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                                   MY
                               LITTLE BOY

                                  _by
                               CARL EWALD_

                       TRANSLATED FROM THE DANISH
                                   BY
                      ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS




                             MY LITTLE BOY
               COPYRIGHT 1906 BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
                      SOLE AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION

     REPRINTED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH THE PUBLISHERS. NO PART OF THIS
     WORK MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT THE PERMISSION OF
                        CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS




_MY LITTLE BOY_




I


My little boy is beginning to live.

Carefully, stumbling now and then on his little knock-kneed legs, he
makes his way over the paving-stones, looks at everything that there is
to look at and bites at every apple, both those which are his due and
those which are forbidden him.

He is not a pretty child and is the more likely to grow into a fine lad.
But he is charming.

His face can light up suddenly and become radiant; he can look at you
with quite cold eyes. He has a strong intuition and he is incorruptible.
He has never yet bartered a kiss for barley-sugar. There are people whom
he likes and people whom he dislikes. There is one who has long courted
his favour indefatigably and in vain; and, the other day, he formed a
close friendship with another who had not so much as said "Good day" to
him before he had crept into her lap and nestled there with glowing
resolution.

He has a habit which I love.

When we are walking together and there is anything that impresses him,
he lets go my hand for a moment. Then, when he has investigated the
phenomenon and arrived at a result, I feel his little fist in mine
again.

He has bad habits too.

He is apt, for instance, suddenly and without the slightest reason, to
go up to people whom he meets in the street and hit them with his little
stick. What is in his mind, when he does so, I do not know; and, so long
as he does not hit me, it remains a matter between himself and the
people concerned.

He has an odd trick of seizing big words in a grown-up conversation,
storing them up for a while and then asking me for an explanation:

"Father," he says, "what is life?"

I give him a tap in his little stomach, roll him over on the carpet and
conceal my emotion under a mighty romp. Then, when we sit breathless and
tired, I answer, gravely:

"Life is delightful, my little boy. Don't you be afraid of it!"




II


Today my little boy gave me my first lesson.

It was in the garden.

I was writing in the shade of the big chestnut-tree, close to where the
brook flows past. He was sitting a little way off, on the grass, in the
sun, with Hans Christian Andersen in his lap.

Of course, he does not know how to read, but he lets you read to him,
likes to hear the same tales over and over again. The better he knows
them, the better he is pleased. He follows the story page by page, knows
exactly where everything comes and catches you up immediately should you
skip a line.

There are two tales which he loves more than anything in the world.

These are Grimm's _Faithful John_ and Andersen's _The Little Mermaid_.
When anyone comes whom he likes, he fetches the big Grimm, with those
heaps of pictures, and asks for _Faithful John_. Then, if the reader
stops, because it is so terribly sad, with all those little dead
children, a bright smile lights up his small, long face and he says,
reassuringly and pleased at "knowing better":

"Yes, but they come to life again."

Today, however, it is _The Little Mermaid_.

"Is that the sort of stories you write?" he asks.

"Yes," I say, "but I am afraid mine will not be so pretty."

"You must take pains," he says.

And I promise.

For a time he makes no sound. I go on writing and forget about him.

"Is there a little mermaid down there, in the water?" he asks.

"Yes, she swims up to the top in the summer."

He nods and looks out across the brook, which ripples so softly and
smoothly that one can hardly see the water flow. On the opposite side,
the rushes grow green and thick and there is also a bird, hidden in the
rushes, which sings. The dragon-flies are whirling and humming. I am
sitting with my head in my hand, absorbed in my work.

Suddenly, I hear a splash.

I jump from my chair, upset the table, dart forward and see that my
little boy is gone. The brook is billowing and foaming; there are wide
circles on the surface.

In a moment, I am in the water and find him and catch hold of him.

He stands on the grass, dripping with wet, spluttering and coughing. His
thin clothes are clinging to his thin body, his face is black with mud.
But out of the mud gleams a pair of angry eyes:

"There was no mermaid," he says.

I do not at once know what to reply and I have no time to think.

"Do you write that sort of stories?" he asks.

"Yes," I say, shamefaced.

"I don't like any of you," he says. "You make fun of a little boy."

He turns his back on me and, proud and wet, goes indoors without once
looking round.

This evening, Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen disappear in a
mysterious manner, which is never explained. He will miss them greatly,
at first; but he will never be fooled again, not if I were to give him
the sun and moon in his hand.




III


My little boy and I have had an exceedingly interesting walk in the
Frederiksberg Park.

There was a mouse, which was irresistible. There were two chaffinches,
husband and wife, which built their nest right before our eyes, and a
snail, which had no secrets for us. And there were flowers, yellow and
white, and there were green leaves, which told us the oddest adventures:
in fact, as much as we can find room for in our little head.

Now we are sitting on a bench and digesting our impressions.

Suddenly the air is shaken by a tremendous roar:

"What was that?" asks my little boy.

"That was the lion in the Zoological Gardens," I reply.

No sooner have I said this than I curse my own stupidity.

I might have said that it was a gunshot announcing the birth of a
prince; or an earthquake; or a china dish falling from the sky and
breaking into pieces: anything whatever, rather than the truth.

For now my little boy wants to know what sort of thing the Zoological
Gardens is.

I tell him.

The Zoological Gardens is a horrid place, where they lock up wild beasts
who have done no wrong and who are accustomed to walk about freely in
the distant foreign countries where they come from. The lion is there,
whom we have just heard roaring. He is so strong that he can kill a
policeman with one blow of his paw; he has great, haughty eyes and
awfully sharp teeth. He lives in Africa and, at night, when he roars,
all the other beasts tremble in their holes for fear. He is called the
king of beasts. They caught him one day in a cunning trap and bound him
and dragged him here and locked him up in a cage with iron bars to it.
The cage is no more than half as big as Petrine's room. And there the
king walks up and down, up and down, and gnashes his teeth with sorrow
and rage and roars so that you can hear him ever so far away. Outside
his cage stand cowardly people and laugh at him, because he can't get
out and eat them up, and poke their sticks through the rails and tease
him.

My little boy stands in front of me and looks at me with wide-open eyes:

"Would he eat them up, if he