The little boy did not like being disturbed in his pleasant thoughts.  He sat still and philosophized, while his yellow, curly hair fell down into his eyes.

Berta would not have done it for any one else, but for her dear brother’s sake she shook her little boy quite roughly.  And so he learned respect for Uncle Reuben.

Another time this little yellow-haired man had fallen on the ice; he had been thrown down out of sheer spite by a big, naughty boy, and there he sat and cried to show how badly he had been treated, especially as his mother could not be very far off.

But he had forgotten that his mother was first and last Uncle Reuben’s sister.  When she caught sight of Axel sitting on the ice, she did not come with anything soothing or consoling, but only with that everlasting: 

“Do not sit so, my little boy!  Think of Uncle Reuben, who died when he was five years old, just as you are now, because he sat down in a snowdrift.”

The boy stood up instantly when he heard her speak of Uncle Reuben, but he felt a chill in his very heart.  How could mamma talk about Uncle Reuben when her little boy was in such distress!  Axel had no objection to his sitting and dying wherever he pleased, but now it seemed as if he wished to take his own mamma away from him, and that Axel could not bear.  So he learned to hate Uncle Reuben.

High up on the stairway in Axel’s home was a stone railing, which was dizzily beautiful to sit on.  Far below lay the stone floor of the hall, and he who sat astride up there could dream that he was being borne along over abysses.  Axel called the balustrade the good steed Grane.  On his back he bounded over burning ramparts into an enchanted castle.  There he sat proud and bold with his long curls waving, and fought Saint George’s fight with the dragon.  And as yet it had not occurred to Uncle Reuben to want to ride there.

But of course he came.  Just as the dragon was writhing in the agony of death and Axel sat in lofty consciousness of victory, he heard his nurse call:  “Little Axel, do not sit there!  Think of Uncle Reuben, who died when he was eight years old, just as you are now, because he sat and rode on a stone railing.  You must never sit there again.”

Such a jealous old pudding-head, that Uncle Reuben!  He could not bear it, of course, because Axel was killing dragons and rescuing princesses.  If he did not look out, he, Axel, would show that he could win glory too.  If he should jump down to that stone floor and dash his brains out, he would feel himself thrown into the shade, that big liar.

Poor Uncle Reuben!  The poor, good little boy who went to play top out in the sunny market-place!  Now he was to learn what it was to be a great man.

It was in the country at Uncle Ivan’s.  A number of the cousins had gathered in the beautiful garden.  Axel was there, filled with his hatred of his Uncle Reuben.  He was longing to know if he was tormenting any other besides himself, but there was something which made him afraid to ask.  It was as if he was going to commit some sacrilege.