Liliecrona's home

On Christmas Day, 1880, a pitiless storm raged over Lövsjö (Green Lake) District in Värmland. It seemed as though the heavens meant to tear up everything on earth and make a clean sweep of it all.

Now, do not say that no doubt there have been storms as bad both before and since, and, above all, do not let any of the Lövsjö dwellers hear you, for they have known from their earliest childhood that the like of this storm could never even be imagined.

They can still count up all the fences that were torn down, all the thatched roofs snatched off, all the cow-houses blown over, so that for days the poor beasts lay buried in the ruins. And they can point to all the places where fire broke out and was fanned by the wind until the whole village was in ashes. And they have been on all the heights and mountain-tops where tree after tree fell, until they stood naked and bare as they are to-day.

We know, indeed, the common proverb that it is an ill wind that blows nobody good, but no one could believe that it was true of this Christmas storm, for, indeed, it was plainly to be seen that it only brought with it one misfortune after another.

And I fancy that the one least ready of all to believe that anything good could come from the storm was the “Little-Maid” from Koltorp. She was not to be trifled with, this little lass, as she stood that Christmas morning on the edge of the forest, and saw how the air in the valley beneath her was thick and dark with snow and dust and all that the wind was driving before it. Never in all her life, and she was thirteen past, had she met with such a disappointment. As a rule, she could keep up her spirits in toil and trouble, but this was almost more than she could bear. A very little more and the tears would start from the large bright eyes and trickle down over the pale thin little face.

Little-Maid had gone a little beyond the edge of the forest to see what the storm was like, and the wind tore at the handkerchief over her head, buffeted her short white sheepskin jacket, and whipped her homespun skirt so sharply round her legs that it nearly knocked her over.

She was not alone, her Mother and “Little-Lad” were there as well. Both were dressed like Little-Maid, in short white sheepskin jackets and skirts of stiff black homespun. Nor could it well be otherwise, for Little-Maid inherited her clothes from her Mother, and Little-Lad came into possession after her. But there was this difference between them and Little-Maid that, although their clothes were just as warm as hers, they had not gone outside the forest, but still stood in its shelter.

The Mother and Little-Lad had just the same thin pinched faces as Little-Maid, and the same clever, bright eyes, and they too thought what a misfortune this storm was, and were not far off tears of disappointment either. But they did not look nearly so desperate as she did.

For you must know she was standing just on the high ground above Beckgorden in the Bro parish, and could follow the long twists and curves of the road leading down to Bro Church. And she saw how the peasant folk who had started to go to church turned back home again. This was all she needed to understand that it would be quite impossible for her Mother and the Little-Lad to walk twelve miles down to Nugord in the Svartsjö parish, where they had meant to eat their Christmas dinner.

She really couldn’t help clenching her fist inside her glove when she realised it. If it had only not been so quiet in the forest, where they lived. If only they had known what the weather was like before they came to the edge of the trees. Then they would never have started from home, and that would have pleased her much better.