Erick and Sally | Page 7

to the old woman and said somewhat
mysteriously: "'Lizebeth, does Edi or Ritz perhaps have a torn mattress
on their bed?"
'Lizebeth stopped scraping and turned round. She looked at Sally from
head to foot, put her hands on her hips and said very slowly and
importantly: "May I ask what you mean by that question, Sally? Do
you think this household is so carried on that one lies about on ragged
mattresses and sleeps, until a little one, who is far from old enough to
turn a mattress, thinks of coming to ask 'does not this one or that one
have a ragged mattress' on his bed? Yes, Sally, what cobwebs you do
have in your head."
"I do not care about the mattress, it is on account of Marianne that I
ask," Sally explained. "Do you know, she now has some new people in
her house and I should so much like to see them, and therefore I wanted

so much to know whether you could not sacrifice a mattress so that
Marianne could pull the horsehair for a mattress, for Mother will not let
me go into the house without a good excuse."
"Oh, so! that is different," said 'Lizebeth quite mildly, for she had also
been wondering what kind of people her old friend had taken into her
home, and now, perhaps, she could learn something about them
through Sally.
"I can help you, Sally," she said. "You go to Marianne and tell her that
I send my greetings, and I have long since intended to come and see her,
but the likes of us cannot get away when we want to; we never know
what may happen if we are out of the house for five minutes; but tell
her that I will surely come some fine Sunday. Now then go, and give
my message."
Sally ran with a joyous heart, first through the garden, then away over
the meadow and down the hill as far as the fir wood, where the dry road
lay for a long stretch in the shade. Here Sally slackened her pace a little.
It was so beautiful to walk along in shade of the trees, where above in
their tops the wind rustled so delightfully and all the birds sang in
confusion. She also had to consider how she would arrange her calls,
whether she would go first to Kaetheli or to Marianne; but this time old
Marianne had a stronger attraction than Kaetheli and Sally felt that she
must go there first and give her message. Now her thoughts fell on the
strange people and she had to imagine how they looked and what she
was going to say, and what they would say when she knocked and
asked for Marianne. Thus she thought everything well out, for Sally
had a great power of imagining things.
In this way she came to the first houses of Middle Lot. She turned away
from the road and went toward Marianne's house, which stood a little
way from the road and lay almost hidden behind a hedge. As Sally had
been accustomed to do, she now ran right into the house, although the
house door was also the kitchen door. After entering the front door she
stood in the small kitchen and was at once before another door which
led into the living-room. This door stood wide open and Sally found
herself suddenly in the presence of a lady dressed in black, who sat in

that room sewing and who lifted her head at Sally's noisy entrance, and
with large sad eyes she looked at the child in silence.
Sally grew as red as fire and in her embarrassment remained standing
near the door like one rooted to the floor.
Now the lady held out her hand and said in a friendly tone, "Come here,
dear child, what brings you to me?"
Sally was quite confused. She did not remember why she had come, for
she had really not come to see Marianne. She had invented that--to get
into the house where she had arrived now so unexpectedly. She
approached the lady and wanted to say something, but nothing came
out. Sally grew crimson and stood there more helpless than ever before
in her life.
The lady took the child's hand and stroked her glowing cheeks.
"Come, sit down beside me, dear child," she then said, with a voice so
sweet that it went deep into Sally's heart. "Come, we shall come
gradually to know each other a little."
[Illustration: Now the lady held out her hand and said in a friendly tone,
"Come here, dear child."...]
Now there came from out of a corner a quick noise of moving; Sally
did not know what it was, for until now she had not