Read Ebook: The Wonderful Adventures of Nils by Lagerl F Selma Howard Velma Swanston Translator

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Ebook has 3101 lines and 153350 words, and 63 pages

The Boy

Akka from Kebnekaise

The Wonderful Journey of Nils

Glimminge Castle

The Great Crane Dance on Kullaberg

In Rainy Weather

The Stairway with the Three Steps

Karlskrona

The Trip to ?land

?land's Southern Point

The Big Butterfly

Little Karl's Island

Two Cities

The Legend of Sm?land

The Crows

The Old Peasant Woman

From Taberg to Huskvarna

The Big Bird Lake

Ulv?sa-Lady

The Homespun Cloth

The Story of Karr and Grayskin

The Wind Witch

The Breaking Up of the Ice

Thumbietot and the Bears

The Flood

Dunfin

Stockholm

Gorgo the Eagle

On Over G?strikland

A Day in H?lsingland

In Medelpad

A Morning in ?ngermanland

Westbottom and Lapland

Osa, the Goose Girl, and Little Mats

With the Laplanders

Homeward Bound

Legends from H?rjedalen

Vermland and Dalsland

The Treasure on the Island

The Journey to Vemmingh?g

Home at Last

The Parting with the Wild Geese

The author has rendered valuable assistance in cutting certain chapters and abridging others. Also, with the author's approval, cuts have been made where the descriptive matter was merely of local interest.

But the story itself is intact.

THE BOY

THE ELF

Once there was a boy. He was--let us say--something like fourteen years old; long and loose-jointed and towheaded. He wasn't good for much, that boy. His chief delight was to eat and sleep; and after that--he liked best to make mischief.

It was a Sunday morning and the boy's parents were getting ready to go to church. The boy sat on the edge of the table, in his shirt sleeves, and thought how lucky it was that both father and mother were going away, and the coast would be clear for a couple of hours. "Good! Now I can take down pop's gun and fire off a shot, without anybody's meddling interference," he said to himself.

But it was almost as if father should have guessed the boy's thoughts, for just as he was on the threshold--ready to start--he stopped short, and turned toward the boy. "Since you won't come to church with mother and me," he said, "the least you can do, is to read the service at home. Will you promise to do so?" "Yes," said the boy, "that I can do easy enough." And he thought, of course, that he wouldn't read any more than he felt like reading.

The boy thought that never had he seen his mother so persistent. In a second she was over by the shelf near the fireplace, and took down Luther's Commentary and laid it on the table, in front of the window--opened at the service for the day. She also opened the New Testament, and placed it beside the Commentary. Finally, she drew up the big arm-chair, which was bought at the parish auction the year before, and which, as a rule, no one but father was permitted to occupy.

The boy sat thinking that his mother was giving herself altogether too much trouble with this spread; for he had no intention of reading more than a page or so. But now, for the second time, it was almost as if his father were able to see right through him. He walked up to the boy, and said in a severe tone: "Now, remember, that you are to read carefully! For when we come back, I shall question you thoroughly; and if you have skipped a single page, it will not go well with you."

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