The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Happy Boy, by Bjornstjerne Bjornson

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: A Happy Boy

Author: Bjornstjerne Bjornson

Release Date: June 16, 2004 [EBook #12633]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HAPPY BOY ***

Produced by David S. Miller

A HAPPY BOY

BY

BJORNSTJERNE BJORNSON

TRANSLATED FROM THE NORSE

BY

RASMUS B. ANDERSON

AUTHOR'S EDITION

PUBLISHER'S NOTE.

The present edition of Bjornstjerne Bjornson's works is published by
special arrangement with the author. Mr. Bjornson has designated Prof.
Rasmus B. Anderson as his American translator, cooperates with him, and
revises each work before it is translated, thus giving his personal
attention to this edition.

PREFACE.

"A Happy Boy" was written in 1859 and 1860. It is, in my estimation,
Bjornson's best story of peasant life. In it the author has succeeded
in drawing the characters with _remarkable distinctness_, while his
profound psychological insight, his perfectly artless simplicity of
style, and his thorough sympathy with the hero and his surroundings are
nowhere more apparent. This view is sustained by the great popularity
of "A Happy Boy" throughout Scandinavia.

It is proper to add, that in the present edition of Bjornson's stories,
previous translations have been consulted, and that in this manner a
few happy words and phrases have been found and adopted.

This volume will be followed by "The Fisher Maiden," in which Bjornson
makes a new departure, and exhibits his powers in a somewhat different
vein of story-telling.

RASMUS B. ANDERSON.

ASGARD, MADISON, WISCONSIN,
November, 1881.

A HAPPY BOY.

CHAPTER I.

His name was Oyvind, and he cried when he was born. But no sooner did
he sit up on his mother's lap than he laughed, and when the candle was
lit in the evening the room rang with his laughter, but he cried when
he was not allowed to reach it.

"Something remarkable will come of that boy!" said the mother.

A barren cliff, not a very high one, though, overhung the house where
he was born; fir and birch looked down upon the roof, the bird-cherry
s