Free Moominvalley in November by Tove Jansson

minute when one goes on a journey. Under the mirror there was a model of a lighthouse with a pointed roof, a little inlaid wooden door and a railing of brass nails round the lamp-room. There was even a ladder which Moominpappa had made out of copper wire. He had pasted silver paper on all the windows.
    The Hemulen looked at all this and tried to remember what Moominpappa was like. He tried to remember the things they had done together and what they had talked about, but he couldn't. Then he went over to the window and looked out at the garden. The shells round the dead flower-beds shone in the twilight and in the west the sky was yellow. The big maple-tree was coal-black against the sunset - the Hemulen was looking at exactly what Moominpappa looked at in the autumn twilight.
    Then all of a sudden the Hemulen knew what he would do, he would build a house for Moominpappa in the big maple-tree! He was so pleased with this idea that he started to laugh! A tree-house, of course! High above the ground between the strong black branches far away from the family, free and full of adventure and with a storm lantern on the roof; there they would sit and listen to the south-wester making the walls creak and talk to each other at last. The Hemulen rushed out into the hall and called: 'Toft!'
    Toft came out of his box-room.
    'Have you been reading again?' the Hemulen asked. 'It's dangerous to read too much. Listen, do you like pulling out nails, eh?'
    'I don't think so,' answered Toft.
    'If anything is going to get done,' the Hemulen explained, 'one person does the building and the other carries the planks. Or one knocks in new nails and the other one pulls out old nails. Do you understand?'
    Toft just looked. He knew that he was the other one.
    They went down to the woodshed and Toft began to pull out nails. They were old boards and planks which the Family had collected on the beach, the grey timber was hard and compact and the nails rusted in. The Hemulen went on to the maple-tree, and looked up thoughtfully.
    Toft prised the nails loose and pulled. The sunset was a fiery yellow just before the sun went down. He told himself about the Creature, and he could do it better and better, not in words any longer but in pictures. Words are dangerous things and the Creature had reached a vital point in its development, it was just about to change. It didn't hide itself any longer, it watched and listened, it slid like a dark shadow towards the edge of the forest, very intently and not at all afraid...
    'Do you like pulling out nails?' Mymble asked behind him. She was sitting on the chopping-block.
    'What?' said Toft.
    'You don't like pulling out nails, but you do it all the same,' said Mymble. 'I wonder why?'
    Toft looked at her and kept quiet. Mymble smelt of peppermints.
    'And you don't like the Hemulen either,' she went on.
    'I've never given it a thought,' Toft muttered deprecatingly, and immediately started to think whether he liked the Hemulen or not.
    Mymble jumped down from the chopping-block and went away. The twilight suddenly deepened and a grey mist rose over the river, it was very cold.
    'Open up,' shouted Mymble outside the kitchen door. 'I want to warm myself in your kitchen.'
    It was the first time anybody had said 'your kitchen' and Fillyjonk opened the door at once. 'You can sit on my bed, but mind you don't crumple the bedspread.'
    Mymble curled up on the bed which had been pushed between the stove and the sink and Fillyjonk went on

    making the bread pudding for the next day. She had found a bag of old crusts that the family had been saving for the birds. It was warm in the kitchen, the fire crackled in the stove, throwing flickering shadows on the ceiling.
    'Right now it's just like it always used to be,' said Mymble to herself.
    'You mean like it was in Moominmamma's day,' said Fillyjonk to be precise but without thinking.
    'No, not at all,' Mymble answered. 'Just the stove.'
    Fillyjonk went on with the bread pudding, going