any one. To her there was something very sacred and mysterious about it all. Remembering how solemn her grandmother had been when telling about Adam and Eve, she did not want to tell Johan and Anna that on the Jacob there was a bird from Paradise which she was going to ask to cure her leg. No, she would not speak of it even to Back-Kaisa.
Now every time she went to see Fru Strömberg she expected to find the bird sitting warbling in one of her oleanders. But he did not appear. How strange! she thought. One day she asked Back-Kaisa about it, and was told the bird was on the ship. "But you'll soon see it," said Back-Kaisa, "for to-morrow we're all going on board the Jacob."
It seems that Captain Strömberg had hardly been home a day before he and Lieutenant Lagerlöf were bosom friends. The Lieutenant had already been out on the Jacob several times, and liked it so well that nothing would do but the whole family must see what a fine ship she was.
When they set out none of them had any real notion as to what boarding the Jacob meant. The little girl thought the ship would be lying alongside the quay like the big steamers. But indeed she lay in the offing. They had to get into a little boat and row out. It was strange to see that the nearer they got to the ship the larger she grew, till at last she loomed high as a mountain. To those in the rowboat it looked quite impossible to clamber up there.
