The nursery at Mårbacka was a light, warm, spacious room--the best in the whole house. But, unhappily, it was a gable-room, and to get there one had first to go out into the lower front hall, then up a flight of steps and across a big attic. The attic stairs were steep, and difficult for little feet to climb. Now the former nursemaid used to take a child on her arm and carry it up, but Back-Kaisa didn’t seem to know enough for that. And it was positively terrifying to walk the length of that attic--above all, after dark! So it seemed almost necessary that little hands should have a large hand to slip into. But Back-Kaisa, who had been accustomed to the dark of the wild forest, probably thought the attic at Mårbacka a nice safe place. She just stalked on and never so much as put out a hand. One was glad if one could even catch hold of a corner of her skirt. The beds in which the three children slept had been made by the clever old carpenter at Askersby, and they were quite decorative, with a little row of spindles across each headboard; but they were in two sections that pulled out and pushed in like a drawer. Large as the nursery was, the three beds when open took up a lot of space; so it was well they could be folded during the day. Now that in itself was all right, but the clever old carpenter had somehow managed to make the beds in such a way that they sometimes sprang apart in the dead of the night. When that happened, you were of course startled out of your sweetest slumber. Finding your bed cut off in the middle, you drew yourself into the upper end and tried to catch back sleep again. But somehow it would not come. After a while you stretched out your legs and let them dangle. In that position you lay waiting for the Sandman till you were as wide awake as in broad day. Then at last you decided to get up and try to push the two parts together. When you had apparently succeeded and had got the bedclothes nicely straightened, you crept back into bed as cautiously as possible, and stretched out once more with a feeling of satisfaction. All went well, sleep came stealing on, then a careless turn and--crickety-crash!--the bed was apart again ... which put an end to all hope of getting any sleep that night. But Back-Kaisa slept peacefully through it all. It did not occur to any of the little ones that they might awaken her and ask for help. The former nursemaid had always jumped up the instant a bed broke down, and quickly fixed it without having to be asked. Just over the nursery there was a little lumber-loft full of discarded looms and spinning-wheels, and amid all that old rubbish lived an owl.