Some months later, as Olaf held in his big arms his first-born son, Viola shyly whispered:

"It was to have been a girl, but for your sake I decided it should be a boy. Thinking of it on that blessed Sunday, I laughed, wicked little creature that I was. He is not like you, neither is he like me; indeed he is very ugly; but who cares? We shall love him just the same!"

"Nay, I will not have him called 'ugly,'" said his father, "for he has your hair, Viola, and my eyes, and haven't you told me a thousand times you fell in love with me on account of my blue eyes?"

"In love!" cried Viola; "now, Olaf, you are too absurd. As if anybody could be in love with such a big, burly, giant-like fellow! Why, how should I, half a mile below you, see up so high as to know the color of your eyes, unless indeed I climbed a ladder on purpose?"

So saying, Viola pulled the giant down to his knees by her bed-side, laid his great head on her breast, and patted and caressed it, while railing at him and his eyes and his baby to her heart's content. Olaf received these mingled attentions with purrs of satisfaction, and went on his way with the calm conviction that however his wife and child might look to other people, there was no doubt they were both as near perfection as need be.

In spite of her happiness and of Olaf's cares, however, Viola did not recover from her illness very rapidly. She missed now many comforts to which she had been accustomed; some dainty to tempt her appetite, or the luscious fruits of her own land. Her brave, true heart, and Olaf's affection sustained her amid these new demands on her fortitude; when strength failed her she made up for it by patience and energy, and though she accomplished it painfully, she did accomplish as much as other vigorous women of her class. Olaf worked diligently to procure for Viola such alleviations as he could think of; but always accustomed to a life of the utmost simplicity, many of her real wants, had they been expressed, would have seemed to him most puerile.

The child received the name of Eric; Viola thus honored and gratified Olaf's father; but she promised herself that her second child should bear the name of her own mother.

Little Eric, at six months old, had reversed the apparent gifts of his birthright. His dark hair fell off, and was replaced by a crown of luxurious golden curls; his blue eyes became steel-colored, then a soft brown, like his mother's; he was a marvel of the beauty of two races. And as his character developed he proved the truth of the saying, that mingled races produce the finest strain of nature.

In his very babyhood the neighbors said he was no common child, and, of course, Olaf and Viola thought so too, though they both said, as they thought they ought to say, that he was like all the other babies in the world. Viola, indeed, knew little about children. She had neither brother or sister, and the mistress with whom she had spent most of her life could not bear the sound of a child's voice. Eric was, therefore, an object of great curiosity to his young mother; a little mystery whom she was never tired of studying. She and Olaf had some pleasant strife together as to the first language the child should speak; naturally enough, he chose that which he heard most frequently, and spoke his first lisping words in her musical tongue. His grandmother thought that for a Swedish boy to speak Italian was nothing less than a miracle, and prophesied that such a child would die before its time. There was her old neighbor, Stenbock; her son died of knowing too much, and of having his hair left to grow till it hung down all over his shoulders like a yellow veil; she hoped Viola would not let Eric's hair grow in that fashion, though, to be sure, its having once been dark might make all the difference in the world.

But when Eric soon proved that he could talk Swedish almost as well as herself, the good grandmother shook her head, and hoped, with secret misgivings to the contrary, that this was not some wicked spirit come in human shape to ruin them all. Viola concerned herself very little with such fancies. Everything the child said or did amused her, but she had too little experience to know how individual this little creature was; how imitative and yet how original. As soon as he could speak plainly, Eric began to go singing about the house, as his mother did. He caught both words and air without effort, and when he sang, seemed as unconscious as a bird on the wing. Then one day, as Viola sat at work, using her needle with great rapidity, she was suddenly aroused from her absorption in it by Eric's long silence; unusual quietness in an active child usually means mischief brewing, as every mother knows. Looking up, she saw Eric seated gravely opposite her, with a bit of cloth fastened to his knee, and imitating her every motion with precision. He had fastened his thread to a pin, and was making this pin move in concert with her needle, only, of course, his movements were only a pretence, while hers were real. She threw herself back in her chair to laugh at her ease at this comic scene; whereupon Eric, with no little humor twinkling in his eye, threw himself back likewise, and laughed in unison with her.

"You little monkey, how dare you!" she cried, half vexed and half amused; but Eric looked at her with such an open, innocent face, that she saw he meant no harm, and if a monkey, was a harmless one after all.

But now the whole household was kept busy and merry with the incessant activity of this quaint child. Nothing escaped his observation. He coughed like his grandfather; he made believe knit, and took snuff like his grandmother.

When Viola shook her head at him, he would instantly turn upon her that open, honest face, free from guile and malice, and obey forthwith. No one who caught that glance could help forgiving the unconscious child and taking him into his confidence.

Viola, meanwhile, attained the desire of her heart—a little Swedish maiden with rosy cheeks and fair hair, the very funniest miniature of Olaf. Eric, of course, cried when the baby cried, or at least lifted up his voice in perfect imitation, and crept when the baby crept, as if going on all-fours was man's normal mode of locomotion. At the same time he constituted himself her guardian and protector. All the songs he had picked up he sang to her as she lay in her cradle, and as she grew older he repeated to her, with marvelous accuracy, all the tales he had heard in his short life. Then the tenderness Olaf poured out on Viola, Eric lavished on his little sister; words sacred to husbands and wives who love each other, and which they never mean to let fall on profane ears, will sometimes escape; such words and tones the boy treasured in his memory perhaps many long months, and then showered them on Carina with all manner of courtesies and gallantries. She received them without much response, but with sweet content, for her instincts told her that when Eric said he loved her and could not imagine how he ever got along without her, he was not just "making believe."

There was no school in the neighborhood, and Viola was too ignorant of the language to teach Eric to read. His grandmother, therefore, undertook this task, which proved to be only a pleasure, he learned with so much ease, and was so joyous and cheerful over his books.

His fine ear enabled him to catch her tones, so that when he first began to read aloud to his father the effect was almost ludicrous; by degrees, however, as his mind developed, he read with great spirit, like, yet unlike, all he had ever heard. By degrees the peculiarities and talents of this strange boy began to be much spoken of; strangers who passed that way made the excuse of needing refreshment, in the hope of seeing for themselves some of his performances. Viola received them with true Swedish hospitality, as her husband wished her to do, but she never could succeed in making Eric understand what was desired of him. His unconsciousness saved him from vanity; what he said and sang, and what he did, were all as natural and simple as childhood could make them.

There had been one great inconvenience in his imitative propensities; since his early babyhood they had not dared to take him to church. They knew that the whole congregation would be excited to merriment should he have the opportunity to watch the grotesque gestures of the pastor in the pulpit. Eric had already caught them, to a certain extent, when the minister made his visits at the house; but bad must not be suffered to become worse. When he was four years old, however, Olaf resolved that his boy should be cured of a habit which would make him disagreeable, now that he was ceasing to be a child. He, therefore, set himself seriously to work.

"Eric, do you know what sort of an animal a monkey is?" he demanded.

Eric began eagerly to tell all he knew, which was not a little.

"Well, and should you like to have everybody say you were a monkey?"

"I don't know," replied Eric, reflectively. "It wouldn't turn me into a monkey to have folks say I was a monkey. And if I really was one, why, then I should have a great long tail, and I could hang to the branches of trees, this way; look, father, I'll show you how!"

"Has the boy really no sense of shame?" cried Olaf, angrily.

"Leave him to me, I will manage him," said his grandmother.

"Do you know, Eric, how nice and pleasant it is to go to church? There are all the good people together praising God. They sing like the angels, so that one actually sheds tears when one hears them. Now, would not you love to go and shed tears at church, listening to such beautiful music?"

"I shouldn't want to go there to cry," returned Eric. "I should like to go and sing like an angel, though."

"But if we let you go you will not be contented with singing. You will be getting up on the seat, making your arms go like our dear pastor's."

"Should I?" said Eric. "But, dear grandmother, couldn't you tie my arms with a string?"

"Fie! now you are talking nonsense. And great boys four years old should not talk nonsense."

"Yesterday, when I asked for another piece of oaten cake, you said I ate too much for such a little boy," said Eric, thoughtfully. "But it is a long while since yesterday; perhaps I am a great boy now."

"Well, well, child; but now suppose we take you to church with us to-morrow, will you behave yourself like a little man, and not fall into any of your tricks?"

"I don't know," said Eric, mournfully. "Maybe I should. I never do any tricks on purpose. They come and make me."

"Who come and make you?"

"The Trolls, and all of them."

"Now who has been teaching the child such wicked nonsense?" cried Olaf, starting to his feet. "Oh, mother, I would not have believed this of you!"

"Don't be angry with mother, Olaf dear," said Viola, gently. "She can't help believing things she has been taught all her life."

Olaf was silent. He felt angry with his mother, and wanted to reproach her. But that must not be in the presence of that keen-eyed child, who would remember every look and tone.

"Eric," he said at last, "you will go to church with us to-morrow, for our pastor will have it so. But there are no Trolls in God's house, therefore if you are not a good boy I shall know whose fault it is."

"You will be a good boy, Eric, won't you now?" said his mother, coaxingly.

"Yes, dear mother, I will," replied Eric, in tones so perfectly like her own, that, as usual, they all burst out laughing.

With such management the only wonder is the poor child was not ruined at once. But He who commits little children to the hands of inexperienced and ignorant parents—and are there any earthly hands that are not such?—He overrules the mistakes and corrects the errors. Eric had been used all his life to be coaxed, threatened, laughed at, praised, and argued with, in multitudes of cases where a single word of parental authority was all that was needed.

The next day was a bright, cheerful Sunday, and the whole family set off for church in good spirits. Eric was full of curiosity to know what going to church could really mean. He helped pack the basket of dinner, and made himself useful in many ways a less-observing child would not have thought of. On entering the church he watched carefully to see what his father and mother did, and perceiving that they stood for a moment with folded hands, engaged in silent prayer, he, too, closed his eyes and moved his lips, with an aspect of great devotion. When they were all seated, his eager gaze at the unwonted scene around him repaid his mother for bringing him with her. She enjoyed his surprise and pleasure, and showed her sympathy with him by pressing the little hand she held in her own. Nothing was lost upon him, and he responded at the close of every prayer, like a veteran, until that preceding the sermon; for a moment his attention wandered, and he sat lost in thought, till suddenly arousing himself, he uttered a vigorous "Amen" that was heard all over the church, and which broke in upon the text which the pastor was repeating in solemn accents. Viola laughed; Olaf pretended not to have heard, but changed color in spite of himself; the grandmother shook her finger at him, and Eric, amid these contending influences, felt half pleased and half frightened. He now, however, was attracted by the sermon, and the manner of its delivery; he sat erect, silent, almost breathless, a picture of awe and of ecstacy. Gradually, seeing him so absorbed, Olaf and Viola began to feel easy about him; Olaf gave himself up to enjoyment of the sermon; Viola attended to Carina, who continually asked if service were most done, and whom she invariably answered; the old grandmother fell asleep, and the grandfather began to take snuff. Eric unconsciously rose to his feet, climbed up to the seat, stretched forth now this arm, now that, clasped his hands, looked heavenward, and, in short, copied every motion of the pastor with unerring accuracy. The pastor, instead of serious faces, saw endless smiles; he was first surprised, then displeased; his gestures became animated with these emotions, and Eric faithfully repeated them, till, by degrees, nearly the whole congregation was in an uproar. The poor little fellow was ignominiously pulled down from his throne, and borne out of church by his exasperated father, who could hardly wait till he got him to a safe distance, before he gave him a most severe thrashing. He was interrupted in this labor by a hand laid, with force, upon his arm, and turning resentfully to the intruder, was ashamed to find himself confronted by the pastor's wife.

He pulled off his cap, and saluted her, and Eric, in the midst of his pain, did the same.

The Fru Prostinna looked kindly down upon the little boy, and instantly reassured, a frank smile lighted up his ingenuous face.

"You were severe with the poor child," said the Fru Prostinna.

"It was because I forgot to have my hands tied!" cried Eric eagerly. "I brought the string, but when I got inside the church and saw so many people, all dressed in holiday clothes so gay, and the Prost with his black gown and big ruff, and heard the singing and praying; oh, I forgot my string! But here it is," he continued, drawing it from his pocket, "and next time father will tie my hands."

The Fru Prostinna smiled.

"Well, my little fellow," said she, "I think it would be better to tie your hands than to break your bones, and you may thank me for hurrying after you out of church, to see that you were not killed outright. Play about now, while your father and I have a little talk together."

As soon as Eric was out of hearing, Olaf began to apologize for his severity to the child.

"It is the first time I ever laid my hand on him," he said, "and it shall be the last."

"Do not say that, Olaf. Correction is as necessary in our days as it was when Solomon forbid the sparing of the rod. Rather resolve never to strike him again in anger."

"Why, I could not strike him at all, if I were not angry," said Olaf. "For though he is wild in his way of mocking everything he sees and hears, he is a good boy in other things; a merry, pleasant boy as need be."

"Yes, I know. I have heard all about that. And if I were you, instead of reproving or laughing at this habit, I would turn it to good account. His active nature craves employment; now the next time you manufacture any of those pretty baskets you used to make, lay materials and tools within his reach, and see if instead of imitating, in a superficial way, all your motions, he does not really produce a facsimile of your work."

This was a new idea to Olaf, and it gave him pleasure. "Ah, if Eric had the Fru Prostinna for his mother, she would train him so wisely and discreetly; whereas, Viola is never the same person one day that she is the next. She lets the children do so many things I was not allowed to do at their age. And the Fru Prostinna would have made a man of Eric. Not a hard-working peasant, a great rough fellow like myself, but, who knows? a clergyman perhaps, with his parish and his schools, and his farms and his houses!"

And Olaf began to feel aggrieved, and as if Viola, in being of his own rank in life, and uninstructed and capricious, had done him a wrong and deprived him of the chance of giving a refined and educated mother to his children.

But when she came, at the close of service, to meet him, dressed in her becoming holiday costume, her red bodice and white cap, her face looked, as it always did, home-like and very dear. He laughed at himself for the foolish thoughts that a momentary ambition had awakened, and as they sat on the grass, eating their dinner together, told her what the pastor's good wife had said to him.

"But you only make baskets and things of that sort in the winter evenings," said Viola. "And such work as you are doing now, he cannot possibly do. But my work he can learn, and that he shall do forthwith."

So the next day, when she swept her house she put a little broom into Eric's hands, saying, "Sweep now, as I do. Don't just move your brush in the air; do just as I do, and make the floor clean for mother."

Eric obeyed, and when he saw that his little brush helped to beautify the floor, he used it with delight, singing joyfully to himself the while, and doing his work with his mother's exactitude. So it was in almost all the details of the day; and when, in the afternoon, she sat in her well-ordered room, in her clean, fresh dress, and began to sew, she gave Eric, not a bit of waste cloth, but part of a little garment, saying:

"See, now, dear Eric, when I sew I join these pieces together, and make your little sleeve. But when you sew you make nothing. You only move your arms as I move mine."

Then Eric watched her more closely, and saw that she pulled her needle through her work, now in, now out; imitated her with joy, and really made the little sleeve. Viola showed it to his father in the evening, and they all thought it a wonderful affair, as it indeed was, for the stitches were not the unwilling, irregular workmanship of compulsion, but the result of a taste that must indulge itself in aiming at perfection. Eric, himself, was not satisfied with his sleeve because it was not so nicely done as his mother's, but she laughed at the idea of his expecting at his first attempt to equal her needlework, of which she was very proud.

A few weeks later, two little arms came to fill the little sleeves; the baby-boy to whom they belonged, was beautiful from his birth; even Viola was satisfied with him, though she would not own it. Eric did not cry in imitation of his brother, as he had done with his sister; he knew better, now; besides, he was too busy to waste his time in watching him, except when bidden to do so. His father had been occupied at intervals during several weeks in manufacturing articles which Viola needed about the house: a table, two chairs, and a little bedstead for Carina, who must give up her place by her mother's side to the baby. Eric could hardly contain himself till he had made miniature furniture of the same pattern. To be sure, he pounded his fingers and cut them, and met with all sorts of difficulties, but that made no difference; chairs and table and bedstead he was resolved to make, and make them he did; and then his mother made a little doll of the right size for the furniture, and the whole establishment was given to Carina. His father was astonished at this performance, which he could appreciate better than he could the needlework. He began to find great pleasure in taking Eric with him to his work, and in answering his endless questions, which were daily becoming more and intelligent. He was obliged to work very hard, now that there were so many little children, for though the grandfather owned the house in which they lived, this was all they possessed, except the small bit of land which had been bought at the time of his marriage, when Olaf hoped to add to it; but that he had never been able to do. Shortly after the birth of the third baby, the grandfather began to suffer seriously from rheumatism, particularly in his hands, so that by degrees he became quite unable to do work of any sort. Olaf must do double duty; but it was some relief to see Eric growing every day stronger and more useful, and to look forward to the time as not far distant, when he would materially help in the support of the family.

To be sure, the neighbors all said among themselves, that Eric would be Jack of all trades, and master of none; such prodigies, they were sure, never turned out in the end to be anything wonderful; and after all, he wasn't so much of a marvel as he might be.

Olaf, however, determined to have Eric's education hurried forward as speedily as possible. But how was this to be done? Viola knew how to keep her house, to bear children, and to be a good, loving mother to them; but beyond these duties she could not go. Her education was far inferior to that of the peasantry about her; she could neither read nor write. The grandmother had taught Eric to do both, and had made him say the catechism every Sunday till he knew it past ever forgetting one of its ponderous words; but this did not satisfy Olaf; he was sure he ought to do more for this boy who had been endowed by nature with such varied powers.