Erick and Sally | Page 5

now,
everything will come out.' And so you are never sure nor safe and you
feel a pressure in the chest. But there is another thing that presses so
hard that you can think of nothing else, for example, if you have given
away a rabbit, you regret it afterwards. But there is a remedy and I have
tried it many a time, and it helps. You must think of something dreadful,
like a large fire, when everything is burnt up, the fortress and the
soldiers in it and all historical books, and--all at once you think
everything backwards and you have everything; then you are so glad
that you think: what difference does a rabbit make? You still have
everything else. Now Ritz, try that and see if it helps you, then you can
find out whether everything passes away or whether you have to tell
Daddy tomorrow."
"Yes, I will try it," said Ritz somewhat indistinctly, and soon after he
took such deep breaths that Edi knew what was going on. He heaved a
sigh and said: "Oh, Ritz, you are asleep and I wanted to tell you so
much about the old Egyptian."
A little while afterwards the whole peaceful parsonage of Upper Wood
lay in deep sleep; only old 'Lizebeth went about the passage calling:
"Bs, bs, bs." She wanted to get the old grey cat into the kitchen to catch
the mice during the night. 'Lizebeth had been in the parsonage of Upper
Wood as long as one could remember, for there had always been a son,
and when the time had come, then he had become parson in Upper
Wood. First 'Lizebeth had served the grandfather, then the father and
now the son, and she had long since elected Edi as the future minister,
and intended to look after his house when he should be the master here.
CHAPTER II
A Call in the Village
The friendly village Upper Wood lay on the top of the hill close by the
fir wood; it had a beautiful white church with a high, slender tower. At

a distance of three-quarters of an hour's walk, down in the valley, lay
Lower Wood, a small community which, however, did not wish to be
considered smaller. They had a new schoolhouse and a church of their
own, but the church had no tower, only a little red dome. Therefore the
people of Upper Wood were a little proud, because their church was
much prettier and also because they learned much more in the old
schoolhouse in Upper Wood than in the new one of Lower Wood; but
that was the children's fault, not the teacher's. In the middle, between
the two villages lay a hamlet consisting of a few farms and some small
houses of little pretense. It was called the Middle Lot, and its people
the Middle Lotters. They had the choice to what church and school they
wished to belong, whether to Lower Wood or Upper Wood, and
according to their choice they were judged by the people of Upper
Wood; for whoever wanted to learn much and be decent, he must,
according to the Upper Wooders, strive to belong to them. This was a
fixed and general idea of the people on the top of the hill. In the Middle
Lot there lived only two families who were generally respected; the
Justice of Peace, who was obliged to live there because otherwise he
would have to be called there, and that would have been inconvenient.
This peace-making man was Kaetheli's father. And the other was old
Marianne, who lived in her own house and pulled horse-hair for a
living, and never did harm to anyone.
When on the next morning the three children of the parsonage passed
Marianne's house on their way to school, Sally said: "It is fun to go to
school to-day for the strange boy of yesterday will come too; if we only
knew his name. Kaetheli described him to me; he wears velvet pants.
Of course he will come to Upper Wood to school."
"Of course," said Edi with a dignified air; "who would think of going to
Lower Wood to School?"
"Of course, who would go there to school?" observed Ritz.
Then the three in perfect harmony entered the schoolhouse. But no
strange face was to be seen in the whole schoolroom; everything went
on in the usual way to the end of the morning. Then everyone hurried
away in different directions. Sally was standing there, somewhat

undecided; she would like to have heard something new of the strange
boy and his mother, for she loved to hear news, and now not even
Kaetheli, with whom she talked things over, had been in school. But
now she saw Edi soaring along like an