While Ola Serka deliberated, Osa, the goose girl, and Aslak, the young
Lapp boy who had stared so hard at her the night before, sat on the
ground in front of the tent and chatted.
Aslak had been to school and could speak Swedish. He was telling Osa
about the life of the "Samefolk," assuring her that they fared better
than other people.
Osa thought that they lived wretchedly, and told him so.
"You don't know what you are talking about!" said Aslak curtly. "Only
stop with us a week and you shall see that we are the happiest people on
earth."
"If I were to stop here a whole week, I should be choked by all the
smoke in the tent," Osa retorted.
"Don't say that!" protested the boy. "You know nothing of us. Let me
tell you something which will make you understand that the longer you
stay with us the more contented you will become."
Thereupon Aslak began to tell Osa how a sickness called "The Black
Plague" once raged throughout the land. He was not certain as to whether
it had swept through the real "Sameland," where they now were, but in
Jaemtland it had raged so brutally that among the Samefolk, who lived in
the forests and mountains there, all had died except a boy of fifteen.
Among the Swedes, who lived in the valleys, none was left but a girl,
who was also fifteen years old.
The boy and girl separately tramped the desolate country all winter in
search of other human beings.
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