Walter's Adventures by Zacharias Topelius (Complete)

Walter's First Adventure

On Walter's home as well as Lunkentus and the striped shirt.

Not far from the road there is a farm called Hemgård. Maybe you remember the two beautiful rowan trees next to the red-painted fence, and the well with the tall bucket and the garden with the nice berry bushes, which are the first to turn green in the spring and in the summer hang all the way down to the ground with their wonderful berries. Behind the garden there is a paddock with tall aspens which whisper in the morning breeze, behind the paddock is the road, behind the road are the woods, and behind the woods is the whole wide world. But on the other side of the farm is the lake, and on the other side of the lake is the village, and all around there are fields and meadows, some of them yellow and some of them green.

There in the nice little house with the white window frames, with the neat little porch and the tidy stairs which are always strewn with finely chopped juniper, live good hard-working and proper people. Walter’s parents live there, his brother Fredrik, sister Lotta, old Lena and Jonas and Karo and Bravo and Putte and Murre and Kuckeliku. Karo lives in the doghouse, Bravo lives in the horse-barn, Putte the cat lives mostly with Jonas, Murre the other cat lives a little here and a little there, and Kuckeliku lives in the hen-house. The hen-house is Kuckeliku’s kingdom.

Walter is six years old; soon he will start school. He can't read yet, but he can do many other things. He can hop like a crow, stand on his head, roll a somersault, fight a thumb war, catch a ball, jump off of things, bat a trissa, catch panfish, ride a sled, throw a snowball, crow like a rooster, ride a hobby horse, eat a sandwich, and drink buttermilk. He can walk on the sides of his boots, rip his pants, wear a hole in his shirt, make snot rockets, break plates, throw a ball through a windowpane, draw stick figures on important papers, pull the string off of the spinning wheel, tramp all over the herb garden, eat himself sick with gooseberries, and learn his lesson from a spanking. All in all he has a good heart, but a bad memory, at least when it comes to his mamma’s and pappa’s admonitions, and so he winds up having lots of adventures.

Now you’ll get to hear about them.

One beautiful summer day, when Walter woke up, his mother was sitting on the edge of his bed and kissed him and said, “today it is the twentieth of July! God bless you, dear child!”

And then his pappa came up to him and kissed him, and his brother and sister were already dressed, and Walter saw Lena and Jonas in the doorway, and everyone looked so happy, and as if they shared a secret. Karo wagged his tail as usual, and Jesse Putte leaped past the bed, and Bravo whinnied out in the yard, and Kuckeliku was holding a speech out there from atop the garden fence. It was always the same speech, there was never any variation, but it sounded very important, and that was the most important thing.

A little embarrased, Walter rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and chuckled to himself. He knew what all this was about: today was his sixth birthday.

In a flash Walter was out of bed to look for his clothes, which usually lay wherever he had thrown them the evening before, because our little Walter, as little as he was, was also a huge slob, and it didn't help at all to tell him to put this or that neatly onto his chair. But today he was excused from a scolding, and his mamma handed him a brand new summer outfit: a gray jacket, pants, and a vest. Now that was really something, to go around wearing a vest! Even his new shirt lay nicely ironed on the edge of his bed, his brand new socks were laying on the chair’s armrest, and his little boots, which last night were completely covered in mud were now proudly shining on the floor by the bed. So today it was easy for Walter to look polished and sharp, and the only funny thing was that in his hurry Walter put the left boot on his right foot, but really, that was no big deal, it worked anyway. It was not right, but it was no sin.

Out in the dining room the table was decorated for a birthday with flowers and wreaths, a pretzel, and a ship: complete with masts, sails, bowsprit, and real rigging: Jonas had worked on it for a long time, he who once had been a sailor. Walter had wished for such a ship for a long time, his happiness was beyond description, and his ship needed a name at once. And it got one, a proud name too: it was called Lunkentus.

“This afternoon we’re going to row out to Granholm across the lake,” his father said and nodded, “and then you can find out what Lunkentus can do.”

“Can’t Walter just sail his boat in a tub?” said his mother, “I’m afraid of Walter playing in the lake.”

“What?! Sail Lunkentus in a water tub?” cried Walter, offended and annoyed.

“I guess we’ll just have to see how well you behave yourself,” said his father. “You may not row the boat by yourself out on the lake. However, you may bring Lunkentus along.”

Said and done. That afternoon they all got in the big boat and rowed over to Granholm. It was so beautiful, and the lake was so calm, and the little minnows were swimming in big schools along the shallows by the beach. On the shore there were strange rocks, some where black, some where white, and some seemed to be made solely for skipping over the water. When they arrived mamma was in charge of laying out the picnic and coffee in the green grass, and never before had sourdough bread and sweet milk tasted so good: it was beyond description. The only problem was that the mosquitoes had an excellent appetite too and they considered Walter their sandwich. But Walter swung a bundle of leafy twigs about himself and fought like a desperate courage: one against a thousand. And that was really something, to be so fearsome and so brave.

When that was done pappa took his shotgun and went into the woods while mamma and Lotta went to pick arctic raspberries, Lena washed the cups, and so it fell to Jonas the watch the boys. The sunshine was warm, Fredrik slept, and Jonas, who had stayed up the night before to put the finishing touches on Lunkentus, slept too. Then Walter felt like it was time to try out his ship.

He walked down to the beach, loaded Lunkentus with white stones, appointed an ant as helmsman and commanded him to sail away to Spain. The breeze blew slowly from land, and Lunkentus made his master proud. Walter thought he had never seen a more beautiful ship. My, how it swayed proudly on the rippling waves! How it gathered speed! How it heaved gallantly in the wind! Lunkentus was sailing to Spain, but Walter stood on the shore with a string and was careful to make sure that Spain did not lie too far off in the geography of Granholm.

Now came a gust of wind. Just as he was having the most fun, the string slipped out of Walter’s hand, and...Goodbye Lunkentus! Now he sailed all alone out into the big, wide lake.

Walter dashed to the boat, but it was too big and heavy, he couldn’t push it out. He ran like a madman along the shore, “Lunkentus is running away! Lunketus is sailing to Spain for real!” Now, a fisherman lived nearby, and though his boat was gone there was an old dough trough there, laying turned over on the beach. Walter didn’t pause to think for long. He pushed the trough out into the water, jumped in, and began to pole his way forward with a little stick.

The trough was a bit tippy, but still it worked excellently, at least in the beginning. The wind blew from shore and pushed the trough slowly out into deep water. And yet Walter could come no nearer to the runaway, for Lunkentus sailed much faster.

Walter was a bit taken aback when he could no longer feel the bottom with his stick. The trough difted farther and farther out to sea, it began to lurch in the waves, and was near to capsizing.

Now Walter started to scream, as loud as he could. Walter’s first adventure was very near to being his last.

But as luck would have it Jonas woke up, and his eyes widened in terror when he saw, far out on the lake, a little baking trough rocking on the water, and a shrieking little boy in it. Jonas, good old Jonas, had many years behind him and was a little slow on his feet, but now he leaped up and sprang to the shore, pushed the boat out and rowed toward Walter so hard the oars creaked and groaned. When Walter noticed him he found his courage had come back again. “Now don’t you go thinking that I’m scared!” he said, and boldly stood up. But this was more than the trough could handle, it soon capsized, and Walter fell headfirst into the lake.

“No, just look at that foolish boy!” cried Jonas and rowed so violently that one of the oars broke. But by then he was quite close, so he grabbed Walter by his hair and pulled him up into the boat. He has some tough bangs, our Walter. “Brrr!” he said, when he came up out the Fish’s Kingdom.

“Save Lunkentus! Save Lunkentus!” was the first thing he shouted, with his mouth still full of water. And how the water drained off him, and how his boots went squish, slurp when he moved his feet!

Jonas laughed. “Lunkentus! I don’t care about Lunktenus!” he said, half mad and half happy. And so he rowed the boat, limping along with one and a half oars, back to shore again.

And now there was a hullabaloo. Pappa yelled and mamma cried, Lotta sniffed and Fredrik sighed, Lena shook her head and Jonas looked a little sheepish. But Walter, he wasn’t afraid at all, once he had solid ground under his feet again, and he thought it wasn’t all that dangerous. After all, he can swim.

“Oh yes, with your hands on the bottom!” laughed Jonas.

“I didn’t feel any bottom!” said Walter defiantly. “You should have let me be, and then I could have swam back to shore.”

“But where are we going to find him dry clothes, and quick?” said mamma. “Lotta, go run the fisher’s stuga and ask if we can borrow some of his childrens’ clothes!”

Lotta ran off and was back a moment later. “They only have a very small little boy, and an older girl,” she said, “Here are the girl’s nightshirt and her striped sunday skirt, along with stockings and shoes.

“Am I going to walk around in girl clothes?” demanded Walter.

“Yes, you are my boy,” said mamma with that firm tone of voice that was not good to defy. “It’ll be your punishment, and you can be grateful that you got off so easily. You’ve earned yourself a proper switching!”

There was nothing for it. In a moment Walter was dressed and looked quite peculiar in his striped skirt. “Come here, and I can do your hair for you!” said Lotta. But Walter waved his arms and stomped off into the woods while his clothes dried.

After he had walked for a little while he met a hunter, who said to him, “Little girl, can you please show me the way to the fisherman’s stuga?”

“I am not a girl,” said Walter, and proudly walked by.

A bit further he came across an old woman picking blueberries. Walter walked right up to her, put his hands on his hips and said, “I’m not a girl, I am a man!”

“Oh, I see,” said the woman, still picking berries.

Deeper in the woods there were a few poor boys collecting tree-fodder for their sheep. “Hey, there goes the salmon-fisher’s daughter, Brita,” they said to each other, “she can help us carry the leaves down to the boat. Come, Brita, why are you lazing about in the woods anyway?”

“I’m no Brita!” cried Walter, and for safety’s sake picked up a nice big stick.

“Ha! Listen to that!” said the boys, and started throwing pinecones at the supposed girl.

Walter threw pinecones back, and there was war in the forest. The bullets whined among the threes, but the enemy was superior, and Walter had to retreat.

It isn’t easy to run over tree stumps in a skirt for someone who was used to running with freedom-loving legs. The enemy caught up with Walter and bombarded him from every direction. “We’ll teach you a lesson for being lazy when you could make yourself useful!” they shouted.

“I’m no girl, I’m a man!” Walter yelled, and swung his stick all around. But when that didn’t work, he untied the skirt and left it hanging. The skirt was pitched on a juniper bush, and Walter ran away in a very peculiar outfit. All the boys laughed, in the tree branches the jays and the squirrel laughed, and the whole forest was filled with a great merriment.

Walter came back to the beach sweating and red. “I don’t want to be a girl! I’m never ever going to be a girl again!” he shouted from far away, on the edge of tears.

“Oh, don’t cry my dear boy,” said his mamma. “Girls are often just as good as any boy could ever be. But look here, come and take your own clothes, which are now dry. Lotta, go look for the skirt, and bring it back to the fisherman’s stuga with our thanks."

Walter got dressed again, and quite fast, too. He felt so light and nimble and comfortable in his own clothes. Now he got to be a boy again, now he was a man, now he felt strong enough to wage a pinecone war against an entire battalion. He had suffered a humiliating defeat. “How is somebody supposed to be brave,” declared Walter, “how can anybody be a warrior, a fighter, a hero, when he has the rotten luck of being dressed in a skirt?”

And then they all went back home. Walter sat at the edge of the boat and held his stick in the lake, making the water rush around the stick. The lake was completely smooth, like glass, and the afternoon skies blushed in surprise when they saw their own beauty in the mirror. The remarkable thing was, that down there in the water there was a sky, just as deep as the other was high, and down there their swam pink colored clouds, just like the ones that sailed up above. Walter thought to himself, that if the shiny water was made of glass, then boy, would it be a fun place to go ice-skating. He almost thought that it was a shame that such a beautiful mirror should be broken by Jonas’s oars, and the boat itself left a big crack in the surface. And when the boat approached Hemgård’s beach it was strange and wonderful to see how all the birches stood on their heads down in the water, and in the depths the sun shone through the green leaves, and down there the birds flew from branch to branch under the water.

Hardly had the boat reached the dock before Walter shouted and jump to land first. What was it he saw that excited him so? What else, than his own proud ship, his lost, his dearly missed Lunkentus, that lay there against the shore and rolled with the little waves. Lunkentus had had a good helmsman who knew his navigation, the ant had manned the rudder like a real sailor and steered straight into the right harbor. Sure, Lunkentus listed a little to one side, and much of the cargo had been lost at sea. But there is plenty of that kind of cargo in Spain. And Lunkentus made many more voyages, laden with stones, ants, and hopes and dreams.

Dreams are a light ballast, and often founder, but no matter, just as long as vocation’s ant and life’s Lunkentus find the right haven in the end.

Walter's Second Adventure,

which happened one day in Sugarland, right next to Heaven Hill.

Sure, you’ve got it nice and warm as you sit inside and warm your hands by the fire. So sit there and pamper yourself, you mollycoddle, and laugh at those other kids who are foolish enough to enjoy running around outside in the frosty winter air. But let me tell you something that maybe you haven’t thought about before. No spoiled little boy ever grows up to be a real man. There’s something worse than having cold fingers, and it’s to remain weak and pitiable to the end of your days. Such a person would do better to spend their life in the china cabinet, or to live and die on a sauna bench. Because the world and life itself can often be tough to wrestle with. It just doesn’t do for a boy to have the fine, delicate skin of some lady blue-blood, because it’s a fact that at some point life is going to be heavy-handed with him.

But it’s a magnificent thing when the sun is shining over the white snow, and the bells are jingling, and the sled runners are sliding down the hill in a flash over there by the lake. Whoever is too cold can just as well go home. If someone is scared they can just stand there and watch. A sled has nimble feet. A sled doesn’t need any horse, and it never needs the whip.

Walter was the type who was never too cold, even when he forgets his mittens back home. If his little nose got red, he would blow it and look just as happy as ever. If his fingers ached from the cold, he would rub them together and flail his arms. He rarely got scared, at least when he hadn’t done anything wrong. Then he was terrified of everybody he met. God always puts a mark on someone who has done something wrong, so that other people can see it quickly. So it was with Cain, and so is it with us all.

Over where the shore is steep there was a very tall hill that, just because it was so sky-high, was called Heaven Hill. No one ever dared to drive horses on it, but the boys did go sledding there. Heaven Hill was a funny looking hill because it’s like it had two different slopes, with a more level stretch in between, and if you were afraid to ride down from the very top, you could start with the lower slope, because then you wouldn’t get going so awfully fast.

Now, there was one winter day when the boys were on Heaven Hill riding their sleds to their hearts’ content. Some of them had little girls in front of them on the sled, and then it was important to be a good helmsman around the curves, and sometimes one of the girls would start to scream. And then the boys would shout, “Don’t be scared, it’ll be fine.” And it was fine, and far out onto the ice. But soemtimes it also happened that there was a somarsault in the snow, and some people lost their hats, and some got a scrape and a bloody nose, but it wasn’t so bad. A moment later you would see them start all over again, and it was just as fun for all that.

Walter had gotten a new sled for Christmas, and on Heaven Hill it was without peer. It had iron runners, it could be steered with reins if you didn’t want to steer with your heels, and its name was Bocken – The Goat, because it caught up to all the other sleds and butted them in the rear. Bocken and Walter were a pair. You should have seem them on Heaven Hill! They flew from the highest top so that the snow whirled around them. Nobody had ever seen such a grand sled before, and Walter was rather proud of his Bocken.

Next to Heaven Hill there was a high slope where there were no beaten paths, and it was called Sugarland, because whoever took a sled down that slope went into drifts so deep that you couldn’t even see their hats stick up over the snow. Even Heaven Hill’s very bravest rarely dared to go sledding there. But Walter had faith in his Bocken and he decided to go for a stroll in Sugarland.

Said and done. All the boys and girls watched in amazement as Walter climbed up the hill with Bocken following him like a faithful dog. When they had gotten as high as they could, Walter took the reins, sat himself on the sled and commanded “forward, march!” Bocken obeyed, with his nose pointing straight down. They were gone in a flash, swift as an arrow, straight into the deepest Sugarland...at first you could see nothing but Walter’s head, then his hat, and finally nothing at all...Bocken and Walter had completely disappeared into the drifts.

Walter closed his eyes when he disappeared. He felt how he sunk down and down, like an injured crow falling out of a birch tree, and then he felt a hard thump! When Walter looked up, he saw that he and Bocken were in front of a big castle of ice, with tall, glistening pillars and great halls of shining silver. Then the Snow King came walking out of the castle, dressed in wolf skins and with a long beard of hoar frost, and by the hand he led the Snow Queen in a long white dress and with a crown with ice diamonds on her head. “Welcome to my kingdom,” said the king. “Now you are here, and here you shall remain forever. I like plucky, spirited boys like you, and I shall retain you as my chief troublemaker, and you and Bocken will be held in great honor.”

“Thank you, really, I’m honored,” answered Walter, “but a little warm food wouldn’t hurt, it’s been a long time since I had anything to eat.”

“Come!” said the Snow King, “and I shall dunk you through the ice into freezing water, and then you may eat a delicate snow puree the likes of which you’ve never tasted before, for it is made of whipped frozen dew and sweetened with powdered ice.”

“No thank you,” said Walter, “I think I’m already full.”

“Why, you little brat!” said the king, outraged. “I shall teach you to spurn my good gifts. Come, Snow Queen! Breath on this little rascal and turn him into a flying snowbird in our boundless kingdom!”

Then the Snow Queen breathed like an icy north wind, and at once Walter was turned into a little snowflake, that whirled about among a million other snowflakes in an empty and lonely place. It was at the same time very miserable and kind of funny, but Walter’s biggest concern was finding out what had become of Bocken.

In that moment Walter opened his eyes and noticed that he was at home lying in his own bed, and that his head felt heavy. His father, mother, and brother and sister stood next to his bed, and when they saw him wake up they said, “Praise God! He’s waking up!”

“What?” said Walter and sat up. “Didn’t I ride to Sugarland with Bocken? Didn’t I meet the Snow King, who wanted to dunk me in ice cold water, and the Snow Queen who turned me into a snowflake? How did I get back here?”

“My dear boy,” said his pappa, “you’re talking nonsense. So you’ve forgotten that you went sledding headfirst like a fool down the highest slope? You crashed into a stump, and your friends dragged you out of the snow. You dreamt the rest of it, but now lay still, and dab your head with this cloth, and soon you’ll feel better again.”

“Where’s Bocken?” asked Walter, who could hardly believe what he was hearing.

“Bocken is sitting by the kitchen steps with a broken nose,” said pappa.

Walter's Third Adventure

which happened when Walter slog trissa.

Spring had arrived, and the roads began to dry and firm up. The meadows were still soggy, too wet for anybody to play ball on them. The boys’s boots went squelch, squish when they ran alongside the ditches. But on the other side of the gate the road was smooth, like a floor, and all the boisterous young boys would go there to slå trissa on Saturday evenings.

But I don’t know, could it be that you have never seen a good trissa? Well, it can be big or small, whatever you’d like, but it does need to be made from a kind of wood that doesn’t split too easily, and it should be perfectly round and very even along the edges, because then it won’t roll straight and will wander off into the woods. It mustn’t be too light, because then it would stop rolling too soon or tumble down into a ditch, but it can’t be too heavy either, because then nobody could manage it. And when you watch it roll, you can see it does so with two different motions at the same time: first it spins around its axis, like a wagon wheel, and at the same time it runs forward, also like a wheel, so that each time it turns all the way around it has traveled the same distance as the length of a ribbon that would wrap around its circumference just right. Once upon a time there was a watchmaker who wanted to know exactly far he was going to drive on the trip he was about to take. So he invented a device that pushed on a steel spring every time the wheel on his cart turned all the way round. The spring then set a watch in motion, and every time the spring was pushed the watch advanced one second. Now, the watchmaker knew that his cart’s wheels were 5 alnar1 around, and he knew that there are 18,000 alnar in a Swedish mile**. When he arrived he found that the clock had gone forward one hour and 50 minutes. So how many times had the wheel gone around? And how long was the journey that the watchmaker had taken?

See, there’s something to be learned from everything. Even a trissa.

Walter had a trissa made from curly birch, or birch burl, which is hard and heavy, and there isn’t a better wood to make a trissa from. Jonas had used a compass to draw a circle to cut along, so the trissa was totally round and it was so smooth that it shone. It was a good trissa, and it sang when Walter threw it. “Whoosh!” it said, as it went rolling along the road so fast you could hardly even see it! Afterwards Walter amused himself by measuring how far it travelled in a single throw, and he found that it went 160 alnar before it stopped. Now, he knew that his trissa was two quarters, that is, half an aln in circumference. How many times did the trissa rotate to travel that far?

Walter had the best trissa in the whole village, and he gave it a name, Scurry. One time Walter dreamt that he threw Scurry with such a tremendous speed that it rolled all the way around the world and fell over only when it bumped into the back of his foot. I’d sure like to see somebody else pull off a stunt like that.

Another time Walter dreamt that he threw his trissa high up into the air, so far up that gravity couldn’t pull it back down again, and it began to orbit around the earth in a circle, just like the moon, and people down on earth looked up and wondered just what sort of strange heavenly body Scurry actually was.

But right now it was not the time for dreaming, because all the other boys were already on the road, each with their own trissa, and Walter was late because the shoemaker had been measuring his feet for a new pair of boots. As soon as that was done, Walter ran to join them. It was so pretty there, over by the edge of the woods where the road curved just before it passed through the gate. The spruce trees were standing there with their dark, lush branches and looked on as the children played and the mosquitoes danced in the afternoon sun. The birches were there in the tender childhood of spring, when their leaves were not any bigger than the ear of a mouse, and their slender branches drooped every time a bofink or a redstart twittering alighted on one. Not far from the road there was an anthill under the eaves of the forest, and the small brown ants dragged new lumber to their halls and chambers, each biting his own spruce needle and dragging it backwards with all his might, until his comrades came to help him. The forester’s stuga was also close by, and his two little girls, who would often open the gate for travelers2, had now sat down on a stone to watch the boys play. The older of the girls had collected a bark basket full of cranberries from the woods and was hoping to sell them, but sat and hid them under her apron so that the greedy boys wouldn’t catch sight of them and then eat up all her berries.

When he arrived Walter’s team had already been driven back nearly all the way to the gate, which was the goal on their side, and this was considered to be disgraceful. When they played trissa, the boys would divide into two teams, and each tried to drive the opposing team back and themselves move forward. Most of the time they played like this: a boy on one of the teams would throw the trissa in such a way that it went rolling down the road towards the other team, who would then use clubs or sticks to try and swat the trissa back in an attempt to send it rolling towards the throwing team as far as they could make it go. As the trissa was thrown forward and beaten back, the team that was “at bat” would win as much ground as the trissa moved. But when the trissa fell over onto its side, they shouted, “The trissa is dead!” and then they couldn’t swat it anymore, and it became their turn to throw the trissa.

As usual, the boys were divided into the Christians and the Heathens, and Walter belonged, I’m ashamed to say, to the Heathens. But they were now quite close to suffering a humiliating defeat. There went up a shout when Walter came, and now no other trissa would do but Scurry. “Wait!” shouted Walter, as he adjusted the trissa between his thumb and the pointer and middle fingers of his right hand, and he raised his arm and threw with all of his might. Scurry shot down the road like an arrow, the Christians tried to send it back but Scurry just leaped over their sticks and went farther forwards, it was impossible to stop. Now it was the Christians’ turn to be driven back, and the Heathens were shouting in triumph while Walter gazed upon the battlefield like Caesar at the Battle of Pharsalus3. He felt no small measure of pride over his trissa.

Now the Christians threw a trissa of their own and tried to take back their lost territories. It went poorly, for their trissa was swatted back and they were driven even farther away, nearly a quarter mile, and now they weren’t far from the second gate. If the Heathens drove them that far it would mean the end for the Christians.

Then one of the Heathens shouted, “Look out! A wagon’s coming!” But Walter was in his own little world: he heard nothing, he saw nothing, and he thought about nothing other than how he was going to drive the Christians to the gate. He hurled his trissa with a terrific speed, it bounced off a stone, it jumped up high, and it fell right down between the governor and his wife, who were riding in the wagon. Between them sat a little girl, Adele, and a little lapdog, Moppe, and Scurry struck Moppe in the head, who yawned a little, stretched out her legs, and died on the spot.

The wagon stopped, and with a face grim and stern the governor looked around before he demanded, “Where is the scoundrel who threw his trissa into my wagon?!”

To tell the honest truth, at first Walter was so shook up that he ran away into the woods. But when he heard the governor ranting and raving at his friends, and threatening them with switching and arrest, his conscience got ahold of him, and he crept back, went up to the wagon and said, “I’m the one who threw the trissa. May I have Scurry back now, please?”

“Aha, so it was you, you little miscreant!” said the governor. “Come on up into my wagon, and you can keep Scurry company.”

Well that was that, no discussion could help Walter here, he had to climb up into the wagon. The little girl cried over Moppe, and Walter cried over Scurry, and by the gate the forester’s daughters with their cranberries curtsied in vain, and both the Christians and the Heathens were standing there at a complete loss. When the coach driver cracked his whip over the horses the governor said, “Take the boy and his Scurry to the jailhouse!”

“Oh please, Mr. Governor,” begged Walter, “don’t take me to jail! There’s a thief there with chains on his arms, and I’m afraid that he might steal my Scurry.”

“No, please don’t send him to jail!” begged little Adele. “I forgive him, he didn’t mean to do it!”

“Well, since you pleaded on his behalf, and because he himself has confessed his wrongdoing, I’ll forgive him. But he shall never get his trissa back. It is to be buried in our garden next to Moppe, and so it shall be the trissa that is sentenced to death, because it was the trissa who has killed our Moppe.”

Said and done. Walter just couldn’t hold himself together, he wept bitterly over his trissa until Jonas promised to make him a new one. Still, it was better than sitting in jail with a thief. And the governor’s daughter Adele had a grave dug for Moppe in the garden, and Scurry was laid to rest there too. But Walter and little Adele had become such good friends that together they composed an inscription that was chiseled into a stone over the grave in the garden:

HERE. RESTS. MOPPE. AND. SCURRY. A. SO. NICE. DOG. AND. A. SO. GREAT. TRISSA. NO. LONGER. EXIST. IN. THIS. WORLD.

Walter and Adele planted flowers over the grave. And the ants of the forest came there to read the inscription on the stone, and the mosquitoes danced the fandango in the sunshine over Moppe and Scurry’s grave.

Walter’s Fourth Adventure

If you are lazy, you’ve got to watch out for your bangs.

It was now time for Walter to begin his schooling. After all, he was six years old, and he could sail in a dough trough, throw a trissa, kill a dog, ride a sled, and do all kinds of useful things. From his picture book he also knew about lions and tigers, and elephants and rhinos, not to mention his close friendship with Caro, Bravo, Putte and Kuckeliku. But when it came to reading a real book, properly printed with a title page, covers, and big and little letters, well, then all Walter saw inside were funny little lines, some bent, some straight, but all of them black like little flies. Walter believed learning to read to be the most unnecessary thing in the world. He had heard that bandit captains and other brave men in the olden days had neither been able to read nor write. “When I grow up,” he said, “I’ll take my long sword and I’ll carve my sign wherever I’m supposed to put my name, and whenever I need to read I’ll send for a monk or something, and he can read for me. That’s what other bandit captains do.”

“My dear Walter,” said his mother, “you are not going to be a bandit and kill people or plunder anyone’s belongings. Those are horrible things to do, Walter. And besides, there aren’t any monks in this country anymore.”

“Well, if there aren’t any monks, at least there’s plenty of schoolboys,” said Walter. “I’ll make them read for me.”

“But if you can’t read, you’ll get made fun of and chased right up into a tree!” said his father. “You’ll be as dumb as a rock, and all the smarter boys will laugh at you. You’ll never know all the good and useful things that you can find in books, and you’ll never learn the word of God, and not any of the beautiful old stories either. An oxen, who trudges about the field, will bellow at you, ‘I’m better than you are!’ And Caro, who growls by the stairs, will bark at you, ‘I am wiser than you are!’ When you go walking in the woods, the trees will call to each other, ‘There goes the foolish Walter, who can’t read!’ The smallest butterfly fluttering around the flowers will say to you, ‘I know how to do all the things I’m supposed to be able to do, but Walter doesn’t know what he should and soon could, if he just wasn’t so lazy.’ And you’ll wander the world as a useless creature, and everything in nature and every child trapped in poverty will shout at you, ‘Oh, if we only had the chance to learn how to read, then there’s no way we would be as dumb as Walter!’”

“But I don’t want to study and read, I want to run and play all day!” Walter shouted.

“What you want?” his father cried. “Do you know what you’ll want? You’ll want what your mother tells you to want. Tomorrow you’re going to school with Miss Susanna, and that is that.”

That evening, when Walter had gone to bed, he thought to himself, “I’m not going to sleep tonight, and when all is quiet I’m going to run away into the woods, ‘cause I’m sure to meet some kind of bandit there, and I can ask him to teach me how to grow up to be a bandit captain. That’ll be a lot more fun than learning how to read.”

As he was having those thoughts he felt his eyelids grow heavy, and then Jon Blund1 come for him, and Walter slept like a pig straight through the night.

The following morning at seven o’clock his mamma came to the side of his bed and said, “Get up and get dressed! I’m going to walk you to school this morning.”

Walter started to cry.

“Oh, it’s not really worth crying over,” his mother said, trying to soothe him. “I’m sure it will go just fine for you, just like for everyone else. What do you say we just try it, and see how it goes?”

What could he say? Walter had no choice but to go to school, and so with heavy feet he followed his mother to the fearsome Miss Susanna. She was a strict old woman, which school teachers sometimes become when they’ve had a long career of badgering and scolding lazy boys. She wore a hat and a brown sweater and a pair of green eyeglasses with brass frames that pinched on her nose. She sat in a tall leather chair by the table, and right there next to her she had a stocking she was knitting, and a ball of yarn, and a switch. At the table there sat four other children, two boys and two girls. There was a big cabinet in the room, and on the wall hung pictures from Bible stories: one about Absalom, who got stuck in an oak tree because of his very long hair, and the other of Haman, who was hung from a gallows. There were also posters with letters and numbers, and at least four different clothes that the girls had practiced cross stitch and embroidery on. On a chair beside the cabinet there sat a rather grumpy little pug, and it growled at Walter when he came in.

“Miss Susanna,” said Walter’s mamma, “would you be so kind as to teach my little boy how to read? If he’s lazy, you needn’t spare the switch! One day when he grows up, I’m sure he’ll thank you for it.”

“Oh, it doesn’t look like a switch will be necessary,” said Miss Susanna, “I can see that he has nice long bangs.”

Walter shuddered as a chill went down his spine, when he heard that bit about his long bangs, which had never wanted to get cut before. And then when he looked at Miss Susanna’s long, thin fingers he wished with all his heart that his hair was shaved just as short as a Russian soldier’s. But now his mother left him there, and his lessons began on the spot. It was in fact a little hard in the beginning, but he made progress nonetheless, because Walter couldn’t forget his own long bangs and the even longer fingers which threatened to grab hold of them.

For a while things went well enough. But when Walter felt his courage come back he thought to himself, “I’m a man, and Miss Susanna is just a little old lady! She wouldn’t dare to touch my hair, she’s way too scared of me for that.”

Then outside, a cart drove by so loudly that the window panes rattled. Walter shoved his book aside and ran to the window to take a look. “What are you doing, child?” Miss Susanna called after him. But Walter pretended not to hear. He looked and he looked, so that his nose was pressed nearly flat against the glass.

“I see, so that’s the sort of boy you are?” said Miss Susanna. And without the slightest hesitation she stood up, took just two steps, and reached those long, gaunt fingers into Walter’s long, luxuriant locks, and jerked his head around with such a seasoned hand that nobody could have done it any better. And Walter was led back to the table by his bangs. Without mercy.

Walter felt he had been treated unfairly and his face twisted in rage. He shouted, “I want to go home to mamma and pappa! I’m just here to try it out!”

“Yes, and it’s a good thing, too, that you got a taste of it,” said Miss Susanna. “Now, if you can pay attention, and do as you’re told, then you won’t get your bangs yanked anymore, my boy!”

Walter thought to himself, “I could just get my hair cut, but then I might wind up getting a taste of that awful switch instead. But what if I actually studied for real? Not because of the switch! As if I was afraid of the switch! I’m not the least bit scared of the switch. But it would be dumb to be dumb. And that an ox would think that he was better than me! And that Caro would bark at me! And that the other boys would laugh at me and say, ‘Look! There goes dumb Walter, who doesn’t know anything!’ I’ll show them that I can learn. Tomorrow I’m going to do a good job studying.”

Walter’s Fifth Adventure

About how Walter wanted to be like Robinson Crusoe.

Miss Susanna was really something. She had a marvelously reliable way to teach lazy boys how to read. Every time she reached for Walter’s hair with her long, thin fingers, he became surprisingly hard-working. Eventually even the rooster in the ABC book began to lay eggs. Walter began to think that the carrot tasted better than the stick. The first thing he learned was:

A B C D,

The cat lay askew,

And Walter did too.

Then he learned the rest of the letters. Spelling brought him to tears sometimes, but when he was given a nicely carved pointing stick, his reading really began to go smoothly. On the day when he could read out of a book properly, Miss Susanna cut loose and gave each of the children a slice of bread with syrup on it. Walter had never before watched the approach of Miss Susanna’s long fingers with such delight.

Now things were going right along with both the ABC book and Luther’s Little Catechism. In fact, it was the case that even on off-days, home with his parents, Walter would read some of those beautiful old stories. Walter began to understand that Miss Susanna hadn’t pulled his hair just for the fun of it.

One day in the attic he found an old book without any covers. In it he read about Robinson Crusoe, who ran away from his parents and found a deserted island, where all alone he had to take care of himself for many years. Now that was really something. Walter wanted to trade places with Robinson Crusoe so badly! He didn’t think the least little bit about the fact that Robinson bitterly regretted running away from his nice home.

Walter read and read. The more he read the more fun he thought it would be to live like Robinson Crusoe. Among other things, it said in the book that Robinson was dressed in skins from head to toe. Well, as luck would have it there was an old skeepskin lying right there in the attic. Walter turned the skin so that the wool was on the outside and wrapped it around himself. Boy, you’d better believe that he looked magnificent then! And over in the corner were lying some paper cones that sugarloaves1 came in, and a basket full of feathers. Walter took a paper cone, decorated it with some nice big grouse feathers and found that it made a fantastic helmet. Then he found a tuft of coarse oakum** and used it to make a big bristly beard, which he tied around his ears with some string. Now he stood up straight and tall, looking really wild and fierce.

It was an evening in the beginning of summer. His sister Lotta shouted up the stairs that supper was ready, so Walter had to come down. He flung the sheepskin into the corner and the helmet right next to it. But he was unusually thoughtful that evening, and at night he couldn’t sleep a wink. “Oh, you’re a lucky man Robinson Crusoe!” he thought to himself. “I want to be just like you: to live in the woods, build a house by myself, cook my own food, and shoot all kinds of animals in the woods with a bow and arrow. Robinson, you lucky dog! Brave and happy Robinson Crusoe! I’ll never have as much fun as you.”

“But what if I ran away too?” said Walter to himself. His heart beat faster at the thought. He sat up in bed. Everyone else was still asleep, and Fredrik’s chubby little legs were hanging over the edge of the cradle. Kuckeliku was snoring so loudly that you could hear it from the yard, from where the bright summer night shone in through the windows. On the rowan trees in the garden you could clearly see the blossoming white flowers, and off in the forest the birds were singing.

Walter’s heart beat faster and faster. Finally he climbed out of bed and got dressed. No one woke up. He walked through the rooms. When he went by the cupboard, he carefully got himself a piece of knäckebröd2 and a bit of cheese. Then, just as quietly, he crept up the attic stairs. Soon he had found his sheepskin and paper cone. He took the book about Robinson Crusoe too, so that he could learn what he was supposed to do, and then, with nothing but socks on his feet, he snuck down the stairs and out through the front door.

The night was glorious and refreshing, it had a bright sky and its dew was on the green grass. Walter wasn’t walking now, he was running almost as if he had a guilty conscience. A moment later he was at the edge of the forest, when all of a sudden up rose the sun with cheeks so red that it looked like Miss Susanna had just given its hair a good yank. Walter sat down and began eating his bread and cheese. He wasn’t sleepy at all. He listened to the birds singing and thought that the cherry blossoms had never smelled so good before.

Then he began working on building a home for himself. He pulled his folding knife out of his pocket and cut long branches from the lush spruces. The sturdiest branches he used for the frame, and the smaller ones he used to cover the walls and roof. Soon his spruce bough hut was complete. He had an old stump for a bench and a big rock for a table. Walter was going to make up his bed with birch leaves and soft, fluffy moss. It was indescribably fun. He didn’t care even a little that his fingers were sticky with sap.

I’d like to tell you why Walter was having so much fun. It is a wonderful thing in this life, when you can do for yourself. It makes you brisk and healthy, and the greater the obstacles you overcome, the happier you’ll be. But you also need to think a little farther ahead than your nose is long. But Walter, poor child, did not think so far ahead.

When his hut was finished, he put on his sheepskin, placed his helmet upon his head, and sat himself on the stump, which was his bench, with his elbows on the stone, which was his table. He felt like he had just been crowned king of the whole forest. It was a shame really, that he didn’t have a mirror with him. He looked downright barbaric as he sat there and brooded over how he was going to rule his new kingdom.

Walter had worked hard, and his little belly began to growl. That bread and cheese would sure taste great now, but they had already been gobbled up. So Walter decided to do what Robinson Crusoe would have done. He went out into the forest to find himself some coconuts.

Oddly enough there were no such nuts growing anywhere in the entire forest. Walter looked up at the trees rather curious and confused, but they had nothing to offer other than fresh spruce cones. For a lack of anything better, he tasted one, but it was so resiny and tasted so bad that he spit it right back out.

“Well,” thought Walter, “it makes no difference, I’ll just go get me a llama, that’ll sure taste good for breakfast.” So he took his bow and arrow and went hunting. He did not see any llamas, but he did see a hare bounding through the underbrush, and a nimble little squirrel jumping playfully among the branches of the spruce trees. Walter aimed at the hare, and Walter aimed at the squirrel, but it was no use, he missed the mark both times. In frustration he threw his bow to the ground. But right at that moment a little girl came walking her cows to pasture. “Oh please, give me a little of your milk,” said Walter, who was now starting to get seriously hungry.

When the girl took in the sight of that shaggy figure in the sheepskin with a paper cone on its head, the swaying feathers and the bushy beard, she fled, screaming as she ran. What was she supposed to believe, other than that Walter was the horrible, ugly skogsrået3 in the flesh? Walter ran after her, and the poor girl was about to collapse in fear when Walter tripped on his own sheepskin and fell, scuffing his nose on a fallen birch.

Well, what good was it to be king over the whole forest when His Majesty had nothing to eat? It was so early in the summer that not even the blueberries were ripe. At last Walter found a paltry few cranberries, for which he was grateful, but that was everything Robinson had to eat that day. “Better luck next time,” thought Walter. “I’m going to go find myself a Friday**, so that there are two of us and we’ll be able to defend ourselves against the natives.” And then he made his mossy bed and, still hungry, laid down to sleep with his sheepskin up over his face.

Meanwhile Walter’s parents had been looking for him high and low and couldn’t imagine where their boy had gone. They were already beginning to believe that their son had fallen into the lake or that the wolves had gotten him. Then a little herding girl came into the village, shrieking about a horrible brute that haunted the woods not far from here! It was covered in fur and had a pointy head just like a sugarloaf. And since there were plenty of superstitious people living in the village that already believed that the woods were haunted, there were old men and women who were just as scared as the girl herself. Some of them didn’t even dare to go outside that day, and glanced over their shoulder whenever they heard the wind sigh in the tall spruces. But some who had more courage thought to themselves that maybe a criminal had escaped and was hiding in the woods, and they decided to form a search party and go out at night to capture the fugitive.

Walter was sleeping away his belly’s troubles in blissful ignorance of all this, when the villagers discovered his hut and surrounded it. They approached very cautiously, armed with poles and shovels, and peered in. “Yeah, the fugitive’s lying in there, asleep,” said the men to each other.

“Wait a minute!” said one of them. “There’s something hairy, over there in the corner. What if it’s a bear?”

“We should club him first, while he’s sleeping!” said one of the villagers, “otherwise he might bite us!”

Just then Walter was dreaming about the cannibals who had come to Robinson’s island and nearly roasted him for their supper. His dream was so lifelike that he awoke out of his nightmare, and he head the man say, “Let’s club him!” What else could Walter have thought, other than it was Robinson’s natives who wanted to turn Walter into a nice roast? As brave as Walter was, his courage failed him now. He thought about how awful it would be to be eaten up by other people, just when he was so very hungry himself, and what would his pappa and mamma and brother and sister say when they found out what an awful fate Walter had suffered, the poor boy! At the thought Walter started to weep bitterly and could say nothing more than, “Nice Mr. Cannibal men, please let me live, I’m too skinny to roast, I haven’t had anything to eat other than cranberries for a long time!”

“What’s this?” said one of the men. “Look at the little devil, I do believe that’s Walter, who we were looking for all day! Get up boy, and get home to your parents! And don’t forget that the whole woods are full of mighty fine switches!”

Walter stood up, looking rather sheepish, and the men who thought he was a bear also looked pretty sheepish. They took him home in a procession, and so that the whole thing would have the right pomp and pageantry, they dressed Walter in his sheepskin and sugarloaf cone. But his parents were so relieved and overjoyed that they didn’t have time to get angry. “You naughty boy!” they said, “we’ve been worried sick about you! But let’s just say that living off of cranberries for a day is punishment enough.”

Walter kissed his mamma’s and pappa’s hands. He would have gladly begged them for forgiveness, but he couldn’t, for his mouth was too full of fresh bread. He thought to himself that it may be that coconuts and llama taste really good, but at the moment he would sell Robinson’s entire island for a sandwich.

Deep down, Walter was a little disappointed, especially after he had eaten his fill. I’m not altogether certain that I should tell you what he did the next night, but, he crept out yet again, barefoot and quiet, and quickly made his way back into the woods. He had brought matchsticks along, and he set fire to the hut he had built the night before. And he stood there and watched thoughtfully as the flames leaped up into the night sky, so that the songbirds in the trees fled from the smoke in terror, and the morning sun hid its face behind a cloud in shock. “My kingdom is burning!” Walter thought to himself.

Yes, yes. It wasn’t the first kingdom to go up in smoke, and it won’t be the last either. But Walter carefully snuck back inside to the nice, warm room, and into his own bed. And despite all the toils and hardships he endured on his deserted island, when Walter pulled the covers over himself, he let out a secret little sigh, “Robinson, you lucky dog!”

Walter's Sixth Adventure

How Walter went out hunting and shot marvelously amiss.

It was winter, though spring was on the way, and in the mornings the snow’s crust could bear your weight. Walter had gotten a pair of skis from Uleåborg1, and it was extra fun to ski on crusty snow. Sometimes he went over the meadow and sometimes to the lake, sometimes to the woods and still other times to the village. On downhill slopes he went with a dreadful speed, and he could stay upright too, which not everybody can. He did fall down at first, when he was just learning: whoops! with his nose in the snow and his legs in the air! Then things went a little better, and finally Walter could stand on his skis all the way down Heaven Hill, which was so tall that not even the church steeple was much higher. Walter was quite proud of himself. “Now you try it!” he would say. “No thanks,” said the other boys. They preferred to ride their sleds down the steep slope.

Easter was now drawing close, and the boys were soon to get their Easter break, but there was still one more day of studying left. Unfortunately the weather that day was gorgeous; the sun shone gloriously on the snow, and the trees were completely white with hoar frost. Walter was faced with a temptation that he could not resist. Early in the morning he went outside with a sandwich in his pocket and his bow in his hand, and he skied into the woods. “I’ll go out hunting,” he thought. “Maybe I’ll come across a wolf, and then I’ll shoot it. After all, I’ve got a real pin in my arrow. I’ll only be gone a moment. I’m sure I’ll be back in time to do my homework.”

Oh well, Walter didn’t meet any wolves that day, but he did another time, which you’ll get to hear about in the next story. But in the snow between the birches he did see ptarmigan tracks, and farther in he saw the tracks of a hare. “It’s just as well that I shoot a rabbit,” thought Walter. “At least you can eat a rabbit, and mamma will be so impressed when I come home with a whole rabbit ready to be roasted for supper.”

Now, where the hares were hiding was anyone’s guess, but Walter followed the tracks, though no bunny seemed inclined to peer out from behind the bushes. “I guess I’ll just have to settle for a ptarmigan,” thought Walter. “It’ll be really good with sauce, pickles, and lingonberry jam.”

Strangely enough Walter didn’t see any ptarmigans either, just their tracks. “I think I’ll shoot a squirrel,” he said. “But I’ll shoot him just a little bit, in the nose so that he falls down, and then I can put him in a cage and let him run on a hamster wheel. Boy, will Lotta laugh at him!”

Conveniently, there was a squirrel right there, hopping about in a tall spruce. Walter stood under the tree and bent his bow. But the squirrel jumped from branch to branch and now and then would hide himself for a long while. Walter walked around the tree, this way and that, but he couldn’t get a good shot at the squirrel. Suddenly it made a long leap into another tree and disappeared.

“I guess I should probably ski home again now,” thought Walter, because he had run out of sandwich. “Maybe on the way I’ll see a magpie, and I’ll shoot that instead. But, should I give it to the cat or hang it up over the door of the horsebarn? I think I’ll hang it up. It would look great. Then Jonas, every time he goes into the stall, will say, ‘See, there’s the magpie that Walter shot!’”

Well, maybe he would have, if Walter had come across any magpies. But he didn’t see a single one, much to his annoyance. When he came home, he thought, “I’ll do some target practice with the chicken coop window, and I can see how far my arrows can go.”

So he nocked an arrow and bent his bow, and with a twang! the arrow went flying. But it struck the wall and fell down to the ground. “Boy, that’d be weird, if I couldn’t even hit the window,” thought Walter, and shot again, and then again. Finally he was on target. Crash! The window pane shattered; the arrow went through the window and struck Kuckeliku who was sitting there, innocently basking in the sunshine. “Kuckeliku!” cried the rooster. Walter was horrified, and quietly plodded off to his room with no wolf, with no hare, with no ptarmigan, with no squirrel, with no magpie, and with the sound of tinkling glass ringing in his ears and the murder of the unhappy Kuckeliku on his conscience.

He didn’t have long to wait before there was trial and judgement. The homework, well, it was forgotten and did not get done. Lena came in and delivered the sad news that the rooster lay on his deathbed. Walter couldn’t deny his guilt; after all, he wasn’t the sort of boy who lies. Well, what do you suppose happened next? To begin with, Walter got a taste of Pappa’s nice rattan cane – back in those days they were used for that sort of thing you know – and that was for Kuckeliku. But for his homework’s sake he was sentenced to sit inside all the next day and do his work, while the other boys were on Easter break and having just as much fun as they could.

I feel like I can still see him, sitting there so mournfully, resting his cheek on his hand and looking out the window, watching as the other boys rode their sleds down Heaven Hill. Some of them had swept the snow off the ice and were out skating on the lake. Sure, Walter’s book was open, and sure, there were other books lying next to it, but he was in no mood to study, not when his thoughts were rolling around in the snow with his friends. Poor Walter! Oh, why did it have to be such lovely weather, and why did Kuckeliku have to be sitting in the coop window? No one knows where a boy will run to, and to where an arrow will fly. It’s probably best if you don’t fool yourself, at least until after you’ve finished your homework. Otherwise it could happen to anyone: you run off into the woods, shoot a rooster dead, and then have to sit by the window and watch while all your friends have fun playing in the snow.

Walter’s Seventh Adventure

How Walter the Brave hunted wolves.

One time, just a little before midsummer, Walter heard that there were lots of wolves living in the woods, and that was something that Walter liked. He was remarkably brave. When he sat in school among his classmates, or when he sat at home among his siblings, he would often say, “One wolf is nothing! I could take at least four!” When Walter wrestled with Klas Bogenström or Frithiof Wäderfelt and knocked them down, he would always say, “That’s what I would do to a wolf!” And when he shot an arrow right into Jonas’ back so that his sheepskin went thwack, again he would say, “That’s how I would shoot you, Jonas, if you were a wolf!”

Certainly there were a few people who thought the little mild-mannered Walter may be a bit boastful. But you kind of had to believe him, after all, he had said it and was no liar. That’s why when they saw Walter, Jonas and Lena would say, “Look! There goes Walter the wolf hunter!” And the other boys and girls would say, “Look, there goes Walter the Brave, who has the courage to fight all by himself against four wolves!”

No one was more convinced of this than Walter himself. One day he prepared himself to truly strike terror into the hearts of the wolves. He got his drum, which had a hole in one side ever since he stepped on it to reach a cluster of rowanberries, and his toy sword, which was somewhat notched after he had, with unbelievable courage, cut his way through an entire enemy army of gooseberries. Nor did he neglect to arm himself to the teeth with his turnip gun1, his bow and arrow, and his air pistol**. He also had a burnt cork in his pocket so he could draw a moustache on his face, and a red rooster feather to put in his hat so he could look really menacing. In his shirt pocket he had a bone-handled folding knife so he could cut the ears off the wolves after he had killed them, because he thought it would be cruel to do so while they were still alive.

Luckily for Walter, Jonas had to take grist to the mill, and so he and Caro got to go along too. Walter rode sitting on the sacks of grain, while Caro ran happily alongside, barking just a little. When they came to the woods Walter looked around carefully, just in case there was a wolf sitting in the bushes, and he made sure to ask Jonas if wolves are afraid of drums. “Of course they are,” said Jonas. So Walter starting drumming with all his might, and kept it up for as long as they were driving through the woods.

When they arrived Walter asked the miller if there had been any wolves in the area recently. “I’m afraid so,” said the miller. “Last night our fattest ram was killed by wolves not far from here, right over there by our ria2.”

“Really?” said Walter. “Do you think there were lots of them?”

“I don’t really think there’s any way t0 know,” said the miller.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Walter, “I’m only asking to see if I should take Jonas with me. I know I could handle three wolves, but if there’s more than that I might not have time to kill all of them before some get away.”

“I think if I was in your place I would want to go by myself,” said Jonas. “It would be more honorable.”

“No, I think it’s best for you to come along,” said Walter. “It could be that there are lots of them.”

“I don’t have time right now,” said Jonas. “Besides, there can’t be more than three wolves, and you can manage three all by yourself.”

“Yeah,” said Walter, “I sure would, but you see Jonas, if there are three, then maybe one of them will bite me in the back, and then I could have some trouble with killing them all. If I could only be sure that there weren’t any more than two then I wouldn’t care, because then I would take one in each hand and yank their hair harder than Miss Susanna has ever yanked mine.”

“You know, I’m quite sure that there aren’t any more than two,” said Jonas. “Usually it’s just two when they maul children and rams. I’m sure that you can yank their bangs without my help.”

“But Jonas,” said Walter, “if there are two, one might be able to slip away, and then he could bite me in the leg, because, you know, my left hand isn’t quite as strong as my right. I think you should come along and bring a big stick, just in case there really are two. Because, you know, if there’s just one, then I can grab him with both hands and throw him right onto his back, and I’ll keep him pinned to the ground no matter how much he kicks.”

“You know, now that I think about it,” said Jonas, “I’m nearly certain there will only be one. What would two wolves do with just one ram? There’s not enough meat for more than one.”

“But maybe you can come along anyways, Jonas?” said Walter again. “Because, you know, I’m not afraid to fight with just one wolf, but I’m not very experienced yet. What if he manages to rip a hole in my new shirt?”

“What’s this?” said Jonas. “I’m beginning to think you aren’t as brave as people say. First Walter was supposed to fight against four wolves all by himself, then three, then two, and then one, and now Walter wants help against just the one? We can’t have that; what will people say? They might start to imagine that Walter is a scaredy-cat!”

“Then they’d be lying,” said Walter. “I’m not the least bit scared! The thing is, it would be more fun if we both went. I just want somebody to watch while I punch the wolf so hard the dust flies.”

“Well, then you can take along the miller’s little girl, Fiken. She can sit on a rock and watch,” said Jonas.

“No, definitely not. She’d be too scared,” said Walter. “Besides, I don’t think it’s fitting for a girl to go on a wolf hunt. Why don’t you come, Jonas, and I’ll let you have the fur, because I’m happy with just the ears and tail.”

“No thanks,” said Jonas. “You can keep the hide for yourself. But I think I’m beginning to see that you are a scaredy-cat. Shame on you!”

That was more than Walter’s pride could handle. “I’m not afraid! I’ll show you!” he said, and he took his drum, saber, rooster feather, folding knife, turnip gun, and air pistol and went, all alone, into the forest to go on a wolfhunt.

It was a beautiful afternoon, and birds were singing on every branch. Walter went very slowly and very cautiously. With every step he looked all around, just in case there was somebody lying in wait behind the rocks. He saw something moving over there in the ditch. It could be a wolf. “I had better drum a little before I check it out,” thought Walter.

Walter rolled the drum, “Drrrrrrr!” Something moved… Caw! Caw! Caw! Up flew a crow out of the ditch. Walter’s courage soon came back. “It’s a good thing I brought the drum,” he thought, and boldly walked deeper into the forest. He came closer and closer to the ria where a ram had been mauled by wolves. And the closer he got to it, the more horrible the ria seemed… it was so old and gray. “Who knows how many wolves could be hiding in there! Maybe the very same ones that ate the ram are still inside, hiding in the corner.” It was definitely not a safe place to be. Walter couldn’t see a single person anywhere. “It would be awful to get gobbled up right here in broad daylight,” Walter thought to himself. And the more he thought about it, the uglier and grayer the ria looked, and the more horrible the thought of becoming wolf fodder seemed.

Walter wondered, “Should I turn back now and say that I fought with a wolf but that it got away?” But then his conscience said, “Walter, shame on you! Don’t you remember that lying is the greatest sin to both God and people? If you lie about beating up a wolf today, you’ll get eaten up by one tomorrow for sure.”

“No, I have to go to the ria,” thought Walter, and he went. But not too close. He walked just near enough to see the ram’s blood that was coloring the grass red, and a few tufts of wool that the wolves had ripped out of the poor beast. It was an awful sight. “I wonder what the ram was thinking when they were eating him alive,” thought Walter to himself. And in that very same moment a chill went down his spine from his shirt collar all the way down to his boots.

“I think I had better start drumming,” he thought again, and so he began to drum. It didn’t sound good. An echo came from the ria, and it sounded almost like the howl of a wolf. The drumsticks stiffened in Walter’s hands and he thought, “This is it! They’re coming!”

And indeed, that very moment a shaggy wolf’s head, red and brown, peered out from under the ria! What did Walter do now? Yes, our brave Walter, who could best four wolves at the same time all by himself, pitched his drum and ran for dear life; he ran and ran as fast as he could back to the mill.

But, oh, the horror! The wolf gave chase. Walter looked back. The wolf was running faster than him and was only a few steps behind. Walter tried to run faster. He was overcome with terror; he could neither see nor hear. He ran over logs and stones and ditches, he lost his drumsticks, his saber, his bow, his pistol, and in his dreadful haste he tripped over a tussock of grass. And there he lay, as the wolf bounded onto him…

Oh, it is a gruesome tale! Surely you’re thinking that this is the end of Walter and all his adventures. And that would be too bad. But don’t be too upset, it wasn’t so bad after all. This wolf was a nice wolf. Sure, it jumped on Walter, but it only tugged on his shirt a little and licked his face. But Walter screamed, he screamed for all he was worth.

Thank goodness that Jonas could hear Walter’s cries for help, who was now actually quite close to the mill. Jonas ran to the rescue and helped Walter up onto his feet. “What happened?” he said. “What are you screaming about?”

“The wolf! The wolf!” cried Walter. It was the only thing he was able to say.

“Wolf? What wolf? I don’t see any wolf.”

“Jonas, look out!” wailed Walter. “He’s here, and he’s bitten me to death!”

Jonas started to laugh. He laughed so hard that the leather belt around his belly jumped and shook. “I see,” he said, “so that’s the wolf, is it? That’s the wolf whose hair you were going to yank? The one who you were going to grab by the neck, throw onto his back, and pin him down no matter how much he kicked? Take a closer look. That’s our old friend, our own harmless, happy Caro. I imagine he found one of the ram’s bones next to the ria. When you played your drum he crept forward, and when you ran he chased you, as he’s done so often before when you wanted to play around and roughhouse. Caro, shame on you for scaring such a big, brave hero into running away!”

Walter stood up, very sheepish. “Yeah, shame on you, Caro!” he said, pleased and annoyed at the same time. “It was just a dog. If it had been a real wolf, I’m pretty sure I could’ve killed it…”

“No, Walter, you listen to me. Take my advice: boast less and you’ll achieve more. Because Walter, you’re not really a scaredy-cat, are you?”

“Me? I’ll show you, Jonas, the next time we come across a bear. Because you see, it’s just... I like fighting with bears better.”

“Is that so?” laughed Jonas. “We’re right back to where we started? My dear Walter, remember that only cowards brag. A truly brave man never talks about his own courage.”

Walter’s Eighth Adventure

How Walter went looking for treasure and would be rich.

Deep in the woods there was a little torp1 where there lived an old torpare with his wife. In his youth he had been a soldier and fought gallantly for his country, but now he was old and tired; his hair had gone completely gray and so had his wife’s. Nonetheless they both worked as hard as they could in their little barley field, and in the little potato patch beside their home, and sometimes the old man hunted grouse in the woods, and in early summer the old lady made excellent sauna whisks** from young birch twigs. Such things they took to the city to sell, and in this way they earned the little money they needed for the tobacco in the man’s stubby birch-burl pipe and the coffee for the woman’s shining coffee pot for Sunday afternoons.

They were honest, god-fearing people who lived quietly and never said an unkind word, and yet the people of the village traded all kinds of rumors about them. They said the old torpare knew about some big treasure buried somewhere in the forest, and only he knew how a person could get their hands on it. Now and then it happened that somebody would visit the torp with a pick and shovel, and try to convince the old man to share his secret and split the money. But the old soldier would just chuckle and say with a grin, “Sure, I’ve got a treasure, and sure, other people could have it too, but it isn’t the kind of treasure that you think.” In the end the folks in the village didn’t know what to believe, but everyone agreed that the old fellow had a secret that he did not want to share.

Jonas, who worked for Walter’s parents, was otherwise a good and competent man, but he was very superstitious. In the evenings he would often tell Walter about something called ‘dragonfire’ that burned out in the woods. If somebody saw it, he should run at it without looking back or saying a word, and throw something made of steel over the fire. Then he would see a great big copper kettle full of golden coins that was sunk in the ground, and he ought to grab hold of it and claim it for his own. But because the kettle was extremely heavy it took some tricks to get it all the way up out of the ground, and only the torpare could say how it could be done.

Walter was captivated when he listened to stories like that, and thought it would be pretty fun to have a whole kettle full of gold coins. “But I wonder, what should I do with all that money,” he said. “Do you think I should give it to pappa?”

“First I’ll build a big castle with silver walls and golden gates, and we can all live there, and Jonas, there’ll be a room for you too.”

Walter went looking for treasure.

“Mmm, that would probably be best,” answered Jonas. “There’s sure to be a use for it, but you’ve got to get a hold of the kettle first. It’s not as easy as you think.”

“I bet I can take the kettle,” Walter said. “You know, I’m awfully strong when I really get my hands onto something. I’ll take the torpare with me too. Pappa will hide the money for me until I grow up, and then I’ll do all kinds of great things. First I’ll build a big castle with silver walls and golden gates, and we can all live there, and Jonas, there’ll be a room for you too. Then I’ll buy myself some really good horses with nice saddles and bridles and a golden wagon, and I’ll get to drive it, and you can ride in the back, Jonas. I’ll get a boat too, with all sorts of sails and flags, much better than Lunkentus, and the best sleds and ice skates and balls in the whole wide world! We’ll eat pancakes for supper every day. I’ll also have a gold drum and a long saber and a real gun with a powderhorn and bullets and percussion caps.

“And that’s what you’re going to use to shoot wolves?” Jonas stuck in, with just the hint of a smile.

“I might,” answered Walter, a little embarrassed. “But I wouldn’t be afraid if it was a bear either.”

“Now look, you’re boasting again,” said Jonas. “Don’t you remember how you ran away from Caro?”

“And I’m sure there’ll still be money left over,” Walter hurried to say. “I think I could buy fresh pretzels with the rest of it, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to eat them all up before they go stale.”

“Then I think it’d be better for you to build the torpare a new stuga and buy a cow for his wife,” said Jonas. “They could use them, no doubt about it. And don’t forget how many poor children there are who don’t have enough food and clothing.”

“It’s a good thing you remembered that, Jonas,” answered Walter. “I will build the stuga, and I won’t forget the cow. And all the poor little children will get clothes and food.”

“But Walter, you don’t have any money yet,” put in Jonas.

“Yeah, but it’s already as good as mine,” said Walter. “One of these days I’ll go visit the torpare, and if you come along there’ll be three of us. It’s always better to have more people, when it’s dark in the woods.”

“I don’t have the time for that,” said Jonas, “but I’m sure you can go all by yourself. Good luck!”

“Thanks,” said Walter.

Now, that very same evening Walter was out in the paddock looking for a rowan sapling that would make for a nice fishing pole. Maja, the carpenter’s young daughter, was also there, collecting juniper for Sunday2, because it happened to be a Saturday evening. As Walter walked around he thought about that big copper kettle, and his new silver castle, and the torpare’s new cow and stuga, and all the poor children who were going to get food and clothing. “I wonder if there’s a dragonfire in the woods right now,” he said to himself. And wouldn’t you know it, just as he finished his thought he saw a great fire shining between the trees. You can believe his little heart began pounding. “That must be a dragonfire,” he thought, “because I don’t see any smoke, and those kinds of fires never have any smoke.”

“Will you come with me to the torpare, Maja?” he asked. “I’m not sure I know the way there.” The thing is, Walter actually knew the way fairly well, but he wasn’t feeling very confident. He didn’t like walking in the woods all by himself.

“Wait just a minute, until I fill up my apron, and then I can go with you,” said Maja. “I go past the torp on my way home anyway.”

Well, that was just fine with Walter. He waited and watched the dragonfire, which was getting bigger, and then the children left. After a little while they came to the stuga, but from there the fire was hidden by all the trees in the woods.

“Bye-bye now,” said Maja.

“Bye-bye Maja,” said Walter, and he went into the stuga. He boldly strode in; he wasn’t afraid of some old torpare. But he did feel a little silly when he saw the old man, so calm and pious, reading to his wife out of a great big book. Walter hardly had the courage to say why he had come.

But since he was already there, he had to come out with it. “Sir,” he said, “have you seen the big dragonfire burning out in the woods?”

The old man looked up from his book and considered Walter with a strangely alert and almost mischievous look. “I see,” he said, not showing the least bit of surprise, “and how does the little master know about that?”

“I’ve seen it!” cried Walter eagerly. “Come with me and you can see it yourself! We just have to go a little bit down the road!”

“Is that right? Well then, I’ll go with you and we can take a look,” said the old man.

“Yeah, come on, hurry!” said Walter, as he dragged the fellow out onto the steps and then further along the road.

“I don’t see any fire,” said the old man.

“Just wait, we’ll see it soon, we just have to go a little farther up the hill,” Walter assured him.

And he was quite right. When they crested the hill they both saw the same big fire that Walter had seen shining through the trees. But now it had climbed higher and had risen up into the treetops and was as big and round as a wagon wheel. Walter stood there feeling sheepish and surprised. What he thought had been a fire was just the full moon, which in the quiet of the evening was rising over the forest.

“And the little master has run so far just to gaze at the moon?” asked the old man.

“That’s so strange,” said Walter, embarrassed. “The moon looked just like a dragonfire.”

“What is it you mean by ‘dragonfire’?”

“The kind of fire that burns over a buried treasure.”

“Well in that case the moon is definitely a dragonfire,” said the fellow. “Every night it shines over all the treasures of the earth. It’s a reflection of the face of the sun, which shines over our daily labor and the entire world.”

Curious, Walter asked, “What kind of treasure does the moon shine over?”

“The moon shines over the world’s much-needed rest, the worker’s sleep and the peace of a clearvconscience,” said the old torpare. “Work is a wonderful thing; it keeps body and soul healthy and, with God’s help, it provides us our daily bread. But after our work is done, rest is also a precious gift from God. The moon is the eye of the night, and it watches over the peace of mankind.”

Walter listened very thoughtfully, but his head was so full of treasures and dragonfires that he had a hard time talking about anything else. “But sir,” Walter began, “I know you can show me a treasure here in the woods. If I can just get rich, then I’ll build you a new stuga, and I’ll buy you a really nice cow, and every poor person will be rich.”

“Do you really mean that?” asked the old torpare. “Well then, I tell you it’s true, I do know about a great treasure, and with it every impoverished soul can become rich.”

Walter’s eyes grew wide. “Well then, where is it, sir? Come on, let’s go right now and get the treasure!”

“We needn’t go far,” said the old man, “I have the treasure back home in my stuga.”

“You have it back home in your stuga? And you’ll show it to me, right now?”

“Certainly, just follow me.”

And so they walked back to the stuga, and inside Walter looked around with keen interest, just in case he caught a flash of silver or gold in a dark corner. But the stuga was quite poor; there was only a fireplace and a bed and a bench and a table and a kettle and a spinning wheel, and on the wall there hung a shotgun, an axe and an old saber with a leather belt. Still, in the darkest corner there was something that was glowing like an ember. Walter thought it was pretty scary at first, but when he took a closer look he saw it was just the two eyes of an old gray cat, who was lying in wait for mice by a hole in the floorboards.

“But sir, where do you keep your treasure?” asked Walter, when he didn’t see any sign of the famed copper kettle.

“Right here!” said the old man, leading Walter to the little table, upon which the Bible lay open every Saturday evening. “This is my greatest treasure and the greatest treasure for all mankind: the word of God. With it the poor become rich, all the brokenhearted glad, and from it all the unhappy and miserable people of this world receive an eternal peace. You needn’t search for this treasure in the dark forest or dig in vain through the rubble of the earth. Those are things greedy men do when someone has fooled them into believing that they can obtain earthly riches in a hurry. This treasure comes to us from the holy scriptures and from godly books and hymns and teachings. We get it for free, but from it we obtain eternal riches, just so long as we ourselves desire it. But many don’t want it; instead they want to fill their bellies and look for gold and yet stay just as poor in their souls as ever. Because not even all the silver and gold in the world can bring true happiness, just more trouble and vanity and an uneasy conscience. But from the word of God you can have heartfelt comfort and joy in both life and death, so those who have this treasure are joyful and rich in the middle of all their earthly poverty, because they are children of God, and the holy angels watch over them. That’s the treasure you should be looking for, Walter. It would be a lot better than running around and chasing foolish rumors, digging in the earth for copper kettles which may have never existed at all.”

Walter started to cry. “So there is no treasure in the woods after all?” he asked.

“There may well be,” said the old man. “In the old days, when the land was threatened with war, people would bury their possessions in the ground and sometimes they died before they had a chance to dig them up again. It does happen from time to time that some farmer will find silver coins or some other thing which wasn’t ruined by rust and water. But what people say about dragonfire and whatnot is all superstition, which a wise person laughs at. Come here, and I’ll show you what I did find one time out in the woods.”

Then the old torpare reached up to a shelf and took an old piece of metal that was so consumed by rust that you could hardly tell what it once had been. “Look,” he said, “this rusty piece of iron was once a sword, and it must have belonged to some big important warrior too, because you can still see that there’s gold inlay on the hilt. Maybe it was the sword of a powerful king or some great captain, and with it he killed many enemies and conquered whole countries and peoples. We should preserve things like this as relics of the past. But that mighty king is now long dead, and his bones have turned to dust, and his name is probably forgotten forever, and his sword is rusted and lies among other scrap on a shelf in a poor man’s home. That king may have had a golden castle and whole rooms filled with silver and gold and fancy clothes and all the riches of this world. But now it’s all scattered or destroyed, burned by fire, sunk in the sea, and trampled into the dirt, so that not even a bit of it is left. But maybe that same king also had the word of God, though perhaps he didn’t much care for it, thinking that his other treasures were worth far more, and instead left the holy book on some shelf filled with junk, just like where his sword now lies. Those treasures have now vanished like smoke, but the eternal word of God remains. It doesn’t rot and it never rusts, nor can it be burned by fire, or sink into the sea, or be trampled into the earth. Instead, it’s the same age after age: full of grace, truth and riches. What do you think about that, Walter? What’s better: to be poor and have the word of God for your treasure, or to have a bunch of worldly possessions that pass away and have no place in the kingdom of heaven?”

Walter didn’t answer. He thought it was strange and wonderful to hear the old torpare talk that way. Never before had he thought that a poor man could, in his own way, be so rich. Now it seemed to Walter that he was a lot poorer than the torpare was.

“Now, be a good boy and run on home, and I’ll keep you company on the road for a bit,” said the old man. “Go home, and remember what I said. Take the moon as a sign, so that every time you see it shining you think to yourself, ‘Look, there’s the very same moon that I once ran towards like a little fool when I wanted to find a treasure in the woods. But then I learned that there’s one treasure that’s better than all the others, and that treasure is the word of God. That’s the treasure I want to seek so I can be rich for all of my days, and richer than many a king in his golden castle.’”

And so it was.