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How Brave Walter Hunted Wolves |
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A little back from the high road there stands a house which is
called 'Hemgard.' Perhaps you remember the two beautiful mountain
ash trees by the reddish-brown palings, and the high gate, and
the garden with the beautiful barberry bushes which are always
the first to become grown in spring, and which in summer are
weighed down with their beautiful berries.
Behind the garden there is a hedge with tall aspens which rustle
in the morning wind, behind the hedge is a road, behind the road
is a wood, and behind the wood the wide world.
But on the other side of the garden there is a lake, and beyond
the lake is a village, and all around stretch meadows and fields,
now yellow, now green.
In the pretty house, which has white window-frames, a neat porch
and clean steps, which are always strewn with finely-cut juniper
leaves, Walter's parents live. His brother Frederick, his sister
Lotta, old Lena, Jonah, Caro and Bravo, Putte and Murre, and
Kuckeliku.
Caro lives in the dog house, Bravo in the stable, Putte with the
stableman, Murre a little here and a little there, and Kuckeliku
lives in the hen house, that is his kingdom.
Walter is six years old, and he must soon begin to go to school.
He cannot read yet, but he can do many other things. He can turn
cartwheels, stand on his head, ride see-saw, throw snowballs,
play ball, crow like a cock, eat bread and butter and drink sour
milk, tear his trousers, wear holes in his elbows, break the
crockery in pieces, throw balls through the windowpanes, draw old
men on important papers, walk over the flower-beds, eat himself
sick with gooseberries, and be well after a whipping. For the
rest he has a good heart but a bad memory, and forgets his
father's and his mother's admonitions, and so often gets into
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Fairytales 
