amily was "going into the
country" for the summer. To Keith this meant a chance of playing with
other children without having to ask permission every time and rarely
getting it. To his mother it meant a distinct social advance, as no
family staying in town all summer could be held really respectable.

The "country" was located on one of the numerous islands forming the
outskirts of the city and could be reached by the father after he
finished work by a fifteen-minute ride on one of the innumerable little
steamboats running back and forth like so many busy shuttles across
every sheet of water in the vicinity of Stockholm. Even then it was a
suburb, but the houses were called villas, and there were plenty of
trees between the buildings, and the roads meandering whimsically among
miniature lawns and gardens had no pavements, and the lake came right up
to the door.

There the father had rented a single room from some acquaintances who
made their home on the island all the year round. The man was a German
who had recently returned to Sweden after serving as a noncommissioned
officer in the Franco-Prussian war--a stocky Bavarian with a tremendous
black beard, a fondness for top-boots and long-stemmed pipes, and a
startling tendency to shout every communication in the form of a
command. He was a good-natured soul nevertheless, in spite of his
appearance, his occasional bursts of temper, and his exaggerated regard
for discipline, and he was full of stories about real fighting that
differed puzzlingly from what Keith had read about such matters. Uncle
Laube had a pet phrase that stuck in the boy's mind and exercised a
corroding influence on some of his most cherished sentiments:

"A man must be able to fight, but it is black hell when he has to."

There were three children in the family--a boy two or three years older
than Keith, a girl of his own age and a baby sister. The boy was named
Adolph and the elder girl Marie. All three of them, but especially the
boy, were being brought up in strict Teutonic fashion, which made a sort
of super-religion out of obedience. At the mere sound of his father's
voice, Adolph trembled and stiffened up like a recruit under training.
Once the two boys and Marie strayed beyond bounds to a place where some
timber rafts were tied up along the shore. Adolph led the way onto the
rafts and the two others followed. It was great fun jumping from log to
log where two rafts met, until Marie suddenly sl