Moominland Midwinter by Tove Jansson Read Free Book Online Page A

told everybody that rowan-berries and a whole cellar of jam were to be found here. But probably the jam-cellar was just a rumour too...
    Sorry-oo sat down in the snow on his thin tail, and all his face wrinkled up at his worries.
    'We live on fish-soup here,' Too-ticky said. 'I've never heard about any jam-cellar.'
    Moomintroll threw a sudden look at the round snowdrift behind the woodshed.
    'There it is!' said Little My. 'There are such lots of jam in it that it makes you sick just to think of it, and all the jars are dated and tied with red string.'
    'I'm kind of keeping an eye on the family's things while they sleep,' Moomintroll said, and blushed a little.
    'Of course you are,' mumbled Sorry-oo resignedly.
    Moomintroll looked at the verandah and then at Sorry-oo's wrinkled face.
    'Do you like jam?' he asked gruffly.
    'I don't know,' Sorry-oo replied humbly.
    Moomintroll sighed and said: 'Well. Just mind that you start with the oldest jars.'
    *
    A few hours later a flock of small Creep came plodding over the bridge, and a confused and complaining Filly-jonk was seen to be running to and fro in the garden. Her potted plants were frozen, she said. Somebody had eaten all her winter food. And on her way to the Moomin valley she had met an insolent Gaffsie who had told her that winter was no laughing matter, and why hadn't she prepared herself better.
    At dusk there were a lot of people treading paths to the jam-cellar. Those that had a little more strength left in their legs went down to the shore and settled down in the bathing-house.
    But no one was allowed in the cave. Little My said that the Mymble couldn't be disturbed.
    Before the Moominhouse some of the most miserable ones were sitting and lamenting their fate, when Moomintroll appeared on the roof with his oil-lamp. 'You'd better come inside for the night,' he said. 'You never know, what with Grokes and such around.'
    'I never was one for rope-ladders,' declared an old Whomper.
    Moomintroll descended and started to dig a hole to the entrance door. He shovelled and scratched and worked away. Soon the hole was a long and narrow tunnel extending through the snow, but when he finally reached the wall there was no door to be found. Only a window, frozen fast like the others.
    'I must have dug wrong,' Moomintroll said to himself. 'And if I dig a new tunnel perhaps I'll miss the house altogether.' So he broke the window-pane as nicely as possible, and the guests soon came crawling in after him.
    'Please don't awaken the family,' said Moomintroll. 'This is Mother, and that's Father, and over there's the Snork Maiden. My ancestor sleeps in the stove. You'll have to roll yourself up in the carpets because most of the other things have been borrowed.'
    The guests bowed to the sleeping family. Then they obligingly rolled themselves up in carpets and tablecloths, and the smallest ones went to sleep in caps, slippers and the like.
    Many of them had a cold, and some of them were homesick. 'This is terrible,' Moomintroll thought. 'Very soon the jam-cellar'll be empty. And what shall I say when the family awakes in the spring, and all the pictures

    are hanging wrong and the house is thronged with people?'
    He crawled back through the tunnel to see if anybody had been left outside.
    The moonlight was blue. Sorry-oo sat alone in the snow, howling. He put his muzzle straight up in the air and howled a long and melancholy song.
    'Why don't you go to bed?' asked Moomintroll.
    Sorry-oo looked at him with eyes that shone green in the moonlight. One ear was pointing straight up while

    the other listened to one side. His whole face was listening.

    Very faintly they could hear the howl of hunting wolves. Sorry-oo nodded bleakly and pulled his woollen cap on again.
    'My great, strong brethren,' he whispered. 'How I long to be with them.'
    'Aren't you afraid of them?' asked Moomintroll.
    'Yes, I am,' said Sorry-oo. 'That's the sad part.' He slunk off along the path to the