Boys of Other Countries

by Bayard Taylor

The boys of Iceland must be content with very few acquaintances and playmates. The valleys which produce grass enough for the farmer’s ponies, cattle, and sheep are generally scattered widely apart, divided by ridges of lava so hard and cold that only a few wild flowers succeed in growing in their cracks and hollows. Then, since the farms must be all the larger, because the grass is short and grows slowly in such a severe northern climate, the dwellings are rarely nearer than four or five miles apart; and were it not for their swift and nimble ponies, the people would see very little of each other except on Sundays, when they ride long distances to attend worship in their little wooden churches.

But of all boys in the island, not one was so lonely in his situation as Jon Sigurdson. His father lived many miles beyond that broad, grassy plain which stretches from the Geysers to the sea, on the banks of the swift river Thiörvǎ. On each side there were mountains so black and bare that they looked like gigantic piles of coal; but the valley opened to the southward as if to let the sun in, and far away, when the weather was clear, the snowy top of Mount Hecla shone against the sky. The farmer Sigurd, Jon’s father, was a poor man, or he would not have settled so far away from any neighbors; for he was of a cheerful and social nature, and there were few at Kyrkedal who could vie with him in knowledge of the ancient history and literature of Iceland.

The house was built on a knoll, under a cliff which sheltered it from the violent west and northwest winds. The walls, of lava stones and turf, were low and broad; and the roofs over dwelling, storehouses, and stables were covered deep with earth, upon which grew such excellent grass that the ponies were fond of climbing up the sloping corners of the wall in order to get at it. Sometimes they might be seen, cunningly balanced on the steep sides of the roof, grazing along the very ridge-poles, or looking over the end of the gable when some member of the family came out of the door, as much as to say, “Get me down if you can!” Around the buildings there was a square wall of enclosure, giving the place the appearance of a little fortress.

On one side of the knoll a hot spring bubbled up. In the morning or evening, when the air was cool, quite a little column of steam arose from it, whirling and broadening as it melted away; but the water was pure and wholesome as soon as it became cold enough for use. In front of the house, where the sun shone warmest, Sigurd had laid out a small garden. It was a great labor for him to remove the huge stones and roll them into a protecting wall, to carry good soil from the places where the mountain rills had gradually washed it down from above, and to arrange it so that frosts and cold rains should do the least harm; and the whole family thought themselves suddenly rich, one summer, when they pulled their first radishes, saw the little bed of potatoes coming into blossom, and the cabbages rolling up their leaves in order to make, at least, baby-heads before the winter came.

Within the house, all was low and dark and dismal. The air was very close and bad, for the stables were only separated from the dwelling-room by a narrow passage, and bunches of dry salt fish hung on the walls. Besides, it was usually full of smoke from the fire of peat, and, after a rain, of steam from Sigurd’s and Jon’s heavy woollen coats. But to the boy it was a delightful, a comfortable home, for within it he found shelter, warmth, food, and instruction. The room for visitors seemed to him the most splendid place in the world, because it had a wooden floor, a window with six panes of glass, a colored print of the King of Denmark, and a geranium in a pot. This was so precious a plant that Jon and his sister Gudrid hardly dared to touch its leaves. They were almost afraid to smell it, for fear of sniffing away some of its life; and Gudrid, after seeing a leaf of it laid on her dead sister’s bosom, insisted that some angel, many hundred years ago, had brought the seed straight down from heaven.

These were Sigurd’s only children. There had been several more, but they had died in infancy, from the want of light and pure air, and the great distance from help when sickness came. Gudrid was still pale and slender, except in summer, when her mild, friendly face took color from the sun; but Jon, who was now fourteen, was a sturdy, broad-breasted boy, who promised to be as strong as his father in a few years more. He had thick yellow hair, curling a little around his forehead; large bright blue eyes; and a mouth rather too broad for beauty, if the lips had not been so rosy and the teeth so white and firm. He had a serious look, but it was only because he smiled with his eyes oftener than with his mouth. He was naturally true and good, for he hardly knew what evil was. Except his parents and his sister he saw no one for weeks at a time; and when he met other boys after church at Kyrkedal, so much time was always lost in shyly looking at each other and shrinking from the talk which each wanted to begin, that no very intimate acquaintance followed.

But in spite of his lonely life, Jon was far from being ignorant. There were the long winter months, when the ponies—and sometimes the sheep—pawed holes in the snow in order to reach the grass on the bottoms beside the river; when the cows were warmly stabled and content with their meals of boiled hay; when the needful work of the day could be done in an hour or two, and then Sigurd sat down to teach his children, while their mother spun or knit beside them, and from time to time took part in the instruction. Jon could already read and write so well that the pastor at Kyrkedal lent him many an old Icelandic legend to copy; he knew the history of the island, as well as that of Norway and Denmark, and could answer (with a good deal of blushing) when he was addressed in Latin. He also knew something of the world, and its different countries and climates; but this knowledge seemed to him like a strange dream, or like something that happened long ago and never could happen again. He was accustomed to hear a little birch-bush, four or five feet high, called “a tree,” and he could not imagine how any tree could be a hundred feet high, or bear flowers and fruit. Once, a trader from Rejkiavik—the chief seaport of Iceland—brought a few oranges to Kyrkedal, and Sigurd purchased one for Jon and Gudrid. The children kept it day after day, never tired of enjoying the splendid color and strange, delightful perfume; so when they decided to cut the rind at last the pulp was dried up and tasteless. A city was something of which Jon could form no conception, for he had never even seen Rejkiavik; he imagined that palaces and cathedrals were like large Icelandic farm-houses, with very few windows and turf growing on the roofs.

II

Sigurd’s wealth, if it could be called so, was in a small flock of sheep, the pasture for which was scattered in patches for miles up and down the river. The care of these sheep had been intrusted chiefly to Jon, ever since he was eight years old, and he had learned their natures and ways—their simple animal virtues and silly animal vices—so thoroughly that they acquired a great respect for him, and very rarely tried to be disobedient. Even Thor, the ram, although he sometimes snorted and tossed his horns in protest, or stamped impatiently with his forefeet, heeded his master’s voice. In fact, the sheep became Jon’s companions, in the absence of human ones; he talked to them so much during the lonely days that it finally seemed as if they understood a great deal of his speech.