The little house fronted a bit of a garden enclosed by a picket-fence, and under the spreading trees they had their breakfasts and suppers. At the back of the house were a couple of potato patches, beyond which, over against a high cliff, stood a tiny hut not much larger than the cabin on the Uddeholm.
In that hut lived their hostess, Fru Strömberg, who was the wife of a sea captain. During the winter months she occupied the cottage herself, but summers she always let it to visitors. She now sat in her tiny cabin from morn till night, surrounded by blooming oleanders and tables and shelves laden with curios her husband had brought from foreign parts.
When Fru Lagerlöf and Mamselle Lovisa were having coffee with their friends and the Lieutenant had gone mackerel-fishing, and when Anna had gone over to the candy man’s daughters’ and Johan to his crabs, Back-Kaisa and Selma would repair to Fru Strömberg’s cabin.
Fru Strömberg was their special friend, and to sit with her under the oleanders was as restful as sitting with Grandmother on the corner sofa at Mårbacka. She could not tell stories, but she had many wonderful things to show them: big sea-shells that were full of sound and murmured when you put them to your ear; porcelain men from China with long pig-tails and long moustaches; and she had besides two very big shells, one a cocoanut, the other an ostrich egg.
Back-Kaisa and Fru Strömberg talked mostly of serious and religious things, which the child did not understand; but sometimes they touched on lighter subjects.
Fru Strömberg spoke of her husband and his voyages. He had a fine big ship called the Jacob, and just now he was on a voyage to St. Ypes, Portugal, to take on a cargo of salt. Back-Kaisa wondered how Fru Strömberg could have any peace of mind, knowing that her husband was drifting about on the perilous seas; Fru Strömberg replied that there was One who protected him, and therefore she felt that he was as safe on board his ship as when at home in the streets of Strömstad.
The kindly Fru Strömberg then turned to the little girl and said she hoped the captain would soon be at home, for there was something on the Jacob she thought Selma might like to see. They had a bird of paradise there.
“What is that?” asked the child, all interest now.
“It is a bird from Paradise,” Fru Strömberg told her.
“Selma has heard her grandmother talk about Paradise,” Back-Kaisa put in.