you who have taken good care of me,"
returned the boy.

"We think also," continued Akka, "that when a human being has attended
us on a whole journey he shouldn't be allowed to leave us as poor as
when he came."

"I know that what I have learned this year with you is worth more to me
than gold or lands," said the boy.

"Since these gold coins have been lying unclaimed in the cleft all these
years, I think that you ought to have them," declared the wild goose.

"I thought you said something about needing this money yourselves,"
reminded the boy.

"We do need it, so as to be able to give you such recompense as will
make your mother and father think you have been working as a goose boy
with worthy people."

The boy turned half round and cast a glance toward the sea, then faced
about and looked straight into Akka's bright eyes.

"I think it strange, Mother Akka, that you turn me away from your
service like this and pay me off before I have given you notice," he
said.

"As long as we wild geese remain in Sweden, I trust that you will stay
with us," said Akka. "I only wanted to show you where the treasure was
while we could get to it without going too far out of our course."

"All the same it looks as if you wished to be rid of me before I want to
go," argued Thumbietot. "After all the good times we have had together,
I think you ought to let me go abroad with you."

When the boy said this, Akka and the other wild geese stretched their
long necks straight up and stood a moment, with bills half open,
drinking in air.

"That is something I haven't thought about," said Akka, when she
recovered herself. "Before you decide to come with us, we had better
hear what Gorgo has to say. You may as well know that when we left
Lapland the agreement between Gorgo and myself was that he should travel
to your home down in Skane to try to make better terms for you with the
elf."

"That is true," affirmed Gorgo, "but as I have already told you, luck
was against me. I soon hunted up Holger Nilsson's croft and after
circling up and down over the place a couple of hours, I caught sight of
the elf, skulking along between the sheds.

"Immediately I swooped down upon him and flew off with him to a meadow
where we could talk together without interruption.

"I told him that I had been sent by Akka from Kebnekaise to ask if he
couldn't give Nils Holgersson easier terms.

"'I only wish I could!' he answered, 'for I have heard that he