It was no wonder that Christmas stirred the heart of this young viking, and made him long for real deeds. Christmas in Ribe was a time of joy and good-will to all. A lighted candle was put in the window of every farm-house to cheer the wayfarer with the message that nobody is a stranger at Christmas. Even the troublesome sparrows were not forgotten. A sheaf of rye was set up in the snow to make them the Christmas-tree they would like best. The merry Christmas elf, the “Jule-nissen,” who lived in the attic, had a special bowl of rice and milk put out for him. Years afterward, when this Danish lad was talking to a crowd of New York boys and girls, he said, with a twinkle in his eyes:
“I know if no one else ever really saw the Nissen that our black cat had made his acquaintance. She looked very wise and purred most knowingly next morning.”
If Christmas brought the happiest times, the northwest storms in autumn brought the most thrilling experiences of Jacob’s boyhood. Then, above the moaning of the wind, the muttered anger of the waves, and the crash of falling tiles, came the weird singing of the big bell in the tower of the Domkirke—the cathedral, you know.
After such a night the morning would dawn on a strange world where storm-lashed waves covered the meadows and streets for miles about, and on the causeway, high above the flood-level, cattle, sheep, rabbits, grouse, and other frightened creatures of the fields huddled together in pitiful groups.
One night, when the flood had risen before the mail-coach came in and the men of the town feared for the lives of the passengers, Jacob went out with the rescue-party to the road where the coach must pass. Scarcely able to stand against the wind, he struggled along on the causeway where, in pitchy blackness, with water to his waist and pelting spray lashing his face like the sting of a whip, he groped along, helping to lead the frightened horses to the lights of the town a hundred yards away. It was hard that night to get warmed through; but the boy’s heart glowed, for had not the brusk old Amtmand, the chief official of the country, seized him by the arm and said, while rapping him smartly on the shoulders with his cane, as if, in other days, he would have knighted him, “Strong boy, be a man yet!”
Jacob’s father, who was master of the town school, was keenly disappointed when this alert, promising son declared his wish to give up the ways of book-learning and master the carpenter’s trade. The boy felt that building houses for people to live in would be far better than juggling with words and all the unreal problems with which school and school-books seemed to deal. Thinking that it would be useless to try to force his son into a life distasteful to him, the father swallowed his disappointment and sent him to serve his apprenticeship with a great builder in Copenhagen. The boy should, he determined, have the best start in his chosen calling that it was in his power to give him.
Soon after his arrival in the capital, Jacob went to meet his student brother at the palace of Charlottenborg, where an art exhibition was being held. Seeing that he was a stranger and ill at ease, a tall, handsome gentleman paused on his way up the grand staircase and offered to act as guide. As they went on together, the gentleman asked the boy about himself and listened with ready sympathy to his eager story of his life in the old town, and what he hoped to do in the new life of the city. When they parted Jacob said heartily:
“People are just the same friendly neighbors in Copenhagen that they are in little Ribe—jolly good Danes everywhere, just like you, sir!”
The stranger smiled and patted him on the shoulder in a way more friendly still. Just at that moment they came to a door where a red-liveried lackey stood at attention. He bowed low as they entered and Jacob, bowing back, turned to his new friend with a delighted smile:
“There is another example of what I mean, sir,” he said. “Would you believe it, now, that I have never seen that man before?”