Árdís - 01.01.1964, Page 43

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One night Helga dreamed she was walking on a wide road.
She was wearing her pretty yellow slippers. Suddenly she looked
down and saw that her feet were bare. When she woke up crying,
her mother was beside her bed. “I’ve lost my slippers, mamma,”
Helga sobbed. “No dear, here they are. I will put them right here
beside you.”
As the days and weeks passed Helga grew weaker. At first she
sat up and played with her little china doll. But best of all she liked
to make hills and valleys with the wool comforter and holding
her slippers she let them go on imaginary journeys. “Now I am
climbing the hill. Now I am going down to the river.” But grad-
ually the journeys became shorter and she sank back on the
pillows.
Sometimes when her mother had a spare hour she would
pick her up and rock her in the old rocking chair that Sigga’s
father had given to them when he went away.
At last her father came home. He looked at the wan face on
the pillow and turned pale.
The next morning he left early and returned with the doctor
the following day. The doctor examined Helga then motioned her
mother and father to the other room. When Maria came into the
room after the doctor had left Helga saw that she had been crying.
“Why are you crying, Mamma?” Helga asked in a weak voice.
Maria turned her face away and began straightening the bed-
clothes.
“Will I soon be better Mamma?”
“Yes, dear, you will soon be all better,” Maria answered.
About a week later Helga woke one morning feeling better
than she had for a long time. I will get up today,” she thought.
“I will put on my slippers and walk around.” She tried to sit up
but sank back as a fit of coughing seized her. All that day she
slept and when she awoke again towards dusk she called feebly
for her mother.
“Sing to me Mamma.” Maria wrapped the little wasted body
in a shawl and sat down in the rocking chair. She sang Helga’s
favorite hymn: “Oh Jesus, Friend and Brother.” She sang the
hymn through and continued rocking letting her mind wander
back over the years. The hard years, the lean years, strangers in a