st of sending a delegation
of four or five men that very morning, but finally determined to march
up to Nils's cottage in a body and demand the boy. There were twenty
of them at the very least, and the tops of their long boat-hooks, which
they carried on their shoulders, were seen against the green forest
before they were themselves visible.

Nils, who was just out of bed, was sitting on the threshold smoking
his pipe and pitching a ball to little Hans, who laughed with delight
whenever he caught it. Inga was bustling about inside the house,
preparing breakfast, which was to consist of porridge, salt herring,
and baked potatoes. It had rained during the night, and the sky was yet
overcast, but the sun was struggling to break through the cloud-banks. A
couple of thrushes in the alder-bushes about the cottage were rejoicing
at the change in the weather, and Nils was listening to their song and
to his son's merry prattle, when he caught sight of the twenty lumbermen
marching up the hillside. He rose, with some astonishment, and went to
meet them. Inga, hearing their voices, came to the door, and seeing the
many men, snatched up little Hans, and with a wildly palpitating heart
ran into the cottage, bolting the door behind her. She had a vague
foreboding that this unusual visit meant something hostile to herself,
and she guessed that Nils had been only the spokesman of his comrades
in demanding so eagerly the return of the boy to the river. She believed
all their talk about his luck to be idle nonsense; but she knew that
Nils had unwittingly spread this belief, and that the lumbermen were
convinced that little Hans was their good genius, whose presence averted
disaster. Distracted with fear and anxiety, she stood pressing her ear
against the crack in the door, and sometimes peeping out to see what
measures she must take for the child's safety. Would Nils stand by her,
or would he desert her? But surely--what was Nils thinking about? He was
extending his hand to each of the men, and receiving them kindly.

Next he would be inviting them to come in and take little Hans. She saw
one of the men--Stubby Mons by name--step forward, and she plainly heard
him say:

"We miss the little chap down at the river, Nils. The luck has been
against us since he left."

"Well, Mons," Nils answered, "I miss the little chap as much as any of
you; perhaps more. But my wife--she's got a sort of crooked notion that
the boy won't come home alive