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Look carefully!" called the leader-goose. "Thus it is in foreign lands, from the Baltic coast all the way down to the high Alps. Farther than that I have never travelled." When the goslings had seen the plain, the leader-goose flew down the Öresund coast. Swampy meadows sloped gradually toward the sea.
Then, too, they ought to understand that when he had renounced so much to follow them, it was their duty to let him see all the wonders they could show him. "I'll have to speak my mind right out to them," thought he. But hour after hour passed, still he hadn't come round to it. It may sound remarkable but the boy had actually acquired a kind of respect for the old leader-goose.
To-day the boy took advantage of the rest hour, when Akka was feeding apart from the other wild geese, to ask her if that which Bataki had related was true, and Akka could not deny it. The boy made the leader-goose promise that she would not divulge the secret to Morten Goosey-Gander.
The poor youngsters had never before been on a long trip and at first they had difficulty in keeping up with the rapid flight. "Akka from Kebnekaise! Akka from Kebnekaise!" they cried in plaintive tones. "What's the matter?" said the leader-goose sharply. "Our wings are tired of moving, our wings are tired of moving!" wailed the young ones.
To freeze and starve: that he believed he should have to do often enough; but as a recompense, he would escape both work and study. As he walked there, the old gray leader-goose came up to him, and asked if he had found anything eatable. No, that he hadn't, he replied, and then she tried to help him.
"The more you put into your heads the more you can get into them," retorted the leader-goose, and continued to call out the queer names. The boy sat thinking that it was about time the wild geese betook themselves southward, for so much snow had fallen that the ground was white as far as the eye could see. There was no use denying that it had been rather disagreeable in the glen toward the last.
For Smirre had followed the wild geese once more. But when he had found the place where they were quartered, he had understood that it was impossible to get at them in any way; then he had not been able to keep from yowling with chagrin. When the fox yowled in this manner, old Akka, the leader-goose, was awakened. Although she could see nothing, she thought she recognised the voice.
"He has several names," said the goosey-gander hesitantly, not knowing what he should hit upon in a hurry, for he didn't want to reveal the fact that the boy had a human name. "Oh! his name is Thumbietot," he said at last. "Does he belong to the elf family?" asked the leader-goose. "At what time do you wild geese usually retire?" said the goosey-gander quickly trying to evade that last question.
You must not take us for land-lubbers who strike up a chance acquaintance with any and everyone! And you must not think that we permit anyone to share our quarters, that will not tell us who his ancestors were." When Akka, the leader-goose, talked in this way, the boy stepped briskly forward.
"If the goosey-gander remains with us, no harm can come to him," Akka assured. "I think you had better find out how your parents are getting along. You might be of some help to them, even if you're not a normal boy." "You are right, Mother Akka. I should have thought of that long ago," said the boy impulsively. The next second he and the leader-goose were on their way to his home.
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