when it was merely
+accentuated by the occasional sound of hurried steps along the street at
+the top of the lane. Finally some one was heard passing through the
+lane itself.
+
+"Please," Keith's mother cried at the top of her voice. "What is it?"
+
+"It's the German Church," a voice responded from below. "The whole spire
+is flaming like a torch."
+
+"Are we in danger down here?"
+
+"Hard to tell. It depends on which way the spire falls. If it falls
+outward, I fear the whole city will go."
+
+Then he walked off.
+
+By that time the servant girl had come in weeping as if she had just
+heard her death-doom announced, and from the Granny was calling to them:
+
+"You'll freeze to death, all of you, if you don't put on some clothes."
+
+So they dressed, though difficulty, and then there was nothing to do but
+to wait. The mother was at the window all the time, every few minutes
+she said to the boy:
+
+"Oh, I hope nothing happens to your father!"
+
+At first it scared him more than did the light. But after a while it
+began to have an opposite effect. He seemed to grow stiff and hard. The
+excitement of the fire was still there, but it was overlaid and almost
+neutralized by a vast impatience that seemed to take possession of his
+whole being. He felt that if his mother made the same remark once more,
+he should yell with rage and agony, and to save himself, he joined
+Granny in the kitchen, where the girl had started a fire in order to
+make some coffee.
+
+The sky in that quarter was just as bright as in front, and no light was
+needed in the room.
+
+Suddenly he heard his mother cry out:
+
+"Oh."
+
+At the same time the brightness seemed to increase to something more
+than daylight.
+
+A quick change took place in the boy's heart. He ran into the
+living-room and put his arm about his mother who was still lying in
+the window.
+
+"Don't worry, mamma," he whispered to her. "I'll take care of you."
+
+There was something in his voice that brought the mother to herself. She
+closed the window and took him in her arms and kissed him as she had
+never kissed him before, he thought.
+
+"It was the spire that fell just now," she said, "and if there is any
+danger, your father will be here in a minute."
+
+Almost as she spoke, the glare outside began to die down, though the sky
+remained red and threatening until daybreak.
+
+Then they had coffee, Keith being allowed an extra dose in his milk. And
+soon afterwards the father returned to tell the story of the fire and
+inform them that all danger was over as far as they were concerned.
+
+For days afterwards the experiences of that night occupied Keith's mind.
+The joy of excitement was probably uppermost in spite of all other
+considerations, Beneath it was a vivid conception of the horrors of fire
+that remained a live thing in his mind until he was well on in years,
+sometimes waking him out of his sleep at night and setting his heart
+palpitating wildly at the mere idea of danger. Lastly, however, there
+was left from that momentous night a new attitude toward the mother that
+implied a direct criticism--the first one that had ever broken into
+clear consciousness. It did not make him love her less, but it changed
+the character of his love in some subtle way. The father, on the other
+hand, had gained by that night. There was something heroic about the
+quiet way in which he walked off to take care of the bank, pushing all
+other considerations aside until that duty had been filled.
+
+
+
+XV
+
+Gradually Keith learned to know the old house from top to bottom. The
+garret and the cellar remained of excitement for a long time. The rest
+of it offered little to hold the attention or feed the imagination.
+
+It covered three sides of a rectangle, with the courtyard in the centre.
+The wall of the adjoining house; formed the fourth side--a sheer cliff
+of plastered brick that towered two whole stories higher, its dreary
+expanse unbroken by a single window. Along the foot of it ran a long low
+structure with innumerable doors opening on the courtyard. Thither men,
+women and children had to descend regardless of weather or hour or
+season, and every visitor could be watched from the windows opening
+on the yard.
+
+The rear part of the house constituted practically a building by
+itself, with a stairway of its own, and the people living there seemed
+to form a world apart, with which Keith never became very well
+acquainted. But on the ground-floor of that part was the laundry, used
+in turn by every household in the entire house and regarded by the boy
+as a far-off, adventurous place until he had been allowed to visit it a
+couple of times.
+
+The building facing the lane and that running along the courtyard had a
+stairway in common at the corner where they joined. Its stairs and
+landings were of stone, uncarpeted, and lighted in the day by a window
+on each floor and at night by a single gas jet on each landing. At the
+foot of the lowermost flight of stairs was a long and dark passage that
+turned at a right angle and finally reached the lane after what seemed a
+long walk. Branching to the right, at the foot of the stairs, was
+another passage from which the cellar was reached after you had used all
+your strength to push open a huge iron door that squeaked uncannily on
+its stiff hinges.
+
+The flats on the second and third floors ran straight through from the
+lane to the rear building, but on the fourth floor, where Keith lived,
+another family occupied the rooms looking upon the courtyard. And there
+lived Jonas, the only other child in the house during Keith's
+earliest years.
+
+Jonas' father was a compositor--a tall, lank, hollow-eyed man with a bad
+cough. His mother was a woman of the people, angular and taciturn. Jonas
+himself was pale and gawky and shy.
+
+Those two families, living within a few feet of each other and meeting
+daily on the common landing, had little more intercourse than if they
+had been parted by miles of desert. The reserved and slightly eccentric
+character of the neighbours had something to do with this separation,
+but social distinctions counted for more. A compositor was, after all, a
+mere workman, and Keith felt instinctively that his mother looked with
+kindly contempt at the more primitive ways of the adjoining household.
+Now and then he was permitted to go and play for a little while with
+Jonas, who was a year older, but the other boy hardly ever entered
+Keith's home. Nor was their playing much of a success. Jonas was
+slow-witted and reserved, while alertness and frankness were among
+Keith's most characteristic traits. But differences of temperament
+accounted only in part for their failure to come together. Keith felt as
+if a wall of some kind stood between them, and as if the eyes watching
+from the other side of that wall were distinctly hostile at times. It
+exasperated him as if it had implied terrible injustice, but it was only
+in moments of extreme boredom he really cared. At such moments he would
+also develop a passionate desire for a brother or sister. He might have
+wished for a dog or a cat even, but the idea of such a disturbing
+element in his parental home seemed too preposterous for serious
+contemplation. In fact, so foreign was that idea to the home atmosphere,
+that Keith went through the rest of his life envying other people's pets
+without ever giving earnest thought to the acquisition of one
+for himself.
+
+Just as the parental attitude toward the nearest neighbours suggested a
+kindly but unsentimental tolerance of inferiors, so it became
+unmistakably tinged with a slightly jealous but unprotesting submission
+to superiors whenever the lower floors were reached. A bachelor
+official of some kind lived on the floor immediately below, with no one
+but his housekeeper to share his spacious apartment. As deputy landlord,
+Keith's father had to see this tenant like all the rest, but of social
+intercourse there was none, while on the other hand, Keith's mother kept
+up a gossiping acquaintance with the housekeeper. As far as Keith
+himself was concerned, there was nothing more awe-inspiring than a
+chance meeting on the stairs with the monocle, side-whiskers, precise
+manners and doled-out civility of Mr. Bureau-Chief Brostroem. The
+distance was so immense that even aspirations were precluded on the part
+of the boy. He could imagine being king, but not a duly appointed
+government official with a salary enabling him to occupy half a dozen
+rooms practically by himself.
+
+Of course, there were rumours afloat about a more intimate relationship
+between the bureau chief and his fairly good-looking housekeeper, who
+nominally had for her own that part of the flat which faced the
+courtyard, and these rumours did not escape the boy's keen ears. While
+their true inwardness was incomprehensible to him, they made him look
+wonderingly at the housekeeper whenever he met her, and when he accepted
+her gingersnaps and other tempting delicacies, he did so with a sense of
+wickedness that limited his gratefulness.
+
+A retired dry goods dealer and his good-hearted old wife lived on the
+second floor. The Fernbloms were the aristocracy of the house in the
+lane, having the best rooms, paying the highest rent and giving the
+biggest parties, but even Keith guessed quite early that they were
+simple souls, risen by thrift from very humble origins. They had a
+single daughter, a girl of delicate health and looks with whom Keith
+probably would have fallen in love hopelessly if she had stayed in the
+house. But she married early, moved to some other city and was rarely
+seen in her old home. Reports of her progress were received, of course,
+and passed on in the hearing of Keith, but like so many other things not
+touching his own life closely, it carried no real meaning to his mind.
+The parties continued, and Keith's parents were often invited, partly
+because the old couple was too simple-minded to think of social
+distinctions, and partly because they both came from the same district
+as Keith's Granny. Keith would be allowed to come along at times, and he
+liked the idea of going and the good food, but otherwise he found it
+dull business watching a lot of grown-up people seated solemnly about
+square tables playing cards. Then, one day, the old lady died, and Keith
+attended a part of the funeral, and from the window he saw the coffin
+taken away in a hearse buried in flowers. It made him ask many questions
+of his mother, but none of her answers brought death any closer to his
+mind. After all, the old lady had been nothing to him, and if the
+parties should cease as he heard was likely, the loss did not seem great
+to him. The only thing that made a real difference to him was his
+discovery that there would be no more of those ball-shaped gingersnaps
+that the old lady used to bake herself and keep in an earthen jar almost
+as tall as Keith.
+
+The front part of the ground floor was used as an office of some kind in
+those early days, but the middle part facing the long row of outhouses
+was a human habitation. The rooms were so dark that a lamp had to be
+used most of the day, and the principal entrance was direct from the
+courtyard. An old workman and his wife lived there until the office in
+front was changed into a coffee-house and those rooms toward the
+courtyard became the kitchen. When it happened, some one told Keith's
+mother a story which she in her turn conveyed to the boy.
+
+History repeated itself, she said, and Keith already knew that history
+was something that had happened before he was born. One hundred years
+ago, when Gustavus III was king of Sweden and things were more exciting
+than in these later days of outward and inward peace, there used also to
+be a coffee-house on the ground floor, and a widely known one at that.
+It occupied the floor above too, but this floor was in reality used as a
+club, and the club was political and the men who frequented it were
+conspiring against the government. This the police knew, and every so
+often a lot of armed and uniformed men would surround the house and make
+prisoners of those caught in the clubrooms on the second floor. But as a
+rule no one was found there but a couple of sleepy and grouchy
+attendants who cursed their luck at having to spend their lives in such
+a dull place.
+
+"But," Keith interrupted when the story got that far "you just told me
+that the rooms had a lot of conspirators in them."
+
+"So they had."
+
+"And yet they were empty when the police came there? Do you really mean
+that the people could make themselves invisible?"
+
+"That's where the real story comes in," his mother explained. "You know
+there is a long passageway between the front rooms of the Fernbloms and
+their kitchen in the rear. It runs back of the stairs. The next time you
+go through it, stamp your foot very hard, and you will hear that it
+sounds hollow in one place. At that spot there used to be a trap door in
+the floor. Now it is nailed down hard, but in the old days it could be
+opened any time, and then you found a stairway below. It led into our
+part of the cellar, where you still can find a couple of stone steps at
+one end. Then the conspirators went down into the main cellar, and at
+the back of it there was a tunnel leading under the rear part of the
+house and the lane beyond to a house on the other side. That's the way
+they escaped, and that's why the police never found anybody in
+the club."
+
+"What did the conspirators want," asked Keith after he had pondered the
+matter for a while.
+
+"I don't know exactly," his mother admitted, "but the king was killed by
+one of them at last."
+
+"I wish I had been there to defend the king," said Keith. Then a new
+thought seized him suddenly: "I want to go down and see those steps."
+
+"All right," his mother answered to his astonishment and joy. "Lena will
+soon go down to get potatoes for dinner, and then you can go along, if
+you only promise to come right up again."
+
+Shortly afterwards the momentous expedition actually took place. Keith
+had been as far as the outer cellar door before, but he had never cared
+to go further. When you opened that door, you were met by an air so cold
+and damp that it struck your face like a wet sheet, and the stairs fell
+away into a black abyss that seemed bottomless.
+
+The door was of iron, rounded at the top to fit the arch, and covered
+with rust. It looked as if it had been in its place since the house was
+built, and Keith had heard that the house could not be less than two
+hundred years old. The key, which Keith had been permitted to carry
+going down, was of iron too, and nearly twice as long as Keith's hand.
+The lock was in keeping with the key, enormous in size and so stiff that
+Lena had to use both hands to turn the key.
+
+Having laid a firm hold of Lena's skirt, Keith followed her several
+steps down until they reached a place in the opposite wall where a
+single very tall step led up to another iron door, square-cut and
+narrow, back of which lay the cellar used by the Wellanders. Lena
+lighted a candle that burned with difficulty in the clammy air.
+
+Inside nothing could be seen at first but a number of boxes and barrels
+full of supplies, and back of them walls built out of enormous stone
+blocks and dripping with moisture. As his eyes became accustomed to the
+dim light, however, Keith perceived that the end toward the lane was
+closed by a wall which even his inexperienced glance recognized as brick
+and comparatively new. Squeezing between two large barrels of potatoes
+he saw two stone steps at the foot of that wall and managed actually to
+put his foot on one of them.
+
+"I wish I knew what's back of that wall," he remarked at last.
+
+"Oh, nothing," said Lena indifferently.
+
+"There might be skeletons," he ventured after a pause.
+
+"Jesus Christ, child," Lena almost screamed, looking as if she had
+caught sight of a ghost. "Where in the world does he get such notions
+from? Come out of here now. I think the master will have to go down for
+potatoes himself hereafter."
+
+"There was a skeleton in the story you told me the other night," Keith
+protested with dignity, but not unaffected by the girl's
+unmistakable fright.
+
+"This is no place for stories of that kind," she declared pulling him
+away from the barrels and almost forgetting to close the cellar door
+behind her.
+
+That evening Keith kept thinking of the story and the steps in the
+cellar. He was sorry not to be able to walk up those stairs. And there
+must be some old things left lying about on them. Then he imagined
+himself a conspirator, hearing the police beating at the doors and
+making his way through the stairway and the tunnel to some quiet,
+unobserved doorway in another lane, much narrower and darker than their
+own. It was exciting, the passage through the tunnel, which he could see
+with his mind's eye--but the part of conspirator did not appeal to him.
+He had seen policemen on the street several times. They were very tall
+and carried sabres. Some time when he was conspiring they might be too
+quick for him and get him before he could reach the secret stairway. It
+would be much better, he decided finally, to be able to look them in the
+face and say truthfully:
+
+"I have done nothing at all!"
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+The regular meals of the day were four, not counting "afternoon coffee"
+which was regarded as a special treat and always subject to
+negotiations, though forthcoming as unfailingly as dinner or supper. It
+was the natural and nominal counterpart of the "morning coffee," which
+served to initiate the day's feeding. This first meal was consumed
+separately, as each person was ready for work, and on the whole its name
+was appropriate, although plenty of bread went with the coffee. Keith's
+turn came generally a little after seven, when he sat down to a large
+cup or bowl of half coffee and half milk into which had been broken a
+good sized piece of hard Swedish rye-bread. A little sugar was allowed,
+but no butter. This regimen began when Keith was less than three years
+old, and he enjoyed it immensely, provided the bread had steeped long
+enough to become soft, When, at last, he turned to rolls and butter
+dipped into the coffee, it did not mean that his taste had changed, but
+merely that his increasing sense of manhood found the earlier dish
+too childish.
+
+Breakfast was due about ll:30 and consisted generally of sundry
+left-overs from the preceding day, bread and butter forming one of the
+principal ingredients. Then came the main meal of the day, dinner,
+between 3:30 and 4 in the afternoon. As a rule it had only two courses:
+some meat dish or fish with potatoes, and a soup served last. Now and
+then there was a vegetable. Desserts were reserved for special
+occasions. To Keith each such meal was inseparably connected with the
+parental admonition: "Eat plenty of bread with your meat, child." The
+bread was of the hard kind already referred to--thin round cakes that
+one broke to pieces and that gave the teeth plenty of work. Various
+superstitions were invoked to promote the consumption of it. Thus the
+failure to finish a piece already broken off was alleged to result in
+the transfer of all one's strength to the actual consumer of the piece
+left behind. Keith was a docile child in spite of his impulsiveness and
+he did he was told and believed what he heard, but he often wondered why
+the rules so strictly enforced himself did not apply to his parents.
+
+"Afternoon coffee," generally accompanied by some form of sweet bread or
+cake, "happened" about 5:30, and at 8 supper was served. The final meal
+was commonly made up of sandwiches with porridge and milk, or perhaps,
+when fate was remarkably propitious, thin pancakes with cranberry jam.
+There might be an extra snack of food at a still later hour in case of
+unexpected callers, but such visits were not frequent and Keith would be
+asleep by that time anyhow.
+
+It was different when parties were given to formally invited company.
+Then Keith had to stay up--or pretend to do so--as long as the guests
+remained, and he must have a share of whatever the house had to offer.
+To such occasions he looked forward with feverish joy, not so much on
+account of the good things dispensed as for the sake of feeling the
+ordinary strict rules relaxed. Apart from Christmas, the principal
+celebrations took place on his parents' birthdays and "namedays." Every
+day in the Swedish calendar carries a name, and all those bearing it
+have a right to expect felicitations and presents from their relations
+and more intimate friends. In return they are expected to celebrate the
+occasion with a party that gives an excuse for showing what the house
+can do in the way of hospitality. The same thing applies to the birthday
+anniversaries, only in a higher degree. Not to celebrate one's birthday
+can only be a sign of poverty, miserliness or misanthropy, and to
+overlook the birthday anniversary of a close relative is to risk an
+immediate breach of connections.
+
+Nothing was more familiar to Keith than his mother's open worries about
+money and his father's occasional stern reference to the need of saving.
+To the boy those complaints and warnings meant merely that the parents
+were in a depressed and unfaourable mood, tending to draw the usual
+constraint a little tighter about him. He was intensely sensitive to
+atmosphere, and too often that of his home had the same effect on his
+young soul as the low-hanging, leaden skies of a Swedish December day
+before the first snow has fallen. It made him long for sunlight, and the
+parties brought it to some extent. Then care and caution were forgotten,
+although his father might grumble before and after. Then the daily
+routine was broken, and Granny became cynically but actively interested,
+bent above all on seeing that "the house would not be shamed."
+
+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. The
+other end was jammed with desserts and goodies meant to be served while
+the guests were waiting for supper or during the card game that
+generally followed it. Better than anything else, however, was the
+father's loud laugh and eager talk, so rarely heard in the course of
+their regular daily existence. Even then he might be displeased by some
+slight slip of the boy's, and a sharp rebuke might follow, but it seemed
+forgotten as soon as uttered, and of other consequences there were none
+to be feared. Therefore, Keith wished that there might be a party every
+day, and while there was one going on he sometimes caught himself
+wondering whether, after all, he did not like his father as much as his
+mother, or more.
+
+From his own experiences with food as well as from his parents' attitude
+toward it, both on special and on ordinary occasions, Keith distilled a
+sort of philosophy that it took him several decades to outlive. To him
+eating became a good thing in itself, rather than a means to an end. His
+parents were neither gluttons nor gourmets, but they liked good food,
+and, what was of still greater importance, good eating represented the
+principal source of enjoyment open to them. The same seemed true of
+their friends, and when company arrived no topic was more in favour than
+a comparison of past culinary enjoyments. Keith's father, for instance,
+never grew tired of telling about the time when he was still the chief
+clerk in a fashionable grocery and the owner gave him permission to
+dispose freely of a keg of Holland oysters that threatened to "go bad"
+before they could be sold. Four or five friends were drummed together.
+The feast took place at night in the store itself. Bread, butter, salt,
+pepper, liquor, beer and cards were the only things added to
+the oysters.
+
+"And when morning came, and I had to open the store, there was nothing
+left but a keg full of empty shells," the father used to shout, laughing
+at the same time so that it was hard to catch what he said. Then he
+would smack his lips and add with earnest conviction: "I have never
+tasted anything better unless it be the Russian caviar we used to import
+for the Court."
+
+Always it was a matter of quantity as well as quality. A feast was not a
+feast without more than plenty. Eating was always in order. An offer of
+a dish was as good as a command to partake. A refusal bordered on the
+offensive. Pressing a reluctant guest was the highest form of
+hospitality. Dietary precautions were apparently unheard of except in
+the case of certain chronic ailments, and then they were accepted as one
+of life's worst evils. To eat well was to be well, and the natural
+conclusion was that the best cure in case of trouble was to eat. Lack of
+appetite was a misfortune as well as a dangerous symptom, and to eat
+when not hungry was not only a necessity but a virtue.
+
+Yet Keith longed for other things and he learned early that even eating
+has its drawbacks.
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+Except on Sundays, the father rarely ate with the rest of the family. He
+left in the morning before Keith was up and never came home for
+breakfast. His dinner often had to wait until five or six or even later,
+so he seldom cared to eat again when the others had their supper.
+
+One afternoon, however, he appeared just as Keith and his mother were to
+sit for dinner. It put her in a flutter and she couldn't get an
+additional cover laid quick enough.
+
+"I heard that mother was coming," he remarked as he seated himself at
+the table.
+
+Instantly Keith's mother shot an apprehensive glance at the boy and
+exclaimed:
+
+"Please try to be a real nice boy now, so that your grandmother does not
+get a bad impression of you." Then she added, turning to her husband:
+"She never says anything, but she always looks as if I spoiled Keith
+hopelessly."
+
+"Well," the father rejoined thoughtfully, "she brought up four children
+of her own without anybody else to help her, and there was not one among
+us who dared to disregard her slightest word."
+
+"How about Henrik," the mother suggested a little tartly.
+
+"Yes, the one spared is the one spoiled," admitted the father with a
+sigh. "He was the youngest, and while he was licked like all of us, her
+hand never seemed quite as firm with him as with the rest. The worst
+thing parents can do to children is to let them have their own will."
+
+Keith was listening with one ear only. His thoughts were on Uncle
+Henrik, who would put in an unheralded appearance now and then, always
+when the father was away and always to the consternation of the whole
+household. Although hustled out of the kitchen as soon as the unbidden
+visitor arrived, Keith had had a good look at him several times and had
+also overheard the parents discussing him. He was still comparatively
+young. Yet he looked like animated waste matter. His face seemed to hang
+on him. His mouth was loose and void of expression. His eyes were
+bleared and ever on the move. He spoke mostly in a toneless drawl, that
+sometimes turned into a shrill whine, but also at rare intervals could
+change into a soft, heart-winning purr. His clothing was poorer and
+coarser than that of any other person seen by Keith. Once or twice it
+seemed to the boy like a repulsive uniform, and he heard his parents
+speak with mingled disgust and relief of some house or institution that
+was never fully named.
+
+"No one has a better heart than Henrik," Keith heard his father say
+once, "but he has no more spine than a cucumber, and he can't keep away
+from drink."
+
+Then the food was brought in, and Uncle Henrik was forgotten. As usual,
+there was a meat course to begin with, and Keith ate what for him was a
+big portion. Nor did he get into any trouble beyond having an extra
+large piece of hard bread put beside his plate by the father and finding
+the disposal of it rather difficult.
+
+The meat was followed by a large bowl of soup, and the very sight of it
+made Keith look unhappy--a fact that did not escape his father.
+
+Keith cared little for soups, while both parents liked them, and he had
+a particular dislike of soups made on a meat stock, like the one just
+brought in. For some reason that Keith might have thought funny under
+other circumstances, it was called Carpenter Soup, and it contained a
+lot of rather coarse vegetables. Among these were green celery and
+parsnips, both of which filled the boy with an almost morbid disgust.
+
+While the mother was serving and Keith was waiting in dumb agony, it
+flashed through his mind that Uncle Granstedt might be eating that kind
+of soup. If so, the boy thought, he would rather let himself be killed
+than made a carpenter.
+
+As the turn came to his own plate, Keith tried to catch his mother's eye
+with a signalled appeal to put in as little as possible, but she was
+talking to her husband and not noticing the boy at all. And so, at last,
+he found himself confronted with a plate filled to the brim.
+
+The first few spoonfuls went down without much resistance, chiefly
+because he confined himself to the fluid part of the soup. Then it
+seemed of a sudden as if one more mouthful would choke him, and his
+eating became a mere dallying with his spoon.
+
+"Go on and finish your soup," the father urged sternly.
+
+"I can't."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I have eaten all I can."
+
+"That does not matter," rejoined his father. "One must always finish
+what is on one's plate."
+
+"But I don't like it," 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.
+
+His mother was trying to coax him with kind words, and he actually
+raised the filled spoon to his lips once more, but the sensation within
+him was such that he let it drop again with a splash. That was the
+crowning offence, and the feeding process began at once. His father took
+him by the neck with one hand and administered the spoon with the other.
+It was done firmly and perhaps harshly, but in such a manner that the
+boy was not hurt.
+
+Keith cried and coughed and swallowed--and in the midst of that ordeal
+he noticed the wonderful softness of his father's hands. But his heart
+was full of bitter resentment, and he wished that he could grow up
+on the spot.
+
+What the end might have been is hard to tell, had not a slight
+commotion been heard from the kitchen at that juncture.
+
+"There is mother now," said the father, letting go his hold on Keith's
+neck. "Wipe your eyes and try to act like a boy. Some day we'll put you
+into skirts."
+
+Keith did not care. He knew now that he would not have to eat the rest
+of the soup. That was the one thing in the world that seemed to matter
+to him. His tears ceased. But now his body was shaken by a convulsive
+sob. On the whole his mood was one of hopeless resignation.
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+"I am glad to see you, mother," said Keith's father, rising quickly as a
+little old woman appeared in the kitchen doorway. His tone surprised the
+boy. There was warmth in it, but still more of reverence bordering on
+awe, and also something of pride. 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?"
+
+"Thank you," answered Keith's mother, and the boy could sense that she
+was not at her ease although she smiled pleasantly. "Those new powders I
+got from Dr. Skoeld helped a great deal."
+
+"Hm," grunted the older woman as she walked across the room and sat down
+on a chair not far from Keith. "I had no time or money to bother with
+powders at your age, but times have changed."
+
+She was taking in every detail of the room as she spoke, without looking
+pointedly at anything in particular. Suddenly Keith, who followed her
+every movement as if hypnotized, was startled by meeting the hard gaze
+of her calm, pale-blue eyes. Those eyes illuminated her small, wrinkled
+face so completely that the boy saw nothing else. Gone were her trimmed
+wig, her black shawl, her wide skirt of a checkered grey. Gone were even
+her thin, tight lips that used to close with the firm grip of a vice.
+Nothing was left but the eyes that looked him through and through until
+it was impossible for him to stand still any longer.
+
+"What is the matter with Keith," she asked. "Sick, too?"
+
+"No, thank heaven," the mother blurted out. "We have nothing to complain
+of his health--"
+
+"No," the father broke in with a suggestion of grim humour, "not about
+his health, but--"
+
+"Of course," the old lady said with a nod of comprehension. "I don't
+wish to criticize anybody or anything, but I don't think Keith is very
+obedient. He wants to pick and choose, I suppose, as if the food were
+not good enough for him."
+
+"Well, he can't," the father rejoined.
+
+"Children should eat anything and be glad to get it at that. Mine never
+thought of refusing what I gave them. If they ever had...."
+
+She didn't finish the sentence, but it made Keith feel that he would
+never have dared one word of protest about the soup if the grandmother
+had been there a little earlier. Yet she spoke without marked feeling,
+without hardness, almost kindly. It was plain as she went on, that she
+believed intensely in what she said, and that it touched the very
+foundations of existence as she saw it:
+
+"Children owe everything to their parents, and the least they can do in
+return is to accept thankfully what they get. That is what I did in my
+childhood, and I never dreamt of anything else. I had no will but that
+of my parents, and I knew that I could not and should not have any will
+of my own."
+
+Everybody but the grandmother was still standing. The mother's face bore
+clear evidence of conflicting tendencies to accept and reject. Looking
+at her, Keith felt, as he often did, that there was something within her
+that gave his view of matters a fighting chance. The father, on the
+other hand, seemed of a sudden to have become a child himself, listening
+obediently and with absorbed approval. 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."
+
+"I am not blaming the child," the old lady began in the same passive,
+quietly assured tone. But before she got further, the father broke in:
+
+"I think Keith had better go and play in his own corner--and please keep
+quiet, for grandmother and I have important things to talk of."
+
+Keith retired as directed, and at that moment growing up seemed to him a
+more unreal and impossible thing than ever.
+
+Not long afterwards the grandmother left, both parents escorting her to
+the outside door. When they returned to the living-room, Keith heard his
+mother say:
+
+"I don't see why she should always find fault with Keith. He's not a bit
+worse than Brita's Carl, whom she is helping to spoil just as fast
+as she can."
+
+"Well, that's her way," replied the father, paying no attention to the
+latter part of the remark. "She was brought up that way herself, and
+that's the way she brought up the four of us."
+
+He was evidently in high good-humour and did what Keith had never seen
+him do before when no company was present. He got out a cigar from one
+of the little drawers in the upper part of mamma's bureau and sat down
+at the still covered dining table to smoke it. This made Keith feel
+almost as if they were having a party, and soon he sneaked out of his
+corner and joined the parents at the table. First he stood hesitatingly
+beside his mother, but little by little he edged over to the father
+until he actually was leaning against the latter's knee without being
+rebuffed. The father even put his hand on Keith's head, and the soup
+episode became very distant and dim.
+
+"She used to lick us mercilessly," the father said as if speaking
+chiefly to himself, and as he spoke there was a reminiscent smile on his
+face and not a trace of resentment in his voice. "But she was absolutely
+just about it--so just that she used to lick all four of us whenever one
+had earned it. That was to keep the rest from thinking themselves any
+better, she said, and also because she felt sure that all of us had
+deserved it, although she had not happened to find it out."
+
+"I think it hard and unjust," Keith's mother protested. "And I don't
+believe in beating children all the time."
+
+"Those were hard days," the father mused on, "and everybody did it, and
+children seemed to know their place better then. I don't think we
+suffered very much from the beatings we got, they certainly did not make
+us think less of mother. She had her hands full, too, and not much time
+to think of nice distinctions. We were all small when father died, and
+Henrik was just a baby. There was no one but her to look after us, and
+how she did it, God only knows. But I have never heard her speak one
+word of complaint, and she always managed. Sometimes there was little
+enough, and we were mighty glad to get what there was, as she told you
+herself, but she always had something for us. Then we had to go to work
+just as soon as we could. I was thirteen when I began to add my share to
+the common heap."
+
+"Did you go to school," Keith ventured, having recently overheard some
+talk of his parents that seemed to bear on his own immediate future.
+
+"I did," the father replied, "but not long. I wanted to study, and my
+teacher was so anxious that I should go on that he promised to get me
+free admission to the higher school. But mother wouldn't listen. And I
+suppose it was not to be."
+
+"Did you like school," asked Keith, not having the slightest idea of
+what a school might be like.
+
+"Yes, I liked all about it but one thing. There was a big boy who
+bullied all the rest, and no one cared to fight him. He went for me the
+very first day of the term, and when I fought back, he gave me such a
+licking that I could hardly walk into the schoolroom afterwards. The
+next day he asked if I had had enough, and I told him I meant to go on
+till he had enough. So we started right in again, and he licked me worse
+than the day before. But I just couldn't give in. For three whole months
+we fought every day, and each day I made it harder for him. And one day
+I got the upper hand of him at last, and gave it to him until he began
+to cry and begged for mercy. Then I let him go, but no sooner had I
+turned my back on him, than he picked up a small sapling that was lying
+around and struck me over the head with it. There was a piece of root
+standing straight out, and it hit me right on top of my head so that the
+blood squirted out and I fainted on the spot. Then he had to leave
+school, and the last thing I heard of him was that the police had got
+him for something still worse."
+
+"Oh, Carl," the mother cried with a shudder, "you should have complained
+to the teacher!"
+
+"The teacher was watching us all the time, although I didn't know it.
+He told me afterwards that he would have helped me any time I asked, but
+that he would have thought less of me for asking."
+
+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.
+
+Then his mother came to in to tuck him in and make him say his prayers
+and kiss him good-night. Suddenly he flung his arms about her neck in a
+passion of craving for tenderness and protection. Putting his mouth
+close to her ear, he whispered a question that had nothing to do with
+the father's story or his fancies of a few moments ago.
+
+"Why must I eat things I don't want?"
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+The next Sunday morning found Keith more than usually restless. Half a
+dozen times in quick succession he appealed to the mother for
+suggestions as to what to do. Finally she turned to the father, who was
+preparing to go out:
+
+"Can't you take him along, Carl? He has never seen the bank, and he
+really should get out a little."
+
+For a little while the father said nothing. Then he spoke directly to
+Keith:
+
+"Put on your coat and cap."
+
+The boy who had been looking and listening with open mouth and a heart
+that hardly dared to beat, became wildly excited.
+
+"Now, Keith," the father admonished, "you can't go unless you behave."
+
+"Where's my coat, mother," asked Keith eagerly and unheedingly.
+
+"Don't you know that yourself," growled the father. "You are a big boy
+already, and you should keep your own things in order."
+
+"I have hung it up where he cannot reach it," the mother interceded.
+"I'll get it for him."
+
+The coat and the cap were on at last, but then began the struggle about
+the muffler and the mittens. The mother had crocheted them herself for
+Keith and insisted that they should be worn whenever he went outdoors
+during autumn and winter. The muffler was long and white, with blue
+rings two inches apart, and in shape more like a boa.
+
+Keith wanted the mittens, because his hands got cold easily, but not the
+muffler, which, he thought, made him look like a girl.
+
+The father objected to everything of that kind, which he said, tended to
+make the boy soft and susceptible to colds. He himself did not put on an
+overcoat until the weather grew very severe, and he never buttoned it,
+no matter how cold it grew. His throat was always bare, and he never
+wore gloves of any kind. Nor did he ever put his hands in his pockets
+while walking. He had a favourite trick of picking up a handful of snow,
+which he rolled into a ball and carried in his hand until it became hard
+as ice. His hands were milk-white, beautifully shaped and well cared
+for. It was impossible to believe that for many years they had done the
+hardest kind of work, often outdoors and generally in a poorly heated
+drafty shop. He was proud of them, although he pretended not to care
+when anybody spoke of them, and they filled Keith with admiration and
+envy. He tried to follow the father's example, but with the result that
+his hands grew red as boiled crawfish and began to ache under the nails
+until he had to cry.
+
+"You bring him up a woman," the father muttered, when Keith was ready at
+last.
+
+Then they left, having been kissed several times each by the mother, who
+warned Keith not to let go of his father's hand under any circumstances
+while they were on the streets.
+
+Down in the passageway on the ground floor, Keith started to take off
+the muffler.
+
+"No," said the father. "Now you keep it on. Your mother has told you to
+wear it, and you must not take it off behind her back."
+
+"But you didn't want me to have it on," Keith protested in genuine
+surprise.
+
+"No, I didn't, because I want you to be hardened and grow up like a man.
+But there is something I want still more, and that is for you to obey
+your mother, first because children should always obey their parents,
+and secondly because it makes your mother very unhappy if you don't do
+as she tells you."
+
+His tone changed slightly during the last part of his remark. Something
+of an appeal came into it and went straight to Keith's heart, filling it
+with a glow of righteous determination. It was always that way with him.
+A word spoken kindly made him eager to comply, and that was particularly
+the case if it came from some person not given to sentimentality.
+
+In the lane they turned and saw the mother lying in the window to watch
+them. As usual, kisses were thrown back and forth as they passed up the
+lane, but Keith felt rather impatient about it, and it was with a marked
+sense of relief he turned the corner into East Long Street. He was eager
+to push ahead into unknown regions and did not care to look back.
+
+Although he spoke little enough, the father proved a more genial
+companion than Keith had dared to expect. In fact, he had been a little
+oppressed at the thought of being entirely alone with the father, which
+was quite a new experience to him. But now he found it a pleasure, and
+their communion seemed more easy than when the mother was with them. He
+walked sedately enough, clinging to one of his father's soft, white
+hands, but every so often he ventured a skip and a jump without being
+rebuked, and on the whole he felt the kind of happiness that used to
+come on Christmas Eve, after the father had started to distribute
+the presents.
+
+Keith had frequently accompanied his mother as far as the little square
+at the end of the street, and he pointed proudly to the grocery store
+where he had helped to buy things.
+
+"Yes," responded the father, and again his tone seemed strangely
+unfamiliar to the boy. "I might have had such a store myself, if luck
+had been with me."
+
+The idea was more than Keith could digest at once. It was too
+overwhelming, and once more he looked at his father with the feeling of
+wonder and awe that sometimes took hold of him almost against his
+will--a feeling that clashed hopelessly with the nervous shyness
+commonly inspired by the father's stern manners.
+
+"Why didn't you get it," the boy ventured at last.
+
+"Because I was born under the Monkey Star," replied the father grimly.
+
+The boy wondered what kind of star that was, but still more he wondered
+at the father's mood which appeared to indicate a displeasure not
+directed at the questioner. Before Keith could ask anything more, they
+had started across one of the open market places that line the
+fresh-water side of the old City.
+
+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 had a real portal instead of an ordinary doorway, and the inside was
+still more impressive. Keith had been to church once or twice, and for a
+moment he thought himself in one. But he saw no seats, and his father
+did not look solemn at all. The walls were of stone curiously streaked
+and coloured. The ceiling was so far up that Keith had to bend far
+backwards to see it. It was full of ornaments and supported by two rows
+of tall round stone pillars so thick that Keith could not get his arms
+halfway around one of them. In the background rose a very broad and
+seemingly endless stairway of white stone. While they climbed it step by
+step, Keith wondered if the king in his palace had anything like it.
+
+Arrived at the top at last, they turned into a sort of lobby--a rather
+bare room with several plain desks by the windows and many hooks along
+the inner wall. There the father took off both his coats and armed
+himself with a huge feather duster and a rag.
+
+"Remember, Keith," he said in his ordinary tone, "that you may look as
+much as you please, but that you must not touch anything. If you do, you
+can never come here again."
+
+Having passed through several smaller rooms, they emerged finally into a
+hall so bright and spacious that Keith stopped with a gasp and for a
+moment thought himself in the open air again. It was as wide as the
+building itself and three sides were full of large windows A counter of
+mahogany that looked miles long ran from one end to the other. The place
+behind it contained many desks so tall that Keith could not have reached
+the tops of them with his raised hand. But from a distance he could see
+that they were full of tempting things--paper and pens and pencils, red
+bars of sealing wax, glue-pots and rulers and glistening shears.
+
+Two men, also in their shirt-sleeves, were busy at the desks, dusting
+them and arranging the things on top of them. And the father quickly
+went to work in the same way.
+
+It seemed interesting to Keith, who would have liked to try his hand at
+it. But it also disconcerting for some reason he could not explain and
+for a while he watched the father as if unwilling to believe his own
+eyes. Somehow it did not tally with certain notions formed in Keith's
+head on the night when the church was burning. At last he up to his
+father and asked:
+
+"Is this where you always work?"
+
+"No," was the answer given with a peculiar grimness. "This is for the
+officials."
+
+"What are they?"
+
+"Oh, tellers and cashiers and bookkeepers."
+
+Keith noted the words for future inquiries. For the moment they meant
+nothing to him.
+
+"Why are you not here too," he persisted.
+
+"Because I am only an attendant--a mere _vaktmaestare_. That is a fact
+you had better fix in your mind once for all, my boy."
+
+"Is that your little boy, Wellander," one of the other men called out at
+that moment. "Let us have a look at him."
+
+Hand-shakings and head-pattings followed as Keith was presented to
+"Uncle" This and "Uncle" That. He didn't object and he didn't care. They
+looked nice enough, and their talk was friendly, but somehow he felt
+that his parents did not care for them. Some of the glamour had left the
+place. In spite of its magnificence, he did not like it, although he was
+glad to have seen it.
+
+Discovering a wastepaper basket full of envelopes with brightly coloured
+marks on them, he regained his interest a little. He knew those marks
+for stamps and they had pictures on them which attracted him very much.
+So he made a bee-line for the basket and proceeded to pick out what he
+liked best.
+
+"Have you forgotten what I told you," he heard his father shout to him.
+
+"They have been thrown away," he said going toward the father.
+
+"That is neither here nor there," was the sharp answer he got. "You know
+they are not yours, and so you must not touch them. Put them back
+at once."
+
+Keith did as he was told, wondering if he really had done anything wrong
+or if his father merely objected for some reason of his own.
+
+Then he walked around uninterested and forlorn until they were ready to
+go home again. The stairway seemed shorter as they descended, but the
+pillars were tall and thick as before. And on the way home his father
+found a little shop open and bought him a few _oere's_ worth of
+hard candy.
+
+It was the only time Keith could ever remember his having done such a
+thing.
+
+
+
+XX
+
+The lodger happened to be away when they got home, and the mother had
+opened the door to the parlour in order to get a little more air and
+light into the living-room. After dinner the father went into the
+parlour to take a nap on the big sofa, while the mother settled down
+comfortably in her easy chair, a piece of handiwork on her lap as usual.
+Keith took up his customary position on the footstool to tell her what
+he had seen and done during his morning excursion.
+
+She was eager to hear everything and helped him along with questions,
+and yet there ran through her very eagerness a subtle inner resistance
+which the boy felt vaguely. It as if she never really cared for anything
+concerning him in which she herself had not taken part.
+
+The original glamour had returned to every aspect of his new experience,
+and he tried excitedly to describe the wonders of the vestibule, the
+stairway and the big hall. In the midst of it he paused suddenly and
+fell to staring into vacancy.
+
+"Was that all," she asked, puzzled by his silence.
+
+"Lena dusts our rooms, doesn't she," was his rather startling
+counter-question.
+
+"Mostly," the mother replied with a searching glance at his puckered
+brows. "Although I sometimes ..."
+
+"You don't have to," the boy broke in.
+
+"No" she admitted, "but then I am sure it is properly done."
+
+"Is that why papa dusts the tables in the bank?"
+
+A pause followed during which it was the mother's turn to stand the
+boy's intense scrutiny.
+
+"No," she said at last. "He does it because it is a part of his work,
+and a shame it is that he has to. Scrub-women come in and do the rest of
+the cleaning, but they are not trusted with the desks, and so the
+attendants have to take turns doing that part of it. That's why your
+father has to leave so very early in the morning."
+
+Mother and son lapsed into silence once more. It was broken by another
+question from the boy.
+
+"Why couldn't I take some stamps that had been thrown away?"
+
+"Had your father said anything about it before you took them?"
+
+"He told me not to touch anything."
+
+"Then you couldn't because he had told you to leave things alone. He is
+so careful in all such matters. Sometimes he goes a little too far,
+perhaps, but you can be sure that he means right. Other people want the
+stamps, and there is a lot of gossip and envy about everything, and he
+is too proud to be dragged into that sort of thing. It is always better,
+Keith, to leave alone what you know is not your own. Honesty endures
+beyond all else."
+
+Keith made no direct response, but sprang one more irrelevant question:
+
+"Why didn't papa get the grocery store?"
+
+"How do you know," the mother demanded with a quick glance at him.
+
+"Papa told me."
+
+"Well," she drawled as if thinking. Then she settled back in the chair,
+her mind made up. "Listen, and I will tell you a story. Once upon a time
+there was a rich old man who owned a grocery store."
+
+"That's where they sell prunes and raisins and sugar," the boy put in.
+
+"And the store was so fine," she went on unheedingly, "that the old man
+was permitted to sell all those things to the king's own kitchen. The
+old man had many assistants, but at the head of them all was a young man
+who knew just what to do, because he had worked in such stores ever
+since he was a little boy. And he was so honest and able and polite that
+the people liked him very much and came to the store for his sake, but
+the old man liked him more anybody else."
+
+"Was the old man nice," Keith asked.
+
+"Yes, indeed, but he was also very peculiar, and the most peculiar thing
+about him was that he hated all women and thought that a man who married
+was lost for ever."
+
+"Did he have any children?"
+
+"No, men who want no wives get no children. That is a part of their
+punishment. And so when the owner of the store got older and older, and
+began to feel tired, he didn't know to whom he should leave the store.
+You may be sure that he thought it over many times, because he was
+exceedingly proud of the store and wanted it to go on. The result of his
+thinking was that he decided to give it to the young man whom he trusted
+and liked so much."
+
+"How did the young man look," Keith broke in.
+
+"Something like your father, I should say. But while all this was going
+on, the young man had met a princess and fallen in love with her...."
+
+"A real princess," asked the boy with wide-open eyes.
+
+"All princesses are real in their own opinion. And she and the young man
+had promised to marry each other, and this the old man learned at last.
+Then he was very, very angry and told the young man that he was a fool.
+And when the young man answered that there were many of his kind, and
+that he had pledged his word, the old man told him that he would not get
+the store unless he promised to have nothing more to do with the
+princess. But the young man loved her and would not give her up, and so,
+you see--he didn't get the store. Don't you think that was nobly
+done, Keith?"
+
+"Ye-es," the boy assented without particular enthusiasm, "but if he had
+got the store, we should have been rich now?"
+
+"We," repeated the mother in a funny tone. "Why, then there would have
+been no _we_."
+
+"Why not," he demanded.
+
+"Or it might have been worse still," she whispered as if momentarily
+forgetful of the boy's presence.
+
+"There is your father now," she said a moment later, when a slight stir
+was heard in the adjoining room. "Don't say anything more about the
+store.... Do you know what your father wanted to be most of all?"
+
+Keith looked up speculatively as his father appeared at the doorway to
+the parlour--a man of medium height, who stooped because he was
+nearsighted, and so looked shorter than he was, but also stronger
+because of the great width of his shoulders.
+
+"I can tell you," the father put in. "When I couldn't study, I wanted to
+be a sailor, and I tried to take hire on a ship whose master knew me and
+wished to help me. Then they found out that I was too nearsighted to
+steer by the compass, and that was the end of it. Didn't I tell that I
+was born under the Monkey Star?"
+
+"Don't talk like that, Carl," the mother protested, rising to give him a
+kiss. "You have done very well, and there is no man in the bank more
+respected than you."
+
+"Yes," he admitted with something like a grin. "They know I wouldn't
+steal even if I had a chance, and they let me collect four million
+crowns, as I did the other day, but I shall never get beyond where I am
+today. So there you are--what's struck for a farthing will never be
+a dollar."
+
+Keith's head was still full of what he had heard when he went to bed
+that night, and he didn't know whether to feel happy or unhappy about
+it. His father had grown bigger and more interesting in some ways, and
+yet the boy's chief impression was of a failure and a fall. It was this
+impression that stuck most deeply in his mind.
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+Keith's home was not one of those hospitable places with the doors
+always wide open, to which people are drawn almost against their will
+and from which they come away with difficulty. Perhaps it was, above
+all, the spirit of the father that settled this matter. To him, more
+than to any Englishman, his home was his castle, and he liked to keep
+the drawbridge raised against unwelcome company. 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. Granny was glad enough to talk to anybody, but
+she would never ask any one to call, and if no one came, she was apt to
+dig out some particularly bitter proverb, like "money alone has
+many friends."
+
+Both parents could be hospitable enough when occasion so demanded, but
+it was a formal thing with them, exercised only after due preparation.
+In many ways, they were large-heartedly generous, but only in a serious
+manner, when actual need required it. They might give freely beyond what
+they could well afford, but the father could be out of humour for days
+if some little thing regarded as particularly his own had been touched
+or used by another member of the family.
+
+As it was, people came and went a good deal, but they came formally or
+because some specific errand brought them, and most of the errands,
+Keith soon realized, were connected with a desire for help. 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. His especial aversion was a gaunt old woman with a big
+hooked nose and a pair of startlingly large, sad-looking eyes. She
+always smiled, and her smile was hopelessly out of keeping with the rest
+of her face. The very sight of her made Keith forget all his manners.
+Time and again his mother rebuked him and tried to bring him around by
+telling the old woman's story--a story of wonderful self-sacrifice and
+heroic struggle--but it made no difference to him. There was something
+about the sight of poverty and unhappiness and failure that provoked him
+beyond endurance, and sometimes he would turn to his mother with a
+reckless cry of:
+
+"Why do you let them come here at all?"
+
+For the friends of the family, who came there on an equal footing, he
+showed more respect, and for a few of them he felt a real liking. As a
+rule, however, they inspired him with nothing but indifference, and his
+one reason for greeting them with some approach at cordiality was that
+they brought a change into the general monotony of the home, and that
+their coming might lead to the distribution of some dainties out of the
+ordinary. Some of his parents' friends were poor and growing poorer.
+Others had the appearance of doing well and hoping for more. It made no
+difference to Keith. They were all middle-aged, sedate and preoccupied
+with their own little affairs. They tried to be nice to him, but they
+did not interest him, and his main grievance against them--not clearly
+understood by any means--was that they brought nothing into his life of
+what he wanted.
+
+Had he been asked what he wanted, he would have answered unhesitatingly:
+
+"Some one to play with."
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+Having whined and nagged until his mother no longer could bear it, Keith
+at last obtained the cherished permission to go and play in the lane.
+
+"But look out for horses," warned his mother as he stood in the doorway
+ready to run. "And don't run out of sight, and you must come when I
+call, and--you had better keep away from other boys, or you may come
+home quite naked this time."
+
+"What do you mean," asked Keith, turning to see whether the mother was
+joking or talking seriously.
+
+"Don't you recall when those boys took your coat from you, and you came
+up here crying?"
+
+There could be no mistake about her meaning just what she said. Keith
+stood still thinking very hard. Here was another memory that he could
+not remember at all. There was not a trace of it left in his mind, and
+yet it must have happened. It sounded exciting, too, and he wished to
+know all about it.
+
+"You had better close the door," his mother suggested.
+
+"All right," said Keith, hastening to close the door from the outside
+and make a dive for the stairway. There would be plenty of time to ask
+about the loss of his coat later. He was halfway down the first flight
+when he heard the kitchen door open behind him, and his heart leapt into
+his throat.
+
+"You must go down the stairs quietly," his mother called out from above,
+whereupon Keith's heart resumed its normal position.
+
+He descended the rest of that flight on tip-toe. The second one was
+taken more rapidly, and down the last one he went two steps at a time,
+the little iron plates under his heels hitting the stones with a ring
+that echoed through the old house.
+
+In the lane he found them loading a dray in front of the distillery, and
+he started across to watch the men straining at the next barrel. He had
+hardly taken a step in that direction, however, when a loud pop was
+heard from the black cave forming the entrance to the distillery. It
+was followed first by a single cry, and then by a hubbub of voices. A
+second later a young man came running out and threw himself prone into
+the gutter, where a trickle of water was to be seen.
+
+Keith was too astonished to be frightened at once. He could not
+understand what made the man act in this way. Then another man came out
+in a rush and began to beat the legs of the man in the gutter with his
+hands, and Keith suddenly noticed that little blue flames were dancing
+up and down the grimy leathern trousers of the first man.
+
+The memory of the night when the church burned leaped into his mind,
+making him turn instinctively toward the passageway and his
+mother's lap.
+
+At that moment a third man appeared carrying a big tank full of water
+which he poured over the man in the gutter. The latter got on his feet
+and limped back into the distillery, supported by his two comrades.
+
+Keith was left behind, trembling a little and gazing curiously at the
+hanging head of the dray-horse which had not made the slightest movement
+during the previous excitement.
+
+"He'll have to go to bed," said a sleepy voice at his shoulder just
+then.
+
+Keith swung around as if touched by an electric shock. Before him he saw
+another small boy, apparently of his own age, but a little taller, and
+light-haired like himself.
+
+"What's your name," asked Keith as soon as he caught his breath.
+
+"Johan," answered the other stolidly, but not unfriendly.
+
+"Have you got another name like me?"
+
+"My name is Johan Peter Gustafsson," was the reply given in the tone of
+a lesson painfully learned.
+
+"Where do you live?"
+
+"Right here."
+
+"Not in our house," Keith protested.
+
+"No, down there," Johan explained, pointing to the little side door
+leading into the courtyard of one of the corner houses at the Quay.
+
+"What's your father?" Keith continued his cross-examination.
+
+"_Vaktmaestare_" said Johan indifferently.
+
+"So is mine," Keith cried eagerly. "Have you got a bank, too?"
+
+Johan shook his head as if unable to grasp what Keith meant.
+
+"My popsey works in the office down there," he said, "and we live beside
+it, and at night I go with popsey when he carries all the mail to the
+postoffice."
+
+"Why do you call him popsey," inquired Keith, fascinated by the new word
+and wondering if he would dare use it to his own father.
+
+"Because that's what he is," Johan declared.
+
+A few minutes later they were playing together as if they had known each
+other for ever. They had just discovered an unusually large and tempting
+pin in a crack at the bottom of the gutter, when Keith heard his mother
+calling from the window above:
+
+"What are you doing, Keith?"
+
+"Oh, just playing," he replied without looking up, forgetful of
+everything but the pin that would not come out of the crack.
+
+"Who is that with you?"
+
+"That is Johan," Keith shouted back triumphantly, "and his papa is a
+_vaktmaestare_, too."
+
+"Come right up and let me speak to you," was the insistant rejoinder
+from above.
+
+"Oh, please, mamma," the boy pleaded, his voice breaking a little,
+"can't I stay just a little longer?"
+
+"You must come at once," his mother commanded.
+
+"Is that your mumsey," Johan asked.
+
+"It is my mamma," Keith retorted, his attention momentarily diverted by
+Johan's most peculiar way of referring to his parents.
+
+"Then you had better go," advised the new friend sagely, "or she will
+tell your popsey, and then you know what happens to you."
+
+"I think I can come down again, if you wait for me," cried Keith as he
+ran into the long dark passageway.
+
+At that moment a cry of "Johan" rose from the lower part of the lane,
+and Keith had to come back once more to look.
+
+"There's my mumsey now," said Johan philosophically, pointing to an open
+window on the ground floor of the corner house. With that he slouched
+off in a manner that Keith half envied and half resented.
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+The sudden emergence of Johan had filled Keith's heart with a new hope.
+Here was a possible playmate at last. The fact that his father was a
+_vaktmaestare_ like Keith's ought to settle all paternal opposition, the
+boy thought. But to his great surprise, he found this not to be
+the case.
+
+A severe cross-examination followed his return home. In the midst of it,
+Keith made a grievous strategic mistake, lured on by his insatiable
+curiosity about strange words.
+
+"Why does Johan call his mamma 'mumsey' and his papa 'popsey,'" he asked
+unexpectedly. "It sounds funny."
+
+"Because he does not know any better," his mother rejoined with
+unmistakable disapproval. "It doesn't sound nice, and it isn't nice."
+
+"But his papa and mamma don't care," Keith objected.
+
+"That's the worst of it," said the mother. "It shows they are not very
+nice people, and I wish to talk to your father before you can play with
+Johan any more."
+
+"I have heard of them," the grandmother piped up, making them both turn
+towards her, one hopefully and the other doubtfully.
+
+The grandmother never left the kitchen. She walked from the sofa to the
+big foot-stool, from the foot-stool to the table by the window, and from
+the table back to the sofa. Sometimes she would not be seen talking to
+another person for days. And yet she had a miraculous way of surprising
+the rest of the family with pieces of gossip picked out of the air, one
+might think. There was apparently not a person in the neighbourhood of
+whom she had not heard, and about whom she could not give some more or
+less intimate piece of information. They were all perfect strangers to
+her, but she followed their lives with as much keenness for minute
+details as if they had been her nearest kin or dear friends.
+
+"She was a cook in the house of the man whose office Gustafsson works
+in," the grandmother went on. "He used to do odd jobs for the family,
+cutting wood and such things, and in that way he met her in the kitchen,
+and one fine day they decided to get married. She is older than him, and
+I guess it was her last chance. But the family was crazy about her, and
+when they heard of it, they gave him the place of attendant in the
+office downstairs and the two rooms back of the office to live in. He
+was just a peasant boy, and she reads the Bible all day and goes to
+prayer-meeting at night."
+
+"How do you know all that," wondered Keith's mother, having learned by
+this time that the old woman's gossip was generally well founded
+on truth.
+
+"Oh," the grandmother said with a queer smile particular to such
+occasions, "a little bird sang it to me."
+
+"I think they must be rather low people," Keith's mother concluded.
+
+"Perhaps," the grandmother said, "but they have plenty of religion at
+least, and I don't think the boy can do much harm to Keith."
+
+Keith ran up to the grandmother and kissed her impulsively.
+
+That night there was a great family council. Keith's father was told
+about Johan and the Gustafssons.
+
+"I think they are about as good as ourselves," was his verdict, given in
+a tone suggesting contempt for his own position rather than respect for
+that of Johan's father. "But Keith has his toys, and that ought to be
+enough for him."
+
+"It _is_ rather lonely for him," the mother rejoined, "and he should get
+out a little, I suppose, but I hate to have him playing about the
+streets, and I fear Johan's manners are not very good."
+
+"The best thing is to send him to school," said the father.
+
+"What are you talking of, Carl," the mother cried. "The idea--when he is
+barely five!"
+
+"He knows more about the letters than I did when I began school at
+seven," the father came back unperturbed.
+
+"I don't think it would be very bad for him to play a little with Johan
+now and then," said the mother evasively, bending down to kiss Keith,
+who had snuggled up to her during the preceding talk. Then she put her
+hand through his waves of almost flaxen hair, bent his head slightly
+backward, looked straight into his eyes, and asked:
+
+"You don't want to leave me, do you?"
+
+"No," said Keith, hugging her passionately, "but I think I should like
+to go to school."
+
+The idea carried no distinct image to his mind, and he felt a little
+timid toward all those unknown possibilities implied by the word school,
+but this slight feeling of hesitation was swamped by a longing so
+restless and so irresistible that it sent tears to his eyes, although he
+could not tell himself what it was he longed for.
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+It was true that Keith knew a good deal for his age. In fact, he had
+mastered the whole alphabet and was making good progress in spelling
+under his mother's guidance. He was eager and quick to learn. Generally
+his interest was rather fitful, but along this one line it showed no
+wavering. It was as if the boy had known that the art of reading would
+offer him an escape of some sort.
+
+He might have advanced still more rapidly if his mother had been more
+steady in her teaching. She was very proud of him, and she spoke of
+reading and studying as if there were nothing finer in the world.
+
+"No better burden bears any man than much wisdom," she quoted one day
+from the old Eddas--probably without knowing the source. "I know, if any
+one does, what lack of money means, but I want you rather to have
+learning than wealth. Then, when the whole world is listening to you
+with bated breath, I shall walk across North Bridge resting on your arm,
+and I shall be repaid for all that my own life has not brought me. We
+shall walk arm in arm, you and I, at four o'clock, when the King goes
+for a walk, too, and all Stockholm is there to see.... Will you do
+that, Keith?"
+
+"Of course," he cried, his eyes shining.
+
+But sometimes she was helpless in the grip of one of her depressed
+moods, and then days might go by without a lesson. Far from being made
+happy by that respite, he would plead with her to be taught "one more
+little letter," and finally she would bring down the book from the
+hanging book shelf on the wall back of her easy chair. There stood the
+a-b-c book she had bought for him, and her favourite hymn-book, and the
+New Testament given to the father when he left school to begin earning
+his own living, and the miniature copy of Luther's catechism presented
+to him at the time of his confirmation. There, too, rested the big Bible
+which Keith's mother treasured as much as her wedding ring and the
+bureau that was her chief wedding present. It was a gift from her father
+when she was confirmed, and on its fly-leaf he had written:
+
+"Belongs to Anna Margareta Carlsson."
+
+It was this Bible rather than the a-b-c book that became the principal
+means of instruction. Keith loved it, and he could not have been much
+more than three years old when he first began to pore over its quaint
+old illustrations. The first of these showed an old man with a long
+beard and a trailing white garment floating over a sheet of water out of
+which rose two ragged pieces of rock. At one corner a pallid sun emerged
+out of the fleeing mists, while, at the opposite corner, a tiny moon
+crescent seemed about to disappear beneath the stilled waters.
+
+"Who is that," asked Keith not once, but many times.
+
+"That is God creating the world," explained his mother.
+
+"But I don't see the world."
+
+"It is just coming out," she said, pointing to the rocks.
+
+"Who's God," was Keith's next question as a rule.
+
+"He is the father of the whole universe," the mother said reverently.
+
+"Papa's too," asked the boy once, and seeing his mother nod assent, he
+cried jubilantly:
+
+"Then he must be my grandfather, whose portrait you haven't got!"
+
+More frequently he stopped short as soon as he heard about the universal
+fatherhood. That was grown-up talk to him, and like much else, it
+carried no meaning to his mind. Nor did he waste much thought on it
+after having asked once if he could see God and been told that no man
+could do that and live. His mind was occupied with food and clothes and
+toys and people and things. What could never be seen was easily
+dismissed--much more easily than the spook that one of the servant girls
+insisted on having seen, thus making Keith's father so angry that he
+nearly discharged her on the spot. And from that first picture in the
+Bible the boy turned impatiently to another further on, where a small
+boy with a sword almost as big as himself was cutting the head off a man
+much taller than Keith's father. And at the top of each page appeared
+big black letters which he could recognize almost as easily as those in
+the a-b-c book, although they were differently shaped and much more
+pretty to look at.
+
+To Keith this opening up of a new world was exclusively pleasant at
+first, and so it was to his mother, but other people seemed to be
+troubled by it at times. One day his free-spoken aunt was visiting with
+them, and, as usual, disagreeing with Keith's mother, who evidently felt
+one of her dark spells approaching. Wishing to express her disagreement
+at some particular point quite forcibly, but wishing also to keep the
+listening boy from enriching his vocabulary with a term of doubtful
+desirability, she took the precaution to spell out the too
+picturesque word:
+
+"R-o-t!" Just then she caught a gleam of aroused interest in Keith's
+eyes, and to make assurance doubly sure, she hastened to add:
+"Says rod!"
+
+"No," Keith objected promptly. "It says rot, and I want to know what it
+means."
+
+"I knew that small pigs also have ears, but I didn't know they could
+spell," was her amused comment, uttered in a tone that touched something
+in Keith's inside most pleasantly. Then, however, she went on in a
+manner grown quite serious:
+
+"You had better send him to school, Anna."
+
+"Yes," replied the mother to Keith's intense surprise, "Carl and I have
+been talking it over and practically decided to do so. He certainly
+needs some better guidance than he gets from his poor, good-for-nothing
+mother."
+
+"Good-for-nothing fiddlesticks!" sputtered the aunt. "You'll make me say
+something much worse than rot. Anna, if you keep talking like that when
+the boy hears it."
+
+Keith had heard, but his mind was absorbed by the new idea.
+
+"Well," said his mother, "I cannot take care of him properly. He is
+running down to that Gustafsson boy all time and most of the time I
+can't get him home again except by going for him."
+
+"Johan's mother said yesterday that I hadn't been there half an hour
+when you called for me," Keith broke in. "And then she said that I had
+better not come back if you don't think Johan good enough for to
+play with."
+
+"I don't say we are better than anybody else," said the mother,
+addressing herself to the aunt rather than to Keith. "But I don't know
+what he is doing when he is down there, and Johan seems such a clod that
+I can't see why Keith wants to play with him."
+
+"Why can't Johan come up here," asked Keith.
+
+"Because ...," said his mother, and got no further.
+
+"Yes," the aunt declared in a tone of absolute finality, "you must send
+him to school."
+
+No sooner had the aunt taken her leave than Keith assailed his mother
+with excited demands for further information. She took his head between
+her both hands and looked at him as if she would never see him again.
+
+"Only five," she said at last, "and already he wants to get away. A few
+years more--a few short years--and you will be gone for good,
+I suppose."
+
+"Oh, mamma," he protested, "you know that I shall never leave you!"
+
+"No, never entirely," she cried, kissing him fervently. "Promise me you
+won't, Keith!"
+
+He promised, and then he wanted to know what they did in school. But she
+began to talk about difficulties and dangers and temptations and all
+sorts of things he couldn't grasp. She spoke with intense feeling, and
+as always when she was deeply moved, his whole being was set vibrating
+in tune with her mood. His cheeks flushed, his throat choked, his eyes
+brimmed over with tears, and at last he began to wonder whether he had
+not better stay right where he was. Her eyes were dim with tears, too,
+and once more she took his head between her hands and looked an endless
+time before she said:
+
+"Now you are beginning life in earnest, Keith!"
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+
+
+I
+
+One day in the early autumn Keith's mother dressed him with unusual care
+and kissed him several times before they left the house. Granny had to
+be kissed, too, and even Lena came forward to shake hands and say
+good-bye. It was a very solemn affair.
+
+Hand in hand Keith and his mother walked clear across the old City, past
+Great Church, until they came to a very broad lane at the foot of which
+was a square with a statue in it. At the other end of the square lay a
+very large, red building.
+
+"That's the House of Knights where all the nobility hang up their
+coats-of-arms," said the mother.
+
+But Keith was too excited to ask any questions at that moment.
+
+They entered a house much finer and neater than their own and stopped in
+front of a door on the second floor. A hubbub of shrill voices could be
+heard from within. Keith gripped his mother's hand more firmly.
+
+Then the door was opened by a white-haired lady with spectacles and they
+were admitted to a large room, containing a score of little boys and
+girls. A dead silence fell on the room as they appeared, and every eye
+turned toward Keith, who blushed furiously as was his wont whenever he
+found himself observed.
+
+After a brief talk with the teacher, Keith's mother to him:
+
+"This is Aunt Westergren, whom you must obey as you obey me. And now be
+a good boy and don't cry."
+
+As the mother tarried by the door for a moment to exchange a last word
+with the teacher, and perhaps also to cast one more lingering glance at
+the boy, a little girl ran up to Keith, put her right fore-finger on top
+of his head and cried out:
+
+"Towhead!"
+
+All the other children giggled. Keith blushed more deeply than ever, but
+did not say a word or stir a limb. A moment later the teacher began to
+cross-question him about his knowledge of letters and spelling, and he
+found it much easier to answer her than to face the children. But, of
+course, after a while he was quite at home among them without knowing
+how it had happened.
+
+That afternoon his mother came for him. The next morning he had to start
+out alone under direct orders from the father, and alone he made his way
+home again, his bosom swelling with a sense of wonderful independence.
+Years passed before he learned that his mother had watched over him for
+days before she was fully convinced of his ability to find the way
+by himself.
+
+The autumn passed. Winter and spring came and went. It was summer again.
+The little school closed. Keith could read the head-lines at the tops of
+the pages in the big Bible without help. But of the school where he had
+learned it hardly a memory remained. It was as if the place had made no
+impression whatsoever on his mind. And the children with whom he studied
+and played nearly a whole year might as well have been dreams, forgotten
+at the moment of waking--all but one of them.
+
+Harald alone seemed a real, living thing, a part of Keith's own life,
+but not a part of the school where the two met daily. He was a year
+older than Keith, a little slow mentally, but rather unusually advanced
+in other ways. His father was a merchant of some sort, with an office of
+his own and half a dozen clerks at his command, and Harald had been
+taught to regard himself as a young gentleman. They lived a few houses
+from the school, in the same street, and their home was a revelation
+to Keith.
+
+Houses less fortunate than his own were familiar to him, but he had
+never seen a better one until he was asked to visit Harald for the first
+time, and the comparisons made on that occasion stuck deeply in
+his mind.
+
+They entered through a hallway where caps and coats were left behind,
+and from there they went into a room where every piece of furniture was
+of mahogany. Between the windows hung a mirror in a gilded frame that
+was as tall as the room itself, so that Keith could see himself from
+head to foot. The object that caught the boy's attention most of all,
+however, was a chandelier suspended from the middle of the ceiling and
+made up of hundreds of little rods of glass. As Harald slammed the door
+on entering, some of the rods were set in motion and struck against each
+other with a tiny twinkle that seemed to Keith the most beautiful sound
+he had ever heard.
+
+That room, Harald said, was used only to receive visitors, and he gave
+Keith to understand that there were any number of other rooms on both
+sides of it. One of these was Harald's own and used by nobody else. He
+could even lock the door of it on the inside, if he wanted. There they
+played with tin soldiers several inches high, and Harald had a little
+cannon out of which they could shoot dry peas, so that it was possible
+to fight a real battle by dividing the soldiers and taking turns of
+using the cannon. Finally Harald's mother appeared with a bowl of fruit
+and greeted the visitor with a certain searching kindness that made him
+a little uneasy in the midst of all his enjoyment.
+
+Keith returned home that day much later than unusual to find his mother
+in a state of frantic worry. At first she declared that he must not go
+anywhere without her knowing about it in advance, but after a while she
+became quite interested and palpably elated by Keith's tale of all the
+glories he had seen. She explained that the glass rods on the
+chandeliers were prisms that showed the whole rainbow when you held them
+in front of a light, and she asked him eagerly if he had been invited to
+come again. But when the father heard of it that night, he said:
+
+"I don't think Keith should go there at all. He can't ask such a boy
+over here, and the next thing we know, Keith's own home will no longer
+be good enough for him."
+
+Keith could hardly believe his ears. He had never felt such resentment
+against his father, and just before going to bed, while his father was
+out of the room for a moment, he whispered to his mother:
+
+"I think papa does not want me to have any fun!"
+
+"You don't understand," she retorted. "He means well. Remember what
+Granny says: Equals make the best playmates."
+
+Three or four times Keith went home with Harald. Then the gates of
+paradise were suddenly slammed in his face. One day, as they were
+leaving school together, Harald remarked quite calmly:
+
+"You can't come home with me any more."
+
+"Why," gasped Keith, his throat choking.
+
+"Because mamma says I must find some one else to play with," Harald
+explained. Then he softened a little: "I can't help it, and I like you."
+
+"But why," insisted Keith on the verge of tears.
+
+"You look like a nice boy, mamma says, but your father is nothing but a
+_vaktmaestare_, and mine is a _grosshandlare_ (wholesale dealer)."
+
+Keith walked home in a stupor and began to cry the moment he saw his
+mother. Her lips tightened and her face grew white as she listened to
+the story he sobbed forth.
+
+"Now you can see that your father was right," she said at last. "Of
+course, we are just as good as anybody else, but others don't think
+so--because we are poor. But we have our pride, and you had better stay
+and play with your own soldiers hereafter. Then I don't have to worry
+about you either."
+
+But Keith had very little pride. He continued to seek Harald's company
+as before, and twice, as they about to part in front of the latter's
+house, Keith asked if he couldn't come up and play for a little while.
+
+"Don't you understand," Harald asked the second time, "that my mamma
+does not think you good enough for me to play with?"
+
+Keith had not thought of it in that way. He had learned that there were
+people who looked down on his parents, just as they, in their turn,
+looked down on the parents of Johan, but the idea that he himself might
+be regarded equally inferior was entirely new to him. It was so strange
+to him that it took him years to grasp it. And when it came into his
+mind, he felt as if some one had raised a heavy stick to strike him, and
+he cowered under the impending blow.
+
+
+
+II
+
+Christmas was approaching.
+
+The days grew shorter and shorter, until at last a scant four hours of
+daylight remained around noon. Even then a lamp was often needed
+for reading.
+
+The lead-coloured sky nearly touched the roofs. The drizzle that filled
+the air most of the time seemed to enter men's minds, too, sapping their
+vigour until life became a burden. Meeting on the streets, they would
+cry in irritable tones:
+
+"When will the snow come?"
+
+It was always a tedious time for Keith. The incident with Harald made it
+worse this year. Except for the daily attendance at school, he was
+virtually a prisoner. Johan was to be seen only from the window, whence
+Keith enviously watched him prowling about the lane, his hands buried in
+the side-pockets of an old coat much too long--apparently inherited from
+someone else--and his shoulders hunched as if fore-destined to support
+loads of wood like those his father used to carry. 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 answers were unsatisfactory. The main reason was
+that it had always been done, but he gathered also that, while it was
+perfectly respectable to live from day to day during the summer, to do
+so during the winter would be a distinct proof of social and economic
+inferiority.
+
+The fire wood came first--a mighty load of birch logs piled along the
+house front in the lane. Two men were busy all day with saw and ax,
+reducing those logs into pieces matching the fire-places in the kitchen
+stove and the two glazed brick ovens in the living-room and the parlour.
+Two more men piled the pieces into huge sacks and staggered with those
+on their backs up the five flights of stairs to the top garret under the
+peak of the house, which belonged to the Wellanders.
+
+Keith would stand in the kitchen door watching them. First he heard the
+slow clamp-clamp of ascending foot-steps. Then the man's heavy breathing
+became audible, and Keith felt as if the load was resting on his own
+shoulders. Finally the open top of the bag, with its bright stuffing of
+newly cut birch wood, showed at the corner of the landing quite a long
+time before the head beneath it came into sight. As the man crossed the
+landing in front of Keith, bent almost double under his burden, a dew of
+pungent perspiration would drop on the slate-coloured stones, leaving
+behind a curious path of round spots. Not a word was said at that time,
+but coming down the men would sometimes throw a crude jest to the
+bright-eyed watcher or stop to refill their mouths with snuff out of a
+little thin brass box with a mirror fitted to the inside of its cover.
+The sight of the snuff filled Keith with a sense of loathing, although
+his father used to put a pinch of it into his nostrils now and then, and
+more than anything else it seemed to mark a distinction between himself
+and those people from a world far beneath his own. Theirs was a racking
+job, heavier than any other known to the boy, and one day he asked
+his mother:
+
+"Why do they care to carry all that wood for us?"
+
+"Because we pay them, and because they are mighty glad to get the money.
+Otherwise they couldn't live."
+
+"And where does the wood come from?"
+
+"The bank sends it as part of papa's pay."
+
+Once more Keith was so impressed with the miraculous power of that
+mysterious being which his father served and cursed and worshipped that
+his mother's previous answer was lost for the time being. But it
+recurred to his mind later and connected with his father's talk of
+making him a carpenter. A strong prejudice against manual labour was
+shaping itself in his mind.
+
+After the wood came the victuals: a tub of butter reaching Keith to the
+chin; bags of flour; barrels of potatoes and apples; hams and haunches
+of dried mutton and smoked reindeer meat; and lastly packages of smaller
+size and sundry contents that the mother promptly carried to the pantry
+inside the parlour without letting Keith touch them.
+
+This year--it was the winter following the Franco-Prussian war--the
+preparations were rendered uncommonly impressive by the addition of a
+cheese large as the moon at full. There was always plenty of cheese of
+various kinds in the house: whole milk cheese carefully aged until its
+flavour was like that of English Stilton or Italian Gorgonzola; skim
+milk cheese stuffed with cloves and cardamom seeds; and dark brown goat
+milk cheese of a cloying sweetness that Keith detested.
+
+Cheese was more than a taste with Keith's father. It was a hobby, and
+one of his few pastimes was to skirmish in strange little shops for some
+particularly old and strong-smelling piece at a reasonable price. When
+he brought home a bargain of that kind, he acted like a bibliophile
+having just captured a rare first edition for a song, and the mother
+tried hard to share his enthusiasm. But, she said once, she had to draw
+the line at cheese that walked by itself. Half in jest and half in
+earnest, the father maintained that the maggots were the very essence of
+the cheese, and that to remove them was to lose the finest flavour. This
+year the father had bought a whole fresh cheese in order to age it at
+home and thus save money in two ways, the price being proportionate
+to the age.
+
+The same large-handed system prevailed in other things, though the
+parents often spoke of their poverty, and though their resources
+undoubtedly were very limited. Shirts, table-ware, bed-linen, china,
+etc., must needs be acquired in round numbers. To have less than a dozen
+of anything was to have nothing at all. The breaking of a cup was a
+family disaster if it could not be replaced. Everything had to be in
+sets, and to preserve these intact, the utmost care was preached and
+exercised. It bred thrift and orderliness, but also an undue regard
+for property.
+
+Finally came the time for baking and other direct preparations for a
+holiday season that in the good old days used to last from Christmas Eve
+to January 13th known as the Twentieth Christmas Day, when everybody
+"danced the Yule out." What interested Keith most in this part of the
+proceedings was the making of gingersnaps according to a recipe
+transmitted to his mother from bygone generations and cherished by her
+as a precious family secret. A whole day was set aside for the purpose
+and at the end of it they had a big, bulging earthen jar filled to the
+brim. Keith used to boast to other children of those dainties that, in
+addition to their taste, had the fascination of many different
+shapes--hearts, crowns, lilies, clubs, diamonds, baskets, and so on.
+They really deserved all the praise they got, and he had so little to
+boast of on the whole. The jar stood on the floor in the pantry back of
+the parlour, and once in a while Keith found his way to it without
+maternal permission, although, as a rule, he was little given to
+lawbreaking.
+
+One morning three or four days before Christmas Lena was heard calling
+from the kitchen:
+
+"Keith, Keith, come and look!"
+
+Eager as always when the slightest excitement was promised, the boy
+started so suddenly that his little table was upset with its whole
+population of tin soldiers and his mother was moved to remark that "it
+was no use behaving as if the house were on fire."
+
+"Look at the snow," said Lena, pointing to the window when Keith reached
+the kitchen, relieved at not having had to pick up the spilled toys
+before he could go.
+
+Huge, wet, feathery flakes were dropping lazily from the sky. Little by
+little they increased in numbers and fell more quickly. At last they
+formed a moving veil through which the building at the other end of the
+courtyard could barely be seen.
+
+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."
+
+That same evening Keith's long cherished dream of visiting the open-air
+Christmas Fair at Great Square was to come true at last. Like other
+affairs of its kind, it had been reduced by the modern shop to a mere
+shadow of its former glorious self, and it was kept up only out of
+regard for ancient tradition. Keith had been told that it was nothing
+but a lot of open booths displaying cheap toys and cheaper candy. To
+Keith toys were toys and candy candy, no matter what the price and
+quality, and so he kept on begging leave to go, until the night in
+question his parents, who were going out with friends, deemed it better
+to let him see for himself. And so Lena was ordered to take charge of
+the expedition.
+
+Lena and Keith were dressed and ready to start when the mother came
+into the kitchen to give the boy a farewell kiss as usual. He was in
+high spirits, but fidgety with some unexpressed wish.
+
+"What is it, Keith," asked the mother, recognizing the symptoms.
+
+"I want some money," he whispered into her ear.
+
+"Go and ask papa."
+
+"No, you ask him."
+
+That was what always happened, and in the end the mother voiced the
+boy's plea to the father, who just then appeared in the door to the
+living-room. He was in a good humour and promptly reached into his
+pocket. Unfortunately Keith discovered at that crucial moment that one
+of his shoe laces had become untied.
+
+"Please, mamma, help me," he said, putting his foot on a chair to enable
+her to reach it more easily.
+
+"That settles it," exclaimed the father with a darkening face as he
+handed Keith a few small copper coins. "That is all you will get now. A
+boy of five who makes his mother tie his shoe strings ought not to have
+anything at all."
+
+Keith took the coins silently and went with Lena to the fair, but he saw
+nothing worth seeing, and he never wanted to go again. Uneasily he
+prowled among the booths trying as a matter of duty to find something so
+cheap that his scant hoard would buy it. At last he succeeded in getting
+a little box of tin soldiers of poorest quality for one-third less than
+the price put on it It was one of the few times in his life when he
+found himself able to haggle over the cost of a thing.
+
+From the first he found fault with the new addition to his army, and one
+day not long afterwards he charged the whole regiment with cowardice in
+the face of the enemy. A drumhead court martial was held on the spot,
+and the verdict was a foregone conclusion. The culprits were found
+guilty in a body and sentenced to immediate execution. Then Keith
+possessed himself surreptitiously of the family hammer, and when his
+mother came to investigate the noise he was making the whole offensive
+regiment had been reduced to scraps. Never before or after did Keith as
+a general go to such extremes on behalf of military morale.
+
+But many, many years later, when he stopped for the first time at a
+typical English hotel, he found himself horribly embarrassed by the
+assistance forced on him by the obligatory valet.
+
+
+
+III
+
+In Sweden the principal celebration with its distribution of gifts takes
+place late on Christmas Eve.
+
+Long before that day Keith began to watch every package brought into the
+house. Soon he noticed several that disappeared quickly without having
+been opened. Nor did it take his shrewd little mind long to figure out
+that they must have been stowed away on the upper shelf of the pantry
+back of the parlour. This was an excellent hiding-place because the
+shelf in question was fully six feet above the floor and on a level with
+the lintel of the doorway, so that its contents seemed as much out of
+reach as they were out sight from below.
+
+One day, however, Keith succeeded in getting into the parlour when both
+parents were out. The night before his father had come home with an
+unusually large and queerly shaped package under his arm and had taken
+it straight into the parlour. The boy's curiosity was at fever heat and
+got the better of his customary inertia in the face of explicit
+prohibitions. Having dragged a heavy wooden chair into the pantry, he
+placed its tall back directly against the shelves. The crosspieces in
+the back of the chair formed rungs on which he climbed up to the top
+shelf. It was quite a feat for a very small boy, but the slight timidity
+that characterized him as a rule was totally forgotten for the time.
+
+There was the mystifying package together with many others. He could
+even touch it with his hand. In spite of its size, it was very light. It
+was wider at the bottom than at the top, and it sounded hollow when he
+knocked at it. His little brain worked at high pressure, but not a guess
+came out of it that was at all plausible. Finally Keith had to climb
+down no wiser than he was before. His failure had one advantage. It
+freed him from all of guilt. It served also to keep his expectations at
+an unusually high pitch, so that when the morning of the great day
+arrived at last, it seemed as if he were facing twelve long hours of
+actual torture.
+
+Every one was very busy preparing not only for the feast of the evening,
+but for the two coming holidays. Christmas Day in Sweden being followed
+by a Second Christmas Day, equal to the first one in leisure if not in
+sanctity. No one had any time to spare for the boy, who found himself in
+the way wherever he turned. In the end he was ordered pointblank out of
+the kitchen, where his mother, Granny and the servant girl needed all
+the space at their disposal. The door to the parlour was closed although
+the lodger had left town for the holidays, and so nothing but the
+living-room remained. There Keith whiled away the long hours in vain
+speculation on the contents of the mysterious package.
+
+He tried to recall what things he had wished for during the year. He
+felt sure that nothing of the kind could be in the package. Any desire
+openly expressed was disregarded by his father, Keith thought, if not
+actually resented. The reason given was that a Christmas present should
+be a complete surprise, and if the recipient had openly asked for it,
+there could be no talk of surprising him. Of course, Keith could whisper
+what he wanted into his mother's ear now and then but always with the
+provision that she must convey the proper information to the father as
+coming from herself.
+
+Even this process of elimination failed, however, and so the day dragged
+on interminably, with no help from without for a mind weary of waiting.
+The customary dinner was passed up. Everybody snatched a bite off the
+kitchen table without breaking away from the work. Three or four times
+people arrived with packages from relatives or friends. Each visitor had
+to be treated, even though he be a stranger of the humblest character.
+Then dull monotony reigned once more, and Keith resumed his fidgeting
+back and forth between the kitchen door and his own corner. The old toys
+were simply unendurable....
+
+It had long been dark when the father returned home at last, laden with
+parcels and tired out by personal delivery of Christmas gifts to the
+various members of the family. His face was slightly flushed and he
+talked with unusual eagerness. An atmosphere of reckless good-will
+surrounded him, and when he made a remark about there being no presents,
+even Keith knew it to be facetious.
+
+The last hour was the longest. The father and the mother had withdrawn
+to the parlour and closed the door behind them. The girl was setting the
+table and couldn't be disturbed. Granny was nervous and irritable
+because she knew that she would be forced to join the rest at the table
+that night. Keith felt like a disembodied soul let loose in infinite
+space without goal or purpose.
+
+Toward eight o'clock the parlour door opened and Keith was called in. A
+tiny Christmas tree stood on a table in a corner, glistening with lights
+and multicoloured paper festoons. It represented a great concession,
+because neither one of the parents cared much for the trouble involved.
+If there had been a number of children in the family, they said, then it
+would have been another matter. The truth was that Keith didn't care
+very much either. He clapped hands and shouted excitedly, of course, but
+his glances went sideways to the big sofa, where stood a huge hamper
+piled to twice its own height with parcels, all wrapped in snow-white
+paper and sealed with red sealing wax. The air of the room was charged
+with the rich smell of newly melted wax, and to Keith that smell was
+always the essence of Christmas, its chief symbol and harbinger.
+
+During those few minutes in the parlour a dozen tall candles had been
+lighted in the living-room, transforming the place that a moment before
+seemed so dreary. The dining table was opened to its full length and
+placed across the middle of the room, at right angles to the
+chaiselongue where Keith slept nights. Cut glass dishes and silver-ware
+shone in the light reflected from the spotlessly white table cloth. In
+the centre stood the Christmas layer cake, its body four inches thick
+and its top glistening with red and yellow and green pieces of
+candied fruit.
+
+Then began the little comedy regularly enacted every Christmas.
+
+"Isn't Granny coming," the father asked. Then he turned to Lena. "Tell
+her we are ready."
+
+"She says she doesn't want to come in," Lena reported after a hasty
+visit to the kitchen.
+
+"You go and ask her for me, Keith," was the father's next suggestion.
+
+"Thank you, dear," Granny said when Keith came to her with his message.
+"But you tell your father that I think the kitchen is a much better
+place for a useless old hag like myself."
+
+"Suppose you go," the father said to his wife on hearing Keith's
+modified version of Granny's reply.
+
+"She says she really won't come in," the mother explained a minute
+later. "You had better go out and ask her yourself, Carl. It is the one
+thing she cannot resist."
+
+The father went with a broad grin on his face. Keith laughed loudly and
+nervously, his eyes on the huge cake. But the mother said
+apologetically to Lena:
+
+"Mamma is so funny about coming in here, although she knows how much we
+want her."
+
+"Here she is now," said Lena.
+
+And the father appeared with Granny on his arm, and Granny was all
+dressed up in her best skirt of black silk thick as cloth, with a cap of
+black lace on her head.
+
+"Really, I can't see what you want with an old thing like me in here,"
+she continued protesting as she was being led to her seat beside Keith.
+The girl sat opposite Granny, and the mother beside the girl, facing
+Keith. The father, on that one occasion, always occupied the
+chaiselongue at the short end of the table, with the mother on his right
+and Keith on his left. Beside him stood the hamper with its mountainous
+pile of parcels.
+
+Keith said grace with folded hands and bent head, and, of course, he had
+to say it twice because the first time he swallowed half the words in
+his eagerness to get through quickly. Then the meal began.
+
+It opened with a light _smoergasbord_, hors d'oeuvres, literally rendered
+sandwich-table: caviar, anchovy, sardines, shavings of smoked salmon,
+slices of bologna, and so on. With it the father took a _snaps_ of
+Swedish gin or _braennvin_, and after much pressing Granny consented to
+take one, too. The main course consisted of _lutfisk_: dried and salted
+codfish that had been soaked in water for twenty-four hours to take out
+the salt and then boiled until it was tender as cranberry jelly. It was
+served with boiled potatoes and a gravy made of cream and chopped
+hard-boiled eggs. It was followed by _risgrynsgroet_: rice cooked in milk
+and served with a cover of sugar and cinnamon. Wherever Swedes go, they
+must have those two dishes on Christmas Eve. They have had them since
+the days when Christmas was a pagan celebration of the winter solstice,
+when dried codfish was the staple winter food, and when rice was the
+rarest of imported delicacies.
+
+Keith did not become interested until the rice appeared and the father
+declared that no one could taste it until he or she had "rhymed over the
+rice." Lena had to begin, and blushingly she read:
+
+"To cook rice is a great feat, especially to get it sweet."
+
+Whereupon everybody applauded, and the mother followed:
+
+"Those who don't like rice are worse than little mice."
+
+The father made them all laugh by saying:
+
+"The rice is sweet and looks very neat, but now I want to eat."
+
+The cutting of the cake, with its coating of sugar and its many layers
+of custard ... the wine, port and sherry, poured from tall glass
+decanters with silver labels hung about their necks to show which was
+which ... the blushing native apples and the figs from distant sunlit
+shores ... the almonds and raisins that tested best when eaten together
+... the candy and the caramels ... the absence of restraint and reproof
+... the freedom to indulge one's utmost appetite ... the smiles and the
+pleasant words and the jokes sprung by the father ... and in the midst
+of it all a pause laden with rose-coloured melancholy....
+
+"Why can it not be Christmas every day," asked Keith suddenly.
+
+"Because Christmas then would be like any other day," the father
+replied, reaching for the first parcel which was always for Keith.
+
+One by one they were handed out. Each one was elaborately addressed and
+furnished with a rhymed or unrhymed tag that often hid a sting beneath
+its clownish exterior. The father read the inscription aloud before he
+handed each parcel to its recipient, who had to open it and let its
+contents be admired by all before another gift was distributed.
+
+The table became crowded. The floor was a litter of paper. Lena giggled.
+Granny's cap was down on one ear. Keith could not sit still on
+his chair.
+
+"To Master Keith Wellander," the father read out. "A friendly warning,
+to be remembered in the morning and all through the day. He who slops at
+meals is a pig that squeals and hurts his parents alway."
+
+Keith took the parcel with less than usual zest. It was rectangular and
+very heavy. For a moment he hesitated to open it. There was something
+about its inscription that puzzled and bothered him.
+
+At last the wrapper came off, and he gazed uncomprehendingly at a large
+piece of wood hollowed out like a canoe.
+
+"A boat ..." he stammered.
+
+"A trough," rejoined his father, a strange, almost embarrassed look
+appearing on his face. "This is Christmas and I want you to be happy,
+but you must learn to eat decently, and I thought this might serve you
+as a lesson and a reminder."
+
+Keith said nothing. He sat looking at that piece of wood as if it were a
+dragon that had swallowed the whole Christmas in a single gulp. He
+wanted to cry, but for the first time he seemed to feel a pride that
+forbade him to do so....
+
+"Master Keith Wellander," the father read out again with evident haste
+and in a voice which he tried to make very jolly, "When beaten in the
+open field, this will be my trusty shield."
+
+It was _the_ package--and the trough was forgotten.
+
+The boy trembled with excitement. His hands tore vainly at the paper
+cover, which, in the end, had to be removed by the father.
+
+On the table, fully revealed at last, stood a real fortress of
+cardboard, with a drawbridge that could be raised, and a tower in the
+centre, and at the top of it a flagstaff flying the Swedish colours.
+
+It was his heart's most cherished desire, the thing that had seemed so
+unattainable that he had deemed it useless to whisper it into his
+mother's ear.
+
+For a long while he did not move at all, but just looked and looked,
+seemingly afraid to touch the new toy. Then a warm flood of joy shot
+through him, and suddenly he was seized by an irresistible impulse to
+kiss his father--which was a most unusual endearment between them. As he
+put his hand on the table to get off the chair, it touched the trough,
+and once more his mood changed. He seemed to stiffen, and all he could
+do was to hold out his hand and whisper:
+
+"Thank you very much, papa!"
+
+
+
+IV
+
+On Christmas Day morning everybody rose while it was still pitch dark
+outside. After a hasty cup of coffee, the parents and Keith set off for
+Great Church to attend _julotta_--yule matins--an early service held
+only that one day of the year.
+
+More snow had fallen, and now it was freezing, so that every step they
+took produced a peculiar, almost metallic crunching. From every quarter
+silent crowds in their holiday best streamed toward the old church. They
+seemed very solemn, but Keith sensed the happy spirit underlying their
+outward sedateness. It filled him with a wild desire to romp, and it was
+merely the awe of his father's presence that kept him in check.
+
+The church was packed, but they found good seats. Keith had eyes for one
+thing only: the Star of Bethlehem that blazed above the screen of darkly
+green spruces surrounding the altar. All the rest of it was lost on him.
+
+Then the organ music burst forth, and for a moment he cowered as under a
+blow. It was too much of a novelty, and the vibrations touched his
+supersensitive nerves annoyingly. After a while he grew more accustomed
+to it, but he did not like it, and he said so loudly enough to bring him
+a stern glance from his father and smiles from some of the people in the
+pew ahead. During the brief sermon he slept peacefully.
+
+As soon as they were home again, the fortress was brought out and
+preparations made for a great siege. In the midst of it he left his
+corner to put a question to the mother, who was dozing over a book in
+her easy chair.
+
+"How could papa know that I wanted it," he asked, and she knew what he
+was thinking of.
+
+"Don't you remember," she answered smiling slyly, "how you came home one
+day last summer and talked about something you had seen in a window on
+West Long Street, and papa was listening."
+
+"So long ago," mused Keith, "and I didn't know he heard it."
+
+"Oh, yes, he heard, and he remembered. You don't understand papa. He
+doesn't want you to ask for things because he finds it such a pleasure
+to figure out what you want and give it to you unexpectedly."
+
+Keith returned to his corner thinking hard, as was his wont at times.
+The siege was postponed. He took out the trough and studied it
+carefully. It would make a good boat. Then he put it down and sat for a
+while looking at the little fortress--so like the one he could see when
+he looked out of their front windows. His heart swelled, and with a rush
+that nearly upset his little table, he made for his father in the
+parlour, crawled up on his lap, put both arms about his neck, and kissed
+him. And to his surprise he was not repelled. But a moment later his
+father put him down on the floor and said in a voice that sounded a
+little choked:
+
+"Go back and play with your soldiers now."
+
+Then came dinner, always the same on Christmas Day: _smoergasbord_;
+roasted fresh ham with mashed potatoes and tiny cubes of Swedish
+turnips fried in butter; rice and milk; cake and wine.
+
+And the day ended as it had begun, happily and peacefully. Never had the
+boy felt more warmly toward his father. But at dinner the next day,
+which was also a holiday so that the father was at home, Keith happened
+to spill something on the table cloth.
+
+"Remember your Christmas present," said the father sharply. "You are old
+enough to behave properly at table, and if you won't, we shall let you
+eat in your own corner and eat out of the trough."
+
+During the rest of that day Keith could not play with his fortress. Once
+he took the trough to the window that happened to be open and
+contemplated the possibility of dropping it into the lane. But his
+courage failed him.
+
+It stayed with him as part of his little stock of toys, and gradually it
+came to be viewed with a certain amount of indifference. But on the rare
+occasions when he was permitted to have a playmate at home, he always
+managed to hide the trough under his mother's bureau. And even the mere
+consciousness of its presence there would sometimes set his
+cheeks burning.
+
+
+
+V
+
+It was summer again. The school was closed. Keith's pleas to be allowed
+to play with Johan became impassioned. Consequently his parents were
+pleased when Aunt Brita asked if Keith could spend a few weeks with
+them in a little cottage they had hired on an island halfway between
+Stockholm and the open sea.
+
+To Keith this was a tremendous adventure--his first excursion from home,
+and almost his first acquaintance with real country life. In fact, the
+impressions of the journey itself were so many and so novel that his
+mind couldn't retain anything at all. The same thing happened over and
+over again during the earlier part of his life, so that out of that
+epoch-making summer visit, for instance, only a single slight incident
+took up a lasting abode in his memory.
+
+The cottage stood in the middle of the island, which was so small that a
+fifteen-minute walk took them down to the nearest shore. Thither they
+went one afternoon not long after his arrival to bathe--his aunt, his
+cousin Carl who was a year younger than himself, Keith, a couple of
+other children of the same age, and Mina, an eighteen-year old girl
+living with Keith's uncle and aunt in a position halfway between ward
+and servant. Across the fields and along shaded wood paths they ran
+joyously to a sheltered bay with a sandy beach from which the open fjord
+could be seen in the distance. The children stripped helter-skelter and
+went into the shallow water as nature had made them, but Mina, who was
+to assist them, had for want of bathing suit put on a starched white
+petticoat. The upper part of her body was bare, showing two beautifully
+pointed breasts.
+
+Keith looked and looked at those breasts until Mina noticed him and
+actually began to blush. As if embarrassed, she picked up one of the
+other children and began to swing it around in a circle. Her movement
+turned Keith's attention to the petticoat, and suddenly he could think
+of nothing else.
+
+The children were naked. Why should Mina wear a piece of clothing that
+even Keith could see was quite unfitted for such a use. There must be
+something to hide. What could it be? At last he could contain himself no
+longer, but blurted out:
+
+"Why does Mina wear that silly skirt?"
+
+"Because she is afraid of catching cold," replied his aunt from the
+shore with a slight jeer in her voice and one of her shrewd smiles.
+
+"Why shouldn't we catch cold, too," was his next question.
+
+There was no direct answer, but he could hear his aunt mutter between
+her teeth:
+
+"Drat that boy!"
+
+Then she burst into open laughter, while Mina rushed ashore and hastily
+began to dress behind a close screen of undergrowth.
+
+After that Mina did not go in bathing with the children.
+
+Many years later Keith could still visualize the whole scene as if it
+had happened only a few days ago, while all his efforts to recall the
+cottage where they lived, or anything else seen that summer, were vain.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+In the autumn of that year Keith was sent to a "real" school, selected
+after much inquiry by his parents as combining a reasonable degree of
+efficiency and social standing with an equally reasonable cost of
+tuition. It was private like the first one, kept by two middle-aged
+spinster sisters, one of whom was tall, angular and firm, while the
+other was short, fat and sentimental. It held about two scores of
+pupils, most of whom were girls. These girls ranged in years to the
+near-marriageable age, while none of the boys was more than eight years
+old. Thus the atmosphere was distinctly feminine, which in the eyes of
+Keith's mother marked an added advantage.
+
+The only thing that excited Keith about the new school was that it took
+him farther from home than he had ever been allowed to wander unattended
+before, into a hitherto unexplored region of the city known as the South
+End. It was a poor man's neighbourhood on the whole, but of that Keith
+knew nothing at the time. The school occupied a few large and sunny
+rooms in the rear part of a sprawling old stone structure built like a
+palace around an enormous cobble-stoned courtyard, with a tall arched
+gateway providing entrance from the street under the front part of the
+house. For a while it was quite impressive and a little disturbing, but
+like everything else it soon became familiar and commonplace.
+
+To get there from his own part of town, Keith had to cross the Sluice--a
+lock enabling vessels to pass safely from Lake Maelaren to the salt
+waters of the Bay in spite of the frequently sharp difference of level.
+At either end of the lock was a drawbridge in two sections raised from
+the centre to let the larger vessels through. The place was full of
+interesting sights, and Keith loved in particular to press right up
+against the edge of the raised bridge as some steamer or small sailing
+vessel glided leisurely in or out of the ever shifting waters of
+the lock.
+
+At first it never occurred to him that he might walk around by the other
+bridge when the one right in his way happened to be open, and so he was
+late at school several times in quick succession. The first time he was
+warned. The second he was placed in a corner of the room with his face
+to the wall and kept there for about one quarter of an hour. The third
+time the elder Miss Ahlberg applied a ruler to the finger-tips of his
+left hand, which she held in a firm grasp within one of her own.
+
+The physical sensation gave the boy a terrible shock. No one had ever
+really hurt him before. The spankings administered at home once in a
+very great while were like thunderstorms, with a great deal of noise and
+small harm done. This was something else, and more intimidating than the
+pain was the manifest intention of the teacher to inflict it. Her face
+was tense and her eyes flashed fire. Worst of all, however, was the
+shame of it, for the punishment was applied in front of the
+whole school.
+
+When Keith retired to his own seat sobbing bitterly, he felt that he
+could never look the other children in the face, and that they probably
+would shun him as a pariah. The only thing would be to tell his mother
+that he could not go back to school again. He was still shaking with
+sobs, when he heard a boy on the chair behind him whisper into his ear:
+
+"Oh, that's nothing. You just wait till she pulls your hair. She pulls
+it right out by the roots. I'll show you a bare spot on my head during
+the next pause."
+
+And so he did when the lesson came to an end and they were permitted to
+play for a few minutes. Other children joined them, and no one seemed to
+think less of Keith for what had happened to him. It was a revelation to
+him and opened vistas of considerable interest. But the memory of the
+physical and mental shock received was more powerful, and after that he
+took care to reach school in time regardless of what might be the
+temptations along his path or the effort it might cost him to get there.
+
+In fact, the incident became to some extent determining for his whole
+career in school. He never voluntarily did anything that might expose
+him to punishment, and rarely was he able to forget himself to the
+extent of incurring reproof. He turned out a docile pupil, and on the
+whole, docility did not come hard to him. In spite of the vitality with
+which he overflowed, there was a certain timidity attaching to him.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+It would be wrong to conclude that the little school of the Misses
+Ahlberg was characterized by any reign of terror. As a rule, the
+atmosphere was peaceful and kindly, and the teaching was rather good.
+Keith was eager to learn, and learning came easy to him. In those early
+days, of course, there was no studying to be done at home, but even in
+later years he never knew what it was to "plug." In fact, he could not
+do it. Either his interest was aroused, and then he absorbed the matter
+at hand in the way he breathed, without the least conscious effort; or
+his interest remained unstirred, in which case no amount of mechanical
+application would help. Learning by rote offered no escape in the latter
+case, for his memory operated in the same way as the rest of his mind,
+sucking up what fitted it as a blotter sucks the ink, and presenting a
+surface of polished marble to any matter not germane according to its
+own mysterious standards.
+
+Soon he could read without any effort whatsoever--anything. Reckoning
+came easy, too, but writing came hard. It seemed so much easier to take
+in than to give out in any form. Grammar gave him no difficulty, because
+it dealt with words, and words possessed a magic charm that always held
+him. Gradually he began to dip into history and geography--wonderful
+realms into which his imagination plunged headlong. He took almost as
+eagerly to the old stories out of the Bible--stories of which he had
+caught more than a glimpse at home--but the Catechism was like washing
+in the morning: it had to be done because higher powers so decreed.
+
+Yes, he learned a good deal for a little boy of his age, but he never
+knew how it happened. The school was never quite real to him. His home
+was real, and his play at home. So was his daily walk to and from school
+with its innumerable opportunities for observation in the raw. There
+were people in the streets, and shops along the road, and many different
+kinds of vessels in the harbour. There was the guardhouse on the little
+square halfway to school, kept by a small detachment of soldiers that
+were relieved every noon and that never belonged to the same regiment
+two days in succession. Watching them gave him many suggestions for
+handling his own tin soldiers in a more business-like fashion.
+
+But at school.... He was never absentminded or unattentive, for that
+might have brought the quick clutch of the elder Miss Ahlberg's bony
+hand into his own supersensitive crop of hair, and most of what was
+going on had enough interest in itself to prevent his mind from straying
+far afield. He knew the names of his fellow pupils. He played with those
+of his own age, and he had likes and dislikes, as was natural. But
+through it all he moved as through a mist, seeing only the thing
+immediately at hand, and losing sight of everything the moment he had
+passed it. The three years spent in that school seemed to telescope into
+each other so that soon afterwards he found himself unable to tell if a
+thing had happened during the first or last of those years. Nor did the
+things he remembered have any connection with the school as a rule, and
+out of all the boys and girls he met there not one remained distinct in
+his memory as did the figure of Harald from the first school. When he
+left the school to go home for the day, he was done with it, and nothing
+followed him but what was stored in his head. And that, too, seemed
+forgotten at the time, to be re-discovered later with a sense of
+pleasant surprise.
+
+And all that time things were happening to him at home and elsewhere
+that, as far as importance went, stood in curious contrast to his
+quickly forgotten experiences at school--things that burnt themselves
+into his mind as a part of its permanent contents....
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+There was not a private bathroom to be found in Stockholm in those days.
+One washed hands and face and neck whenever compelled to, and some
+people, like Keith's father, splashed the upper part of their bodies
+with water every morning regardless of weather and temperature. Once a
+week every self-respecting person went to a public bath for a thorough
+steaming and scrubbing.
+
+Keith's mother did like the rest, and generally she took the boy along
+as he was admitted without extra charge. Then mother and son would get
+into a tremendous tub full of hot water--so large and so full that
+Keith had to sit up in order to keep his head above water. He always
+enjoyed it very much, and especially he enjoyed feeling his mother's
+soft body close to his own.
+
+On an occasion of this kind he had already finished his bath and was
+sitting on a wooden bench beside the tub wrapped in a big sheet. The old
+woman attendant stood ready with a similar sheet for his mother, who was
+just stepping out of the tub facing the boy.
+
+She was still young, and her skin, always beautiful, was aglow with the
+heat of the bath and the friction of the scrubbing.
+
+Keith stared open-eyed at her, unconscious of any particular interest,
+and yet filled with a vague, slightly disturbing sense of pleasure.
+
+Then his mother caught his glance. Their eyes met. A slight flush spread
+over her face.
+
+Grabbing the sheet from the old woman, she flung it about herself. As
+she did so, he heard her say to the attendant:
+
+"That young gentleman will have to bathe with his father hereafter, I
+guess."
+
+At first he was conscious of a rebuke, and the cause of it left him
+quite at sea. He would probably have puzzled over it a great deal more
+than he did, had not his mind become preoccupied with the idea that he
+would be allowed to accompany his father to the men's part of the
+establishment. It was an idea that filled him with a sort of
+shrinking pride.
+
+
+
+IX
+
+Among the less intimate friends of his mother was a young widow with a
+little girl about a year younger than Keith. For some reason unknown to
+the boy, those two came to see his mother several times that Spring. It
+was the first time in his life Keith met a girl on familiar terms.
+
+Clara was slender and elfish, with a wealth of yellow tresses falling
+down her back. She was tender and gay, too, and Keith liked to hear her
+laugh. When they played, she was always ready to fall in with any whim
+of Keith's.
+
+One afternoon, when the days were growing longer, Clara's mother asked
+permission to leave her with the Wellanders while she attended to some
+business in the neighbourhood. Keith's mother was occupied in the
+kitchen in some manner making her wish to have the door to the
+living-room closed. Thus the two children were left to play by
+themselves.
+
+He never could remember how it began, and he could not tell what put the
+idea in his head....
+
+It was a new game, and she played it as readily as any other he might
+have proposed. They had crawled so far into his own corner by the window
+that they were almost hidden behind mamma's bureau.
+
+At first they whispered to each other, eagerly as children do, but only
+with the eagerness they might have shown if playing hide-and-seek. Then
+he raised her little dress, and she didn't seem to mind. He also undid
+his own dress, and they studied each other's bodies, noting the
+differences.
+
+The end of it was that they laid down together on the floor. He put his
+mouth to hers and hugged her just as tightly as he could. When they had
+been lying in way for a while, he whispered to her:
+
+"Isn't it nice?"
+
+And she dutifully whispered back: "It is!"
+
+A few minutes later they were playing with his tin soldiers, and soon
+after Clara's mother returned to take her away.
+
+During their entire play both doors had remained closed. Keith was quite
+sure of that. He had looked before he started the new game, although he
+was not aware of trespassing on prohibited territory.
+
+Afterwards he felt rather uneasy. There was a distinct sense of risk
+attaching to that game, and he wondered whether Clara might tell her
+mother. At the same time the thought of what he had done filled him with
+inexplicable satisfaction, as if, in some way, he had put something over
+on the grown-ups.
+
+As for his own mother--she seemed to be watching him with unusual
+concern during the next few days, and he could not escape a suspicion
+that she knew. Closed doors did not seem to prevent grown-up people from
+knowing what children did.
+
+At the same time he wondered why he and Clara should not be playing as
+they had done. There was really nothing to it. And the comparisons they
+had made took no hold of his imagination. The differences revealed he
+accepted as he accepted anything that had no direct bearing on his own
+happiness.
+
+As far as he could recall afterwards, he never saw Clara again. Nor did
+he seem to miss her.
+
+
+
+X
+
+Summer again.
+
+The incident with Clara was forgotten. Yet Keith had a sense of being
+watched a little more closely than usual. He was rarely permitted to go
+out alone after his return from school. And he was scolded if he ever
+was late in coming home.
+
+There was mystery in the air. The parents talked together a good deal in
+a way that made Keith understand they were talking about him and did not
+want to be overheard.
+
+As soon as school closed the secret became revealed. He would be sent
+into the real country for the summer to board with perfect strangers.
+
+"Any children," was Keith's first question. Yes, a couple of sons in the
+house, and probably one or two more boys from the city, boarders
+like Keith.
+
+It seemed the thing had been planning for a long time. The mother said
+something about the necessity for Keith of going where everything was
+clean and wholesome--the air, the food, the people. The boy knew that
+she had been worrying about him for some reason he could not guess.
+
+An advertisement in a newspaper had led his mother on the track of what
+she wanted. She read it to him--"a religious family with children of
+their own would take a few well-behaved boys of good family for the
+summer months and give them a real home and as good as parental care."
+
+It turned out to be the sexton of a country parish on the northern shore
+of Lake Maelaren who had devised this means of eking out his probably
+limited professional income. The ensuing correspondence had proved quite
+satisfactory. The mother was evidently pleased. It was almost as good as
+staying with the pastor himself, she said.
+
+Keith knew what a pastor was. He had several times heard one preach from
+a funny hanging box in Great Church, and he thought of him as a man who
+was always dressed in black and who was even more serious than the
+father. But it did not bother him, partly because he realized that,
+after all, a sexton was not the same as a pastor, and partly because his
+mind was full of something else. It was not the country, although his
+previous experience of it, when he was staying with his aunt, had given
+him a rather favourable impression. No, what occupied him to the
+exclusion of everything else was the thought that he would be able to
+play with other children all day long, and that there would be no one to
+pull him away just as a game was becoming really interesting.
+
+Exciting days of preparation followed. And finally the day of departure
+dawned.
+
+The greater part of the journey was to be made by boat to the little
+town of Enkoeping, where Mr. Swensson, the sexton, would be waiting with
+a team. The mother could not go along, and so Keith was placed in the
+hands of some people going the same way, who promised to look after him
+and see that he did not fall into wrong hands when the steamer landed.
+
+Keith had to stand in the stern of the boat and wave his handkerchief as
+long as his mother remained visible. Then he was free, at last, to
+surrender himself to the novelty of his situation. And as always upon
+such occasions, when new impressions came crowding in upon him, the
+record became too blurred for clear remembrance. This was true not only
+of the trip on the steamer, the arrival at Enkoeping with its little
+old-fashioned red houses, the meeting with Mr. Swanson, the drive of
+thirty miles or more inland, the arrival at the sexton's house not far
+from a white spired church, and the introduction to a seemingly endless
+number of new faces, but of the whole long summer. A couple of months
+sufficed to wipe out of his memory everything but a few comparatively
+trivial incidents and impressions.
+
+Only one name escaped the general oblivion--that of the sexton himself.
+Only one view left a lasting image behind--that of a tremendously large
+boulder, a memento of the glacial period, that rose like a crude
+monument right in the centre of a tilled field almost, but not quite out
+of sight of the house. Only one face would come back in recognizable
+shape when he tried to recall that rather momentous summer--that of a
+boy a few years older than himself, who was the leader of all the games
+played around the big rock in the open field.
+
+
+
+XI
+
+Quite a gang of boys gathered daily about the big rock, generally on the
+farther side of it where they could not be seen from the house. Beyond
+the rock in that direction was nothing but an open field, and then the
+woods, rarely disturbed by a visitor. Thus they were really more safe
+than indoors as no one could approach them without being detected while
+still far away.
+
+The two sons of the sexton were there, and a couple of boys from the
+city besides Keith, and three or four sons of neighbouring farmers. They
+ranged in ages from eight to eleven or twelve. Keith was the baby, but
+this was never held up against him. He was commonly treated as an equal,
+which raised his self-confidence tremendously, but it had also a
+somewhat embarrassing effect when the others seemed to take for granted
+that he knew as much as they concerning the matters that most occupied
+their minds--to judge by their talk at least.
+
+The oldest of the lot, and their undisputed leader, was a peasant boy of
+remarkable ugliness, squint-eyed and snub-nosed, with tufts of yellow
+hair always falling over his face and several teeth missing. His clothes
+were in rags and he never wore shoes. He boasted of never washing unless
+"the old one" stood over him with a stick, and his language was worse
+than both his manners and his looks. An unbroken stream of profanity
+and obscenity poured from his rarely silent mouth, and he heaped
+withering scorn on any attempt at decent speech.
+
+Keith had now and then picked up questionable words while playing in the
+lane where he lived. Johan sported some of them in moments of furious
+rebellion against his mother's "holiness," as he called it. Once or
+twice Keith had repeated such words at home and suffered for it. Soon he
+learned to know the type at first hearing, and he disliked this part of
+the vocabulary even when he could use it without danger to himself. He
+developed a greater daintiness in words than in anything else, but this
+summer formed an exception. The force of suggestion brought to bear on
+him was too overwhelming, and he strove boldly to vie with the rest in
+foulness of tongue and thought. As soon as he was back in the city, this
+habit dropped off him as the soap lather is washed off a bather when he
+dives into the clear waters of a lake. But the game he had learned to
+play back of the big rock could not be unlearned in the same way.
+
+This game was in itself a revelation to Keith. He was not shocked or
+startled, because he had no standards in the matter, but at first he
+experienced a distinct revulsion. This wore off quickly, however, and
+soon he accepted what he saw as a natural thing. The boy whose face
+stuck in Keith's mind with such strange persistency set the pace, and
+everybody seemed to hold him a hero on that account. Even the other city
+boys surrendered after a brief resistance and tried humbly to emulate
+the acknowledged leader.
+
+Everything took place openly in the most brazen fashion, as if they had
+been playing leap-frog or hide-and-seek. Every one boasted of his own
+achievements and tried to outdo the rest in unashamed performance. Yet
+it was not so much a question of companionship in indulgence as of
+sportsmanlike competition. Pleasure had little to do with it. What they
+did, and still more what they pretended to have done, was an assertion
+and a proof of manliness, and so was the language they used among
+themselves. If they hid from the older people, that was not because they
+regarded themselves as engaged in any sinful pursuits, but because the
+grown-ups to them appeared jealous of all childish pleasures, and
+particularly jealous of the pleasures most treasured by themselves.
+
+Outwardly Keith played the part of an interested but passive observer.
+When taunted for his timidity, or as being a mere infant, he parried by
+using a number of nasty words, some of which he did not know the meaning
+of. When by himself, he soon found that he could play the game as well
+as the rest, and it increased his sense of self-importance very much,
+but of this he said nothing to any one. Something within his own nature
+protested against the flaunting of such an act, though the act itself
+carried no offence to his childish mind. The inner protest was not
+strong enough to break into words or to make the companionship of the
+other boys seem repulsive to him. Nor was it concerned with anything
+Keith did by himself.
+
+The summer went very fast. Keith was sorry when told that it was time
+for him to go home. He would come back, of course, but his regrets were
+only momentary. No sooner was he started than the idea of seeing his
+mother, Granny, and his tin soldiers again, put everything else out
+of his mind.
+
+His mother was overjoyed to see him and revelled in his healthy looks.
+She made him tell her at great length, over and over again, about
+everything he had seen and done, about the place and the people, about
+the food and the games he had played. Keith talked and talked, eagerly
+and freely, but of the game played behind the big rock he never said
+a word.
+
+He was then not quite seven years old.
+
+
+
+XII
+
+That autumn and winter he was permitted to play a good deal with Johan,
+and always in Johan's home. His mother had a bad spell of depression,
+and while it made her fret and worry more than ever about Keith, as well
+as about everything else, she was either too weak to resist his pleas,
+or she felt his absence as a relief.
+
+To his intense surprise, Keith found that Johan already knew all about
+the new game, and that he was quite willing to play it. And for a couple
+of years it became an important part of what they had in common. Chances
+were not lacking, for Johan's mother was too wrapt up in her postils and
+religious speculations to watch them closely, and there was always the
+outhouse to which they could retire for privacy.
+
+Their relationship was a peculiar one. Although the younger by a few
+months and the smaller by several inches, Keith was the leader and the
+aggressor. Johan remained passive--too passive, Keith often thought.
+
+There was nothing of love in Keith's feelings toward Johan, nothing
+emotional. The tenderness that was such a marked feature of his
+character did not come into play at all. In fact, he rather looked down
+on Johan, who frequently annoyed him by his dullness and his lack of
+personal neatness. The truth of it was that he played with Johan merely
+because he was the only other boy in sight, and in so far as that
+particular game was concerned, Johan was simply an accessory to it in
+same way as his tin soldiers and his toy fort.
+
+In playing it, Keith had always a sense of seeking something else, but
+he had not the slightest idea of what this something might be. It must
+have some relation to girls, he felt vaguely, but beyond that vague
+feeling he could not get. Clara remained forgotten.
+
+Gradually Johan became more and more indifferent and reluctant as far as
+that game was concerned. Dull as he was, he seemed to have some sort of
+scruples that Keith couldn't understand. More and more Keith was thrown
+back on himself. Once more a new set of interests began to take the
+lion's share of his attention, although the game learned behind the big
+rock would reassert its puzzling fascination from time to time.
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+His eagerness to read and his lack of reading matter had for some time
+presented a growing problem. The books of his father--and there were
+quite a number of them--were taboo for a double reason: first, because
+they were not held safe for him to read, and, secondly, because his
+father regarded them as his particularly private property that must not
+be touched by any one else.
+
+So he fell back on the old Bible and chance pickings. The stirring and
+bloodcurdling stories in the Books of the Maccabees were his favourites.
+He read them over and over, and he tried to dramatize that unbroken
+record of battles with the help of his tin soldiers. But the reason he
+could return to those stories so often was that he began studying them
+while reading was still a partly mastered art, and half the time he was
+more interested in the game of reading, so to speak, than in what
+he read.
+
+A year in the new school had made a great change. He read anything with
+ease, and while he read rather slowly without ever skipping, his mind
+took in what he read quickly and thoroughly so that going back over a
+thing once perused became less and less attractive. He wanted new
+material for his mind, and he wanted it in steadily increasing
+quantities.
+
+One day he made a great discovery. Books could be borrowed from other
+people. One of his schoolmates came to school with a wonderful
+illustrated copy of "Don Quixote" arranged for children. Keith went into
+ecstasies over it. The mail-clad figure of the Knight of the Rueful
+Countenance on the front cover was to him the beckoning guardian of a
+world of wonders, the very existence of which he had never before
+suspected. Tears came into his eyes at last as he stared hopelessly at
+the object of his newly born desire. As a rule he blurted out any wish
+he might have, but the thing was clearly too precious to ask as a gift
+or acquire by bartering, and he had never heard of any other way of
+getting it.
+
+"Mercy," cried the other boy after having watched him for a while. "You
+can take it home and read it, if you only promise to bring it back."
+
+For a moment Keith was too overcome to speak. Then he became hysterical
+with joy. The rest of the school day passed in a trance. He ran a good
+part of the way home. Arrived there, he almost forgot to give his mother
+and Granny the inevitable kiss of greeting. And he might even have
+refused to be bothered by such a thing but for his fear of being put
+under some discipline that might prevent him from plunging straightway
+into the unexplored country of make-believe.
+
+On seeing the book, his mother hesitated for a moment, but soon she was
+delighted with the results it produced. Keith had no thought of asking
+leave to see Johan that day. He was lost to the world around him. Not a
+sound was heard from him. There was no nervous running about in futile
+search for "something to do." The home was as quiet as if he had been
+away, and yet there he was, safely ensconced in his own corner, where
+his mother could watch him all the time.
+
+Everybody was happy until the father returned home and heard of what had
+happened. Having looked the book over for a moment, while the boy
+watched him with a shrinking heart, he said at last:
+
+"You must return it tomorrow, and I don't want you to borrow any more
+books. You may spoil it in some way, and then you will have to pay for
+it, and where are you to get the money?"
+
+Keith tried hard not to cry, but the blow was too overwhelming. He was
+driven out of his new paradise after a tantalizing glimpse at it. And he
+could not understand why. So his tears must needs flow freely and his
+throat contracted convulsively with half-choked sobs, and the final
+result of it was that he was ordered to bed at once. That ended his last
+chance of abstracting a few more thrills from the borrowed treasure.
+
+Of course, the book was returned the next day. Keith had not yet arrived
+at the point where the evasion of a parental decree seemed conceivable.
+And to the sorrow of missing the promised enjoyment was added the
+humiliation of confessing what had happened at home. To lie about it was
+another thing that never occurred to him, and to act without explanation
+was quite foreign to his nature.
+
+A few sad days followed. Then his life resumed its customary tone, and
+it was as if the lank, but to him far from ludicrous, shape of Don
+Quixote had never crossed his horizon. And soon after Christmas recurred
+once more.
+
+Among the many packages falling to his share, there were two of a shape
+that suggested the possibility of more tin soldiers. But when he held
+them in his hand, they failed to yield to pressure as would a cardboard
+box. Curiosity turned into genuine suspense. And when at last two books
+lay in front of him as his own, with the implied permission that he
+could read them to his heart's content whenever he chose, a pang of
+something like real love for his father shot through his heart.
+
+Those two little volumes became at once his most priceless possession
+and the foundation of his first library. To others they might appear
+quite commonplace books, without much value from any point of view. To
+him they were passports to a realm of action and freedom and colour,
+where he could roam at will in search of everything he missed in real
+life. One was bound in white with the picture of an African lion hunt on
+the front cover. The other one had a plain brown binding. Both had
+coloured illustrations and contained stories of hunting and travelling
+adventures in all sorts of out-of-the-way places. There were tales of
+lion hunting with Arabs and tiger hunting in the jungles of India, of
+whaling in the Arctic and hair-breadth escapes from giant snakes in
+South America, of cruises in southern seas and caravaning across the
+high plateaus of Central Asia.
+
+One story in particular stuck in his mind, and more particularly one
+little detail out of that story. It was one of comparative repose and
+few sensational incidents relating the perfectly peaceful, but
+nevertheless strange and interesting experiences of a European traveller
+through some desert region back of the Caspian Sea. Arriving at a nomad
+camp far away from all civilization, this traveller was met with
+touching hospitality. During a formal visit to the chieftain of the
+tribe, he was offered tea. With the tea was handed him a bowl containing
+a single lump of sugar. In European fashion he picked up this and
+dropped it into his cup. Not a word was said, but something told him
+that he had committed some dreadful mistake. By and by, as he watched
+the others, he understood. Sugar was so rare that to use it in ordinary
+fashion was out of question, and so the solitary lump served was meant
+to be licked in turn by each, and he, as the guest of honour, had been
+given the first chance. To Keith's mind that story seemed as clearly
+realized as if he had played a part in it himself. And what occupied him
+more than anything else was the pitiful existence of those poor nomads
+to whom even such a common thing as sugar was an almost unattainable
+luxury. It was his first lesson in human sympathy, and it was typical of
+his own existence and bent that it should have come out of a book.
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+From that day one of his main objects in life was to acquire books. He
+had little pride as a rule, in spite of all his sensitiveness, and when
+books were concerned he had none at all. Having discovered that a friend
+of the family, who until then had been regarded with supreme
+indifference, held some sort of clerical position in a publishing house,
+his devotion to Uncle Lander suddenly became effusive and he begged so
+shamelessly and so successfully that at last his father had to
+intercede. Out of a half-hour sermon on things that must not be done,
+Keith grasped only that, as usual, he could not do what he wanted. Money
+was still a mystery to him, and he never suspected that Uncle Lander
+would have to pay his employers for every book taken out of the stock.
+
+The sole check to his passion sprang logically from the very fervor of
+that passion: a book being such a precious object to himself, he could
+not dream of taking it away from somebody else. As in a flash the true
+spirit of his father's objection to borrowed books was revealed to him.
+That objection became his own and stuck to him through life: if he liked
+a borrowed book, the inescapable duty of returning it was too painful to
+be faced, and if he didn't like it, there was no reason for borrowing
+it. Books became sacred things to him, to be cherished and protected as
+nothing else. The loss of one was a catastrophe.
+
+Soon he had a small library of his own, kept on a shelf in the huge
+wardrobe that stood in the vestibule leading to the parlour. Made up at
+first of odds and ends bearing no real relation to his desire for
+reading matter, it gradually acquired a certain homogeneity reflecting
+the boy's state of mind. Books of travel and adventure continued to
+prevail for a long while. Equally favoured were stories dealing with
+Norse Mythology and the heroic legends of his race. The grim record of
+the Niebelungs was familiar to him at the age of eight, and the first
+heroes of his worship were young Siegfried of divine aspect and Dietrich
+of Bern, who seemed to the boy the final embodiment of worldly wisdom.
+To these should be added Garibaldi, of whose South American campaigns,
+so touchingly shared by the faithful Anita, he read graphic accounts in
+an odd volume of an illustrated weekly. The word liberty first came to
+him from the lips of the picturesque Italian, while Anita and the women
+of the old Germanic sagas struck him by their contrast to his mother.
+
+In the main, all his reading made for escape and compensation. He read
+to get away from his own surroundings, and he revelled in characters of
+fiction and legend and history that possessed qualities lacking in
+himself. By nature he was a queer mixture of rashness and timidity, but
+through his mother's anxiety on his behalf the latter quality was
+constantly being nursed at the expense of all tendency to action. And
+so, in order to keep the balance, he revelled in the imaginary or real
+deeds of men whose very life-breath was danger. The more the books gave
+him of what he craved, the less he thought of looking for it in life.
+
+Consequently his new passion seemed a godsend to his mother, who
+encouraged him in every possible way. It brought a solution of many
+difficulties and worries by keeping him at home and quiet. The only
+resistance came, as usual, from the father, who repeatedly counselled
+moderation and often made the boy drop his book and turn to something
+else--which seemed to Keith the worst of all the tyrannies to which he
+found himself exposed. But most of the time the father was powerless
+because of his absence from home, and soon Keith learned that his
+reading formed the only exception to his mother's general refusal to
+permit any circumvention of his father's explicit command.
+
+It also became plain to Keith that the mother favoured his love for the
+books not only as a means of relief to herself. Evidently she held it
+admirable in itself and a promise bearing in some mysterious manner on
+his future. His mother's approval flattered him, but otherwise her
+attitude was a riddle which he did not care to solve as long as it
+brought him permission to explore at will this newly discovered world of
+perfectly safe enjoyment. In the end, however, that strange reverence
+shown by his mother combined with his own increasing ability to live the
+cherished life of his dreams at second hand into an influence that more
+or less warped his entire outlook on life. It robbed to some extent of
+his sense of proportion.
+
+
+
+XV
+
+His father noticed his timidity and seemed to view it with a sense of
+humiliation. Once, in the presence of company, he threatened to put him
+into skirts "like any other girl." Keith had played too little with
+other children to have acquired the usual male consciousness of
+superiority, but his father's words cut him to the quick nevertheless,
+because he knew them to be meant for an insult. He resolved then and
+there to show his mettle in some striking way, and promptly be began to
+dream of such ways, but chance being utterly lacking for even a normal
+display of boyish daring, it merely served to plunge him more deeply
+into the sham life of his books.
+
+Yet he was not without courage, and it was not physical pain, or the
+fear of it, that brought the tears so quickly into flowing. Once, when
+returning home with an uncovered bowl full of molasses from the grocery,
+he stumbled at the foot of the stairs and fell so his forehead struck
+the edge of the lowest step and his scalp was cut open to the width of
+nearly an inch. The blood blinded him so that he could barely make his
+way upstairs. When he reached the kitchen at last, his mother was scared
+almost out of her wits, and her fright was augmented by the manner in
+which he sobbed as if his heart were breaking. When at last the flow of
+blood was partly stenched and his crying still continued, his mother
+tried to tell him that there was no cause to be scared.
+
+"I am not scared," he sputtered to her surprise. "I didn't know I was
+hurt, but ... but ... I spilled all the molasses."
+
+That night his father gave him a shining new silver coin without telling
+him why, and the boy couldn't guess it at the time, though later he
+learned the reason from his mother.
+
+A favourite method employed by the father to test and to develop his
+courage was to send him alone after dark on some errand into the cellar
+or up into the attic, and the boy went without protest, no matter how
+much he might dread the task at heart. Even the servant girls felt
+reluctant about visiting the cellar at night, and the occasional
+discovery of a drunken man asleep in front of the cellar door made the
+danger far from imaginary.
+
+Going down to the cellar, Keith was permitted to bring a candle along,
+but the danger of fire made this out of the question when the attic was
+his goal. One night on his way up there, he discovered a white,
+fluttering shape by the square opening in the outer wall. He stopped on
+the spot, and his heart almost stopped, too--but only for a moment.
+Driven by some necessity he could not explain to himself, he picked
+himself together and pushed on, only to find that the intimidating
+spectre consisted of some white clothing hung for drying on the iron rod
+of the shutter and kept moving by a high wind. It was a lesson that went
+right home and stuck.
+
+During that one moment of hesitation, the idea of a ghost tried to take
+form in his more or less paralysed consciousness. He had read of ghosts,
+and overheard stories told by the servant girls in apparent good faith,
+and that whitish, almost luminous thing in front of him, stirring
+restlessly with a faint hissing sound, looked and acted the part of a
+ghost to perfection. But the idea was rejected before it had taken clear
+shape and without any reasoning, instinctively, automatically. His
+father always became scornful at the mere mention of ghosts, and that
+settled it.
+
+When it was all over, and he was safe within the kitchen door once more,
+he told no one what had happened. He thought that, in spite of his
+initial scare, he had acted decidedly well, and he was eager for
+approval, but he was kept from telling by an uneasy feeling that his
+father would laugh at him if he did.
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+The boy's timidity took quite different forms. One day the whole family
+was astir. His parents had in some way obtained tickets to that
+evening's performance at the Royal Opera. As the custom of the place was
+to permit the holders of two adjoining seats to bring in a child with
+them, it was decided after much discussion that Keith might go along.
+His mother tried to explain the nature and purpose of a theatrical
+performance, but what she said made no impression on the boy, who was
+more excited by the thought of accompanying his parents than by what he
+might hear or see.
+
+Their seats were in a box in the third tier. It was like being suspended
+halfway between the top and the bottom of a gigantic well. The depth of
+that well affected the boy unpleasantly, while the strong light and the
+hum of talk confused him. He clung closely to his mother with averted
+face. Suddenly the light went out, and he heard his mother whisper:
+
+"Look now!"
+
+Glancing up, he found that a new room full of people had appeared where
+before was nothing but a flat wall.
+
+"What became of the wall, mamma," he asked aloud. She hushed him with a
+smile, and he heard some one in another box titter.
+
+"Now keep very quiet and try to follow what happens on the stage," his
+mother admonished in another whisper.
+
+They were giving Auber's "Crown Diamonds." The rich dresses appealed
+somewhat to him, but not strongly. The music made no impression on him
+whatsoever. 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. When,
+at last, a shot rang out on the stage, even that fear could no longer
+restrain him, and there was nothing for his mother to do but to escort
+him out of the box into the corridor. There, under the care of a
+friendly doorkeeper who treated him to candy out of a paper bag, he
+stayed in perfect contentment until his parents were ready to go home.
+
+"Oh, we must go again, Carl," he heard his mother cry in a tone of high
+exultation.
+
+"All right, you go," said the father with a yawn, Keith and I don't
+care--do we, Keith?"
+
+"No," Keith replied mechanically, but even as he spoke he became
+conscious of a desire to share his mother's enthusiasm rather than his
+father's indifference. If they would only promise not to shoot! ...
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+Three years he remained in the school of the Misses Ahlberg. Three times
+fall and winter and spring were followed by that painfully delicious
+period of almost unbroken daylight, when the very books seemed to lose
+some of their magic, when even the air of the old lane became fraught
+with some mystic urge, and when life within stone walls turned into an
+unbearable burden.
+
+He rose by degrees from mere spelling to the study of a foreign
+language, German. He learned his Catechism by heart--or rather by rote,
+for the time-worn phrases dropped from his lips at demand very much as
+water runs down a mill sluice, without leaving any trace. In fact,
+little of what he learned appeared to touch his real life at all. Nor
+could he be made to take it very seriously, although, on the whole, he
+was counted a good pupil.
+
+He used schoolbooks, of course, but he was rarely caught reading one of
+them. His mind seemed to master the offered knowledge by some mysterious
+process of absorption of which he himself was never aware. Study in the
+sense of close and painful application was quite foreign to him. Yet he
+seemed capable of mastering anything that aroused his interest--or that
+stirred his vanity, for he loved to shine. Unfortunately most of his
+schoolmates were dull plodders who had not yet reached a stage where
+plodding counted, and so his triumphs came easy and there was nothing to
+spur him into serious effort.
+
+At the end of the third year he had practically exhausted the
+possibilities of the little school in the South End, and it was
+understood that he would not return in the fall, when he would be nine
+years old. But nothing had been decided about what he was to do instead.
+
+He had not been unhappy with the Misses Ahlberg and his leave-taking
+lacked none of the expected emotional colouring. Yet he left without a
+pang, without regrets. It was as if he had passed through that school in
+his sleep, waking up only when he reached home and his books. He had
+made no friends and formed no ties at school, and outside of it he had
+never associated with any of his schoolmates. Not one of them left a
+mark on his memory as Harald had done. In a place full of girls, his
+little heart never was betrayed into a single quickened beat of
+anticipation. Nor did he make any new connections outside of the school
+during those years. One might almost say that he had ceased to realize
+the existence of things or persons except in so far as they administered
+to some immediate need within himself.
+
+Summer came early that year, and with it came a marked change. His
+restlessness grew almost morbid, so that his mother found it nearly
+impossible to keep him indoors. He was every minute pleading for leave
+to play with Johan, and on several occasions when permission had been
+granted, he and Johan left the quiet lane to play with strange boys on
+the Quay. It drove his mother almost to despair, and she tried one thing
+after another to keep him at home.
+
+She was doing some embroidery at that particular time and the work
+seemed to interest the boy a great deal. Sometimes, when he had given up
+all hope of getting out, he could stand for many minutes at a time
+watching the needle with its tail of brightly coloured yarn pass in and
+out through the wide meshes of the fabric. Finally his mother suggested
+that he try his hand at it, and he grabbed eagerly at that chance of
+diversion. For about three days he was as devoted to his needle as any
+girl. By that time he had filled a small square with a sort of design of
+his own, and when his father returned home in the evening of the third
+day, Keith displayed his achievement with considerable pride.
+
+"Fine," remarked the father dryly. "Now we know what to do with him if
+Uncle Granstedt does not think good him enough for a carpenter. We'll
+apprentice him to a tailor. He'll make a good one, I am sure, as it
+takes nine tailors to make a man, he need not have as much courage as a
+woman even."
+
+That disposed of the embroidery once for all, but it seemed also to
+bring matters to a head. As soon as the father was done with his meal,
+the mother made him accompany her into the parlour, and there they
+stayed an endless time. When they returned to the living-room, Keith
+could see that his mother had been crying, but she was smiling brightly
+at that moment, and her voice had a ring of triumph when she said:
+
+"Papa has something to tell you, Keith."
+
+"Yes," the father drawled. "Your mother, as usual, has persuaded me to
+do what I doubt is right. Because she has pleaded for you, I'll let you
+enter the public school in the fall. That will cost money, and I am not
+sure it is good for a poor man's son like you, but we'll see. It means
+that you will have to do some studying at last, for if you don't--well,
+then you'll have to learn a trade."
+
+As always on such occasions, Keith took his cue from the mother, and her
+mien told him that he ought to be pleased. It was a new departure
+anyhow, and it implied evidently an advance that would administer to his
+rather undernourished sense of self-importance. For anything doing so he
+had a passionate craving, and so he was ready to rejoice.
+
+The new school was still far off, however, and in the meantime there was
+close at hand a problem that piqued him annoyingly. Had his father
+really meant to make a carpenter or a tailor of him if his mother had
+not interceded, or was the talk about it merely an expression of the
+father's peculiar unwillingness to admit any sort of tender feeling
+toward the son?
+
+That was not the way Keith put it, in so far as he attempted any
+formulation at all, but it was in substance what his momentary
+speculations amounted to, and the solution of the problem lay quite
+beyond him. He never could make out just what his father meant or
+thought or felt in regard to himself.
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+Then several developments followed each other in quick succession. First
+of all his father bought him a season ticket at the public baths in the
+North River and made him join a class of small boys for instruction in
+the manly art of swimming. The world was opening up, Keith felt, and his
+father was lured to the verge of openly expressed satisfaction at
+finding that the boy's timidity did not extend to cold water.
+
+No sooner, however, had he mastered the mechanics of the thing
+sufficiently to graduate from the board-walk onto a cork pillow in the
+water, than he had to quit because the whole family was "going into the
+country" for the summer. To Keith this meant a chance of playing with
+other children without having to ask permission every time and rarely
+getting it. To his mother it meant a distinct social advance, as no
+family staying in town all summer could be held really respectable.
+
+The "country" was located on one of the numerous islands forming the
+outskirts of the city and could be reached by the father after he
+finished work by a fifteen-minute ride on one of the innumerable little
+steamboats running back and forth like so many busy shuttles across
+every sheet of water in the vicinity of Stockholm. Even then it was a
+suburb, but the houses were called villas, and there were plenty of
+trees between the buildings, and the roads meandering whimsically among
+miniature lawns and gardens had no pavements, and the lake came right up
+to the door.
+
+There the father had rented a single room from some acquaintances who
+made their home on the island all the year round. The man was a German
+who had recently returned to Sweden after serving as a noncommissioned
+officer in the Franco-Prussian war--a stocky Bavarian with a tremendous
+black beard, a fondness for top-boots and long-stemmed pipes, and a
+startling tendency to shout every communication in the form of a
+command. He was a good-natured soul nevertheless, in spite of his
+appearance, his occasional bursts of temper, and his exaggerated regard
+for discipline, and he was full of stories about real fighting that
+differed puzzlingly from what Keith had read about such matters. Uncle
+Laube had a pet phrase that stuck in the boy's mind and exercised a
+corroding influence on some of his most cherished sentiments:
+
+"A man must be able to fight, but it is black hell when he has to."
+
+There were three children in the family--a boy two or three years older
+than Keith, a girl of his own age and a baby sister. The boy was named
+Adolph and the elder girl Marie. All three of them, but especially the
+boy, were being brought up in strict Teutonic fashion, which made a sort
+of super-religion out of obedience. At the mere sound of his father's
+voice, Adolph trembled and stiffened up like a recruit under training.
+Once the two boys and Marie strayed beyond bounds to a place where some
+timber rafts were tied up along the shore. Adolph led the way onto the
+rafts and the two others followed. It was great fun jumping from log to
+log where two rafts met, until Marie suddenly slipped into the water and
+began to sink like a stone. Quick as a flash Adolph dropped on his knees
+on a log that was partly under water, grabbed the girl by her hair and
+pulled her out. On their return home, Adolph was licked until he could
+not stand on his feet for leading the smaller children into mischief.
+Then he got a crown for the pluck shown in saving his sister's life.
+
+This even balancing of justice made a deep impression on Keith. He
+thought and thought of it, and his reason, which already was very
+active, appreciated the logic of such a dispensation, but his heart
+rebelled strangely and turned for a while to his own father as a paragon
+of mildness, while the black-bearded Uncle Laube became an object of
+repulsion bordering on hatred. Fortunately the disciplinarian was away
+most of the day and Keith was running wild around the island. This was
+not possible without some protests from his mother, who regarded all
+water outside of a tub with deep distrust. He nevertheless maintained an
+unusual degree of independence until one day, while playing in one of
+the rowboats lying outside a small pier near their house, he, too, fell
+in and was pulled out by Adolph.
+
+The children were alone at the time. Keith had no consciousness of
+having been in danger, but he was in a funk because of his wet clothing.
+Instead of going home at once, he ran to an open spot at the other end
+of the island and played in the sun to get dry. After a while his mother
+appeared, disturbed by his long absence. There was nothing to do but to
+respond to her call, although he did so most reluctantly, his clothing
+still being damp. His slow movements aroused her suspicion, and in
+another moment the awful truth was out.
+
+"You might have drowned," his mother cried, too frightened to scold. "Or
+you might have caught cold and died of that. Perhaps ... you had better
+come home at once."
+
+"No," protested Keith. "Adolph was there, and it hasn't been cold at
+all."
+
+"But think, Keith," his mother remonstrated, her eyes dim with tears,
+"you wouldn't care to die and leave me?"
+
+"I don't want to leave you," the boy said, "and I was not going to."
+
+She took his head between her two hands and looked long into his eyes
+before she asked at last:
+
+"Are you not scared of death?"
+
+"I don't know," he stammered, wincing slightly under her stare. He could
+not grasp what she was driving at. Death carried no clear meaning to
+him. It had never touched his real inner life, and he never thought of
+it. No matter how frightened he became, it never occurred to him that he
+might cease to exist. Even his dreams had no colouring of that kind.
+
+In spite of his mother's anxiety, he learned to swim that summer. He
+liked it and did it rather well for his age. But he never ventured very
+far out. Rebel as he might against the check on his movements, his
+mother's attitude had left a lasting mark on him, and avoiding needless
+risks seemed a natural thing to him. As a result of this inhibition, all
+his outdoor playing lacked that complete abandon which is the soul of
+it. He been made an indoor child beyond retrieve.
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+Being so much in the open air and moving about as a child should, his
+nights during that summer passed mostly without dreams of any kind, and
+also without other disturbances worth speaking of. He was too healthily
+tired for anything but sleep.
+
+The winter nights, following days spent largely indoors with little
+company and less exercise, were quite different. Then the passing from
+wakefulness to sleep took him through a dangerous twilight period, when
+games of the kind learned behind the big rock seemed not only natural,
+but the most enticing thing in the world. And the more he was thrown
+back on his own resources, the more tempting those games became. They
+represented, besides, something that was entirely his own, with which no
+one else could interfere. It was a secret that would have been the
+sweeter for being shared with some one else, he felt, but Johan's
+peculiar attitude in this matter had filled him with a shyness not his
+own by nature.
+
+Then, with the sleep, came also the dreams. At first they were, or
+seemed to be, mere plays of fancy--shadowy repetitions of daylight
+experiences in clownish distortion. Then they began to change. An
+element of unrest, and finally of dread, began to fill them. This did
+not happen, however, until the same elements had found a place in his
+waking life, and particularly not until the hours of that twilight
+period had developed into a source of increasingly acute conflict.
+
+Nothing palpable had happened. Nothing had been said openly to convince
+him that his secret was known and that it was evil. Yet the air about
+him seemed full of suspicion and suspense and menace. The mere way in
+which his mother looked at him at times filled his soul with sinister
+misgivings. And she was always talking about temptations and dangers
+that walk in the dark. Or else she dropped mysterious warnings about the
+duty of keeping one's soul and body clean and pure.
+
+It was all very disturbing, and he should have liked to ask questions,
+but always some imperious force within himself kept him back. He felt
+that his sweet secret would never bear open discussion, but the more
+desperately he clung to it, the more his mind was poisoned with doubts
+out of which soon grew fears.
+
+Thus began the new dream life.
+
+He was as a rule the only living being in those dreams. Everything else
+consisted of lifeless things, and mostly of spaces and dimensions rather
+than of objects. The dominant characteristic was an increase of size
+proportional to the increase of distance from himself. He found himself,
+for instance, in the midst of a vast space laid out in squares. Where he
+stood at the centre, those squares were just large enough to hold him.
+Then, as his glance passed outward, the squares became larger and
+larger, until at last their dimensions became gigantic. Soon they began
+to move toward him, growing smaller as they approached, and yet filling
+his soul with a horror based entirely on the monstrous size of those
+squares that were still miles away. Or he walked down a corridor built
+of stones that, as it opened out in front of him, expanded indefinitely
+until it assumed proportions that filled him with a sickening sense of
+his own smallness. As he moved forward, the corridor automatically
+contracted, but always the horror of those immeasurable vastnesses still
+ahead of him continued dominant and inevitable. At other times sums of
+figures came moving toward him from every direction, and the farther
+away from him they were, the more enormous they grew, until his mind no
+longer could take them in, and his heart quaked at the thought that
+sooner or later one of them would reach him in its original
+awe-inspiring immensity.
+
+He tried once to tell his mother about those dreams, but found it
+impossible to express what he wished to describe. Not long afterwards he
+was aroused in the middle of the night by his mother calling him by
+name. Her voice betrayed worry.
+
+"What's the matter, Keith," she asked when at last he woke up
+sufficiently to answer her call. "Were you dreaming?"
+
+"I don't know," replied the boy, and at that moment he didn't know.
+
+"I thought first you were crying," explained the mother, "and then I
+heard that you were counting something."
+
+"He was probably repeating his multiplication table," muttered the
+father. "I wish he would learn his lessons in the daytime, so that we
+could sleep in peace at night."
+
+The next morning Keith had forgotten all about it but his mother
+reminded him of what had happened during the night in order to find out
+whether he had any bad dreams. Keith shook his head. Then a thought
+flashed through his mind.
+
+"Do I often talk in my sleep," he asked.
+
+"Hardly ever," said his mother. "But the other night you read the Lord's
+Prayer from beginning to end, and I wish you would read it as nicely
+when are saying your prayers before going to sleep."
+
+"He is studying too much," Granny put in from the kitchen. "His nose is
+always buried in a book. That's the whole trouble, I tell you."
+
+"No, mamma, I don't think reading does him any harm," said Keith's
+mother, and for some reason Keith felt relieved by the diversion.
+
+
+
+XX
+
+Even Keith could not escape a feeling about this time of having arrived
+at some sort of station or landmark on his road through life.
+
+He was frightfully self-centred. He seemed to be thinking about nothing
+but himself. In reality, however, he was not reflecting at all on the
+character and probable course of his life. It was all a matter of
+feeling and what concerned him was merely the comforts or discomforts,
+pleasures or pains, exhilarations or boredoms of the passing moment. The
+future was a word that, at the most, implied things that might happen a
+few days after tomorrow. The convinced visioning of events a year or
+more distant was still utterly beyond him. And the past seemed to vanish
+with the setting sun of the day just ended.
+
+Yet he was dimly aware of facing a transition that, somehow, must make a
+great change in his entire life. Something that he could not define was
+drawing to an end, and something else, equally indefinable, was about to
+begin. The "school for small children" which he had left, and the
+"school for boys" into which he would soon enter, were the symbols used
+by his mind to express the passing out of one phase of life into
+another, but as such they suggested the actual change without revealing
+it. And there were moments when Keith's vague efforts to look ahead were
+accompanied by a sense of crushing dread, while at other times they
+might fill him with a never before tasted fervor of existence.
+
+He was near the completion of his ninth year. It seemed quite an age,
+but this appearance was contradicted by troublesome facts. He was very
+small for his age and hopelessly tied to the apron strings of his mother
+in spite of all his father's efforts to pry him loose. The reason for
+this failure was that his father lacked the time or the capacity for
+winning the boy's whole-hearted attention and affection.
+
+The one thing the father seemed to care for on his return home was to be
+left alone with his own preoccupations, and these did not include the
+boy. He could not unbend. He could not subordinate his own momentary
+desire or disinclination to an interest essentially foreign to his own
+self. In other words, he was just as self-centred as Keith, and just as
+unreflecting on the whole. Both lived completely in the present, and
+both wished to escape from it. The only difference between them was that
+while Keith sought his escape in space, so to speak, by means of his
+books, the father's only road of escape led him into a past of which the
+boy formed no part.
+
+Either through some fault of his own nature, or through the restrictive
+policy of his parents, Keith at nine had formed no real attachments
+outside of his immediate surroundings, and no life of his own that was
+not enclosed by the walls of his childhood home. This state of affairs
+tended always to throw him back on the mother as his most satisfactory
+source of inspiration and the magnetic pole of his emotional compass.
+And she on her part left no effort untried that could help to fasten his
+affections more closely to her.
+
+Unconsciously but increasingly she worked to cut the boy off from all
+the rest of the world in order that she might have him the more
+exclusively to herself. She expressed openly the wish that he might be a
+girl, because girls in those days were so much less likely to escape the
+parental protection.
+
+The boy was pleased by her attempts at monopolization. There was
+something flattering and softly reassuring about her passionate pleas
+for the uppermost place in his heart. And yet he rebelled with
+increasing violence against the closeness of her clutch on him. He
+seemed to choke at times, and a blind hatred rose within him without
+ever revealing itself as in any way related to his mother. One of the
+dominant emotions of this and the following period of his life was one
+of intense impatience that seemed to be directed toward no particular
+object. Once in a great while he turned toward his father with an
+expectation of relief, but this expectation was always foiled, and so he
+was plunged back again and again into an inner life of his own that fed
+almost exclusively on books and had little or nothing in common with the
+reality to which the new school was supposed to form a gateway.
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+
+
+I
+
+The new school was located in another part of the South End, separated
+only by the churchyard from the old church of St. Mary Magdalene. It was
+a state institution demanding an entrance fee, which, although quite
+reasonable, yet sufficed to keep out the children of mere wage earners.
+It was a school for the offspring of the "better classes" and good
+enough for all but the most select who must needs turn to certain
+private institutions of still greater exclusiveness for instruction.
+
+Its official title was St. Mary's Elementary School and it had only five
+grades or classes, as they were called, being supplemented by a
+"gymnasium," from which the pupils passed on to the university. No boy
+was admitted under nine, but there seemed to be no limit at the other
+end, for at the time of Keith's entrance the upper grades still held a
+few youngsters with well developed moustaches who, from the viewpoint of
+Keith's own peach-skinned diminutiveness, looked like veritable
+patriarchs. Stories were afloat about their actually being addressed as
+"mister" by the teachers.
+
+Admission was conditioned by examinations held in the school itself, and
+thither Keith was escorted by his mother one late August day. All
+novelties stimulated him, and to his inexperience the rather dingy old
+school seemed enormously impressive. The mere fact that it occupied a
+whole building all by itself was enough. In addition, however, it had
+an assembly hall large enough to hold several hundred boys, and there
+were numerous rooms capable of holding thirty or forty boys. Every pupil
+had a seat and a small desk of his own. Seeing these desks, with
+inkstands sunk into their tops, and special grooves for the penholders,
+and lids that could be raised, Keith knew that he must pass the
+examinations or die from a broken heart.
+
+The officiating teachers were stern but not unkind. Keith was nervous
+from eagerness, but neither frightened nor embarrassed. The questions
+asked were ridiculously easy, he thought. When his turn came, he
+answered triumphantly, as if he had been playing a game in which he was
+quite skilled. Finding him willing and well prepared, the examiners felt
+themselves challenged and pressed him more and more. Still he held his
+own. It ended with a sense of triumph on his part, but nothing was said
+about his having passed.
+
+The wait that followed until all the boys had been questioned was the
+only difficult part of the ordeal. Waiting patiently was not a strong
+point with Keith. Finally his mother appeared to take him home, and the
+moment he looked at her he knew. She was in such high spirits that she
+had to try a joke.
+
+"Too bad you couldn't pass," she said in a voice she vainly tried to
+make sad.
+
+He knew it was a joke, and yet his heart leaped into his throat and his
+eyes filled with tears. Then she had to console him, and to do so, she
+let out the whole story. The teachers had told her that he knew enough
+to go right into the third grade, but on account of his age they had
+advised her not to let him start above the second grade. It was a whole
+year saved, but that was not what she was thinking of. Her son had
+distinguished himself by giving proof of a brightness that had aroused
+unusual attention among the teachers. Her pride in this fact was such
+that Keith really began to think that a new life was about to begin
+for him.
+
+And that night, when his father came home, the whole story had to be
+told over again with new details, and Keith had the pleasure of seeing
+an expression of undisguised satisfaction on his father's face. It did
+not last very long, but it was sweet to watch while it lasted. Then the
+father resumed his usual manner of stern indifference as he turned
+to the boy:
+
+"That's all very well, Keith, but it means also that they will expect
+more of you than of the other boys, and so you have to study harder than
+ever in order to make good with them."
+
+Keith didn't care. It had been a wonderful day, he felt. He had had his
+first taste of public approval, and he had noticed the effect of it on
+his father and mother. As for the need of studying--that was easy. And
+he didn't have to begin his studies at once anyhow.
+
+
+
+II
+
+After the opening of the term, it took Keith only a day or two to
+realize that, literally, he had entered a new world, quite different, in
+spirit as well as in appearance, from anything previously experienced.
+
+The first shock came as soon as he had taken his place in the class and
+the first lesson had begun. He was no longer Keith. Christian names were
+not at all in use. Everybody was addressed by his family name both by
+the teachers and by his fellow pupils. Keith had become Wellander, and
+the first time he heard himself called by that name he blushed as deeply
+as if his most intimate privacy had suddenly been violated. In a few
+hours, however, the unfamiliarity of the name as a standing appellation
+had worn off, and then the pride of the thing sent a pleasant glow
+through his whole body, making him for a brief, dizzy moment glimpse the
+glory of manhood.
+
+His next discovery went far deeper. He had attended school four years in
+succession, but only as you drop into a strange room on a visit. He had
+never belonged in or to the school, and the school had neither limited
+nor extended his individuality. Now he found himself completely taken
+possession of and made a part of something larger than himself, a
+carefully correlated and guarded system of ranks and rules and
+traditions. In retrospect the former school seemed as accidental and
+fleeting as a street crowd, while the new one was an institution with a
+jealously preserved and deeply revered history to which each new pupil
+was expected to add more lustre. But most remarkable of all seemed the
+fact that this collective body added something to the stature of every
+boy that became a part of it.
+
+Membership was as onerous as it was honourable, not only within the
+school precints but anywhere. To belong to "Old Mary" was to carry a
+sacred duty along wherever one went. She was like an ambitious parent,
+never jealous of the reputation of her children. Mostly it was a
+question of refraining from this or that thing which less conspicuously
+placed boys might venture at will, but at times it might imply the
+performance of fierce deeds of bravery in the face of overwhelming odds.
+There was the rival school of St. Catherine and several "popular"
+schools that had no social standing whatsoever, but contained pupils
+with harder fists and less generous ideas of fighting than any boy
+within Old Mary. When certain words of derision were flung upon the air
+by members of those inferior institutions, there was nothing left for a
+pupil of St. Mary's but to fight.
+
+Little by little these strange facts penetrated Keith's subconsciousness
+and set up a never ending conflict between pride and precaution, between
+his wish to rise to a new ideal and his instinctive tendency to obey his
+mother's almost hysterical injunctions against fighting of any kind.
+Fortunately his road to and from school permitted him to follow the
+principal streets where the traffic was sufficient to act as a check on
+combative youngsters, and an additional protection was derived from his
+small size which caused the hostile elements to overlook his existence
+unless he appeared in the company of more developed schoolmates. And as
+he mostly walked alone, his comings and goings were uneventful as a
+rule. But that did not prevent him from imagining dangers and to suffer
+from them almost as much as if they had been real. There were times when
+he could not help thinking of himself as a coward.
+
+Such estimates of himself were not wholly checked by an incident that
+occurred within the school precincts early in the first term. There was
+another boy in the same class named Bauer, who seemed the living
+counterpart of Keith--just as undersized and lonely and nervous. From
+the first there was a hostile tension between those two, and soon it
+came to open war. It broke out in a pause between two lessons when
+practically all the boys were gathered in the schoolyard. Before Keith
+quite knew what had happened, he found himself fighting Bauer. First
+they used their fists and then they wrestled. The rest of the boys
+formed a ring about them and egged them on.
+
+They were well matched in their common weaknesses and both developed a
+certain courage during the stress of conflict. The difference between
+them was that Bauer apparently wanted to lick Keith, while the latter
+thought of nothing but to defend himself. The idea of inflicting pain on
+another human being was so foreign to Keith that it never took tangible
+form in his mind. The result was that Bauer's greater aggressiveness
+carried the day, and soon Keith found himself prone on his back with a
+triumphant Bauer straddling his chest.
+
+At that moment both boys became guilty of serious breaches against
+time-honoured school etiquette. Bauer struck the defenceless Keith
+square in the face with his clenched fist, and Keith burst into tears.
+Quick as a flash one of the older boys grabbed Bauer by the scruff of
+his neck and hurled him halfway across the yard, while another one
+plucked Keith from the ground and shoved him toward the stairway with a
+contemptuous:
+
+"The classroom for cry-babies."
+
+The humiliation felt by Keith was so intense that he wondered whether he
+could stay in the school. Nothing but the thought of his father kept
+him from returning home. But the cloud had a silver lining. Though no
+one else knew, he knew that he had started crying from rage, and not
+from fear. And this fact in connection with his realization of not
+having had any thought of running away during the fight made him
+hesitate in his final judgment upon himself. But he felt quite sure that
+fighting was not his chosen field. The effect on his nerves was
+too damaging.
+
+
+
+III.
+
+In the lower three grades, a single teacher with the title of Class
+Principal had complete charge of the morals, manners and instruction of
+the children in his grade. Keith had the luck of falling into the hands
+of one of the kindest and shrewdest men in the school--a man who seemed
+to understand that his mission was to guide rather than to drive, and
+who, in addition to his broad, human sympathy, possessed a genuine sense
+of humour.
+
+His name was Lector Dahlstroem, but everybody spoke of him as Dally, and
+little did he care. He was large of body and large of mind, with a most
+impressive girth and a voice that commanded attention without grating on
+supersensitive nerves. He had very rarely to assert his authority, but
+if ever the need arose, no one remained long in doubt as to who was the
+master, and a recurrence of the offense was unheard of. Even on such
+occasions he never used corporal punishment, although at that time the
+right of such administration still remained with him. He simply appealed
+to the self-respect and the sense of fairness in his pupils, asking no
+one to render what lay beyond his capacity. The main secret of his hold
+on the boys, however, lay in his ability to keep them interested, and to
+do so he frequently broke away from the text books and time-worn
+pedagogical methods. If there was anything he deposed, it was learning
+things by rote.
+
+The boys sat in rows of four and were placed with regard to scholarship
+and behaviour, so that the best pupils were farthest away from the
+teacher and the least reliable ones right in front of him. Keith found
+himself number two in the class, and that position at first tickled his
+pride considerably. Later, as the term went by, and boys now and then
+were shifted up or down, he began to wonder why he always remained
+number two. It was reassuring in a way, as showing that he held his own,
+but he failed to see why another boy should always remain _primus_,
+although his performances during lessons did not surpass those of Keith.
+Once he dared even give utterance to some such speculation in his
+father's hearing, but was promptly put down with a stern:
+
+"If the teacher puts another boy above you, he has probably some very
+good reason for doing so, and you had better feel thankful for being
+where you are in the class."
+
+"Humph," said his mother. "You forget, Carl, that the father of that boy
+is one of the richest bankers in the city."
+
+This was a way of looking at it which had never occurred to Keith. He
+was pretty contented, on the whole, and like all the rest, he placed the
+most implicit trust in the teacher's justice. From the very start, he
+had a feeling that Dally kept a special eye on him, and yet he was
+rarely spoken to except when questions were passed around. Even then the
+teacher was rather apt to leave Keith alone to such an extent that the
+boy now and then began to think himself disliked. Always, however, when
+he got to this point, some little incident would occur that restored his
+faith both in himself and in the teacher.
+
+There could be no doubt that he knew his lessons as well as any one in
+the class, if not better, and he shone still more when Dally appealed to
+the natural intelligence of the boys by straying far away from the
+beaten and dusty path of the text books. Whenever he had stirred them by
+some excursion of this kind and began to ask questions in order to find
+out how far they had followed him, Keith's right hand was sure to shoot
+excitedly upwards in order to get him the coveted chance of answering.
+And it seemed as if he could answer almost every question asked except a
+few that went so far beyond the bounds laid down for the class that the
+teacher deemed it fair to warn them that inability to answer would be no
+shame. That was the kind of questions Dally generally reserved for
+Keith, and when Keith couldn't answer, it didn't console him very much
+that no one else could. Once, when his hand went up as usual and, to his
+astonishment, he obtained the permission to answer, Keith, to his still
+greater astonishment, suddenly discovered that he had no answer to give.
+
+"I thought so," said Dally with a broad grin on his good-humoured face.
+"Do you know what a fuzzy-wuzz is, Wellander?"
+
+Keith shook his head, his face crimson with chagrin and humiliation as
+the whole class burst into anticipatory laughter.
+
+"That's a chap who wants to do all of it all the time," explained Dally.
+
+Keith did not quite see the point, but he kept his right arm a little
+more in check for a while after that, until one day the lesson was
+forgotten and history repeated itself.
+
+"Now Keith is fuzzy-wuzzying again," said Dally, and Keith thought he
+would sink through the floor. His mind was quite made up never to ask
+permission to answer another question again, but that same afternoon,
+during the lesson in Swedish history, Dally dropped all questioning and
+asked Keith to explain to the class the main factors leading up to the
+Wars of Reformation--which Keith spent twenty minutes in doing while all
+the rest of the class had to sit still listening to him.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+Keith could not remain isolated to the same extent as in the earlier
+schools. Inevitable community sprang from similarity of sex and age
+alone. In the same direction worked the system of teaching which called
+for the united attention of the entire class during every moment of the
+lesson. It was impossible to form a part of the class without being in
+contact with all its other members. The boy who read aloud or answered a
+question became subjected to the criticism or admiration of all the
+rest. Rivalry in any field of study was just as likely to arise between
+two boys at different ends of the room as between those sitting side by
+side. The spirit of Dally tended to assist this fusion of personalities
+in every way, and the boy who kept apart was sure sooner or later to run
+foul of his good-humoured but well-aimed sallies. His attitude implied
+no tyranny, and he strove for no deadening conformity. On the contrary,
+he always spoke of a strongly marked individuality as the object of all
+education, but he tried to develop it by fearless contact with others
+rather than by jealous withdrawal.
+
+Keith for the first time found himself part of a society, and he liked
+it because the teacher's insistence on scholarly achievement as the only
+standard of comparison gave him a chance to hold his own among a group
+of boys, most of whom counted themselves his superiors in every other
+respect. He was small and poor, of humble origin, without influential
+connections, without worldly advantages of any kind, but when mind was
+pitched against mind, he felt second to none--except in mathematics,
+where he could compete neither with Davidson, the Jewish banker's son
+who was _primus_, or with that gawky, cumbersome Anderson whose dullness
+in every other respect always kept him near the bottom of the class. For
+this reason Keith differed from most of the others by liking school
+better during the lessons than at any other time.
+
+There were games in the schoolyard during the pauses, and some of these
+were played in large groups or by teams. This occurred particularly when
+echoes from some war abroad caused the whole school to divide into rival
+armies for the staging of regular battles, as during his second year,
+when all had to be Turks or Russians. But Keith didn't like battles
+except in books, and mostly the pauses broke up the class communities
+into small coteries or pairs. And the moment this happened, Keith found
+himself outside. He belonged to no special group. His appearance in the
+yard raised no delighted hails. 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. Now and then Keith would join a couple of other boys
+headed for the old City like himself, and they would not refuse his
+company, but there always was something between him and them that
+precluded real fellowship, and so he trudged his way homeward, alone
+most of the time. Then he was also sure of reaching home in the shortest
+possible time, so that his mother had no chance to become worried
+over him.
+
+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 even ventured to climb the mast of a
+ship as far as the foretop. When at last reluctantly he turned homeward,
+he felt like a hero, but when he caught sight of the tear-stained,
+fretted face of his mother, he knew at once that even such exaltation
+was not worth the price to be paid for it.
+
+Unfortunately he had made himself popular that afternoon, and the next
+time a gang formed for a similar purpose, he was asked to join. But he
+shook his head, and being foolishly truthful by nature, he blurted out
+an embarrassed:
+
+"My mother won't let me."
+
+The answer was passed along. It was repeated in school the next day.
+Keith heard echoes of it for weeks. And it added a good deal to the
+invisible wall that seemed to rise about him wherever he went.
+
+Yet he was not unhappy. There was in his nature a wonderful resiliency
+that never let his spirits drop beyond a certain point, and that always
+brought them back to highwater mark at the slightest encouragement.
+
+
+
+V
+
+He had discovered the school library. It was to him a marvellous
+treasure trove. Any book could be taken home, one at a time, after being
+registered with the teacher acting as librarian for the day. Nor were
+the books handed out to you arbitrarily. You browsed all by yourself,
+and picked and picked, and calculated, and went back on your choice a
+dozen times, until at last you struck a book so fascinating in its
+promises that all hesitation disappeared.
+
+The father started to object, but was silenced by the explanation that
+the school authorities wanted the boys to borrow books from the library.
+That settled it, for discipline came first and even pleasure must be
+allowed if required by discipline. Had Keith been less honest or more
+imaginative in what may be called practical matters, his father's regard
+for authority might have offered more than one chance at liberties now
+denied, but this possibility never occurred to him, and so the library
+remained his one avenue of escape.
+
+The books he chose puzzled and almost shocked the rotatory guardians of
+his sanctum. Once he picked an enormous volume on Greek mythology, full
+of pictures and translated passages from Homer and the dramatists.
+
+"You don't want that, Wellander," the teacher said, eying him
+curiously, when Keith presented the book for registration.
+
+"Yes, I do," replied Keith stoutly, but his heart began to quake at the
+thought that the cherished volume was going to be denied him.
+
+"Do you mean to say that you intend to read it through?" the teacher
+persisted.
+
+"Yes, I will," said Keith.
+
+There was a long pause during which the teacher seemed to weigh the book
+in his hand as if wondering whether its very weight would be too much
+for the undersized little chap in front of him.
+
+"All right," he said at last, "but I suppose that means you will have
+reading for the rest of this season."
+
+Keith looked at the book more hopefully, and with hope came courage.
+
+"I'll read it in three weeks," he said.
+
+So he did, too, and when he turned in the book, the same teacher
+happened to be on duty, recognized him, and began to ask questions. When
+Keith had proved that the whole Olympian hierarchy was duly installed in
+his acquisitive brain, the teacher said with an amused but
+friendly smile:
+
+"I think we shall let you have anything you want hereafter. What is it
+to be this time--philosophy?"
+
+"No, I want another book of exploration," answered Keith, thawing under
+the smile. "And I want a real good one."
+
+That was his favourite subject, and the book he chose was Speke's
+"Discovery of the Source of the Nile." Once launched on that memorable
+journey, he had no thought left for any explorations of his own.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+During the fall and spring terms of that first year Keith had no sense
+of time. Days and weeks and months rolled by so smoothly that their
+passing was unnoticed. It is a question whether at any other period of
+his life--with one possible exception--he was more completely interested
+and, for that reason, satisfied.
+
+One day he observed casually that the old trees in the churchyard
+sported tiny green leaves under a deliciously blue but still rather cold
+sky. A few days more, and he heard that commencement was at hand.
+
+It was a time of great excitement in school. Who would pass and who
+would not? Falling through might mean another year in the same class,
+but beyond all doubt it meant a summer spent at work instead of playing.
+It was worse than a disgrace. It was a menace to liberty at the time of
+the year when liberty meant most.
+
+Being second in the class, it never occurred to Keith that he might fail
+of promotion to a higher grade, but at that end there were possible
+prizes to consider. The class was full of gossip and speculation. Boys
+who had hardly spoken to each other before broke into heated discussions
+or formed belated friendships. In one way and another the fever infected
+Keith and spread from him to his parents, though his father as usual
+feigned complete indifference. From his mother he learned long before
+the startling fact was meant to reach his ears, that his father had
+actually asked a day off at the bank in order to attend the exercises.
+This news increased Keith's fear by several degrees. He had no idea what
+might happen, and it would be unthinkably dreadful to have the father
+present if anything went wrong. But on the other hand, if ... well, what
+was there to happen anyhow?
+
+On the morning of the great day, a host of parents and relatives and
+other interested spectators crowded into the big assembly hall where
+places were reserved for them in the rear and along the walls. In the
+meantime the pupils gathered in their respective class-rooms, and from
+there they marched by twos to the hall, the lowest grade leading. Every
+boy was in his best clothes, and every one showed his nervousness in his
+own peculiar way. Keith laughed hysterically a few times before they
+started, and then he turned into an automaton that breathed and moved
+and heard and saw only as part of a gigantic machine. His own
+individuality seemed to melt and become a mere drop in the all-exclusive
+individuality of the school.
+
+This mood lasted through the early part of the exercises, the prayer
+read by the _primus_ of the senior class, the hymn singing, the Rector's
+speech, and so on. Everything came to him as out of a mist, and he was
+not even sufficiently conscious of himself to look around for a glimpse
+of his parents. When the distribution of exercises began, the whole
+atmosphere changed. 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. At the mention of each name, a boy rose from his
+seat, squirmed past his closely packed comrades, marched up the centre
+aisle to the platform, bowed awkwardly to the Rector, grabbed the prize,
+bowed still more awkwardly if possible, and marched back to his seat
+with a face that burned or blanched, grinned or glowed, according to
+temperament.
+
+The second grade was soon reached. Most of the prizes consisted of
+books. Davidson, _primus_, got two gilt-edged volumes of poetry. Keith
+caught a glimpse of them and experienced a twinge of envy. His heart was
+beating so that he thought he could hear it. His eyes clung to the
+Rector's mouth, and when the next name was read, he half rose. Then he
+sank back, and around him an ominous stillness seemed to reign.
+
+The name was that of Runge, _tertius_, who got some historical work.
+Then _quartus_, Blomberg, who was a passionate botanist, received a
+valuable text book on his favourite subject. Still the rector went on,
+and Keith felt sure that his name had been passed over by some mistake,
+and that now it would come.
+
+"A German lexicon for special attention to the student of that
+language," the Rector droned on.
+
+Again Keith started to rise from his seat, but even as he did so, it
+flashed through his mind that he was given no more attention to German
+than to other studies.
+
+"... to Otto Krass of the Second Grade," the Rector completed his
+sentence, holding out a book.
+
+As Keith sank back on the bench, Krass, _quintus_, rose with an
+expression on his face as if he had become personally involved in a
+particularly incredible miracle.
+
+A whisper ran through the rest of the class. Glances were cast at Keith,
+who felt them like so many lashes on bare skin although in every other
+respect he had once more become utterly unconscious of what happened
+about him.
+
+By slow degrees he recovered so far that he could try to think, but the
+process was unendurable. There could be no accident. It was a deliberate
+slight aimed at him for some specific reason. He tried to think of the
+past year and its happenings in and out of school, but this effort
+produced no solution to the riddle.
+
+Suddenly he bethought himself of his speculations concerning his place
+in the class. It seemed that he had been deeply envious of Davidson all
+that year. With a quick turn of the head he surveyed for a moment the
+haughty expression and narrowly drawn postures of the boy beside him.
+There was a trace of a sneer on that face, and again Keith's heart was
+flooded with resentment. But this mood changed abruptly into
+contriteness. Perhaps he was being punished by some one, by God--he
+hesitated at that thought--for grudging his schoolmate the place and the
+honours that he probably had deserved. Keith was the meanest of
+the mean....
+
+Krass was back in his seat showing his book. He showed it to Keith also,
+but with a palpable embarrassment that touched the latter as an
+additional blow. Keith tried to say that it was nice, but his lips were
+too dry and stiff to produce a sound.
+
+The Rector was still reading off names. To save himself from his own
+thoughts, Keith tried to listen. Soon he noticed that, without fail, the
+prizes went in unbroken sequence to the first four or five pupils in
+every grade. And suddenly he wondered whether his father and mother had
+noticed. What would they say? What could _he_ say?
+
+Then he remembered his mother's remark on hearing about his place in the
+class, and he wondered if it could be possible.... But the parents of
+Krass had neither wealth nor position. That much he knew.
+
+The Rector's voice and manner became more and more impressive, and the
+prizes more and more valuable, as he passed higher and higher, until at
+last the senior class was reached--the boys who were now graduating into
+the _gymnasium_. They were his own pupils, and for each of the prize
+winners from the two branches of that class he had a word of special
+praise and good-will.
+
+A restless stirring passed through the assembly as the boy expected to
+be the last recipient of special honours made his way to the platform
+and everybody prepared to rise for the singing of a closing hymn.
+
+Still the old Rector, with his smooth-shaven and deeply furrowed Roman
+face, remained standing, and once more an expectant hush fell upon
+pupils and spectators. Apparently he intended, contrary to custom, to
+follow up the main ceremony of the day with some important announcement.
+
+"One more prize remains to be distributed," he resumed with more than
+usual deliberation. "We do not have the pleasure of bestowing it
+regularly, because its conditions are unusual. It was the will of the
+donor that it should be given to that pupil who, regardless of grade and
+age, during the previous year had shown the relatively greatest
+aptitude, industry, and actual advance in knowledge. This year the
+prize, which consists of one hundred crowns in gold and is the largest
+at the disposal of our school, is to be distributed, and the pupil found
+worthy of this exceptional honour is...."
+
+Every eye was on the Rector as he paused dramatically. Every one in the
+hall listened breathlessly to catch the favoured name. Keith listened
+like the rest, a little enviously perhaps, but without serious
+attention, for it had just occurred to him for the tenth time that the
+situation would have been so much less unbearable if only his father had
+stayed away.
+
+"... this pupil is Keith Wellander of the Second Grade," the Rector
+concluded.
+
+A murmur swept the hall, and Keith felt himself the centre of many eyes.
+The murmur grew as the winner failed to appear, but Keith could not move
+a limb. Dumbly and unbelievingly he stared at the Rector and the group
+of teachers seated around him on the platform.
+
+"Come forward, Wellander," the Rector said in a friendly voice as if he
+could well understand the overwhelming effect of such distinction. At
+the same time Keith noticed Lector Dahlstroem rising partly from his seat
+on the platform as if to see whether anything might be the matter.
+
+Had the ceiling opened and an angel appeared in a fiery chariot to call
+him heavenward, the boy could not have been more startled. It was as if
+a terrific blow had paralyzed all his senses. His classmates had to push
+him forward. He never knew how he reached the platform, where the Rector
+was waiting for him with a small package ready for delivery. Keith felt
+the weight of that package in his own hand and the gentle touch of the
+Rector's hand on his head. Words were uttered that he did not catch, and
+the room became filled with the noise of boisterous applause.
+
+He bowed mechanically and turned to walk back to his seat, and as he did
+so, he noticed a white handkerchief waving at him from the rear of the
+hall. Behind the handkerchief he caught a glimpse of his mother's face,
+and a thought shot through his head:
+
+"Papa is here and has heard all this!"
+
+Then he relapsed into a state of utter oblivion of the surrounding
+world. The thing was too tremendous to be felt even. Automatically he
+moved out of the hall and back to the classroom with the rest. Dally was
+saying things to him, but he could not grasp a word. Now and then he
+became vaguely conscious of awed glances cast at him by the other boys.
+Some of them spoke to him, and in some strange way he managed to realize
+that Davidson was not among these.
+
+At last he woke into full consciousness on the street, where he found
+himself walking homeward by his father's hand. The pressure of that hand
+seemed unusually soft and pleasant. The mother was talking eagerly and
+wiping her eyes between little happy bursts of laughter. The father
+listened for a long while in silence.
+
+"Yes," he said at last, "it is not a bad beginning--if he can keep it
+up."
+
+Keith felt for a moment as if he were walking on air, and he knew that
+he would keep it up--that after such a day nothing could prevent him
+from keeping it up. Then a bewildering thought appeared out of nowhere
+and began to buzz in his tired and over-excited brain.
+
+"If I have done all that the Rector said," this thought demanded of him,
+"why in the world has Dally kept me sitting below Davidson who got
+nothing but books?"
+
+
+
+VII
+
+Keith next day was permitted to have a good look at the five
+twenty-crown pieces found in the package handed to him by the Rector.
+Their weight and brightness made them delightful to handle, but they
+were not "toys for children" his father remarked, and with that remark
+they passed out of sight for ever. Once or twice he put timid questions
+to his mother, who never answered directly, but reminded him of all the
+money his father had spent and was spending on him for food and clothes
+and schooling and all sorts of things. Keith almost wished that he had
+received some nice books instead, or anything that could make him feel
+that he really had got a big glorious reward for something he really had
+done. Now the achievement seemed as illusive as the reward.
+
+He tried to reason the case out with himself, and the conclusion at
+which he arrived was that his father probably was entitled and
+certainly welcome to the money, but that as he, Keith, had earned it and
+owned it, something should be said to him about the use of it. And as so
+often was the case, it became a question of abstract justice. The value
+and possibilities of the money lay beyond his grasp, but the ethics of
+its disposal, from his simple childish point of view, seemed too clear
+for serious discussion. Once or twice he stole a look at his savings
+bank book, which his mother kept among her own papers, but no new entry
+appeared on its meagre credit side. By and by he almost lost sight of
+the whole incident, engrossed as he was with the experiences of the
+current hour, but the memory of it recurred fitfully, and in moments of
+dissatisfaction it tended to assume the shape of a grievance, if not a
+charge, against the father. From this tendency he fled instinctively to
+an idea of money as not worth bothering about. And that idea also helped
+when the atmosphere of worry about money matters surrounding his mother
+became too intense and depressive.
+
+There was comparatively little of it that summer. His mother was in
+better health and spirits than he had seen her for a long time, and she
+was as happy as Keith when the father announced that they would have a
+summer place of their own on one of the islands in Lake Maelaren,
+somewhat farther out than the one where Uncle Laube lived. It was too
+far away to have become absorbed by the rapidly growing city, and yet
+too close at hand to be quite desirable as a summer location for the
+more prosperous. The island was of sufficient size to hold a couple of
+real farms in the centre, while the shore line was occupied by
+occasional villas. Halfway between these two mutually foreign regions,
+on a sharp slope that still remained largely uncleared, stood a little
+red house with just two rooms in it. One of these was occupied by the
+old couple that owned the house. The other one had been rented to the
+Wellanders for the summer, and in that one room the mother, the
+grandmother and Keith established themselves, with the father appearing
+as a regular week-end guest.
+
+Taking it all in all, it was the freest, and in many ways the happiest
+summer of Keith's childhood. He was permitted to roam around pretty much
+as he pleased, and there were several other small boys to play with,
+none of them enterprising enough to arouse the distrust of Keith's
+mother. They were all city boys however, as foreign to nature as Keith,
+and there was no older person on hand to give their excursions and games
+a constructive twist without turning them into lessons. There was plenty
+of wild life about, and it helped in many ways to give them a better
+time, but that was as near as they got to it. Exactly the same thing
+happened during subsequent summers, and so the boy always looked upon
+flowers and trees and birds and insects as delightful but puzzling
+representatives of a world of which he did not know the language.
+
+It was good fun, however, and temporarily it took Keith farther away
+from himself and from his cherished books than he had been since his
+first discovery of the latter. The boys proved decent, wholesome
+company, more bent on discharging their surplus energy than on doing
+mischief. Much of their time was spent in or near the water, so that
+Keith developed into a pretty good swimmer for his age, though always of
+the cautious type. And between games they would discuss the world from
+a boy's point of view. There was particularly one boy of the same age as
+Keith with whom he had talks of a kind quite new to him. Oscar's parents
+were still very young, and he spoke of them more as chums than as
+masters. And he spoke of them with a sort of restrained enthusiasm that
+set Keith thinking very hard. He loved his parents, especially his
+mother, and admired them, especially his father at certain times, but he
+was not conscious of any feeling about them corresponding to the one
+displayed by Oscar, whose father, after all, was nothing but a captain
+on one of the small steam sloops running between the city and some of
+the surrounding islands.
+
+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. But that's not enough. That's not
+the way my parents love each other. And I don't think your father cares
+so very much for your mother. But my father is so much in love with my
+mother that he would like to eat what she has chewed!"
+
+"No--o!" protested Keith, rather appalled by the illustration used, and
+yet feeling as if he had beheld some undiscovered country. There was a
+pause during which he stared incredulously at Oscar.
+
+"I mean just what I said," insisted Oscar a little more quietly after a
+while. "Anything that has to do with my mother is sweet to my father, I
+tell you. And that is love. If you don't know it, you don't know what
+love is either."
+
+"But why," demanded Keith, his mind still so full of the disturbing
+image called forth by Oscar that his jaws moved uneasily as if he had
+taken into his mouth something unpalatable.
+
+"Because," Oscar hesitated ... "because it is that way."
+
+Keith left shortly afterwards to think it over in solitude. It was
+probably the first time the word love had been presented to him as
+anything but a commonplace term for laudable but commonplace feelings.
+He puzzled over it, but to little purpose, and for some reason he
+thought it useless or unwise to ask his mother for information.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+The third grade proved merely a continuation of the second. Little had
+changed over summer. A few boys had been dropped behind and a few others
+overtaken. That affected the bottom of the class, but not the top. Dally
+remained their principal, and when he welcomed them back at the opening
+of the fall term, Keith waited excitedly for the distribution of
+places. Few changes were made however. Davidson remained _primus_ as
+before, with Keith next. Then came Runge and Blomberg as before. For a
+day or two Keith swung violently between fits of rebellion and deep
+depression. It seemed almost incredible that he could have received the
+highest prize bestowed on any pupil in the school.
+
+Then the routine of instruction and study seized him. New text-books
+were acquired, not without some grumbling on his father's part. New
+interests were stirring and, as usual, cleverly nursed by Dally. Above
+all, the magnetic power of the teacher asserted itself once more, until
+Keith felt that the only thing really worth while in life was to
+please him.
+
+Algebra was one of the new subjects, and the use of letters instead of
+figures amused Keith for a while. But it took no serious hold on his
+mind. The whole field of mathematics left him strangely uninterested
+although he was good at arithmetic. He thought the problems of Euclid
+stupid. Once he had learned how to prove a theorem, it seemed so
+ridiculously self-evident that he wondered why anybody should bother his
+brain about it. There were other boys who could figure out the
+demonstrations in advance without looking at the book. Keith tried it
+once or twice, but failed miserably and gave it up as a worthless and
+thankless job. Apparently his brain did not work in that way. It had to
+touch real life to be at its best. History and geography were his
+favourite subjects, and in those he led the class. This was openly
+admitted by Dally himself.
+
+Literature was another new subject. They read and analysed and
+criticized classical Swedish poetry--Tegner and Runeberg and Geijer.
+Most of the poems chosen for the purpose were historical and took their
+themes from the old viking days or from the glorious centuries of
+Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII, when Sweden so nearly rose to be a
+great power. Keith liked to take certain sonorous passages into his
+mouth. There was a satisfying fullness and richness about them that
+seemed somehow to enhance his own feeling of self-importance. Their
+rhythm also pleased him and became a sort of substitute for the singing
+of which he was incapable. Chiefly, however, it was the stories told by
+the poems that interested him, and on the whole he did not think much of
+poetry. But this opinion he never dared to put into words. To do so in
+the face of Dally's clearly manifested reverence would have been like
+openly confessing a particularly degrading form of inferiority.
+
+Nor did it seem to matter so very much what he studied. The main thing
+always remained what Dally said and did in his efforts to bring out
+something within the self of each boy for which only he seemed to have
+an eye. Keith at times felt as if he would give anything to know what
+Dally expected of him in particular. He felt sure that it must be
+something wonderful, and he had odd moments of almost being on the verge
+of grasping it, but in the end it always eluded him, and no sooner was
+he out of Dally's presence than the whole thing seemed very unreal
+and foolish.
+
+
+
+IX
+
+Young Davidson had a bent toward sarcasm that sometimes lured him out of
+his usual cold aloofness. In one of these rare communicative moments he
+said of little Loth that he crossed the equator at least once a week and
+didn't mind. He referred to the fact that Loth was more frequently moved
+than any other pupil but always managed to retain a place near the
+centre. And no matter what fate might bring him of ups or downs, Loth
+always retained a perfect composure. Yet he was small and nervous and
+highstrung like Keith and Bauer. One day Keith asked him how he could
+stand being shoved about like that.
+
+"Because my father says I am going into business anyhow," answered Loth,
+"and I don't know whether I hate business or books most."
+
+"What would you like to do," asked Keith looking puzzled.
+
+"Draw," said Loth vaguely, "and play the piano, and go to the theatre,
+and--yes, and read poetry books that don't teach you anything."
+
+This view of life was so new to Keith that he really tried to become
+acquainted with Loth in order to learn more about it. His own
+indifference to anything but books promised small success, but in the
+end a tie was found in their common love of tin soldiers. So he was
+admitted to Loth's particular circle and was even invited to Loth's
+home for a birthday party--the first and last of its kind that he
+attended during his five years at Old Mary. Before permitted to go, he
+was warned that the servant girl would come for him at nine. No amount
+of pleading helped to ameliorate that condition.
+
+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. They seemed to know what to do at every moment, and how
+to do it. Keith was accustomed to decent manners. Social intercourse in
+the parental circle was not without grace, but this was something
+different. At the time he was utterly incapable of telling where the
+difference lay, and years afterward he realized what subtle shadings it
+depended on. The main thing at the time was that something in himself
+responded instinctively to the higher degree of polish and
+self-assurance which he now for the first time was able to observe at
+close quarters.
+
+The principal entertainment of the evening was a monster battle with tin
+soldiers on the cleared floor of the huge dining-room. The battle was at
+its height and supper was not yet in sight, when Keith learned that the
+girl was waiting for him. There was nothing to do but to obey, but the
+hostess could not think of letting him go without having eaten. A
+special service was prepared for him in the kindest way possible, and
+Keith enjoyed very much the many dainties offered him. Nevertheless he
+felt the situation as humiliating and was actually glad when he got away
+at last. But the gladness was only a surface gloss on a burning core of
+regrets and dissatisfaction.
+
+In a way that evening, which was never repeated, proved a new starting
+point in his life. He had had his first close contact with life on a
+higher social level, and he could not forget it. New standards had been
+furnished him, and unconsciously he was applying them all the time to
+all sorts of things--his parents included. Until then he had blindly
+accepted them and their ways and their environment as representing the
+best this world had to offer. Now the basis had been laid for doubts
+that gradually developed into positive criticism.
+
+The immediate result seemed quite irrelevant. He developed a sudden
+objection to running errands for his mother, and especially to doing
+anything that involved the carrying of bags or bottles or baskets
+through the streets. Packages looking as if they might contain books
+remained unobjectional. There was a time when being sent to the grocery
+store was a privilege and a distinction. Later it became an opportunity
+for clandestine meetings with Johan. Even during his first year at Old
+Mary he continued to perform such tasks without any thought of what
+others might think of them. He must have heard things, however, and
+inner resistances must have developed, which were now brought into
+sudden appearance by the inner echoes of Loth's birthday party.
+
+He did not dare to breathe a word about his new state of mind in his
+father's presence. And it was long before he gathered courage to voice
+it openly before his mother. But he used all the arguments and evasions
+and tricks he could muster to escape what had become a dreaded ordeal.
+It developed into a test of will and strength between Keith and his
+mother--the first of its kind, and the forerunner of numerous others
+still more deep-reaching. After a while the father discovered or learned
+what was going on, but, contrary to custom, that was not enough to
+settle the matter. In this case, neither argument nor threats had any
+effect on Keith. He avoided open conflict with his father for good and
+sufficient reason, and he did what could not be escaped, but he did it
+in a spirit of passionate rebellion that introduced a new element of
+division and strife the home. Both parents seemed instinctively to
+interpret the boy's changed attitude as a reflection on themselves, and
+they resented it keenly, but to no avail. While pretending to insist on
+full obedience as before, they gave way in reality by making the servant
+girl do the errands in place of Keith.
+
+"One of these days I suppose we shall not be good enough for you any
+longer," said his mother bitterly one day while the contest was
+still on.
+
+"Why, mamma," cried Keith, disturbed by the emotional appeal back of her
+words, "what has that to do with my not wanting to be laughed at by
+other boys?"
+
+"I almost wish I hadn't persuaded your father to send you to the public
+school," the mother rejoined.
+
+
+
+X
+
+The school year was drawing to its close again Dally's tone grew less
+bantering. On several occasions he delivered little impromptu sermons on
+the seriousness of life and the difficulties of living. One afternoon
+about two weeks before commencement he told them to close their books.
+
+"I want each one of you to tell me what you expect to become in life, or
+what kind of a career your parents have chosen for you."
+
+A stir of excitement swept over the class.
+
+Then Dally went on to explain why he wished to know. The first three
+grades were divided into A and B classes, but that had nothing to do
+with the teaching, which was the same in both classes. The fourth and
+fifth grades, on the other hand, were divided into a "Latin" and an
+"English" branch, with quite different curricula. Boys headed for the
+various professions ought to choose the former branch, while the second
+one led to more practical pursuits.
+
+"You are going to be an officer, I understand." Dally said, turning to
+_primus_.
+
+"Yes, sir," the young Jew answered with a self-importance that even
+Keith could not miss. "My father wants me to try for the General Staff,
+and so I have to specialize on mathematics."
+
+"Humph," was Dally's only audible comment as he made a note, but he
+looked as if he had tasted something unpleasant.
+
+"And you, Wellander," asked the teacher.
+
+"I am going to be an explorer," replied Keith without moment's
+hesitation, and the whole class broke into a roar of laughter with Dally
+joining them.
+
+Keith, as usual, blushed a deep crimson, but did not move.
+
+"That's neither a trade nor a profession," said Dally after a while,
+still smiling. "I fear you are fuzzy-wuzzying again, Wellander. What do
+you mean by an explorer?"
+
+"One who explores rivers and deserts and unknown countries and such
+things," said Keith brazenly.
+
+"And you really mean that you are going in for that sort of thing?"
+
+"I do," Keith insisted, while the whole class watched him in a hush that
+might easily turn either into derision or into approval.
+
+"There isn't much exploring left to be done," Dally mused, looking
+intently at the small boy at the other end of the room. "Most of the
+globe is mapped already."
+
+"There is a lot left in Africa," Keith retorted eagerly.
+
+"And what does your father say about it," was Dally's next question.
+
+There was a long pause broken only by some gigglings by the
+irrepressibles down at the bottom of the class.
+
+"I have not asked him," Keith admitted at last. "But I am going to be an
+explorer just the same."
+
+"In these days that means you have to become a scientist," Dally
+remarked in a changed tone. "It is your only chance, and so I advise
+you to choose Latin. It is what I think a boy with your head should
+take anyhow."
+
+"All right, Sir," assented Keith, flattered by the last part of Dally's
+remark and utterly ignorant of what his choice implied.
+
+That evening he told his father that he had been asked whether he wanted
+to enter the Latin or the English branch of the fourth grade, and that
+he had chosen the former.
+
+"Why," asked his father.
+
+"Because Dally says I ought to," replied Keith.
+
+"Well, he ought to know," said the father.
+
+But when Keith appeared in the schoolyard during one of the pauses next
+day, he was met from every side by the cry:
+
+"There's the explorer! There's the explorer!"
+
+The younger boys jeered openly at him. The older ones pretended to ask
+him serious questions about his plans. For days he was the laughing
+stock of the whole school, and even on his way to and from school he was
+pursued by jibes and taunts. Through it all Keith stuck quietly to his
+guns, without a sign of retraction or evasion. And in the end his
+seriousness conquered. But from that day he was known to the entire
+school as "the explorer," and he heard that term more often than his
+own name.
+
+
+
+XI
+
+It was the afternoon of the last day before commencement. The atmosphere
+in the class was solemn and more than a little wistful.
+
+"It is our last hour together," said Dally when all were back in their
+seats after the pause. "History is on the schedule, but--schedules are
+not made for moments like these. Let us just have a friendly talk."
+
+He did practically all the talking, and he talked to them more as an
+older boy, a chum with somewhat wider experience, than as a teacher and
+class principal. It made them feel their own importance rather heavily,
+but still more it made them conscious of an irreparable loss. They knew
+that school would not be the same in the fall, when Dally no longer was
+with them. In accordance with established custom, he would go back to
+the first grade and start piloting a new generation up to the point
+where they had just arrived.
+
+The class would break up, too. Some would have to stay behind. One or
+two had gone as far as they could and would make a premature transfer
+from school to life. Others were bound for other schools or other
+cities. The rest would split in two and join with the corresponding
+parts of the parallel section to form two entirely new classes. It gave
+them a foretaste of what it would mean to graduate into the _gymnasium_,
+and from there into the university. And it filled their hearts with
+wistful pride.
+
+The last hour was drawing to a close and everybody was talking at once,
+when Dally unexpectedly asked them to give him their full attention once
+more for few minutes.
+
+"An act of justice remains to be performed," he said. "There is a boy
+among you who has not received all that he had justly deserved. It was
+withheld from him by me for his own welfare. The time has now come when
+he and you should know all about it."
+
+As he paused for a moment, the boys looked around at each other with
+something like consternation. Their curiosity was intense. He spoke with
+a tensity of feeling they had hardly ever noticed in him before, and not
+one of them had an inkling of what he was driving at.
+
+"It means that some of you have received more than they deserved," he
+resumed. "That also should be known--for the good of all. It is a
+reflection on no one but myself, however, and I think you know me well
+enough by this time to be sure that I have been moved by no other
+consideration than the future good of the one most nearly concerned."
+
+Again he stopped, the class waiting breathlessly for him to go on. At
+that moment Keith became aware that the teacher's gaze rested firmly on
+him with an expression that sent the blood in a hot stream to his face.
+
+"Wellander," Dally began again, and in spite of the beating of his own
+heart, Keith noticed that the teacher's voice trembled a little as he
+spoke. "Will you do me the favour of rising a moment? You are the boy I
+have in mind."
+
+Keith rose like an automaton. His eyes clung to the lips of the
+teacher, and he seemed to expect from those lips some utterance that
+must make his whole future life different. As often happened in moments
+of intensified emotion, he became strangely oblivious of all the little
+eddies and cross-currents of thoughts and feelings that made up his
+ordinary, every-day consciousness of himself.
+
+"For two years I have kept you number two in the class," Dally said,
+speaking in an easier tone as if to lighten the strain on everybody.
+"You should have been number one. Davidson, whom I placed above you has
+at no time been your superior in anything but self-control. But it was
+just your--what I have sometimes called your fuzzy-wuzziness, that made
+me afraid of placing you where you rightly belonged, at the head of the
+class. It is my belief that you have in you greater gifts than any other
+boy in this class, but I am not yet sure of what you will do with them.
+It was my eagerness to see you make full use of them that made me poke
+fun at you and keep you out of the place that rightfully was yours.
+Perhaps I did wrong, but my meaning was right. I shall always watch you
+closely, and I hope you will try your best not to disappoint me. Will
+you promise that?"
+
+"I will," gasped Keith.
+
+The clock had already struck three. The moment Dally stopped, the class
+broke up, but only to gather about Keith--every one of them except
+Davidson, who slipped out of the room with a face white as chalk. Keith
+caught a glimpse of that face, and a sense of reckless elation shot
+through him.
+
+He sped as never before on his way home. It was still impossible for
+him to think the matter through. First he must tell his parents and hear
+what they had to say about it.
+
+On hearing what had happened, his mother hugged and kissed him, her face
+all smiles while big tears dripped down her cheeks. Then the father came
+home and was told everything. His mother looked serious by that time,
+and Keith noticed a wavering expression in her voice.
+
+"Your teacher evidently knows you," was the father's first remark to
+Keith, but by his tone the boy knew that he was pleased. Then he
+hesitated, and after a while he said as if speaking to himself: "But if
+Keith really had earned the first place...."
+
+"That's what I have been thinking," the mother broke in with blazing
+eyes. "Do you remember what I said about that boy Davidson? He was the
+richest boy in the class, and Lector Dahlstroem simply did not dare to
+put Keith above him. Now he is trying to make up for it when it's
+too late."
+
+"Perhaps," said the father thoughtfully. "The sum of it is what I have
+always said: the coin that was made for a farthing will never be
+a dollar."
+
+"But Keith was not made for a farthing," the mother retorted sharply and
+indignantly. "That is the main point of what his teacher confessed in
+school this very day."
+
+"Well, if not," said the father wearily, "it is up to him to prove it."
+
+And Keith, too, all of a sudden felt very, very tired.
+
+
+
+XII
+
+Keith was one of the first to enter the class room on the morning of
+Commencement Day. He was still standing near the door when Davidson
+appeared and evidently meant to walk past him without a greeting.
+
+"Say, Davidson," Keith cried impulsively, holding out his hand, "I don't
+mind!"
+
+"Well, what do you think I care," the other boy asked icily as he turned
+on his heel and walked out of the room again without taking the
+proffered hand.
+
+It was the first time that Keith felt the sting of real hatred. He could
+never have acted like that--not even toward one who had wronged him
+seriously. What galled him most was that he had been made to look as if
+he were apologizing. Then a sense of triumph returned little by little,
+but it was not very vivid, and what he missed utterly was the fact that
+no other situation could have been quite so hard on Davidson's pride as
+the one in which Dally had placed him. A realization of that fact came
+only years afterwards.
+
+Then Dally himself arrived, and soon the commencement exercises were in
+full progress, Keith feeling quite superior to any curiosity or
+excitement. Again he received a prize, and again it was in the form of
+money, but a smaller sum not accompanied by any special encomiums. He
+walked home very quietly with his parents, and they had not much to
+say either.
+
+Had Keith known what an anti-climax was, he would undoubtedly have used
+that word to describe the experiences of his second Commencement Day
+at Old Mary.
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+The summer was spent quietly on the same island where he had been so
+happy a year before. Oscar was not there. Other boys took his place, but
+no real intimacy sprang up between them and Keith. They certainly did
+not talk of love, and what they knew of sex took Keith back to the days
+spent around the big rock. He had a good time on the whole, but more and
+more a sense of missing something fretted him, and he could not tell
+what it was. For emotional outlet he was wholly dependent on his mother,
+and though he seemed as devoted to her as ever, he had queer spells of
+wishing to get away from her. The father was more in the background than
+ever during the summer. Once in a while he would show up on a weekday
+evening very tired, and leave again with the first morning boat. During
+the week-end he wanted above all to rest, and Keith was partly happy and
+partly unhappy at being left alone.
+
+Once only during that summer did his father appear under circumstances
+that impressed themselves on the boy's memory. It was the day of the
+annual regatta of the Yacht Club. When the races were over, the yachts
+were towed back to the city by a large steamer, escorted by a whole
+flotilla of every kind of craft loaded with sightseers. It was the gala
+evening of the season. As the tender twilight of the August night
+descended on the smooth waters of the Lake Maelaren, every villa along
+the shores became brightly illuminated, while the progress of the fleet
+was marked by incessant bursts of fireworks.
+
+The Wellanders had a splendid view from the little platform on which
+their cottage stood. Some friends had been invited for the day, and the
+father had brought with him from the city a package of fireworks. But
+instead of wasting money on sky-rockets or other expensive pieces, he
+had concentrated almost wholly on blue and red lights, which he placed
+among the trees and over the plateau and set off in batches, first one
+colour and then the other. Because the place was so high up, apart from
+the rest, and so heavily wooded, the effect was probably very pretty
+from the water. Anyhow a burst of applause was heard from the
+passing flotilla.
+
+"That's for us," said Keith's father, "and not for those rich people
+down by the shore."
+
+As usual when very much pleased, he laughed while speaking so that it
+was hard to hear what he said. 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. To this wonderful thing his father
+had added a personal triumph in which the whole family participated. It
+silenced incipient criticism for a long time.
+
+Nevertheless there was another side to that self-satisfied remark of his
+father, and it also stuck in his memory. Back of the proud words lay
+envy and deference, and a suggestion of hopeless separation. In Keith's
+mind it became tied up with his memories from Loth's party, and all of
+it formed a complex of thought from which he tried his best to get
+away--and most of the time successfully.
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+For lack of sufficient accommodations in the over-crowded old building,
+one class had to use the assembly hall. To make the many disadvantages
+more palatable, this location was presented as an honour reserved for
+the class shepherded by the old Rector himself. Of this "honour" Keith
+became a participant when the fall term opened.
+
+There were no desks--only benches without backs. The rest of the school
+left with a sense of relief after using them only during the fifteen
+minutes of morning prayer. To sit on them hours at a stretch turned the
+day into torture before it was half done. The only way of resting was to
+bend far forward with humped back, and no sooner did the Rector
+discover a boy in that position than he descended on the sinner:
+
+"Straight in the back, boy! What do you think you are--an old hag
+sorting rags?"
+
+No attempt was made to arrange the boys according to merit. On the first
+day every one chose a seat to suit himself, and so Keith found himself
+number five without knowing how it had happened. Number four was a boy
+of his own size and age named George Murray, who seemed to be as
+friendless as was Keith.
+
+Instead of one teacher, they had a dozen at least, few of whom gave
+instruction in more than a single subject. It smacked of university and
+made the boys feel much advanced. The curriculum showed an imposing
+array of new subjects--Latin, French, universal history, physics,
+chemistry, and so on. Their novelty caught and carried Keith for a
+good while.
+
+Latin was still the most important study of all. It was taught by the
+Rector himself, who worshipped everything classic with a religious
+devotion and who maintained in so many words that a man's culture was
+measured by his mastery of the Roman tongue. In the lower grades it had
+been spoken of with bated breath. Keith had looked forward to the first
+lesson with trembling impatience. He plunged into the declination of
+_mensa_ with the fervour of a convert. He translated the text-book's
+_colomba est timida_ with a sense of performing a sacred rite. Days went
+by before he dared to admit to himself that his interest was waning,
+
+Even then he went on studying without a thought of rebellion. The habit
+of application had become deeply rooted. The pride born out of his first
+easy successes still had urged him to master any subject offered. But
+there was a change in his manner of studying as well as in his general
+attitude toward the school. Until then he had been an acolyte in sacred
+precincts. Now he turned gradually into a time-server doing his duty out
+of vanity and a desire to remain a public school pupil. Until then he
+had never felt that he had to study. Now fear of the old Rector and of
+his father entered more and more as conscious motives.
+
+He missed the kind guidance of Dally. The Rector never became the soul
+and guardian of the class in the manner of Dally. The other teachers
+came and went without other interest than to insure a decent showing in
+their respective subjects. All had favourites chosen from those pupils
+who showed most aptitude for mathematics, natural history or whatever it
+happened to be. No one was interested in the class as a whole, and no
+one cared for its individual members as human beings in the make. Within
+a short time Keith was simply drifting, although neither he nor those
+appointed to guide him were aware of it at the time.
+
+
+
+XV
+
+Keith took a liking to George Murray from the start. During the first
+couple of days he looked at him frequently as if to invite acquaintance,
+but the other boy always appeared deeply attentive to the subject of the
+hour. During the pauses he withdrew into a corner as if to forestall
+possible advances. At the end of the second day Keith and Murray
+reached the stairway simultaneously and started for the street side by
+side. Murray's pale, aristocratic and very narrow face with unduly
+prominent teeth still bore a look of indifference, but his attitude had
+lost a little of its previous stiffness.
+
+"Where do you live," Keith ventured with for him rare forwardness.
+
+"On the Quay," replied Murray in a voice that neither encouraged nor
+discouraged.
+
+"Where," asked Keith eagerly.
+
+"Corner of St. John's Lane."
+
+"That's my corner," cried Keith. "I live in the lane, and we have the
+same way home."
+
+"All right," was Murray's only answer, which Keith accepted in the
+affirmative.
+
+Little more was said until they reached the top of the hill above Carl
+Johan Square, when Keith explained that he always kept to the left along
+the shore of Lake Maelaren.
+
+"I always take the other way," rejoined Murray, suiting his actions to
+his words.
+
+"All right," said Keith in his turn, going along toward the saltwater
+side of the harbour as if it had been the route of his own choice. They
+stopped for a moment to watch the sloops in the fish market loaded
+almost to the point of foundering with live fish. Further out a number
+of large sailing vessels rode at anchor. Still further away, where the
+southern shore drew close to the point of the island with the turreted
+red fort, a big black steamer was seen slowly creeping toward its
+landing place at the Quay. For a moment Murray studied it intently,
+shading his eyes in sailor fashion to see better.
+
+"That's one of our steamers," he said at last.
+
+"Do you mean you own it," gasped Keith incredulously.
+
+"The company does," explained Murray.
+
+"Which company?"
+
+"The one of which my father is managing director."
+
+"Are there many of them," Keith asked to be polite. It sounded too much
+like a fairy tale.
+
+"Seven," replied Murray casually. "They are all painted black and sail
+on foreign ports."
+
+"Did you ever travel on one," inquired Keith with something like awe in
+his voice.
+
+"Yes," said the slim youngster by his side as if it had been the most
+natural thing in the world. "Many times, as far as the pilot station,
+with papa. And last summer he took me along on a real journey to
+England. That's where our family comes from, and we were gone three
+whole weeks."
+
+"Were you scared," Keith asked almost in a whisper.
+
+"No." Murray shook his head with quick assurance. "That is, not much. We
+had a storm in the North Sea coming back, but papa said it was nothing
+to be afraid of, and for a while I was too sick to care."
+
+"Sick!" Keith echoed. "And were you not awfully scared?"
+
+"No," Murray insisted, looking rather pleased. "Not much."
+
+Keith was too overwhelmed to ask more questions just then. The rest of
+the way home was traversed in silence. At the corner of the lane they
+parted with a mutual nod. Then Keith bolted up the lane and up the three
+nights of stairs. Entering the kitchen breathlessly, he yelled out with
+his cap still on his head: "I walked home with Murray who lives at the
+corner and whose papa owns seven ships and who sits next to me in
+the class."
+
+"Little boys should be civil," suggested Granny with a glance at the
+cap. "And they should also remember that equals make the best playmates,
+and that all is not gold that glistens."
+
+"Oh, he's my equal," Keith declared triumphantly.
+
+"With plenty to spare," retorted Granny. "But are you his?"
+
+It made Keith walk home alone the next day, and as he shuffled along
+listlessly, the almost obliterated memory of Harald came back to him.
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+The attraction had been established, however--on one side at least--and
+it would not let itself be smothered. Nor did Keith make any strong
+effort in that direction. It was not his way. He found it as hard to
+abstain from what gave him pleasure for the moment as to bear whatever
+seemed unpleasant or painful.
+
+Murray made no approaches of any kind, but he did not resist. His
+acceptance of Keith's friendship was purely passive, and there was
+always a limit to it. At first they simply walked home together from
+school. Of course, they sat side by side during the lessons, but Murray
+gave his whole attention to the teacher or to his book. If Keith tried
+to whisper to him, Murray merely frowned at him. During the pauses they
+were often together, chatting or playing, but it could also happen that
+Murray chose to mix with some group of fellow pupils in such a manner
+that Keith could not get near to him. Sometimes Keith would then also
+join them. More often he would hover on the outskirts in a state of
+utter misery.
+
+Even when the school closed for the day, it depended entirely on Keith
+if they were to have company home. Murray never waited. If Keith was not
+in sight when he reached the street, he went right on. Several times
+Keith had to run several blocks to overtake his friend.
+
+"Why couldn't you wait a minute for me," he asked when he had recovered
+his breath after one of those pursuits.
+
+"Oh, that's so silly," was Murray's only reply, and a repetition of the
+question on two or three subsequent occasions brought no more
+satisfactory response. Keith did not press the matter beyond that point
+and uttered no protest at Murray's real or assumed indifference.
+
+Until then Keith had always taken East Long Street on his way to school
+in the morning. Now he turned invariably down the lane to the Quay. On
+reaching the corner, he took a long look at the corner house where
+Murray lived. Two mornings he saw no one and walked on. The third
+morning Murray happened to appear just as Keith reached the corner.
+After that Keith waited for his friend, and they walked together to as
+well as from school. Having waited very long one morning and fearing
+that his friend had passed already, Keith ventured into the house, when
+he caught sight of Murray coming out of a door reached by a little spur
+of the main stairway.
+
+"Is that where you live," asked Keith.
+
+"That's the kitchen door," said Murray. "Our main entrance is in front
+on the landing above. It's quicker for me to get out this way in the
+morning, and I don't have to disturb anybody."
+
+A few mornings later, Murray was late again, and Keith after long
+hesitation walked up to the kitchen door and knocked. A pleasant-faced
+serving girl opened.
+
+"Oh, you are the little fellow who waits for George every morning," she
+said with a smile. "Come in and wait here. He'll be ready in a moment."
+
+After that Keith went straight up to the kitchen every morning. It was a
+room as large as a hall, shiningly clean, and well furnished as a dining
+and living-room for the three women serving there. Keith became quite
+familiar with it, but he always remained by the door, and he always felt
+that he ought not to be there. Yet he could no more resist going there
+than he could stop breathing, it seemed.
+
+That kitchen was the only part of Murray's home he ever saw. He never
+caught a glimpse even of his friend's mother, who evidently was a very
+exclusive lady. Two or three times he saw Murray on the street after
+school hours in company with a tall, portly and handsome gentleman, whom
+he took to be the father. Later his guess was confirmed, but Murray
+never showed any inclination to let his parents become aware of Keith's
+existence.
+
+For a long while this did not matter to Keith. In fact, he was not
+aware of anything but his own devotion. Murray's willingness to accept
+it only when nothing else was in sight did not bother him. He had found
+some one to worship at last, and he gave himself to that feeling with an
+abandon that knew of no reserves and that asked no questions. He looked
+up to the other boy as, in ages long gone by, a faithful vassal used to
+look up to his liege lord. And it seemed only meet that such a superior
+being as Murray should bestow or withhold his favour in accordance with
+his own sweet pleasure.
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+Keith had just parted from his chum at the corner of the lane one
+afternoon, when he caught sight of Johan near the big back door of the
+house opposite the one where Murray lived.
+
+"What are you doing," he said without much enthusiasm.
+
+Johan beckoned mysteriously and would not say a word until he had got
+Keith into the shadow of the huge gateway leading to the paved yard in
+the rear of the house.
+
+"Can't you come on," he cried impatiently at last "I don't want mumsey
+to see me."
+
+When both were hidden from the kitchen window through which Fru
+Gustafsson used to keep a religiously preoccupied eye on the doings of
+her son, Johan pulled a cigarette from within his coat sleeve and a
+match from his pocket. Then he scratched the match on the seat of his
+pants and lit the cigarette with the air of a man who knows what is
+bliss. Keith watched him with feelings too confused for expression.
+
+"What would your mamma say if she saw you," he asked at last,
+instinctively dropping his voice to a whisper.
+
+"She'd tell popsey," Johan rejoined promptly, "and I'd get another
+licking. But it's worth it."
+
+There was a long pause during which Keith watched his old playmate's
+unmistakable enjoyment with a mixture of consternation and admiration,
+of envy and resentment.
+
+"I have got another," said Johan after a while. "Try it."
+
+Keith shook his head. He was on the verge of saying that "mamma won't
+let me," but checked himself in time as he recalled the results of an
+earlier use of that too truthful explanation.
+
+"Murray wouldn't smoke," he ventured after another pause.
+
+"Him up there, you mean," inquired Johan with a gesture of his thumb
+toward the house across the lane, Of course, he wouldn't. He's a miss."
+
+"He is not," Keith cried passionately.
+
+"And he's a stiff, too," Johan went on without any particular display of
+feeling. "And you're a fool, that's all."
+
+There was a coolness between them.
+
+"I think mamma is waiting for me," remarked Keith as he started to walk
+off.
+
+"Of course she is waiting for her baby," Johan retorted with a leer.
+
+Keith stopped and thought. Murray would fight for a thing like that, he
+said to himself. Or would he? Without having reached a decision Keith
+made for his own house, trying to look as if Johan didn't exist.
+
+"He has no real use for you, and you'll find it out," was Johan's
+parting shot.
+
+Keith was suddenly struck with the coarseness of Johan's manners and
+speech. He was making comparisons in his mind, and as a result the image
+of Murray seemed more resplendent than ever.
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+"Did you ever try to smoke," he asked Murray next morning.
+
+"No," was the disdainful reply. "I know papa wouldn't like it, and it's
+nasty anyhow."
+
+"How do you know," wondered Keith.
+
+"Because I know," rejoined Murray. It was a way he had, and it always
+settled the matter. A cold, tired look would appear on his face if Keith
+tried to press a subject after such an answer, and before that look
+Keith quailed.
+
+His state was hopeless. He accepted as law whatever his friend said or
+did. And although their friendship, such as it was, lasted only two
+years, Keith did not take up smoking until he was in camp as a
+conscript at the age of twenty.
+
+In school it was the same. And the fact that Murray attended to his
+studies with scrupulous exactness was probably one of the factors that
+helped Keith through the grade without any loss of standing as
+a scholar.
+
+Like Loth, Murray had mildly artistic leanings, and because he liked to
+draw and to sing, Keith, too, had to join in those studies, although
+both were elective, and although the singing classes twice a week
+consumed one of the two precious lunch hours that otherwise could be
+used so profitably for play or study. Keith had neither aptitude nor
+interest for draftsmanship, being curiously set toward the written word.
+He would have liked to sing well, as he had noticed that boys having a
+good voice were always popular and received a lot of flattering
+attention. But his ear was so poor that for a while it looked as if he
+would not even be admitted to the singing practices. His persistence
+prevailed in the end, and when he and Murray stood side by side, using
+the same song-book while practicing some brave old student song, he felt
+as much happiness as ever fell to his share in those days.
+
+They had common hours in gymnastics, too, but they were compulsory three
+times a week, and Murray took them as a duty rather than a pleasure.
+Keith them on the whole, and unlike most of the other boys, he preferred
+the slow routine of the setting-up exercises to the more athletic
+features. While he never consciously realized the cause of that
+preference at the time, it would not have been difficult for a fairly
+intelligent observer to discover it.
+
+Keith was still one of the smallest boys in the school utterly lacking
+any physical superiority, although he was in excellent health and never
+had experienced a single one of the ailments that commonly dodge the
+steps of childhood. He could not shine in jumping or leaping or
+climbing, but in the drill his painstaking attention placed him on a par
+with everybody else. It was his one chance of feeling himself the
+physical equal of his schoolmates, and it was the only field of common
+endeavour outside the lessons where he was not made to feel his own
+inferiority.
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+The insufficiency of one room as a living place for three persons had
+long been evident. Keith was in his twelfth year, and he still slept on
+the chaiselongue opposite his father's and mother's bed. He had ceased
+to pretend that the corner between the window and his mother's bureau
+could possibly be considered a satisfactory "play-room." Then a tenant
+who had lived with them quite a while left, and the parlour became
+unexpectedly vacant. Keith revelled in the free use of it, and his
+mother talked seriously of not renting it again, but the father insisted
+that they could not afford to keep it for themselves.
+
+Then Keith's mother had a bright idea. She inserted an advertisement
+offering a home and "as good as parental care" to a boy from the
+country for the school season. An answer was received, negotiations
+progressed favourably, and soon Albert Mendelius, the son of a minister,
+was installed in the parlour with understanding that his use of it was
+exclusive only at night. In the daytime it was common ground for both
+boys, and Keith did his studying in there, but he continued to sleep on
+the chaiselongue.
+
+The boys got on very well together, and yet no real friendship sprang up
+between them. Albert, who attended a different school, had his own
+associates, and Keith could not take much of his mind off Murray. It
+made a great improvement in Keith's living conditions, however, and he
+hoped it would last.
+
+When Albert went home to celebrate Christmas, Keith was asked to pay him
+a visit after the holidays. This invitation became still more attractive
+when Keith received a fine pair of skates for a Christmas present. He
+had never seen the country in winter, and the impression it made on him
+was a little startling. The sight of the dark pines against the white
+carpet of the snow filled him with a mystic longing so strong that it
+almost frightened him. When he and Albert put on their skates and
+stretched out at full speed across the lake that spread its floor of
+dark glass within a stone's throw of the vicarage, he had a sense of
+never having lived before. The spaciousness of the house and the
+pleasant evenings spent cracking nuts and eating apples in front of the
+blazing fire-place were also revelations that filled his mind with many
+new thoughts. Why was his own home not like this?
+
+The boys went back to Stockholm together, but before they started, Keith
+learned that Albert was going elsewhere to live. An aunt of his had
+offered to take him in for the rest of the season.
+
+"And, of course," said Albert's mother apologetically, "when you can be
+with your own kin, it is better you know."
+
+Keith wondered a little. On his return home, his mother said indignantly
+that she supposed their humble home had not been found good enough. A
+few weeks later the parlour was rented in the old way to a
+gentle-looking young man with very pink cheeks who coughed a good deal.
+
+And Keith once more found himself restricted to the living-room for all
+the time spent at home.
+
+
+
+XX
+
+Keith had been home for lunch and was on the way back to the school. He
+was alone. Murray was in bed with some slight ailment.
+
+It was in January, a cold but brilliant day. The streets were covered
+with deep snow. Everything that usually moved on wheels was now on
+runners. As runners make no noise and the sound of the hoofs was
+deadened by the snow, every horse carried a bell, and some of them had a
+whole little chime. The bright sunlight on the white snow and the
+tinkling of all those bells made a stimulating combination, and people
+hurried along with smiling faces, although they had to rub their noses
+and cheeks frequently to keep them from freezing.
+
+Keith was never sensitive about his face, but his hands were buried
+deeply in his coat pockets. His schoolbooks were tied up in a leather
+thong and slung over his shoulder like a knapsack.
+
+At the Sluice he stopped and looked long at the people skating merrily
+on the rinks down on the ice of the lake between the Corn Harbour and
+the railway bridge. A number of boys near his own age were among the
+rest having a good time. Many of the boys brought their skates to school
+and never went home for lunch, but just ate a couple of sandwiches in
+order to spend as much as possible of the noonday pause on the ice.
+Keith had asked permission to do the same, but the refusal had been
+peremptory. The fact was that he was granted little or no chance to use
+his new skates. Once in a while he got leave, after begging long and
+hard, to run over to the rinks at the New Bridge Harbour, in the North
+End, for a brief while in the late afternoon. Most of the time even that
+scant leave was denied him. To his mother's general disinclination to
+let him out of sight was added her dread that he might fall into the
+water and get drowned. He promised by everything sacred that he would
+not leave the rink, which she ought to know was perfectly safe, but her
+morbid fears would not listen to reason. More and more he was beginning
+to give up asking even. The disappointment of a refusal was too bitter
+to be borne often.
+
+As he stood leaning against the bridge railings, his eyes strayed
+farther and farther along the surface of the lake, which lay frozen as
+far out as he could see. There were rinks on the other side of the
+railway bridge, too, and here and there he noticed isolated black
+figures gliding along the unswept spaces outside the rinks. Suddenly he
+caught sight of a large gathering of people very far out. They were
+moving slowly toward the shore, and evidently they were held together by
+some common purpose. He wondered what they could be doing out there, far
+beyond the last rink, but the distance was too great to give him any
+basis for speculation.
+
+After a while he had to leave in order not to be late. He had almost
+reached the school when he was overtaken by a boy from the English
+section of his own grade, about whom he knew nothing but that his name
+was Bergman.
+
+"Have you heard," cried Bergman when he was still several steps behind,
+although he and Keith had never exchanged a word before. Keith turned
+in surprise.
+
+"Three boys were drowned skating during the lunch hours," continued
+Bergman breathlessly. "Two were in my class--Hill and Samson, you know.
+The third, Dahlin, was in your own class."
+
+"Is Dahlin dead?" asked Keith blankly. The thing seemed impossible to
+him. He had been talking to Dahlin that very morning--a tall boy, slow,
+self-possessed, older than most of the other pupils, and advanced for
+his age in everything but studies.
+
+"He is," said Bergman with emphasis. "And so are the other two. They are
+dragging for the bodies now."
+
+So that was what I saw those people doing out there, Keith thought.
+
+"Little Moses was with them," Bergman ran on. "The Jew, you know. We've
+always thought him a coward. And he nearly went down, too, trying to
+save them."
+
+By that time they were separating at the door to Bergman's classroom. On
+entering his own class, Keith found it in a state of unexampled though
+subdued excitement. The boys were gathered in groups which constantly
+shifted membership. Every one spoke in a whisper. Reports and rumours of
+the most fantastic kind passed from group to group, giving rise to
+fierce discussions. Six boys had been drowned instead of three, some one
+asserted. In another minute they heard that no one had been lost. Most
+credence was given to a circumstantial report of the miraculous recovery
+of Dahlin after he had been fully fifteen minutes under water. His big
+sealskin cap, they said, had become stuck over his face as he went
+under, so that the water could not choke him.
+
+Keith was among the most excited for a while, running eagerly from group
+to group and telling what he had heard from Bergman, who evidently had
+the very latest news. Soon, however, his mood changed, and he retired
+quickly to his own seat. There he sat by himself, his elbows on his
+knees and his face resting in his hands. A stupor had descended on his
+mind. The whole thing seemed so incredible. He could not grasp it. Those
+boys, who had been right among them only a few hours ago, would never
+appear again. There would be a funeral, and then they would never be
+heard of again. Tears broke into his eyes. He choked with a vague sense
+of pity. Samson, he knew, was the only son of a poor widow. Hill's
+mother was very sick, some one had said. And Dahlin....
+
+Keith instinctively raised his head to look at the place which Dahlin
+had occupied that very morning. What did it mean ...?
+
+At that moment the Rector entered, long overdue to give them an hour in
+Latin--an hour of which a goodly part already was gone. The boys dropped
+into their seats. A murmur of expectation passed through the class.
+Every eye was on the Rector's face which seemed to twitch in a
+peculiar fashion.
+
+"The school has suffered a terrible loss," he said at last, his voice
+sounding very hoarse. "There is only one thing we can do--work! Will
+_primus_ please begin translating from the top of the twenty-second
+page, where we left off yesterday."
+
+The boys stared at him, but no one dared to speak. They knew there was
+no escape, and they tried to fix their attention on the books. Keith saw
+before him a blurred page full of dancing letters. _Primus_ stumbled and
+blundered. He was followed by _secundus_ and _tertius_. Keith had
+recovered a little by that time, and he knew they were making mistakes
+that ordinarily would have called forth a storm of reproof from the
+Rector. Now he paid no attention, but merely repeated:
+
+"Go on--go on!"
+
+At last the lesson came to an end, and then they were dismissed for the
+day.
+
+On his way home Keith's thoughts ran in a futile circle around the day's
+event. If they had never left the rink ... if they had been saved ... if
+the story about Dahlin could have been true....
+
+Always his thoughts returned to the same point: the strangeness of the
+fact that those boys would never appear again. At no moment, however,
+did it occur to him that the same thing might have happened to
+himself--or might happen some time in the future. He was Keith
+Wellander, to whom such things never happened.
+
+He was nearly home when he suddenly stopped in the middle of East Long
+Street and said to himself:
+
+"Now I suppose I'll _never_ get leave to go skating again."
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+Among other new duties that accompanied Keith's entrance into the fourth
+grade was church-going. Until then he had known little about public
+worship beyond what he observed during two or three attendances of Yule
+Matins, that was almost like going to a party. The rule of the school
+was that all pupils in the higher grades who not going to church with
+their parents elsewhere must attend services with their respective
+classes every other Sunday at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene.
+
+Judging by the number of boys who turned up, the percentage of
+church-goers among the parents must have been very small. Keith's father
+went to communion once a year. That was all. The mother went a little
+oftener, but as a rule something else turned up about the time she ought
+to start, and so she stayed home and read a chapter in some Lutheran
+postil instead. Keith thought little of that kind of books. He had tried
+them and found them dull beyond endurance.
+
+"Do you really like reading that stuff," he said to his mother one
+Sunday.
+
+"Keith!" she protested sternly. Then she continued more mildly: "It is
+not a question of like or dislike, my boy, but of saving your soul by
+humbling it before the Lord."
+
+"Can you do that by reading," asked Keith innocently.
+
+"N-no ... not exactly," his mother hesitated. But you can.... Oh, I know
+I ought to be in church instead of sitting here, but I am such a weak
+vessel, and I am sure that the Lord will understand and forgive me."
+
+"Well, then you don't need to worry, mamma," said Keith consolingly,
+stirred as always by the appearance of an emotional note in her voice.
+
+"We should always worry," she rejoined very gently, "because we are all
+sinners and we have a chance only by His mercy. But I don't believe in a
+hell, whatever they say, and I don't want you, Keith, to pay any
+attention to anything of that kind they may teach you."
+
+"But why do they teach it then," asked Keith, his logic alert.
+
+"Because ... it's a long story, and you will understand it some day. Now
+I want to finish my chapter, or I won't be able to do so before dinner
+is ready."
+
+Keith would have liked to ask more, but what concerned him was the
+apparent contradiction in his mother's words rather than the subject of
+religion itself. His main impression of religion so far was that it was
+something very tedious to which grown-up people submitted for some
+mysterious reason never really revealed to children. And this impression
+was abundantly confirmed by his subsequent experiences in the prudishly
+ugly precincts of St. Mary Magdalene.
+
+Seats were reserved in one of the side galleries for the pupils from Old
+Mary. Two teachers sat in one of the front pews, so that they could look
+down into the church. Aspiring youngsters who wanted to make sure of
+good marks were apt to look upon the same pews with special favour. The
+rest of the boys wanted to sit as far back as possible, where they could
+whisper, and show each other pictures, and eat candy without too much
+danger of being discovered. These pursuits brought no relief to Keith,
+partly because he possessed neither pictures nor candy, being always
+very shy of pocket money, and partly because either fear or some sort of
+pride made him draw back from engaging in any sort of mischief behind
+the teacher's back.
+
+The hymn singing was not without a certain enjoyment. The slowness of
+the tempo made it possible for Keith to keep in tune by leaning very
+close to the boy sitting next to him. Even the reading of the gospels
+and other recurring features of the service could be borne. But when the
+sermon began, Keith fell into sheer agony. The other boys seemed capable
+of letting the words of the preacher drop off them as water drops off
+the oily feathers of a water-fowl. But one of Keith's characteristics
+was that he had to listen to anything said loudly enough in his
+presence. For him there was no escape. Through an endless hour, that
+sometimes would verge on the five quarters, he had to sit there and take
+in every word of a long-winded, moralistic discourse dealing in
+forbidding terms with things that left his brain as untouched as if they
+had been uttered in a strange tongue. He had a sense of warnings and
+threats that seemed to connect with what his mother had asked him not to
+heed. He was told to believe, but he could not make out what it was he
+should believe--unless it was the Small Catechism, and that had always
+left his mind a perfect blank although he knew it by heart from the
+first page to the last.
+
+When at last the ordeal was over, he rushed away with a sense of relief
+that was marred by the thought of the same thing happening two weeks
+later. It was the only feature of his schooling that left behind an
+actual sense of grievance which the passing years could not mollify.
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+A little before commencement the whole school was stirred by important
+news. A reorganization of the entire school system was in progress, and
+one result of it was the merger of the old _gymnasium_ or high school on
+Knight's Island with Old Mary and the expansion of the latter to nine
+grades under the new name of St. Mary's Higher Latin School. A building
+across the street had already been acquired for the four new grades, and
+a new rector of higher rank was to take charge in the fall.
+
+"It means that we'll stay right here until we go to the university," one
+of Keith's classmates explained in a tone implying that it must make
+quite a difference to their lives. Then he asked suddenly: "You'll go on
+to the university, Wellander, won't you--you with your brilliant mind?"
+
+Keith looked at him in dumb astonishment. In spite of his two prizes, it
+was so strange to be called brilliant. And then the question of going to
+the university had been raised. Until then he had really never given a
+thought to it. And the question of cost leaped into his mind. He was
+beginning to learn at last that money was needed for a number of things
+you liked to do. Would it cost much, and could his father afford to pay
+that much, and, most important of all, would his father consent to pay
+it? Those were novel questions--and as he did so often when faced by
+something unpleasant or disturbing, so, now again, he pushed them aside,
+fled from them, refused to have anything to do with them. There were
+still five grades between him and that threateningly attractive
+possibility, the student's white cap.
+
+"I don't know," he said at last, being a truthful fool in most matters,
+"I have not asked papa yet."
+
+And there was a smile on the other boy's face which Keith disliked
+without guessing the significance of it.
+
+Commencement brought him a prize again--a German dictionary just like
+the one Krass got when Keith carried off the highest prize in school
+after thinking himself ignominiously passed by. Of course, a prize was a
+prize, but--and he thought his father looked rather disappointed when he
+heard of it.
+
+However, George Murray also received a book, and It was no better than
+Keith's, although Murray professed to see a great difference between a
+German Dictionary and a Latin Classic.
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+Murray was going off with his family to their private summer residence
+in the archipelago outside of Stockholm and Keith gathered that it must
+be a very magnificent place. The Wellanders didn't go to the country at
+all. Keith's mother had a very bad period again, full of worry and
+depression. The summer dragged along joylessly, and Keith had to fall
+back on Johan's company in so far as he could obtain it. But Johan was
+getting very independent. He had plenty of other acquaintances, and what
+Keith saw of them made him deem it wiser not to mention them at all to
+his mother. He was gradually learning discretion of a kind.
+
+He read a good deal, and he was beginning to make unauthorized visits to
+his father's bookcase in the parlour. There he had discovered certain
+volumes by one Jules Verne, and if he could only have plunged freely
+into these, the summer might have proved quite bearable. One day when he
+could not get at the books, and his mood was more than usually fretful,
+and his mother seemed at her lowest, she suddenly turned on him and said
+in a strangely bitter tone:
+
+"All I have to go through now is your fault, Keith."
+
+"Why," he asked dumbly, staring at her.
+
+"Because when you came into the world you hurt me so much that I have
+never been well since."
+
+"How," he demanded, and as he spoke an idea flashed through his mind
+that his mother might not be knowing what she said. Just how such a
+thing could happen was still a mystery to him, but what she said sounded
+so absurdly impossible.
+
+At that moment her mood suddenly changed.
+
+"There is one thing I have never told you. But for my being made so sick
+when you were born, you would have had a little brother, and you would
+not have been so lonesome, and perhaps everything would have been
+better. But he was born dead. And now I have no one but you, and I shall
+have no one else, and you are everything to me, and you must love me
+very much and never leave me."
+
+Her arms were about him, and she was crying. And soon both felt better.
+But Keith had heard things he could not forget. And there was food in
+them for a summer's thought.
+
+
+
+PART IV
+
+
+
+I
+
+Form the very start the fifth grade was a disappointment. Once Keith,
+like all the rest of the smaller boys, had looked up to it with
+awe-stricken yearnings as to a peak that only a few fortunate few could
+hope to climb. It was then the top of the school. Its pupils were
+revered seniors--olympians tarrying momentarily among ordinary mortals
+before they took flight for the exalted regions where they really
+belonged. All this had been changed by the reorganization. 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. The teachers seemed to feel it,
+too, and especially the old Rector, who, after so many years of supreme
+command, suddenly found himself reduced to a subordinate position.
+
+Keith felt robbed like the rest. And like them, he felt that the
+instruction had become a mere humdrum routine enabling a certain number
+of boys to get the proper marks at the end of a certain number of
+months. What had lured him on as an adventure had turned into a tedious
+grind. And more and more he drifted back into a dream world of his own
+out of which he had been dragged by Dally's good-humoured jibes. And
+yet, what could he expect? Had not Dally even, his best friend in the
+whole school, cheated him of the honour he had rightfully earned--an
+honour that, once lost, could never be recovered?
+
+The subjects, on the whole, were the same as in the previous grade. You
+simply went further into them--that was all. The teachers were the same,
+and the relationships once established between them and the boys
+remained the same, for good or bad. Every one knew what to expect, on
+both sides, and no one quite escaped from the resulting sense of
+staleness.
+
+The old Rector went on cramming the class with Latin grammar. He had a
+way of making some poor stumbler conjugate the same verb fifteen to
+twenty times in succession, so that the correct sequence might never
+again escape his memory. And as the red-faced sinner stammered out the
+tenses, the Rector would make a tube of his left hand into which he
+poked his right thumb. This gesture was always accompanied by the same
+mocking remark:
+
+"That's the way to stuff sausages!"
+
+His language grew more picturesque and unrestrained every day. He
+belonged distinctly to an older and less circumspect generation, and he
+was a good deal of an eccentric besides. His heart was of gold, and no
+one ever took the pedagogue's mission more seriously, but whatever he
+possessed of refinement went into his appreciation of the language that
+was his life's passion. When he spoke Swedish, he called a spade a
+spade in a manner that gave Keith shock after shock. Always rather given
+to a certain aristocratic exclusiveness in his speech, Keith had through
+his association with Murray become something of a prude in this respect.
+He could still descend to obscenities when his "manliness" had to be
+proved, but vulgarity repelled him irresistibly.
+
+Until then he had never dreamt of questioning any authority. Even at
+this juncture he obeyed directions explicity and maintained on the whole
+his reputation as a good pupil. But a tendency to criticism was growing
+within him, and from the men who taught him it began gradually to pass
+to the subjects taught. There came a day when the truth could no longer
+be evaded: he was bored most of the time. And the result was that he
+grew more and more listless.
+
+If asked, Keith could not have told what was wrong. In fact, it is not
+at all certain that he would have admitted that anything was wrong. No
+rebellious stirrings had yet found tangible form within him.
+
+He had to learn long lists of foreign kings that had been dead for ages.
+He was even expected to know when each king ascended his throne and left
+it. He had to learn mathematic formulas and grammatic rules. And on the
+heels of each rule hung at least a dozen exceptions. It was impossible
+to tell which were of greater importance, the rules or the exceptions.
+He had also to learn the exact number of pistils and stamens possessed
+by every flower likely to be found in the vicinity of the Swedish
+capital. The same thing happened in every subject embraced by the
+curriculum. There was no end to it. Yet he did not rebel. Every one
+knew that there was no other way of teaching things, so what was the use
+of rebelling?
+
+His memory was good, although tricky. In a case of aroused interest he
+could absorb an astonishing number of dates, or figures, or lines of
+poetry, at first glance or hearing. But he could also drop them as if he
+had never heard of them the moment his interest was gone. And they
+always seemed to drop out of sight when he left school and returned
+home. That word interest seemed to give the key to the situation. And
+all sorts of vague and queer and inexplicable things within himself
+determined whether he was to be interested or not. It was not a question
+of choice or will. He was or was not.
+
+Facts as facts did not interest him at all. Even things as things did
+not necessarily, though they might. The class made excursions into the
+fields and woods framing the capital, and under the guidance of their
+teacher of botany they observed and analysed all sorts of living
+flowers. Keith was delighted to get out and charmed with the flowers,
+but the facts about them pointed out by the teacher left him profoundly
+unmoved. They had exciting little experiments in chemistry, and Keith
+effervesced with the rest, but nothing of what he saw brought him more
+than a momentary diversion.
+
+All those things left his own real life untouched. And yet he was not
+merely looking for fairy tales and adventures. His mind already was
+hungry for something else. He found it often in the books he read at
+home, many of which had been borrowed from the school library. Not
+facts--but how different sorts of facts hung together, so to speak. The
+school ought to tell him, and sometimes he had an uneasy feeling that
+the teachers were trying to tell him this very thing. But they failed
+somehow, and the farther he advanced, the more exasperating that
+failure became.
+
+He was in his thirteenth year, and he was no longer certain that he
+cared to study. But reading was still his dominant passion--reading and
+George Murray.
+
+
+
+II
+
+Relations with Murray had been resumed on the old basis. Day after day
+they walked to and from school together, and hardly ever was their
+friendship disturbed by a misunderstanding. In school, too, they spent a
+good deal of time in each other's company, and they continued to sit
+side by side. Being so much seen together, they gradually came to be
+known as "the twins," which pleased Keith tremendously. But once they
+had parted for the day at the corner of the Quay and the lane, there was
+no more communication between them. And no matter what Keith said or
+did, he could never persuade his friend to break that rule.
+
+Then Murray's birthday came along, and he told Keith quite casually that
+his mother had promised to let him have a party and invite five of his
+schoolmates.
+
+"Will you ask me," Keith blurted out, his eyes shining with eagerness.
+
+"I don't know," said Murray guardedly.
+
+"But I am your best friend in school," Keith protested.
+
+"It depends on mamma," Murray explained, and his voice lacked a little
+of its customary complacency.
+
+"Of course, I should like to have you," he added after a pause, but his
+words carried no conviction.
+
+Keith was too hard hit to say a word.
+
+A couple of days later, on their way home from school, Murray said
+unexpectedly that he and his mother had looked over the school catalogue
+the night before, and that his mother had picked the five boys whom he
+was to invite. And he started to name them. The first name was that of
+Brockert, a boy in their own class.
+
+"But I have never seen you speak to him," Keith interrupted him.
+
+"He is a very fine boy and comes of excellent family," Murray retorted.
+Then he enumerated the other four. Only one of them besides Brockert
+belonged to their own class.
+
+Little as Keith knew about most of the boys in school, he realized that
+all the prospective guests had three things in common: they were good
+scholars, poor, and yet of good families. One had a _von_ in front of
+his name. Brockert, too, had some sort of claim to nobility, although it
+was said that his mother earned a living for herself and him by working
+as a seamstress and the boy was known to pay for his own tuition by
+tutoring backward sons of rich families in the lower grades.
+
+Keith tried to look unconcerned. Fortunately they were near home, and
+soon he could get away by himself. It has to be admitted that he cried.
+And in the end he told his mother, who tried to make him promise never
+to speak to Murray again.
+
+"But we're side partners in the class," said Keith, still sobbing.
+
+There was a certain stiffness between him and Murray during the next few
+days, but they kept company to and from school as usual. Not until the
+morning after the party did it occur to Keith that his pride demanded
+some kind of demonstration.
+
+That morning he meant to keep away from his friend. He stayed at home
+longer than usual on purpose. Finally he grew afraid of being late and
+tumbled pell-mell downstairs, intent on turning to his old route by way
+of East Long Street. But no sooner had he reached the lane than his legs
+seemed to be moving regardless of his will, and they took the familiar
+turn toward the Quay. At that moment he caught sight of Murray crossing
+the mouth of the lane without looking either right or left. Something
+like a shiver passed through Keith's body, but his legs were still in
+command, and they began to run. A minute later he was walking beside
+Murray as he had done day after day for the better part of three terms.
+
+At first they did not speak. Then Murray began to tell about the party
+of the night before as if it had been the most natural thing in the
+world to do so. He told what they had eaten and what they had played and
+what impression the boys had made on his mother. Keith listened
+without a word.
+
+The worst fight he had ever fought with himself was raging within him,
+and while he heard every word that Murray uttered, they seemed to pass
+him by as if spoken to some other person. His heart was beating very
+hard, and he breathed uneasily. An unfamiliar, impersonal voice within
+himself was telling him that he must either give Murray a good licking
+then and there or run away. Nasty, ugly, hateful words seemed to crowd
+to his lips with an all but irresistible demand for utterance.
+
+Yet he walked on as before, listening to Murray without a word of
+comment. At last, when they were near the school entrance, he stopped
+suddenly and said:
+
+"Did you ever speak to your mother of me?"
+
+"I did," replied Murray calmly. "And she said that while she had no
+objection to our keeping company, she did not think your father's
+position was such that we could ask you home."
+
+A strange thing happened to Keith at that moment. It seemed to him that
+everything had been satisfactorily explained, and that there was no
+reason why he should be angry with Murray or offended at his friend's
+parents. He had simply been made to suffer for something that had
+nothing to do with his own person.
+
+"Hey, twins," a classmate yelled at them just then.
+
+"I suppose you couldn't help it," Keith said weakly to Murray.
+
+"I really should have liked to have you," Murray answered, and it made
+Keith feel as if he had been more than compensated for his previous
+sufferings.
+
+After that their friendship continued outwardly as before, but there was
+a difference. A tendency to nag and find fault appeared on both sides,
+and on several occasions they broke into actual quarrels. These always
+ended in reconcilations, but the old serenity had gone from their
+companionship, and each new misunderstanding left Keith a little
+more unhappy.
+
+
+
+III
+
+As a result of the changed relationship between himself and the friend
+he idealized, Keith began once more to look up Johan. He did it rather
+furtively, as if he had known that he was engaged in something unworthy
+of himself. There was an additional reason for this return to an
+association long spurned, and it had something to do with his manner of
+going about it.
+
+What his mother had told him during the summer was still fermenting in
+his mind, but no amount of brooding over it would produce any results.
+It was like trying to raise oneself by pulling at one's own bootstraps.
+He must turn to some one else for the information that alone could solve
+the mystery. Murray was out of the question. Keith had never exchanged a
+word with him about the subject that was taking more and more of his
+attention. He knew what Murray would say if such a matter were broached:
+
+"I don't think my papa would like me to talk of it, and it's rather
+nasty anyhow."
+
+No, Johan was the person to seek for knowledge of this kind. He was now
+smoking all the time when not under the eye of his mother. While Keith
+almost had stood still physically, Johan had forged ahead. There was no
+denying that he was coarse and dull and awkward, but there was a shrewd
+gleam in his somewhat bleary eyes, and from time to time he threw out
+dark hints about enjoyments and experiences that little boys clinging to
+their mother's skirts could never master.
+
+It became a sort of game between them--a game that pleased Johan and
+drove Keith to exasperation. It was a game of hide-and-seek. And the
+most remarkable feature of it was that, although Keith was dying to
+know, he found it impossible to ask any direct questions. His pose was
+that he didn't care, and Johan's counter-pose was that he didn't know
+what Keith was driving at.
+
+Little by little, however, Keith extracted various stories about those
+new friends of Johan's, who lived in one of the neighbouring lanes and
+who had a big vacant attic at their disposal. There quite a number of
+boys gathered daily, and Johan did his best to impress Keith with the
+desperate character of their doings. Girls came to that meeting-place,
+too. It was the principal thing, according to Johan--the fact that made
+those exploits so deliriously reprehensible. One day Johan was in an
+unusually communicative mood.
+
+"Yesterday," he related with great gusto, "Nils got hold of Ellen and
+kissed her. And then they crawled into a big empty box when they thought
+we didn't see them. And there they stayed ever so long. But Gustaf
+crawled up behind the box and peeped. And he saw what they did, and then
+he told us."
+
+"What did they do," asked Keith tensely, forgetting his usual reserve.
+
+"Oh, you know," replied Johan teasingly.
+
+"I don't," said Keith stoutly, realizing that it was a dreadful
+admission of inferiority. "And I want you to tell me."
+
+For a moment Johan hesitated. Then he shot at Keith a single word--a
+verb--that Keith had heard in the lane and among the longshoremen on the
+Quay. He knew that it was bad--the worst one of its kind. He knew also
+in a vague sort of way that it touched the very heart of the mystery he
+was trying to solve. And yet it left him just as ignorant as before.
+
+The bald use of that word by Johan stunned him for a moment. Then his
+hot thirst for light brushed all other considerations aside, and he said
+almost pleadingly: "Can't you tell me all about it?"
+
+"Oh, everybody knows," said Johan, and his eyes began to wander shiftily
+as they always did when he found himself cornered.
+
+"You don't know yourself," Keith taunted him, suddenly grown wise beyond
+his ordinary measure.
+
+"Yes, I do," insisted Johan.
+
+"Then tell--or I won't believe you."
+
+"They did what your papa and mamma do nights," Johan shot back.
+
+There was a long pause.
+
+"They don't do anything," Keith said at last almost in a whisper,
+"except talk."
+
+"You bet they do," asserted Johan, sure now of having triumphed.
+
+And Keith went home without asking any more questions.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+A queer restlessness seized him and left him no peace. He swung abruptly
+from one extreme mood to another--from mad elation to paralyzing
+depression. He had a baffling sense of things happening within himself
+that were equally beyond control and explanation. He grew tired of
+sitting on those plain benches at school, with no support for the back,
+and still more tired of the Rector's incessant "sit up straight, boy."
+Sometimes when he read at home, he could not keep his eyes fixed on the
+book because his thoughts insisted on straying into all sorts of
+irrelevant fields. But no matter in what direction they started,
+circuitously they always found their way into the field of main
+preoccupation.
+
+Although shocked at the time by what Johan had told him, it did not
+remain actively in his memory. On a few occasions he woke up during the
+night with an impression of having heard his mother call his father's
+name. When he raised his head from the pillow to listen, a breathless
+stillness prevailed in the room. Soon he went back to sleep, and
+afterwards he thought no more about it. Yet the very act of listening
+seemed to inflame his mind in some way.
+
+The game learned back of the big rock had never become quite forgotten.
+Yet it had never meant very much to him, and during his association with
+Murray he had thought less and less of it. Now it took new hold of him,
+in a much more imperative way, as if it had got a new meaning and a new
+lure. And it seemed to have some elusive but highly significant
+connection with the mystery that always puzzled and fretted his
+curiosity.
+
+Once more he pressed Johan for an explanation of that reference to
+Keith's parents.
+
+"That's the way children are made," Johan finally announced with a mien
+of having transmitted the ultimate wisdom of the ages.
+
+Keith merely stared at him. That answer did not interest him at all. Of
+course, he had long guessed that the arrival of children was a part of
+the mystery, but it was a part that had ceased to concern him. What he
+wished to know, must know, related to himself exclusively. But in this
+respect there was nothing more to be had out of Johan.
+
+At school he began to join a group of boys who always gathered in a
+corner of the assembly hall during the pauses instead of mixing with the
+mob in the schoolyard. The centre of that group was Swensson, a handsome
+young chap of more advanced age than the others who had spent two years
+in most of the grades. He was always behind in his studies, but he
+seemed to know more of life than all the rest put together. A large part
+of the time he was telling stories--always about girls--or relating
+adventures--always with girls. Keith found the stories amusing, but as a
+rule he failed to grasp their point. And yet they added fuel to the
+flame that was burning more and more hotly within him.
+
+His mother had been watching him intently for some time, and after a
+while she began to ask questions. These were guarded almost to
+unintelligibility, and yet Keith guessed that they referred to his own
+secret--the game learned back of the big rock. And so that game grew
+still more enticing. Even then, however, it did not seem to matter very
+much except in so far as it was the one thing that brought him a slight
+relief from the consuming restlessness of body and mind.
+
+His mother's questions were followed by long talks, sometimes taking the
+form of warnings, but more often turning into passionate pleas. And
+gradually he gathered that the game he had been playing so innocently
+must be both sinful and dangerous. He tried as hard as he could to get
+to the root of his mother's hints, and he wanted to ask all sorts of
+questions. But in the end the meaning of her words seemed to dissolve
+into mist, and when he tried to question her directly, it was as if a
+solid wall had suddenly risen between them, so that neither one could
+hear what the other one said.
+
+His father, too, began to ask questions, evidently urged on by the
+mother. He spoke sternly, but not unkindly, when he asked if Keith had
+been doing anything he ought not to do. And naturally enough Keith
+answered emphatically no.
+
+In this way the mystery came closer and closer to him, and became more
+and more urgent. His mother's futile efforts at communicating what
+apparently rested heavily on her heart made him ill at ease, but he
+remained unconscious of any guilt or fear. A conflict of serious aspect
+and proportions was undoubtedly taking shape within him, but so far it
+was mainly concerned with the school and his friendship for Murray and
+a general sense of dissatisfaction with the life he was leading. It was
+above all a sense of things missed.
+
+Then he happened one afternoon, when his mother was out, to be delving
+with more than customary audacity among the books in his father's book
+case, which become more accessible through the death of their
+gentle-looking tenant a short while before.
+
+
+
+V
+
+The cough of Herr Stangenberg had been growing worse and worse all
+through the winter. He had to take to the bed more and more frequently.
+There had been a terrible change in his appearance. Only the eyes and
+his temper remained the same. He was always cheerful and hopeful. So he
+remained when he had to stay in bed entirely and a doctor began to pay
+him daily visits. Keith's mother did everything in her power to be of
+help, and it seemed to put her own troubles and worries more in the
+background.
+
+"Consumption" was a word the parents often used in discussing the case
+of poor Herr Stangenberg, and Keith gathered that it was something
+dreadful and merciless, from which escape was impossible. His attitude
+toward the whole matter was peculiar. 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."
+
+On her return, the mother sank down in her chair and began to grope for
+a handkerchief. Keith saw that her eyes were lustrous with tears.
+
+"What did he want?" asked the father with unusual anxiety.
+
+"Well, if you tried for a month, you couldn't guess it," the mother
+said, and as she spoke, a smile broke through her tears. "It is so sad
+and so funny that.... He wants me to send for his tailor to measure him
+for a new spring suit."
+
+"Has he no idea ...?" The father checked himself with a glance at Keith.
+
+"I know what you mean," said Keith calmly. Both parents looked at him in
+surprise, but neither comment nor rebuke ensued.
+
+"No," the mother went on after a while, "he says that he knows he will
+be well and back at his office in two weeks. He actually laughed when I
+tried to say something about his being very ill. It brought on his cough
+again, and for a moment I thought he would die then and there. But when
+the attack was over, he asked me if I couldn't hear that the cough was
+much better. What do you think I ought to do?"
+
+"Nothing," the father replied once more.
+
+Keith was ready to start for school next morning when he heard Hilda
+utter a startled cry in the parlour.
+
+"Fru Wellander! Fru Wellander!" she called.
+
+Before the mother had a chance to move, the frightened face of the girl
+appeared in the parlour door, and she whispered as if afraid of waking
+some one out of sleep:
+
+"He is dead."
+
+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 funeral took place in a couple of days. A distant relative had
+turned up, very apologetic and eager to explain that his dead cousin had
+failed to let any one know that he was sick even. This young man, the
+minister, and Keith's parents were the only mourners. A single
+carriage sufficed.
+
+Keith never went into the parlour during those days. When everything was
+nearly ready, the mother asked him if he cared to go in and have a last
+look at poor Herr Stangenberg before the lid was put on the coffin.
+Keith merely shook his head.
+
+"You had better go," Granny called from the kitchen. "I never saw him
+better-looking while he was alive."
+
+"I won't," Keith yelled back with an amount of irritation that seemed
+quite out of proportion to its cause. The mother gave him an uneasy
+glance but left the room without saying anything at the time.
+
+As far as the boy was concerned, the incident was closed. He had never
+permitted it to take a real hold of his mind, and he resented anybody's
+attempt to bring it closer to him. Death had stopped within his own
+threshold, and he simply looked in the opposite direction. This attitude
+sprang mainly from some inner resistance so stubborn that it would not
+even permit itself to be discussed. In addition, his mind was engrossed
+with other things, and the principal significance it attached to the
+passing of a human life at such close quarters was the hope it held out
+that the parlour might remain vacant.
+
+"Were you afraid to look," the mother asked Keith on her return with the
+father from the cemetery.
+
+"No, I just didn't want to," the boy replied emphatically.
+
+"Why," the mother asked, studying his face with the peculiar searching
+glance that sometimes provoked him and sometimes filled him with a
+desire to bury his head in her lap and weep.
+
+"Why should I," Keith rejoined. "He was dead!"
+
+
+
+VI
+
+No sooner had the apologetic young man removed the effects of his
+departed relative than Keith wanted to take full possession of the
+parlour. His mother checked his eagerness with the explanation that they
+might still want to rent it. In the meantime he could use it freely, but
+he must remove all his playthings when he was through for the day.
+
+"Why can't I sleep on the big sofa in there," he asked in a tone that he
+vainly tried to make ingratiating.
+
+"Not yet," said his mother evasively. "You had better stay in here, I
+think."
+
+Once more the sense of being watched took hold of him unpleasantly,
+filling him with a mixture of fear and resentment. And his wonder why
+they seemed to suspect him added to the mystery with which his mind was
+wrestling so hopelessly.
+
+The constant access to the parlour was a great change for the better,
+however, and one of the first uses he made of it was to investigate his
+father's little library with a thoroughness that until then had been out
+of the question. It was a queer collection, embracing every form of
+literature from philosophy to fiction. This catholicity did not mirror
+the father's taste but resulted from his manner of acquiring the books.
+Before obtaining the position he now held in the bank, he worked for a
+while in the office of one of the principal book printing establishments
+at Stockholm. There he formed acquaintances which later enabled him to
+get one unbound set of sheets of every book issued from that press.
+These he sent to a binder who put them into simple paper covers for a
+few _oere_ per volume. They always arrived in a large package just before
+Christmas, and one of the thorns in Keith's flesh was the care with
+which his father kept all those new treasures hidden until the holiday
+season was past. Then the books that had not been handed on to friends
+or relations as Christmas presents were given a permanent place on the
+shelves of the book case. All of them, however, lacked printed covers
+and illustrations.
+
+The young man whom every one spoke of as "poor dear Herr Stangenberg"
+had not been dead a week, when Keith one afternoon on his return from
+school found himself alone in the house with Granny. His mother had gone
+to call on some friends, and the father would not come home from the
+bank for several hours. Even the servant girl was away, which was a fact
+that not immaterially contributed to Keith's sense of security. Granny
+need not be taken into account.
+
+A long cherished opportunity had arrived at last, and he made straight
+for the book case. It was locked, but he knew where to find the key. Its
+hiding-place had constituted one of those little domestic problems that
+add zest to an uneventful existence. There was also an injunction of
+long standing against any meddling with the case without permission, but
+that had been a dead letter for some time. When books were concerned,
+Keith's customary respect for authority ceased to be an obstacle to
+his desires.
+
+He explored with no special object in mind. He wanted new reading
+matter, and his curiosity was piqued by a number of books with blank
+backs that gave no clue to their contents. Two huge, fat volumes on
+the bottom shelf had already attracted his attention, and they
+were the first he pulled out. Their title brought instantaneous
+disappointment--"The Philosophy of the Unconscious," by Edouard von
+Hartmann. He prepared scornfully to put them back, when, through the big
+gap left by their withdrawal, he became aware that the space back of the
+front row was packed with smaller books and pamphlets. This discovery
+surprised him for a moment, but what he saw in there looked rather
+uninteresting. Nevertheless he reached in and pulled out a small green
+pamphlet that happened to be nearest at hand. Idly he glanced at the
+legend printed on the front cover:
+
+"Amor and Hymen. A guide for married and unmarried persons of both
+sexes."
+
+The words carried no special meaning to his mind, and in the same
+indifferent manner he turned a few pages until his eyes fell on a
+full-page illustration.
+
+After that he read no other book for days.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+He read as he had never read before in his brief span of life--as,
+perhaps, he would never read again, no matter how wide a stretch of life
+that span might ultimately encompass.
+
+He read of the anatomical differences between men and women. He read
+about the mechanism of love. He read about the mysteries of procreation.
+All of it was startlingly new to him, and yet he read with a sense of
+always having known it. He read with absolute acceptance, without a
+possibility of doubt.
+
+It seemed a genuine revelation that must render all future questioning
+futile. And yet he seemed to know no more when he had finished than he
+knew before he started. It remained outside of himself, a structure of
+air, a series of shadowgraphs, and the craving within him burned as
+passionately as ever.
+
+From now on he could grasp the points of the stories told by the boys at
+school, and he would know what Johan was hinting at in his boast about
+the secret doings of that attic. But of the reality of the thing he knew
+as little as before. In fact, the principal lesson brought home by his
+reading was that here he found himself in the presence of something that
+could not be learned out of books.
+
+To begin with he did not go beyond the first part of the book. This he
+read over and over again. When at last he was sated with what that part
+had to give, a subtle chemical change had taken place in his mental
+make-up, one might say. It was not caused by any facts conveyed by the
+book. These seemed quite natural to him, and in themselves they would
+have had no more power over him than the information about flowers of
+various kinds imparted by the teacher of botany. It was the tone used
+that affected him in a manner reminding him of the Swedish Punch of
+which he had tested a few drops now and then. In every line there was a
+mixture of shamefaced apology and veiled desire that sent all the blood
+in his body rushing toward his head until the walls of the room about
+him reeled. Every inch of him was on fire, and in that flame body and
+soul were consumed together.
+
+The sum and substance of it was that he had become conscious of that
+multitudinous impulse we call sex, and that from a vague, restless
+yearning this impulse suddenly had developed into an appetite as
+imperative as any hunger for food.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+Finally he went on to the remaining chapters of the book, always with
+that double sense of knowing it all before and of not quite grasping
+what he read.
+
+Pages were consumed before he realized with a shock more intense than
+any one previously experienced, that the book was speaking of the game
+he learned to play back of the big rock.
+
+Again it was not what the book told that seemed to matter, but the tone
+in which it spoke. And while before that tone had sent the blood to his
+head, it now drew every drop of it back to his heart until he shivered
+and shook with a misery so acute that another moment's endurance of it
+seemed unthinkable.
+
+At that instant fear was born within him. Until then it had been no more
+real to him than were now the experiences described in the first part of
+the book. He had instinctively shrunk from things that he knew or
+believed to be painful, from the shock of a blow to the sting of a harsh
+word. He had suffered discomforting anticipation of rebukes and
+restrictions. But he had never before stood face to face with that stark
+unreasoning terror which gathers its chief power from the intangible
+character of the danger it heralds.
+
+He learned that physically and spiritually he had courted death, and
+what is worse than death. And suddenly the thought of that gentle-faced,
+sweet-tempered young man in the parlour leaped into his memory. But the
+image it brought him was not that of a human form stretched stiffly
+within the black boards of a coffin. What he saw and what froze him with
+horror was the hollow temples and sallow cheeks and drooping jaws and
+bent back and trembling limbs of the human wreck that was still counted
+a living man.
+
+Worse than that image, however, and worse than any thought of punishment
+by powers not within his actual ken, was the book's damning imputation
+of shame incurred, of unworthiness proved, of inferiority so deep that
+no words could adequately picture it.
+
+All that was most himself wanted to rise in wild rebellion against
+conclusions that found no support in anything he had actually
+experienced so far. He wanted to refuse belief. He sought for escapes as
+if the fulfilment of the doom pronounced by the book had been a matter
+of minutes. But there was the book, and to back it suddenly appeared a
+line of experiences out of his own life.
+
+Perhaps those who would not let him visit their homes had only too good
+cause for refusal. Perhaps, after all, it was not his father's position
+but something about himself that had caused the parents of Harald, of
+Loth, and now of Murray, to act in exactly the same way. Perhaps Dally
+had reasons for not letting him become _primus_ which, out of his soul's
+kindness, he never told even to Keith himself. Perhaps the reason he
+always felt isolated and out of touch with his schoolmates lay in their
+instinctive recognition of his nature....
+
+In the end he replaced the book with a firm determination never to look
+at it again. But the poison was in his mind, and the book no
+longer mattered.
+
+
+
+IX
+
+The game learned behind the big rock must never be played again--that
+much was certain!
+
+But all resolves proved vain. Fight as he may, the end was inevitably
+the same.
+
+Previously he had been the player, and had thought no more of it. Now
+he was being played with, and this new form of the game kept him
+see-sawing incessantly between ecstasy and agony, between the relief of
+yielding and the remorse at having yielded.
+
+His life was an unending conflict, and in the presence of that ever
+renewed struggle within, by forces that seemed alien to his own self,
+all else lost significance.
+
+And there was not a thing or a person within reach that could offer an
+antidote to the self-contempt corroding his soul's integrity.
+
+
+
+X
+
+Going to school grew very hard for a while. He could barely look his
+schoolmates in the face for fear that they might read in his eyes what
+sort of a chap he was. At times, on his walks to or from school with
+Murray, a faintness would seize him at the mere thought that his friend
+somehow might have guessed the truth. And he sent timidly envious
+side-glances at one lucky enough to be raised above all temptation. For
+neither his recollections of the gang gathered about the big rock nor
+the more recent light shed on such things by Johan had the slightest
+influence on his conception of himself as the sole black sheep in a
+flock of perhaps soiled but nevertheless washable white ones.
+
+After a while the poignancy of his emotions became blunted by
+familiarity, and mere weariness forced him to accept himself on a
+reduced level. A sort of new equilibrium was established within him, but
+it was primarily based on indifference. Nothing really mattered. Effort
+was useless. Things merely happened. No one could help what happened.
+And in this fatalism, so utterly foreign to his ardent, supersensitive
+nature, he found a certain momentary sense of peace.
+
+He went about his daily classroom tasks as in a dream, doing
+mechanically what he was asked, and dropping his effort as soon as the
+demand for it ceased. Nothing happened during the lessons to indicate
+that the teachers noticed any change in him or were in any manner
+dissatisfied with him. Perhaps he was saved by an occasional flaring up
+of interest that drew from him flashes of that brightness of mind that
+had won Dally and given him the reputation of an exceptional pupil.
+
+But as the spring term drew nearer its close, he found it more and more
+difficult to keep up a pretence at attention. More and more he sank into
+mere drifting, and he whose pride had been really to know, now trusted
+to luck like any dullard with a head unfit for studying. Worse still and
+more significant, he began to find excuses for staying home from school.
+He who had never known what it was to be sick, now developed disturbing
+symptom after another--headaches and colds and digestive troubles in
+endless succession. Most of the time these symptoms yielded quickly at
+the mere sight of the castor oil which was his mother's favourite remedy
+and the taste of which Keith hated more than anything else in the world.
+It was the one thing that stood inexorably between his growing indolence
+and the luxury of being ill.
+
+With commencement almost in sight, all sorts of written examinations
+were demanded. These he disliked additionally because his handwriting
+never had developed in proportion to his mental capacity. No matter how
+he strove, the letters remained childishly awkward. No two of them
+seemed to point in the same direction. Not even his futile efforts at
+singing could fill him with a more humiliating sense of inferiority.
+
+All his various resistances were brought into concerted action when at
+last the teacher in Swedish ordered him to prepare two brief original
+compositions on quite simple themes. In the days of Dally he would have
+revelled in such a task. Now it appalled him. His head was empty. The
+mere idea of trying to write about such things as the discovery of
+America and the beauties of nature seemed silly. There was any number of
+books, besides, that said anything you could ever hope to say on
+either subject.
+
+The end of it was that he produced an indisposition real enough not only
+to convince his mother but to make himself willing to face the ordeal of
+castor oil. Thanks to the oil he was able to stay in bed the better part
+of two days. Those were the last two days before his Swedish
+compositions were to be delivered. He knew that if they were not
+delivered, he would get no mark in that subject, and this would prevent
+his graduation to a higher grade.
+
+In that dilemma he conceived the brilliant idea of making his mother
+write the compositions for him, and he actually succeeded in persuading
+her to do so. He prompted her a little, but she did the main part of the
+work, and the handwriting was hers. Finally he got her to bring them up
+to school with the explanation that he was too sick to sit up and write,
+but that she had taken down what he dictated. He did not even look at
+what she wrote, and it never occurred to him to doubt her ability of
+doing it far better than he could. When it was all over, he experienced
+a tremendous sense of relief, and this was much enhanced by his mother's
+willingness to let the father remain in complete ignorance of what
+had happened.
+
+Nothing was said to him when he showed up at school again. His first
+inkling of trouble came with the return of his copy book. It was full of
+marks and corrections in red ink. As he looked at these in a stunned
+fashion, he realized for the first time that his mother's spelling and
+punctuation would have been deemed unsatisfactory in a second grade
+pupil. At first he did not even consider the bearing of this discovery
+on his own fate. He could think of only one thing, namely that another
+blow had been dealt to his conception of his mother as a superior being.
+He actually felt ashamed on her behalf. Then came the thought of what
+the teacher must have thought....
+
+Commencement Day brought the answer. He got only C in Swedish, which
+meant that he had failed to pass. It gave him the choice between
+spending another year in the same grade or facing special examinations
+in the fall.
+
+At first he was too dazed to think. Then his former indifference changed
+into blazing indignation and resentment. He felt himself a victim of
+unpardonable injustice. In that mood he returned home and reported to
+his father.
+
+"You talk nonsense, my boy," said his father in a tone that was new to
+Keith. "From some things I have heard, I gather that your escape from
+the same kind of mark in every subject was little short of miraculous."
+
+Keith stared open-eyed at his father, puzzled by his manner of speaking
+and stung to the quick by what he said.
+
+"What are you going to do now," his father demanded after a while.
+
+A long pause followed during which Keith's brain worked at lightning
+speed. It was as if he had never known until then what really had
+happened during the weeks preceding commencement.
+
+"I'll pass the examinations in the fall," he said at last.
+
+"Will you give me your word of honour to read hard during the summer,"
+his father asked, and his voice set the boy's heart throbbing like
+an engine.
+
+"I will," replied Keith. "But I could pass those examinations without
+looking at the book."
+
+"The more shame for you, then, to let yourself be plucked," was his
+father's concluding remark, but even that was uttered without a
+suggestion of bitterness.
+
+
+
+XI
+
+The summer was spent on the mainland opposite the island where they used
+to live. He had practically no companionship except that of his mother.
+It was very dull, but for the first time he seemed to need solitude. He
+had brought out all his schoolbooks, and he really did a good deal of
+studying, especially of Latin, which he knew was his weakest point.
+
+At first he felt a slight grudge against the mother. She had
+disappointed him for one thing, and there was an inclination besides to
+hold her responsible for his misfortune. By degrees, however, he began
+to see his own part in its true light, and he wondered how he could have
+been such a blind fool. It was this understanding that brought him
+comparative peace and enabled him to work. He had been so harassed by
+the question of guilt in regard to actions which his own mind would
+never have classed as wrong that the sense of facing punishment clearly
+deserved came as a genuine relief.
+
+The monotony of the season was only broken by a visit to the summer home
+of Aunt Agda at Laurel Grove, where he stayed a whole week and made a
+lot of friends. She had served with the Wellanders as a nurse girl when
+Keith was only a baby. Then she was plain Agda, and Keith's mother often
+spoke of how crazy she had been about him. Then she disappeared, and
+when the Wellanders next heard of her, she was the wife of a well-to-do
+retired merchant, to whom she had borne three children while she was
+merely a servant and his first wife still lived. Keith had often
+overheard his parents speak of Agda's phenomenal rise with ironic
+smiles, but he didn't care for anything except her continued inclination
+to spoil him.
+
+There was a lot of children at Laurel Grove, boys and girls, and most
+of them matched Keith in age. They took him in, and in that one week he
+had a glimpse of the kind of life he would have liked to live. There was
+in particular one boy, Arnold Kruse, for whom Keith formed a warm
+attachment. This feeling was additionally cemented by Arnold's choice of
+Keith as a confidant. Arnold was in love with the prettiest girl in the
+place, Gurlie Norlin, and so was every other boy within reach of Laurel
+Grove. But Arnold was the favourite, and he told Keith that he and
+Gurlie had agreed to wait for each other and to marry as soon as they
+were of age.
+
+It was like a fairy tale to Keith--a wonderful tale like no one he had
+ever read. And the most wonderful thing about it was that it was real,
+and that he was permitted to play a sort of part in it. His thoughts
+went back to Oscar and what he had told Keith about the love between
+Oscar's father and mother. Here was love again, mystically beautiful, so
+that it brought a new light into the faces of those it touched. And
+Keith's heart grew lonely and wistful within him. But strangely enough,
+he never thought of connecting Arnold's love for Gurlie with what he had
+read in the book found in his father's book case. That was quite a
+different thing, he felt.
+
+
+
+XII
+
+The presiding genius of the examinations was Lector Booklund, teacher of
+Latin in Lower and Upper Sixth. He was short and stocky and gnarled by
+gout. Instead of speaking, he emitted a series of verbal explosives, and
+the boy whose answers didn't come quick enough became the object of
+withering scorn. Most of his life seemed concentrated in his eyes where
+twinkling merriment and blazing anger alternated with bewildering
+rapidity. He posed as a tyrant, but the boys who knew him well said that
+at heart he was as kind as he was just, and that his nervous impatience
+and bursts of rage were merely the results of severe physical
+sufferings.
+
+The moment he caught sight of Keith among the boys up for examination,
+most of whom hailed from other schools, he became interested and began
+to draw him out. And Keith was able to respond with some of his old-time
+quickwittedness. His ambition had been stirred into a semblance of life
+through the shock of his failure, while the summer's rest and peace had
+brought back some of his natural vivacity. The inner conflict was still
+a source of trouble, but it did not seem quite so much a matter of life
+and death. He had not yet passed the crisis, but he had reached a point
+where a little tactful nursing might put him on the right path again
+for good. What he needed above all was encouragement, and that was what
+he got for a while from the new class principal.
+
+He passed the examinations with ease. Then the sense of being a favoured
+pupil once more made him throw himself into the studies with
+considerable zest. Little by little, however, his zest slacked off. More
+and more frequently he became the object of blame or ridicule instead of
+praise. By and by Lector Booklund found it hard to ask him a question or
+give him a direction without open display of irritation. It was evident
+that he felt disappointed in Keith, and he did not hesitate to show it.
+
+Many causes combined to produce the slump in Keith's aspirations that in
+its turn produced the changed attitude of the teacher. The latter's
+impatience had probably as much to do with it as anything else, while
+his splenetic manners and speech intimidated the boy's already
+overwrought sensitiveness. The subjects taught and the form of the
+teachings did their share, too. Grammar and rules and dry data seemed to
+play a greater part than ever. In Latin, for instance, they were reading
+Ovid's "_Metamorphoses_" and the colourful old legends might easily have
+been used to arouse the boy's interest, if attention had merely been
+concentrated on the stories told and the life revealed by them. But the
+teacher was first and last a grammarian, and he would wax frantically
+enthusiastic over some subtle syntactic distinction which left Keith
+peevishly indifferent. And Lector Booklund was positively jealous on
+behalf of his own subject, so that once he flung a bitingly sarcastic
+remark at the boy because his attention had flared up at the quoting of
+a phrase in English.
+
+Keith's progress in English showed that he was still capable of both
+interest and effort. This language was quite new to him, and the class
+had it only one hour a week. But the man who taught it had advanced
+ideas for his day, and instead of boring the boys with a lot of abstract
+rules relating to a wholly unknown tongue, he let them start right in on
+one of the English prose classics. They were told to pick out the
+meaning of the principal words in advance, and the pronunciation was
+explained as they took turns at reading aloud. All the time the teacher
+kept the principal part of their attention focused on the story
+gradually revealed. During that one hour a week Keith's mind never
+wandered. But it was the only rift in the scholastic fog that kept him
+in a state of constant boredom.
+
+In the meantime things were happening at home that did not help the
+situation.
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+He had moved into the parlour at last. It was almost his own room. An
+old piece of furniture, half wardrobe and half dresser, standing in the
+vestibule outside the parlour, had been turned over to him for good. His
+library and his playthings were installed on the shelves in the upper
+part. His personal things occupied a whole drawer below. At night he
+slept on the big sofa, and the door to his parents' room was closed.
+
+One night he lay awake unusually long. The old struggle was going on
+within him, and there was no peace in sight. His parents had gone to bed
+a good while ago, and as far as he was concerned just then, they had
+practically ceased to exist.
+
+Then his attention was attracted by a slight noise from their room. The
+stillness of the night made it audible to him in spite of the closed
+door. At first he listened out of idle curiosity, and to get away from
+his own feverish thoughts. Finally he got up without any clear idea of
+what he was doing, or why he did it. He began to tremble even as he
+moved on tip-toe across the room. At the door he had to kneel down to
+steady himself.
+
+He could not tell whether an hour or a minute had passed when he crawled
+into bed again. His whole body was on fire. He could feel the pulses at
+his temples hammering. At that moment he knew what passion was. The man
+in him had been let loose, and he wanted to cry aloud with the
+bitter-sweet agony of it.
+
+There was no thought of father or mother in his mind. The people back of
+the door were just a man and a woman. The feelings that surged through
+his heart, shaking his body volcanically, would have been the same if
+those two had been perfect strangers.
+
+No jealousy stirred him. No sense of shame shocked him. His dominant
+emotion was envy.
+
+The visit of death had left him unmoved. Now he had been as close to
+life in its most intense form, and the effect of it was maddening--a
+call that seemed to make further waiting worse than death.
+
+He fell asleep at last with a part of the pillow stuffed into his mouth
+to keep his sobs from being heard in the next room....
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+The thing had him by the throat. It was stronger than any power he could
+bring to bear against it. Fighting it was useless. Resistance meant
+merely prolonged torture. Surrender meant sleep--and torture of a
+different kind the next day.
+
+Once more he managed to get hold of the book that had wrought such
+disastrous change in his entire existence. He read again the chapters
+bearing directly on his own case. They seemed more convincing than ever.
+There could be no doubt of his degradation or his doom.
+
+
+
+XV
+
+He came running home from some errand one evening not long before
+Christmas. His mind was more at ease than it had been for a long time.
+That season of the year rarely failed to bring him a little happiness.
+
+The moment he flung open the kitchen door, he knew that something was
+wrong, and his heart sank within him.
+
+The mother stood in the middle of the floor wringing her hands. Granny
+sat on the sofa, stolid-faced as usual, and rolled one of her endless
+bandages. On the chair by the window sat the father, his shoulder
+against the wall, his left elbow on the table, and his head resting in
+his left hand.
+
+Keith could hardly believe what he saw.
+
+His father's face was contorted with pain or grief. Big tears rolled
+down his cheeks and dropped on the table before him. Every little while
+he was shaken by a sob that almost choked him.
+
+"Is he sick," the boy gasped.
+
+"Something dreadful has happened," the mother stammered, unable to take
+her eyes off her husband.
+
+"You had better go into the parlour, Keith," whispered Granny as she
+started on a new roll.
+
+Keith turned his glance once more to the father. He had never seen a man
+cry before, and until that moment such a lack of control on the part of
+his father had seemed quite unimaginable. The strangeness of it
+frightened him.
+
+"I fear it will kill him," he heard his mother mutter.
+
+"I wish it would," the father broke out, raising his head for a moment.
+"But it won't, Anna.... I'll be over it in a minute."
+
+His words were forced out between sobs. Keith saw that he was struggling
+terribly to get himself in hand.
+
+Then he caught sight of Keith, whose entrance he evidently had not
+noticed, and as usual the presence of the boy brought back the
+self-restraint for which he had been striving vainly until then.
+
+"Keith," he said, speaking much more quietly, "your Uncle Wilhelm has
+been arrested for using money that didn't belong to him. I can't believe
+it, but I am sure they will send him to jail.... You must always
+remember what I have told you about money...."
+
+His own words seemed to bring back to him the full horror of the
+situation, and he threw himself face downward over the table in another
+convulsive outburst of grief.
+
+Granny on the sofa was signalling frantically to Keith to leave the
+room. Mechanically he obeyed her. Anything was better than to watch his
+father....
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+Little by little he learned the whole sad story. At the same time he
+realized that Christmas would probably be spoiled--the one thing he had
+banked on for momentary relief.
+
+Once upon a time Uncle Wilhelm had been the most prosperous member of
+the family, owning a big, fine grocery store in the fashionable North
+End district. He made a lot of money, but his wife was vain and foolish
+and pleasure-loving. She always managed to spend more than he could ever
+earn, and he was idiotically in love with her. It ended in bankruptcy.
+Uncle Wilhelm got a position as superintendent of a small factory in
+the South End. There he might have done very well in a more modest way,
+had not his wife proceeded to turn his life into a perfect hell. This
+was her way of punishing him for his failure to support her in the style
+she demanded. He was weak in more ways than one, and soon he drank not
+merely for the sake of a good time, as everybody else did, but to find
+consolation and forgetfulness. His private affairs went from bad to
+worse. Gradually he lost the habit of distinguishing between his own
+meagre funds and those entrusted to him. It was a clear case, and his
+employer proved merciless when it was found out.
+
+What Keith's father had feared came true. And that Christmas was more
+sad than any other part of any other year had ever been.
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+It would have been hard on Keith at any time. Coming as it did, the
+family disgrace, which he guessed rather than grasped, and the
+disappointment, which was a depressingly tangible thing, brought his
+natural sensitiveness to a morbid pitch.
+
+There was one idea that haunted him day and night--the idea that he
+belonged to a race doomed in advance to decay and destruction.
+
+Uncle Wilhelm's case was not an isolated one. There was Uncle Henrik,
+the youngest brother of Keith's father, who had gone to the dogs while
+still a youth, and in a more ignominious fashion, if possible. What was
+he now but a besotted tramp, begging shamelessly of friend or stranger
+for a few _oere_ with which to buy a brief moment of coarse happiness?
+
+There was Uncle Marcus, the husband of Keith's paternal aunt, who had
+hurt his leg in a storm and lost his splendid position as chief engineer
+of the swiftest steamer plying on the Northern route. Now he was
+disabled for ever, and proud Aunt Brita was at her wit's end to keep the
+home and the family together.
+
+There were the two half-brothers of Uncle Wilhelm's silly wife--popular
+and dashing young fellows reading blithely the purple path to
+destruction. Even Keith's naive mind had discovered which way they were
+headed, although his thoughts of them were not free from admiration.
+
+And there were still others. Wherever he turned within the narrowing
+family circle, he met similar instances of progress in the wrong
+direction. Some were sinners and some were victims of fate--or seemed
+so--but it came to the same thing in the end.
+
+"The Wellanders are going," Keith's mother said one day to Aunt Brita
+when she was too depressed and worried to mind the boy's presence.
+
+"Yes," replied Aunt Brita grimly, "and so is everybody else who ever had
+anything to do with them. Keith will have to start it all over again
+from the beginning."
+
+That seemed to settle it for the moment. Of what avail could his own
+feeble struggles be in the face of an adverse destiny?
+
+He brooded over it, and out of his brooding came resentment, and more
+and more this resentment turned against his relatives in a fury of
+disgust. He had a feeling of their having betrayed him....
+
+Now and then, however, one of the expressions used by Aunt Brita would
+recur to him with a suggestion of quite different possibilities.
+
+"Keith will have to start it all over again from the beginning," she had
+said.
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+If he only had some one to talk to.... But he was more lonely than ever.
+Murray had moved to another part of the city, more in keeping with his
+father's increasing prosperity, and was now attending a North End
+school. They had parted with no more ado than if they had expected to
+meet the next day again. Now and then Keith thought of Murray with a
+touch of sentimental regret, but it was wearing off.
+
+Johan was still found at the foot of the lane, smoking and bragging and
+leering as before. To Keith he had become positively loathsome.
+
+There was no one else in sight--not one boy in the class out of whom
+Keith might hope to make a friend. Leaving other factors aside, his lack
+of pocket money was sufficient to keep him apart from the rest. They all
+had some sort of allowance, however scant, and they took turns treating
+each other to pastry or candy bought from a couple of old women who
+brought basketfuls, to the school doors during every pause. He had to
+beg especially for every _oere_, he couldn't get much at that.
+
+He wore a suit made over by his mother from clothes given to her by a
+woman of some means with whom she had a slight acquaintance. They had
+been outgrown by that woman's son, and they had been offered to Keith's
+mother because they were too good to be thrown away. There was nothing
+about it to be ashamed of, and the made-over suit was neat enough,
+though a little awkwardly cut. A couple of years earlier, Keith would
+have hailed it with delight. Now the wearing of it seemed worse than
+going about naked. He thought that every one noticed the suit and knew
+that it was not really meant for him.
+
+He read contempt in every glance, and by degrees he developed a temper
+that was checked only by the humiliating consciousness of his physical
+inferiority. After nearly five years in school, he was still one of the
+smallest boys in height and bodily development, and neither gymnastics
+nor the military drill that became compulsory in the sixth grade had the
+slightest effect on him. And, of course, he suffered the more from it
+because he ascribed his lack of stature and muscle to what he had now
+begun to think of as his own moral weakness.
+
+A petty quarrel one day brought on another fight with Bauer, and this
+time right in the class room. They rolled around on the floor between
+the desks and separated only when some one cried out that Booklund was
+coming. Keith was thoroughly aware of the fact that his classmates
+regarded their behaviour as inexcusably undignified in pupils of the
+Lower Sixth, but contrary to custom, he didn't care very much. What
+almost made him cry was that the thought that at the moment of
+separation Bauer once more was on top of him--just as when their first
+fight came to an end five years earlier. And then Keith was brought
+still nearer to tears by his disgusted realization of that infantile
+tendency to cry in every moment of unusual strain.
+
+But, of course, how could he expect anything else?
+
+His whole bearing changed gradually. The gay forwardness that had caused
+Dally to make fun of him--and like him, perhaps--was quite gone, but
+gone, too, was the shyness that always had run side by side with it. His
+most frequent mood was one of irritable rebellion, and in between he
+would have spells of sulkiness that estranged the teachers and surprised
+himself in his more wholesome moods. He snarled to his mother, and he
+would have done so to his father if he had only dared.
+
+The school seemed sheer torture much of the time, and all its
+objectionable features seemed to centre in the Latin. His hatred of that
+subject approached an obsession. 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.
+
+Such a period of suspended communication had lasted more than a week,
+when, at the wane of the term, the inevitable explosion
+finally occurred.
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+The class had just turned in their copybooks with a Latin exercise
+prepared at home. Lector Booklund was standing at his desk with the
+whole pile in front of him. Keith's book happened to be on top. The
+teacher opened it. He sent a glance at Keith that made the boy squirm.
+Then, as his eyes ran down the page, his face turned almost purple.
+Suddenly he raised the book over his head and threw it on the floor with
+such force that the cover was torn off.
+
+A moment of ominous silence followed. Keith was red up to the roots of
+his hair.
+
+"Wellander," the teacher roared.
+
+Keith rose none too quickly from his seat without looking up.
+
+"Pick up that thing," Lector Booklund shouted at him with the full force
+of his powerful lungs. "I don't want to touch it again."
+
+Keith remained like a statue, feeling now as if he didn't have a drop of
+blood left in his whole body.
+
+"Pick it up, I tell you!"
+
+"No," Keith retorted in a strangely self-possessed voice, "you had
+better pick it up yourself. I didn't throw it on the floor."
+
+In another moment the teacher was beside Keith, burying his hand in the
+boy's hair. Then he pulled and shook, shook and pulled, until the hand
+came away with big tufts of hair showing between the fingers.
+
+Again absolute silence reigned for a moment.
+
+"Ugh," blew the teacher, his anger changed to a look of embarrassment.
+"I am not going to speak another word to you, Wellander, during the rest
+of the term. Sit down!"
+
+Instead of sitting down, Keith walked over to the torn copy book, picked
+it up and turned toward Lector Booklund.
+
+"I am going home," he announced almost triumphantly. "You have no right
+to hit me or pull my hair out by the roots."
+
+Before the teacher had recovered from his surprise Keith was outside the
+door and on his way home.
+
+He didn't know afterwards how he got there, but he could remember saying
+to himself over and over again:
+
+"I didn't cry and I didn't want to cry!"
+
+
+
+XX
+
+He told his mother truthfully what had happened and declared in
+conclusion that he would never go back to school again.
+
+She was furious with the teacher and thought that on the whole, it
+would be safer for Keith to stay away during the few weeks remaining
+of the term.
+
+"That man should be punished," she cried repeatedly. "You did just
+right."
+
+But the father spoke in another tone when he, in his turn, had heard the
+tale of that eventful day.
+
+"You will go to school tomorrow as usual," he said in his sternest
+voice. "You had no right to refuse to pick up the book, and you had no
+right to leave the school without permission."
+
+"I can't go back after being treated like that, papa," Keith
+remonstrated, trying vainly to make his tone sound firm.
+
+"You will," the father reiterated, "or I'll...."
+
+He stopped and thought for a minute.
+
+"Or you'll begin to learn a trade tomorrow. Take your choice."
+
+Father and son looked long at each other.
+
+"Carl ..." the mother began pleadingly.
+
+"Please, Anna," the father checked her. "This is too serious. The boy's
+future is at stake."
+
+Then he turned to Keith and said more kindly: "I ask you to go for my
+sake."
+
+"I will," the boy blurted out with a little catch in his voice.
+
+His pride was broken, and once more those everlasting tears were dimming
+his eyes.
+
+He felt weak and helpless, but through his dejection broke now and then
+a sense of pleasant warmth. His father had asked him to go "for
+his sake."
+
+Such a thing had never happened before.
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+The class was discreetly preoccupied when Keith showed up as usual next
+morning. Only Young Bauer evinced a slight inclination to taunt him, but
+was curtly hushed up.
+
+During one of the afternoon hours the door of the classroom opened
+unexpectedly and Keith's father appeared on the threshold.
+
+"Will you pardon me for just one moment, Sir," he said to the astonished
+teacher. Then, without coming further into the room, he addressed
+himself to Keith: "I have had a talk with the Rector and with Lector
+Booklund. I have heard all about your behaviour in school, and I warn
+you now that unless you do better, I shall give you the treatment you
+deserve. Bear that in mind."
+
+Then he vanished as abruptly as he had appeared.
+
+A couple of the boys snickered. The teacher rapped sharply on the table
+with the book he held in his hand.
+
+Keith sat absolutely still with bowed head. He couldn't think. He didn't
+dare to think of ever facing one of those other boys again. And suddenly
+it occurred to him that his father had looked quite common, like a
+workman almost, while he stood there at the door, talking across the
+room to Keith.
+
+But a tiny voice somewhere within himself denied it.
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+The term dragged to an end.
+
+Commencement Day was no longer a cause of joyful anticipation. It had to
+be borne like many other things. But it did mark the end.
+
+Keith learned without much heartbreaking that he had got a "C" not
+merely in Latin, which he expected, but in behaviour as well--he who all
+through his school period had never had less than "A" on his
+personal conduct.
+
+Well, it merely clinched the decision he already had formed. One could
+not pass any examination in behaviour. And after what had happened, the
+thought of going back to the same classroom in the fall gave him a
+sensation of outright physical discomfort. Anything was better
+than school.
+
+Not even his mother had put in an attendance that day. He had to walk
+home by himself, all the other boys being accompanied by pleased or
+resigned parents. But it was in keeping with the rest of what he had to
+go through.
+
+Out of the midst of the shapeless throng of dark thoughts filling his
+head, a quite irrelevant memory pushed to the front as if in answer to
+an unspoken question. It consisted of the words spoken by Aunt Brita:
+
+"Keith will have to start it all over again from the beginning."
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+The first few days after the closing of the school were wonderfully
+restful. The parents proved remarkably forbearing. Neither one spoke a
+word of reproach. Nothing was said about the future. It was as if some
+sort of fear had checked them.
+
+The home seemed unusually quiet and pleasant. There was any amount of
+time for reading, and no suggestions were forthcoming as to what should
+or should not be read. Yet Keith remained satisfied only a few days.
+
+No one knows what might have happened if they had gone into the country
+for the summer as they used to do. But again the whole family had to
+stay in town for some reason not divulged to Keith. And with the heat
+and the sunshine came the usual restlessness.
+
+Keith had made up his mind not to go back to school. He was equally
+determined not to let himself be forced into any sort of manual work.
+Besides having no knack for it, he had come to look upon it as a social
+disgrace. Some other work must be found, for well enough he knew that
+his father would not let him stay home indefinitely doing nothing.
+
+It was easy, however, to make up one's mind about what not to do, but
+mighty hard to discover the right kind of thing to do. Keith had no clue
+to start with at all, and to begin with all his efforts led him into the
+blindest of blind alleys.
+
+He plagued his mother with inquiries to which she had few or no answers
+to give. He even deigned to consult Johan and found that he already had
+found a place as errandboy in a store. A few questions convinced Keith
+that such a life might be good enough for Johan but not for a boy who,
+after all, had reached Lower Sixth in a public school.
+
+The situation was becoming desperate and Keith was watching his father
+with steadily increasing concern, when at last a helpful hint reached
+him from the most unexpected quarter.
+
+"Why don't you look in the paper," Granny asked him one day.
+
+"What for," was Keith's surprised counter-question.
+
+"For work, of course. Look at the advertisements on the back page."
+
+"Do you think, Granny...." Keith hesitated.
+
+"I don't think," retorted Granny. "I know."
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+Three weeks had gone. It was still early morning, and he was studying a
+newspaper very carefully.
+
+"What is it you find so interesting," his mother asked at last.
+
+"The advertisements," he explained without taking his eyes off the
+paper.
+
+"What advertisements?"
+
+"Help wanted."
+
+"Nonsense," she cried, putting down her sewing. "Are you still thinking
+of leaving school?"
+
+"Here is one about a volunteer wanted in a wholesale office," was his
+indirect reply. "It is on West Long street--in the same house where Aunt
+Gertrude has her jewelry store. Do volunteers get paid?"
+
+"I don't know," his mother said absent-mindedly, her hands resting on
+her lap in unwonted idleness. Then she woke up as from a dream: "You
+should ask papa first."
+
+"What's the use until I know whether I can get," Keith parried.
+
+Ten minutes later he bustled into Aunt Gertrude's store, where she sat
+in a corner near the big show-window working at a strip of embroidery
+that never got finished. She was a spinster with large black hungry eyes
+in a very white face. She and Keith's mother had been girl friends. Now
+she was running one of the two jewelry stores owned by her brother.
+
+She had heard of the position. It was in the office of Herr Brockhaus on
+the second floor--a dealer in tailor's supplies. And she had heard that
+he was a very nice man.
+
+"Do you think I can get it," Keith demanded eagerly.
+
+"Why don't you run up this minute and ask," she suggested.
+
+Keith looked as if he had been to jump off a church steeple. But in
+another minute he was climbing the stairs. His legs seemed rather shaky
+and his tongue felt like a piece of wood. The moment he opened the door,
+however, all his fears and hesitations were gone. Once more he was the
+old Keith who had made a play of studies and examinations.
+
+Herr Brockhaus was a tall, youngish, good-looking man, a little haughty
+of mien, but with a tendency to smile in quite friendly fashion.
+
+"I have as good as hired another boy who got here earlier than you," he
+said in reply to Keith's inquiry. On seeing Keith's dejected look, he
+laughed good-humouredly.
+
+"There are plenty of other jobs," he suggested.
+
+"But you look as if you would be kind to me and give to a chance to
+learn," Keith heard himself saying to his own intense astonishment.
+
+"I can see that when you want a thing you want it real hard," Herr
+Brockhaus rejoined with another peasant laugh. "Well, I like that. What
+kind of a hand do you write?"
+
+"Awful," Keith confessed, "but I am going to learn better."
+
+For a good long while Keith felt himself studied from top to toe, and
+under that searching scrutiny he blushed as usual.
+
+"I am willing to do anything that is required," he ventured to ease the
+suspense.
+
+"All right--what did you say your name was? Keith--I'll take you, and
+tell the other boy that I changed my mind. When can you begin?"
+
+"Tod ... tomorrow," Keith corrected himself with a sudden remembrance
+of his father.
+
+"Good," said Herr Brockhaus. "Show up at eight. And I'll pay you ten
+crowns a month the first year, although as a rule volunteers don't get
+anything."
+
+Keith walked home on air. The sun never shone more brightly than that
+day. The tall old stone houses along West Long street looked imposing
+and mysterious, as if they had been magic mansions full of golden
+opportunities for bright little boys. School seemed years away already.
+Lector Booklund was a dream.
+
+His mother listened in silence to his wonderful tale. Then she kissed
+him.
+
+"When you have made a lot of money, will you present me with a new black
+silk dress," she asked with a suspicious lustre in her eyes.
+
+"Anything you want, mamma," he promised solemnly. "When I begin to make
+money, you'll never have to worry any more about anything."
+
+Again she had to kiss him.
+
+He was then a little more than halfway through his fifteenth year.
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+When his father came home that night, Keith hurried across the room to
+meet him. "Papa," he cried full of subdued excitement and a swelling of
+self-importance such as he had not experienced for ever so long. "I have
+got a job."
+
+"What kind of a job," asked the father quietly.
+
+"In an office." And Keith sputtered out the details.
+
+When the whole story was told, the father stood looking at him
+enigmatically for a long while.
+
+"Perhaps it is just as well," he said at last. "It certainly will make
+things easier for me. But bear in mind what I now tell you, boy: you
+will live to regret the chance you are throwing away--a chance for which
+I would have given one of my hands when I was of your age."
+
+"Did you want me to go on," Keith asked uncertainly.
+
+"I did--I always hoped that you should pass your university examinations
+and wear the white cap."
+
+"And what did you want me to become?"
+
+"A civil engineer--that's the only real profession today."
+
+The idea was too novel to be grasped quickly by the boy. His own
+thoughts had never strayed in that direction, and his conception of an
+engineer's duties and position was extremely vague.
+
+"An engineer," he repeated. "But then I should not have studied Latin."
+
+"Of course not, but you chose it without asking my opinion first."
+
+Keith's surprise increased.
+
+"Why didn't you tell me," he insisted.
+
+"Because I wanted you to begin to shape your own life," the father
+replied, "and I thought you knew what you wanted."
+
+Keith could hardly believe his own ears.
+
+"What do you want me to do now," he pleaded at last.
+
+"What you feel you must," rejoined the father. "This concerns your
+life, and not mine. And you must make up your own mind. Whatever you
+decided, you have my good wishes, boy, and I shall try to help you as
+far as I can."
+
+For a moment Keith had a sense of never having known his father before.
+Then a thought flashed through his head: why did he not speak before?
+
+He went into the parlour and stood at the window staring at the gloomy
+facade of the distillers across the lane. A motley throng of thoughts
+chased each other through his brain.
+
+It was not yet too late. Nothing was settled. He could still drop the
+job and go back to school if he wanted. But did he want it?
+
+The thought of school sent a slight shiver down his spine.
+
+No, he was sick of it, of the teachers, of the tedious books, of the
+boys who looked down upon him and kept him at arm's length all the time,
+of everything that had made up his life for the last few years.
+
+He wanted change. He must have it.
+
+Above all else, he wanted to be free, he wanted to do as he pleased, and
+now he had found a way to it, he believed.
+
+At that moment it seemed to him that his childhood suddenly had come to
+an end, that his manhood had begun, and that all life lay open
+before him.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Soul of a Child, by Edwin Bjorkman
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