Goose girl Osha and little Matz

During the year when Niels Hogelson flew with the geese, everyone was talking about two little kids, a boy and a little girl, who were wandering around the country.

They came from the town of Sannerbo in Somalland Province. Originally, they lived in a small house on the wasteland with their parents and four siblings.

When Osha and Little Matz were children, one night a homeless woman came to their house to ask for a stay.

Even though their family was so small that even their family could not accommodate her, she was allowed to come in, and her mother made a bed for her on the floor.

At night, she coughed very hard. As soon as she coughed, the children felt that their house was shaking and moving.

In the morning, she was very ill and could not get up and continue wandering.

The children's parents were extremely considerate and caring about her.

They gave her their bed, and instead slept on the floor. The father also asked the doctor to prescribe the medicine, and he bought it back.

In the first few days, the sick woman was like a barbarian. She kept asking the family to take care of her, but never said the word "Thank you".

Later her temper became gentle, and at the end, she begged them to carry her to the wasteland and let her die there.

Of course, the parents of this family would not listen to her. She told them that in recent years, she had been wandering around with a group of gypsies.

She herself is not of gypsy blood, but the daughter of a well-off farmer.

She escaped from her home and wandered around with the group of wanderers.

Now she thinks a gypsy woman who holds a grudge against her has passed the disease on her.

It's much more than that: the gypsy woman once cursed that anyone who cares for her or who is kind to her will encounter bad luck.

She believed it and asked them to throw her out of the house and never see her again.

She doesn't want to bring bad luck to such a good family.

But the two did not do as she said.

They may also be scared, but they cannot bear to drive a poor and sick woman out of the house. They are not such people.

The woman died soon after, and then the misfortune of the family began.

In the past, this cottage was filled with joy.

Although their family is poor, they are not so poor that they can't make a fuss.

Their father was a combed worker, and his mother and children helped him with his work.

When the father makes the frame, the mother and the older children help tie the edges, while the younger children also help do some work within their ability.

They worked from morning to night, but time was quite pleasant, especially when they went away from home to sell his combed fabrics in their early years, their father told stories from time to time, which made the mother and children laugh.

For some time after the poor wandering woman passed away, her image remained in the children's minds, causing them to have nightmares.

They don't know if the period is long or short, but they all feel that the family is always holding funerals.

Their brothers and sisters died one after another, and in the end the family became lifeless, with a miserable cloud and a gloomy atmosphere.

Sometimes the mother can muster up the courage, but the father becomes another person completely.

He no longer went to work or told jokes to his family. Instead, he sat all day long, burying his head in his hands, and his thoughts seemed to have swam outside the sky.

After the third funeral was held at home, my father once said some nonsense while being unconscious, which made the children at home very scared.

He said he really didn't understand why bad luck came to their family.

They helped the female patient, but actually did a good thing.

If bad luck really comes to their family, then is evil more powerful and more powerful in the world than kindness?

The mother tried to persuade him, but she couldn't calm him down.

A few days later, their eldest daughter fell ill.

She has always been the jewel of her father's hand. When he knew she would go to another world, he decided to leave home to avoid all the pain and misfortune.

The mother said nothing, but she felt that escaping was the best choice for him because she was afraid that he would go crazy and lose his mind.

His mind was filled with this thought: Why did God allow a wicked man to do so many evil things?

Since their father ran away from home, their family has become even more impoverished.

He had sent them money for a while, but it was very likely that his life was not satisfactory after that, so he had no money to send it to them.

After holding a funeral for the eldest daughter, the mother closed the door and embarked on a wandering road with her only two remaining children, Osha and Little Mats.

She wandered to the Sgena area, worked in the beet field, and found a job at the Yoderberg Sugar Factory.

She is an excellent worker with a lofty and generous nature.

Everyone likes her.

People were surprised that she was still as calm as water after such a big change in her family, but her mother has always been a strong and patient person.

When someone talked to her about her two brave and strong children, she just replied: "I will lose them soon."

When she said this, her voice did not tremble and tears did not gush out of her eyes.

She has become accustomed to accepting things and has no expectations for anything.

But things didn't happen as she was worried about.

On the contrary, the disease attacked her.

She came to Sgena in the early summer, but she passed away when autumn was coming, leaving only the brother and sister to live without a single life.

Their mother told them during her illness that she must remember that she never regretted having that female patient live in her home.

She said that if a person walks right and sits right, he should not be very painful when he dies because they die with a clear conscience.

Their mother managed to make some arrangements for the two children before she passed away.

She asked the owners who asked them to rent the house to continue to let their two children live.

As long as the children have tiles to cover their heads, they will not be a burden to anyone.

She knew very well that they would take care of themselves.

Osha and Matz were allowed to continue living in their house on the condition that they had to put geese for the owners because the children were reluctant to do such work.

As the mother expected: they support themselves.

Girls make sugar, boys cut wood to make toys, and then sell the products they make to rural families.

They had the talent to do business, so they soon started buying eggs and butter from farmers and then sold them to workers in sugar mills.

Osha was older, and at that time she was thirteen years old, she was as reliable and capable as an adult girl.

She has a quiet personality and a serious expression, while Mats is active by nature and can speak well.

His sister often said that he often competed with the geese he put on.

The two children spent two years in Yoderberg, and one night, the local school held a lecture.

The report was for adults, but the two children from Smoran attended.

They did not regard themselves as children, but few adults present looked at them like this.

The report talked about a terrible disease called tuberculosis, which attacks many Swedes every year.

He explained it clearly, and the two children could also hear it clearly.

After the report meeting, they waited outside the school.

When the person who was the report walked out of the school gate, they walked up to him hand in hand and asked if they could talk to him.

The stranger found the two red-faced children standing there, talking to him with an anxious look, which was generally more common on adult faces three times older than them.

But he listened to them patiently.

They told the reporter about the incident at home and asked whether their mother and siblings died of the disease he described.

"It's very likely," he replied, "judging from the condition, it's unlikely that it's another disease."

If their parents had known about the tuberculosis report they heard tonight, they might have been able to protect themselves.

If they burned the wandering woman's clothes, if they could clean and clean the cottage without the quilt covered by the female patient, the children's mourning brothers and sisters might still be alive now.

The reporter said that he could not give a positive answer to this, but he believed that if their family had known some knowledge of the disease transmission at the beginning, their family would not have had this disease.

Osha and Matz Jr. asked the next question after a while, the most important of all.

What they are asking is, is it true that the reason why the gypsy woman brought illness to their family was because their family helped the person she had hatred?

Didn’t some special disease take their lives?

The speaker is convinced that no one can have that magic that can spread the disease to others in such a way.

After the reporter finished speaking, the two children thanked him and went home.

They chatted until late at night before going to bed.

The next day, they informed the owner that they would not put geese again next year and would have to go to another place.

Where are they going?

Of course they were looking for their father.

They must tell him that their mother and siblings only had a common disease, not something special brought to their home by an angry person.

They were glad they knew the cause of the disease.

Now, it is their responsibility to tell their father all this, because it is likely that his father is still thinking hard to solve the puzzle.

Osha and Matz set off to their hometown on the Sannelbo wasteland.

When they arrived there, they were surprised to find that their cottage had been burned to ashes.

They came to the pastor's house to inquire and learned that a railway worker had met their father in Malmberry, Lapland.

He worked in a mining area and may still be there.

When the pastor heard that the two children were going to find their father, he took out a map and pointed out to them that Malmbery was far away from here. He tried to persuade them to cancel the journey, but the two children had decided that they must find their father.

My father ran away from home because he believed in something unrealistic.

They had to find him and tell him that his idea was wrong.

They didn't want to spend their little savings to buy train tickets, so they decided to walk, which they never regretted, because later facts showed that they had a pleasant journey.

Before they could walk out of Smoran, one day they stopped in front of a farm to buy food.

The housewife of the farm is a kind woman with a kind heart and is very interested in these two children.

She asked who they were, where they came from, etc., so they told her their stories.

"Oh, it's so pitiful! Oh, it's so pitiful!"

As the child was telling, she kept sighing like this.

Afterwards, she presented the children with what they like to eat and did not want them to pay at all.

After the children stood up to thank and prepared to go on their way, and the woman told them to stay at her brother's farm in the next town.

Of course, the children agreed happily.

"Please say hello to them on my behalf and tell him what happened in your home."

The woman said.

The children did what she said and received excellent hospitality.

After that, every time they left a village, they always followed this: "If you go to a certain place, meet someone in a certain family, stay at their house, and tell them what happened in your house."

There are always lung patients in every farm they have been to.

So Osha and Little Matz traveled all over the country, accidentally teaching people how to fight this terrible disease.

Long, long ago, the Black Death raged across Sweden.

It is said that a boy and a girl walk from one house to another, with a rake on his hand. If he stops in front of someone's door and rakes with a rake in front of the family, it means that many people in the family will die, but not all family members will die.

Because the rake teeth are sparse, it will not rake anything.

The girl carries a broom. If she stops in front of someone’s door and cleans on the ground, it means that all the family will die, because the broom is a tool to clean the house.

At present, in our era, there are two children traveling across the country due to a cruel disease, which is really eye-catching.

But the two kids did not use rakes and brooms to intimidate people.

Instead, they said this: "We cannot be satisfied just by raking the yard and cleaning the floor. We also need to use mops, brushes, water and soap to clean the inside and outside the house, and our hearts and bodies must be cleaned.

By doing so, we will be able to overcome this disease.”

While the geese were still in Lapland, one day Aka took the boy to Malmbery, where they found Little Matz lying on the entrance of a mine, losing consciousness.

Not long ago, Matz and Osha had visited the mine.

That day he was walking around the mining area, hoping to meet his father.

He ventured to the inclined shaft of the mine and was injured by rocks flying in the explosion.

The little man with thumb ran to the edge of the inclined shaft and shouted to the miners for help, saying that a little boy was hit by a stone.

A large group of miners immediately rushed to Little Matz, and two of them carried him to the place where Little Matz and Osha lived.

They tried every means to save his life, but to no avail.

The little man with thumbs up felt sorry for poor Osha.

He wanted to help her and comfort her.

But he knew that if he went to see her now, he would only scare him—this looks like he was!

On the night after the funeral of Little Mats, Osha immediately locked herself in the house and disappeared.

She sat alone in the room, remembering everything her younger brother, Little Mats, had done and every word she had said.

She tossed and turned and thought about it, unable to fall asleep, so she sat there all night.

The more she missed her younger brother, the more she understood how sad her life would be without him.

Thinking of the end, she buried her head on the table and started sobbing.

"Little Matz is gone, leaving me alone, how can I live in the future?"

She whimpered.

At midnight, Osha, who had been tired for a day, could no longer support him and finally fell asleep.

She dreamed that Little Mats gently opened the door and entered the room.

"Osha, you have to leave and go find your father."

He said.

"How did I go to find him? I don't even know where he lives?"

She replied in her dream.

"Don't worry," said Match Jr. in his always optimistic tone, "I'll ask someone to help you."

Just as the goose girl Osa dreamed of Little Mats, she suddenly heard a knock on the door when she was talking to him.

This is a real knock on the door, not the sound she heard in her dream, but she is immersed in the dream, and she really can't tell whether the knock on the door is a reality or a dream.

When she finally got up and went to open the door, she thought: "This must be the one who Little Mats promised to call for help."

She was right, and this was a thumbs up to talk to her about her father.

When he saw that she was not afraid of herself, he briefly said to her, talking about where her father was and how she should find him.

Just as he kept talking, Goose girl Osa slowly regained consciousness.

When he finished speaking, she was completely awake.

Only then did she feel scared. She was talking to an elf. She was so scared that she didn't say thank you or anything, so she quickly ran into the room and slammed the door.

When she did this, she seemed to see a sad expression flashing across the little man's face, but she couldn't help but want to do that because she was so scared.

She quickly climbed onto the bed, pulled the quilt and covered her head.

Although she was afraid of the elf, she felt in her heart: he was full of kindness to her.
Chapter completed!