Goran’s Dream

Goran’s Dream

Crack! went the Driver’s whip, but it did not hurt the galloping misty horses, for it was only a ribbon of rainbow that he liked to use because both he and his horses thought it so pretty. And away went the great Coach, over the forests and over the seas, over the cities and plains, to a country where the sea thrusts long silver fingers into the land, where mountains are white with snow at the same time that the meadows are bright with wild flowers, and where in summer the sun never sets, and in winter it never rises. And here the Dream Coach drew up beside a cottage where a lonely little Norwegian boy was falling asleep.

“Come, Goran!” called the Driver. “Come, climb into the Coach and find the dream I have brought for you!”

Who was Goran? What dream did he find?

That you shall hear.

Little Goran and his grandmother lived in a tiny house in Norway, high above the deep waters of a fjord. When Goran was a baby they used to tie one end of a rope around his waist and the other to the door, so that if he toddled over the edge he could be hauled back like a fish on a line. But now he was no longer a baby, but a big boy, six years old, and he tried to take care of his grandmother as a big boy should.

It was a lovely spot in summer, when the waterfalls went pouring down milk-white into the green fjord, sending up so much spray that they looked as if they were steaming hot; when rainbows hung in the sky; when the small steep meadows were bright with wild flowers, and even the sod roof of the cottage was like a little wild garden of harebells and pansies and strawberries that Goran gathered for breakfast sometimes. He was happy all day then, fishing in the fjord, making a little cart for Nanna, the goat, to pull, trying to teach Gustava, the hen, to sing, putting on his fingers the pink and purple hats that he picked from the tall spires of wild foxglove and monkshood, and making them dance 32and bow, and listening to the loud music of the waterfalls after rain.

And in the evening after supper Goran’s grandmother would tell him splendid stories while they sat together in the doorway making straw beehives, sewing the rounds of straw together with split blackberry briers. The sun would shine on the straw and make it look so yellow and glistening that Goran would pretend he was making a golden beehive for the Queen Bee’s palace. For where Goran lived the sun never sets at all in the middle of summer, and it is bright daylight not only all day, but all night as well. You and I would never have known when to go to bed, but Goran and his grandmother were used to it, and even Gustava, the hen, knew enough to put her head under her wing and make her own dark night.

But with winter, changes came. The flowers slept under the earth until spring’s call should wake them, and yawning and stretching, s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g, they should stretch up into the air and sunlight. The waterfalls no longer flung up clouds of spray like smoke, but built roofs of ice over themselves. And, strangest of all, the winter darkness came, so that the days were like the nights, and you and I would never have known when to get up.

33“I must go to the village for our winter supplies before the snow falls and cuts us off,” his grandmother said to Goran one day. “Neighbor Skylstad has offered me a seat in his rowboat to-morrow, and will bring me back the next day. You won’t be afraid to stay here alone, will you, Goran?”

“No, Grandmother,” said Goran. He pretended to be tremendously interested in poking his finger into the earth in a geranium pot, so that his grandmother shouldn’t see that his eyes were full of tears and his lower lip was trembling. For to tell you the truth he was frightened. The little house was so far from any other house, and then Goran had never spent a night alone. Last year when the winter’s supplies were bought, he had gone to the village with his grandfather, and he had told Nanna and Gustava and Mejau, the cat, all about what a wonderful place it was, a thousand times over; the warm shop, with its great cheeses in wooden boxes painted with bright birds and flowers, and its glowing stove, as tall and slim as a proud lady in a black dress, with a wreath of iron ferns upon her head; the other children who had let him play with them while grandfather exchanged the socks and mittens knitted by grandmother for potatoes and candles. And they had slept at the inn under a feather 34bed so heavy that you would have thought by morning they would have been pressed as flat as the flowers in grandmother’s big Bible. But they weren’t! They got up just as round as ever, and had a wonderful breakfast of dark grayish-brown goats’-milk cheese, cold herring, and stewed bilberries. Grandfather had gone to Heaven since then, and Goran wondered if he could possibly be finding it as delightful as the village.

How he did want to go this time! But of course he knew that some one must stay behind to feed Nanna and Gustava and Mejau, to tend the fire and water the geraniums and wind the clock. So he said as bravely as he could: “I’ll take care of everything, Grandmother.”

Soon after his grandmother left, the snow began to fall. How that frightened Goran! Suppose it snowed so hard that she could never get back to him! For when winter really began, the little house was often up to its chimney in snow, and they could get to no one, and no one could get to them.

How poor little Goran’s heart began to hammer at the thought! He fell to work to make himself forget the snow. First, seizing a broom made of a bundle of 35twigs, he swept the hard earth floor, which in summer had so pretty a carpet of green leaves, strewn fresh every day by Goran and his grandmother. Then he poured some water on the geraniums in the window, only spilling a little on himself. Then he stroked Mejau, who was purring loudly in front of the fire; and all this made him feel much better.

“Time for dinner, Goran!” said the old clock on the wall. At least it said:

“Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!” which meant the same thing.

So Goran ate the goats’-milk cheese and black bread that his grandmother had left for him; and then, and not before, he summoned up enough courage to look out to see if the snow was still falling.

It was snowing harder than ever, and already everything had a deep fluffy covering. Oh, would his grandmother ever be able to get back to him? But he must be brave, and not cry, for he was six years old. He said a little prayer, as his grandmother had taught him to do whenever he was frightened or unhappy, and his heavy heart grew lighter.

“I’ll make a snowman,” Goran decided. Perhaps then the time would seem shorter. Grandfather and 36he had made a splendid snowman after the first snowfall last winter.

It was not late enough in the year to have the day as dark as night. It was only as dark as a deep winter twilight, and the white snow seemed to give out a light of its own for Goran to work by.

First he found an old broomstick and thrust it into the snow so that it stood upright. Then he pushed the heavy wet snow around it, patting on here, scooping out there, until there was a body to hold the big snowball he rolled for the head. A bent twig pressed in made a pleasant smile, and for eyes Goran ran indoors and took from the little box that held his treasures two marbles of sky-blue glass that his grandfather had given him once for his birthday.

What a beautiful snowman! With his sky-blue eyes he gazed through the falling snow at little Goran.

“Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!” called the old clock, and that was the same as saying:

“Time for supper, Goran!”

The fire lit up the room with a warm glow, painted the curtains crimson, and made wavering gigantic shadows on the walls. The water bubbled in the pot, and the boiling potatoes knocked against the lid. 37“Prr-prrr!” said Mejau, blinking in front of the blaze, and the old clock answered:

“Tock! Tick! Tock!”

Goran had given their supper to Nanna and Gustava and Mejau, and had taken one good-night look at his snowman. Now he put his bowl of boiled potatoes on the table in front of the fire, and pulled up his chair.

Lying on the floor where she had fallen from his box when he was getting his snowman’s blue eyes was a playing card, the Queen of Clubs. His grandfather had found it lying in the road in the village, and had brought it home as a present for Goran. The little boy thought the Queen was very splendid, with her crown and her veil, and her red dress trimmed with bands of blue and leaves and stars and rising suns of yellow. In one hand she held on high a little yellow flower. Now he picked her up and put her on a chair beside him, pretending the Queen had come for supper to keep him from being lonely. Each mouthful of potato he first offered her, with great politeness, but the delicate lady only gazed off into space.

Goran’s supper made his insides feel as if a soft blanket had been tucked cozily about them, and he was warm and sleepy.

38“Was there anything else Grandmother told me to do before I went to bed?” he murmured.

“Tick! Tock! Yes, there was,” the Clock replied. “She told you to wind me up. Climb on a chair and do it carefully. Don’t shake me. I can’t stand that, for I’m not as young as I used to be.”

“And I want a drink!” cried the youngest geranium, who was little, and had been hidden by the bigger pots when Goran watered them.

Knock, knock, knock!

What a knocking at the door! Goran ran to open it, and the firelight fell on Nanna the Goat and Gustava the Hen against a background of whirling snow. Nanna was wearing Grandmother’s quilted jacket—where in the world had she found that? And Gustava had wrapped Goran’s muffler about herself and the little basket she carried on her wing.

“Good evening!” began Nanna, rather timidly for her. “May Gustava and I come in and sit by the fire? We thought you might be lonely, and then it is so cold in the shed. I did have a muffler like Gustava’s, but I absent-mindedly ate it. I’m growing very absent-minded. We’ve come with an important message for you, but I can’t remember what it is. Can you, Gustava?”

39“Cluck! Clu-uck! No, I can’t. But I’ve brought my beautiful child to call on you,” said Gustava; and she lifted her wing and showed Goran the brown egg in her basket.

“Shut the door! Shut the door!” several Geraniums called indignantly. “We are very delicate, and we shall catch our deaths of cold!”

So in came Nanna and Gustava and Gustava’s Egg, and Goran shut the door.

“Present my subjects!” commanded the Queen of Clubs, and Goran saw that she was no longer a little card, but a lady as big as his grandmother. In front she still wore her blue and red and yellow dress, but in back she was all blue, every inch of her, with a pattern of gilt stars, and when she turned sideways she seemed to vanish, for she was only as thick as cardboard. But she was so proud and grand that Goran wished he had on his Sunday suit, with the long black trousers and the short black jacket with its big silver buttons, the waistcoat all covered with needlework flowers, and the raspberry pink neckerchief.

“This is Nanna, our Goat, your Majesty,” he said.

“Goat, you may kiss my hand,” said the Queen.

“I don’t know whether I want to,” replied rude 40Nanna, who had never been presented to a Queen before, and didn’t know the proper way to behave.

“Mercy on us! What manners!” cried the Geraniums, blushing deep red that the Queen should be spoken to in that manner, in what they thought of as their house.

“But I wouldn’t mind eating your yellow flower,” continued Nanna. “I like to eat flowers.” And she looked at the Geraniums, who nearly fainted.

“Your turn next,” said the Queen to Gustava. She had heard gentlemen say that so often when they were playing Skat with her and her companions that she always repeated it when she could think of nothing else to say.

“Squawk! Cluck!” cried Gustava. “Would your Majesty like to see my beautiful child?” and she showed the Queen her Egg. “Just look, your Majesty! Have you ever seen anything more lovely? Such a pale brown color! Such an innocent expression! Perhaps your Majesty is also a mother?”

“Tick! Tock! Don’t forget to wind me!” said the old Clock.

41 This is Nanna, our Goat, your Majesty.

43“Gustava Hen talks too much,” the fat Teapot in the corner cupboard told her daughters the Teacups. “When the Queen speaks to you, just say ‘Yes, your Majesty,’ and ‘No, your Majesty,’ and I dare say she will take you all to Court and find you handsome husbands among the Royal Coffeecups.”

“Your Majesty should see my beautiful home,” went on Gustava. “A nest of pure gold!” (She thought it was gold, but it was really yellow straw.)

“Just like my throne,” replied the Queen. “Speaking of beautiful homes, you should see my Palace! There are fifty-three rooms!” (She said this because it was the highest number she knew, for there are fifty-three cards in the pack, counting the Joker who keeps all the cards amused when they are shut up in their box. And she had seen a room in the Palace, because she had been used in a game of Skat there, once in her early youth. But that was long, long ago.)

“My throne and the King’s throne are pure gold, just like your nest, my good Gustava. And the walls are painted red and white, in swirls, like strawberries 44and cream. The stove has such a tall slender figure, and wears a golden crown. And then, just imagine, all the lamps are dripping with icicles at the same time that the floor is covered with blooming roses!” (For that is how she thought of the glass lusters on the lamps and the carpet on the floor.)

“Icicles! Ice! Freezing! That reminds me of our important message!” cried Nanna. “Your Snowman, Goran. He looks so dreadfully cold out there, we were afraid he would perish.”

“Oh, yes! How could we have forgotten for so long! Cluck! Cluck! Cluck! He will certainly be frozen to death unless something is done quickly!”

“Do you mean to tell me that any one is out of doors on such a night as this?” questioned the Queen. “Have him brought in at once! Your turn next!” And she looked so severely at Goran that he felt his ears getting red.

So Goran and Nanna brought the Snowman in, while the Queen gave orders from the doorway, Gustava sat on her darling Egg to keep it warm, Mejau walked away with his tail as big as a bottle brush, and the Geraniums cried in chorus:

“Shut the door! Shut the door! We shall all catch cold!”

45 The Queen and the Snowman.

47“Poor thing! How pale he is!” exclaimed the Queen. “And how dreadfully cold! Put him in a chair by the fire!”

The Snowman looked out of wondering sky-blue glass eyes, but said never a word, for he was very shy; and as he had only been born that afternoon, everything in the world was new to him.

“I want a drink!” cried the youngest Geranium; and: “Tick! Tock! Tick! Don’t forget to wind me!” the old Clock repeated; but no one paid any attention to them.

“Your turn next!” said the Queen to Nanna. “Make a blaze, for this poor creature is nearly frozen.” So with a clatter of tiny hoofs, Nanna built up the fire, only pausing to eat a twig or two, until even Mejau was nearly roasted.

But the poor Snowman was worse instead of better. His twig mouth still smiled bravely, and his blue eyes remained wide open, but tears seemed to pour down his cheeks, and he was growing thinner before their very eyes.

“If you please,” he said in a timid voice, “I’m——”

“Give him a drink of something hot,” advised the fat Teapot, and that reminded the youngest Geranium, who began screaming:

48“I want a drink! I want a drink! I want a drink!”

“I’ll be delighted to oblige with some nice warm milk,” Nanna offered, so Goran milked a bowlful. But the Snowman could not drink it, and the tears ran faster and faster down his face.

“If you please——” he began again, faintly.

“We must put him to bed,” the Queen interrupted, with a stern look at Gustava who was sitting on her darling Egg in the center of Grandmother’s feather bed. “Your turn next!”

Grandmother’s bed was built into the wall, like a cupboard. It was all carved with harebells and pinecones and kobolds and nixies. The kobolds are the elves who live in the mountain forests, and the nixies are water fairies who sit under the waterfalls playing upon their harps and making the sweetest music in the world. There was a big white feather bed on Grandmother’s bed, and a big red feather bed on top of that, and two fat pillows stuffed with goose feathers. And 49above all this was a little shelf with two smaller feather beds and two smaller pillows, and that was Goran’s bed. On dreadfully cold nights they pulled two little wooden doors shut, and there they were, quite warm and cozy—even quite stuffy, you and I might think! The doors of the bed were painted with pink tulips and red hearts, and Grandmother said it made her feel quite young and warm to look at them, and Goran said it made him feel quite young and warm too. And Gustava the Hen thought they were beautiful, so there she sat on her darling Egg, and as she could never think of more than one thing at a time, she had forgotten all about the Snowman, and was happily clucking this song to her Egg:

“Make a wreath, I beg,

For my darling Egg!

“Flowers blue as cloudless sky

When the summer Sun is high,

Harebells, little cups of blue,

Holding drops of crystal dew.

“Rain-wet pinks as sweet as spice,

Lilies white as snow and ice,

50Lemon-colored lilies, too,

And the flax-flower’s lovely blue.

“Strawberries sweet and red and small,

And the purple monkshood tall;

Let the moon-white daisies shine,

Bring the coral columbine.

“Weave the shining buttercup,

Bind the sweet wild roses up;

Poppies, red as coals of fire,

And the speckled foxglove spire.

“And the iris blue that gleams

Knee-deep in the foamy streams.

Bring the spruce cones brown and long.”

(Thus ran on Gustava’s song).

“Make a wreath, I beg,

For my darling Egg!”

“Make a wreath, I beg,

For Gustava’s Egg,”

broke in Nanna the Goat impatiently:

51“Why leave the Geraniums out?

Add the Teapot’s broken spout,

Cheese, and brown potatoes, too;

Anything at all will do.

“Feathers from the feather bed,

Goran’s mittens, warm and red,

And the flower the Queen holds up,

And the cracked blue china cup.

“But the Queen has said

Kindly leave that bed!”

So Gustava had to flop off the bed with a squawk, while Goran handed her her Egg, and then they put the poor Snowman, what was left of him, into Grandmother’s bed, and pulled the eiderdown quilts over him.

“If you please,” said the Snowman in a feeble whisper, “oh, if you please, I’m——”

“I know this is the right thing to do, because it is the way we always treat Snowmen at the Palace,” broke in the Queen. To tell you the truth, she had never seen a Snowman in her life before, but she would never admit that she didn’t know all about everything.

52The Snowman looked at them with despairing sky-blue eyes, while his tears poured down, soaking Grandmother’s pillow. He had tried desperately to tell them something, but they would none of them listen. Suddenly Goran knew what it was.

“I believe we’re melting him,” said Goran. “He needs air.”

“I need air,” said the Snowman, his face shining with hope.

“Air?” said the Queen. “Nonsense! He’s had too much air. He needs a hot brick at his feet!”

“I need air,” faltered the Snowman.

“Air? Nonsense!” cried the fat Teapot and all her Teacup daughters, hoping the Queen would hear, and take them back to the Palace with her.

“I need air,” sighed the Snowman, and now he looked discouraged.

“Air? Brrr-rrr!” And Mejau squeezed himself under the chest of drawers, much annoyed with every one.

“I need air,” breathed the Snowman, looking at Goran with imploring eyes.

“Air? Mercy on us, that will mean opening the door again!” And the Geraniums shivered in every leaf and petal.

53But Goran had helped the poor Snowman, now nearly melted away, out of bed, and was leading him to the door.

“I need——” whispered the Snowman, and his voice was so faint that Goran could hardly hear it.

And there, because he was melting away so fast, his mouth fell out and lay on the floor, just a little bent twig.

Poor Snowman! Oh, poor Snowman! He could not make a sound now—he could only look at them, so sadly, so sadly!

But a little Mouse peeping with bright eyes out of its hole saw what had happened, and, since Mejau was nowhere in sight, ventured to squeak:

“Oh, please, Ma’am! Oh, please, Sir! The poor gentleman’s mouth is lying on the floor!”

So the Queen picked it up and pressed it into place again, but by mistake she put it on wrong side up, so that instead of a pleasant smile the Snowman had the crossest mouth in the world, pulled far down at each corner.

And what a change it made in him!

Before, his voice had been a gentle whisper—now it was an angry bellow that made the Teacups shiver on their shelf and the Geraniums turn quite pale, and the 54little Mouse dive back with a squeak into her hole, thinking to herself: “Well, I never!”

“Here, you!” shouted the Snowman. “Get me out of here, and get me out quick. Hop along, my girl, and open the door! Your turn next!” (This was to the astonished Queen.) “Now, then, carry me out!”

“Tick! Tock! I’m feeling dreadfully run down,” said the old Clock.

“Tick! Tock!

Wind the Clock!

Tock! Tick!

Wind it quick!

“Tick—Tock——” and he stopped talking.

The astonished Queen meekly threw open the door, and Goran carried the Snowman into the snowy darkness. Brr-rr! It was bitter cold!

“Now bring some snow and build me up,” the Snowman 55ordered. “Leave the door open so that you can see—don’t dawdle!”

The firelight from the open door shone on his blue glass eyes, and made two angry red sparks gleam in them. Goran and the Queen, Gustava and Nanna, scooped up handfuls and hoof-fuls and wing-fuls of newly fallen snow, and patted it on to the Snowman until he stuck out his chest more proudly than he had done in the first place, and he was so fat that he looked as if he were wearing six white fur coats, one on top of another. And all the time when he wasn’t frightening the Queen half out of her wits by shouting: “Your turn next!” he kept muttering away to himself:

“Melt me over the fire! Smother me in a feather bed! Put a hot brick at my feet!”

It was when Goran was patting a little fresh snow on the Snowman’s nose that he accidentally knocked his twig mouth off again. And this time it was put back right side up, so that the Snowman was as smiling as he had been in the beginning.

He stopped roaring. He stopped muttering. Did the fire die down? For the red sparks no longer gleamed in his gentle sky-blue eyes.

“Oh, thank you so much!” said the Snowman. “You have been so kind to me! And I know that you were 56trying to help me in the house. Forgive me for having been so cross! Will you please forgive me?”

And the Snowman looked so anxiously at Goran and the Queen and Nanna and Gustava that they all answered:

“Yes, yes, of course we will! And will you please forgive us for nearly melting you?”

“And now go in, for this lovely air is cold for you, I know.”

“Oh, it is bitter cold!” agreed the Queen. “Brr-rrr! It is bitter cold.”

Brr-rr! It was bitter cold!

Goran rubbed his eyes. Only a few red embers glowed in the fireplace. How stiff he was!

He must have slept in his chair all night, but he could not tell how late it was, for the Clock had stopped. He had forgotten to wind it, he remembered now.

There sat the Queen in her chair, but she was just a little card again.

Then he remembered the Snowman. He ran out of doors.

There the Snowman stood, as roly-poly as ever, with his twig mouth smiling and his sky-blue eyes wide 57open. He said nothing, but Goran felt they two understood each other.

What a night it had been! Could it all have been a dream? But now the night was over, and the storm was over; and, best of all, through the dim twilight he saw on the fjord far below him Neighbor Skylstad’s rowboat, and seated in it, wrapped in her red shawl, his own dear grandmother coming home to him.

The Dream Coach stopped at the Princess’s castle, then by road of stars to Goran’s cottage in Norway next to the palace of the little Emperor, lastly to the house in France where Phillipe visited his Grandparents