FOOTNOTES:
[3] An öre is less than three-tenths of a cent.
VIII
MADAM IGLAND’S GARDEN
Madam Igland has an enormous garden with a high board fence around it. To call it a beautiful garden would be a sin and a shame. The whole place is filled with beds of carrots, parsley, cabbages, onions and such things; while at one end there is a row of currant-bushes and an old tumble-down summer-house that stands with one side on the street. Madam Igland is a market-gardener, you see, and sells vegetables to the townsfolk. However, I say wrong when I say she is a gardener, for she can’t even walk, but sits all day long in a wheel-chair by the window. She has a “spy-mirror” there which reflects a part of the street she could not see otherwise.
No, it is not Madam Igland, it is Oline, who is really the gardener and the ruler over the garden. Oline is an old servant, awfully old and with only one tooth in her mouth; but that one is frightfully long and white.
I used to think that if I were in Oline’s place, I should have that tooth pulled out, for I thought that, being so very long, it must be in the way. Once I asked Oline why she didn’t do that.
“No, indeed, I sha’n’t do that,” said Oline. “For if I hadn’t that tooth, I couldn’t nourish myself.” Since that time I have looked at it with more respect, considering it is all that keeps Oline alive.
Oline is frightfully deaf, yet it is she who sells the garden stuff to people. All the money she gets for parsley, onions, or anything, she puts in an enormous pocket which she wears under the front of her apron.
Ola Silnes helps her in the garden. He always wears filthy white canvas trousers and jacket, has a very red face, and when he talks, grunts out something you can hardly understand from deep down in his throat.
All through the long summer day, Oline with her bare, brown weather-beaten legs is in the carrot-bed weeding. If you want five cents’ worth of onion tops, or anything, you have to go right up to her and take hold of her, for she doesn’t hear a thing. But I can tell you it isn’t advisable to steal into the garden when you don’t want to buy anything, for that makes her fly into a rage.
The board fence isn’t altogether tight at the back of the garden. There are little cracks between the boards, just big enough to stick your nose through and look in with one eye at a time; but through the cracks you can see lots of big, delicious-looking currants. O dear! There’s no pleasure in standing and looking through a crack at big, juicy, red currants when you can’t get any of them.
Our currants were gone long ago. Karsten eats them when they are a little red on one side, and the few that are left shrivel up in the roasting hot sun; for our garden is awfully sunny, you see. But Madam Igland’s garden, being on lower ground, is always cool and fresh, with a sweetish, spicy smell of cabbage and herbs and onion and newly-turned soil, and stiff, tall grasses in the outer corners of the garden.
I had long known that there was a loose board in the fence,—well, not entirely loose, but very shaky, you know. If you should just pull a little hard on it, it would come loose, that was certain.
One afternoon Mina and I hadn’t a thing to do. We couldn’t play up on the hilltop, it was so unbearably hot there. To play ball in such heat was utterly impossible; besides, Karsten had lost our best ball. The flat church steps which are so exactly suitable for playing jackstones on, and where Mina and I play almost every afternoon, were packed full of street boys who were playing with buttons.
Pshaw! There wasn’t a thing for us to do.
All at once, something flashed into my mind.
“Let’s go down to Madam Igland’s garden and see whether there are many currants there,” said I.
Mina agreed instantly.
Soon we stood with our noses through the cracks. My! so big as those currants were to-day, currants had surely never been before! And oh, how ripe! The branches were so full that they drooped right down to the ground. Ola Silnes was nowhere to be seen. Oline was in the carrot-bed weeding. On her head she had a towel, pulled far forward to keep the sun off of her face.
“Oh, Mina! Do you know there is a board loose over there?”
I went to it to show her. Yes, it was very, very shaky; almost ready to come out.
“Mina, shall we pull the board away and creep through and eat a few currants? Oline can’t hear even a gun-shot, you know.”
First a slight jerk at the board, then a longer pull; it creaked a little and we peeped in, frightened. Oline’s toweled head had not moved. She was still weeding in the burning hot sun.
“Come on, now.” I was already in the garden. Mina came quickly after. We ran along beside the fence, hopped through some cabbage-beds, and got behind the currant-bushes.
My, but those were currants! There were as many as fourteen on each string. How we did eat and eat! Our mouths really felt sore at last from eating so many. Now and then we peeped out at Oline, who still stayed among the carrots, weeding and weeding.
“Can you understand how she can keep on in such heat?” said Mina.
“No, I can’t; but my, haven’t we had a jolly feast? It doesn’t show a bit that any currants are gone, and think what a quantity we have eaten!”
Neither of us could eat another one.
All at once we heard a shout outside the fence and some one called, “Well, I declare! Is this where you are?”
It was Karsten. We looked anxiously along the fence, for at first we couldn’t judge where the sound came from.
“Sh! Karsten. Sh!” He was tramping along outside the fence. Evidently he, too, knew about the loose board. He pulled it away, and was half inside the garden when—of all things!—Oline saw him.
“Out with you or I’ll make you stir your stumps, you scamp, you good-for-nothing!”
“Well, some girls are behind the currant-bushes, Oline,” shouted Karsten.
Oline didn’t hear a word he said, but she pushed him out through the hole in the fence.
“Somebody is stealing your currants,” shouted Karsten from the outside.
“Yes, you’ll catch it, you scamp.”
“Look behind the currant-bushes and you’ll see——”
“If you don’t go away and that quickly——”
We were on pins and needles, but Oline did not know what he said, of course.
There was Karsten outside the fence near where we were crouching.
“You’ll get paid for this, Inger Johanne, depend upon it. You’ll get paid. Shame on you! I shall tell about it at home.” And off he ran.
Mina and I felt that the prospect was anything but pleasant,—horrid, in fact. Ugh!
Ola Silnes came into the garden, and Oline called to him, telling about Karsten. Ola’s red face looked very thoughtful. They both went to the fence and inspected the loose board very particularly. Then—who’d have thought it?—Ola Silnes, who evidently carried a lot of big nails in his pocket, took some out and with a big stone for a hammer, whack! whack! he nailed the board fast!
Mina and I stared at each other. We were in a pretty fix. We couldn’t possibly get out through the gate without being seen, as long as Ola Silnes stayed in the garden. Our only hope was that he might go out on some errand.
We crouched there behind the currant-bushes and kept peeping out at Ola. Apparently he had no thought of leaving the garden. He wheeled away one wheelbarrowful of weeds after another, and emptied them out not far from us. We sat with our hearts in our mouths each time until we saw the back of his canvas jacket. Ugh! How afraid we were that he would see us!
The time dragged on endlessly.
“Come, let’s go out,” said Mina almost in tears. “It’s your fault. You’re the one who thought of it. I can’t sit here any longer, and I’m so afraid of Ola.”
“Oh, wait, Mina! Sit still, just sit still a little longer.”
At last, Oline seemed to have finished for the day. She put on her wooden shoes and straightened the towel on her head. Ola had nothing to arrange about his clothes, but the two stood a long time at the gate. Oline screeched higher and higher. She was talking of Karsten.
“And that boy,” said Ola, “is a child out of a fine family!” He spat as far as he could just to show his scorn.
Well, they finally went. I had had a little hope that they might forget to fasten the gate. Far from it. No such good luck for us. I heard the lock click as the key turned.
Mina and I crept out from behind the bushes. We were stiff from sitting so long in one position. It was good to stir yourself. Pooh! There wouldn’t be any difficulty about getting out of the garden now, since Oline and Ola were both gone. You can always find one board or another loose in a fence. We ran along and tugged at every single board. No, they were all tight, as if they were nailed fast, as of course they were; not a single board was even a bit shaky.
Ugh! That horrid Ola Silnes, who went about with nails in his pocket! To climb over the fence was impossible for us; it was several feet higher than I was tall. What in the world could we do? If we knocked on the gate, people would come from the street and every one would have to know what we had been doing.
Once again we went around the fence. No, it was absolutely impossible to get out that way. And how hungry we were! We had certainly been in the garden for four hours. What could we eat? Not currants, no, not one more. What about carrots? Pshaw! They were too small, not bigger than my little finger; but we ate some of them, anyway, or perhaps we might have starved.
We went into the summer-house which had eight corners and a pointed roof. Such air as there was in there,—stifling hot and full of dust. The light-green paint on the walls was old and cracked; there was nothing in the room but a pile of bean-poles at one side. The windows were of colored glass.
Mina and I peeped out at the street through the red and blue and yellow panes and disputed as to which was the prettiest. What if a blood-red light such as there is when you look through red glass should come suddenly over the whole world, how awfully frightened people would be!
Really, it was rather cosy in the summer-house.
“Suppose we should have to stay here all night,” said I. “We could lie on that heap of bean-poles and it wouldn’t be so very bad, Mina.”
“Oh, no! I want to get out,” said Mina. The sun was now almost gone from the garden. “If you won’t knock on the gate now, I will. I will not stay here any longer.”
“No, no, Mina. Wait a minute.” I looked anxiously about for some way of escape.
Perhaps—perhaps we could climb the pear-tree in the corner, creep carefully along the branch and jump down outside the fence; but the branches began very high up on the tree-trunk.
First we pushed Ola’s wheelbarrow under the tree. O dear! Even on the wheelbarrow I couldn’t reach anywhere near high enough. By the summer-house stood an old barrel; we rolled this over to the tree, and put it on top of the wheelbarrow. Mina held me and steadied me. Hurrah! There I was on the slender branch. I shoved myself along very slowly and carefully.
“If it only doesn’t break,” cried Mina. “Oh, it is breaking, it is breaking!”
No, it didn’t break. I was soon on the fence, hung there by my arms a minute and then dropped down on the outside.
“Now you come, Mina,” I shouted.
I could hear how she tried and tried, but finally when the barrel rolled off of the wheelbarrow, she burst out crying.
“No, I can’t! I can’t climb up to that branch.”
Well there! It would have been better if Mina had climbed up first.
“Mina, don’t cry! Just wait. I’ll run and get a ladder, and be back in a jiffy.”
I dashed up the street hoping to find Karsten or some of the other boys. No, Karsten was probably out sailing and none of the others were to be seen. The ladder I had expected to get was altogether too heavy for me to carry without help. I ran back to Madam Igland’s garden.
“Mina! Mina!”
“If it only doesn’t break!” cried Mina.
Not a sound from inside. I peeped through the cracks. No Mina was to be seen.
“Mina dear! Oh, Mina!”
No, she must certainly have got out, but how? Or perhaps she was lying in the summer-house in a faint from all the excitement. I was perfectly disgusted with myself for having left her, and ran around the garden to the gate. Far down the street I saw Mina’s blue dress. I rushed after her.
“How in the world did you get out?”
“Why, when you were gone I got so desperate because I was alone, that I banged and hammered on the gate as hard as I could; and some one went after Oline and she came and unlocked the gate.”
“Was she angry?”
“Yes, frightfully angry.”
When I reached home, Karsten had come back from his sailing and had told of seeing Mina and me behind the currant-bushes in Madam Igland’s garden, eating currants. That wanted to get in there himself, he said not a word about, the rascal!
Mother scolded me. It is distressing when Mother scolds; not because of what she says, exactly,—though that hurts, too,—but she looks so grieved that it makes you unspeakably sad to see her.
“And of course, Inger Johanne, you must go to Madam Igland and beg her pardon.”
When I came home from school the next day, Oline was standing in the hall. “O dear! O dear! What is coming now?” I thought. Her errand was to ask me to call at Madam Igland’s when I was passing by there.
That afternoon Mina and I went to Madam Igland’s house; through the courtyard, over the high threshold into the tiny blue-painted hall that led into her room.
“You must knock,” Mina whispered.
“No, you,” said I. Finally I had to knock at the door.
“Come in,” said a pleasant voice.
“Shall we run away?” whispered Mina.
But I had already lifted the latch, and there we were—in Madam Igland’s room. I had never been in there before and the only thing I saw now was Madam Igland in her wheel-chair by the window. She turned her face towards us.
“Come right in, children. Why! Is it these two nice little girls who would steal from a lame old woman’s garden when that is all she has to live on?”
We began to cry, both of us.
“No, no! Don’t cry. It’s nothing to cry about. Come and sit here.”
“Uh-hu-hu!” sobbed Mina. “Have you nothing to live on but currants and parsley, Madam Igland?”
“Oh, I live on the money I get for them, you know.”
“We’ll never, never do it again, Madam Igland,” I promised.
“No, no. You surely will not. But sit here now and talk a little with me.”
So there we sat, each on her chair and Madam Igland in her immense wheel-chair by the window where the “spy-mirror” was. In her lap she had a black cat and on the window-sill sat another, blinking its green eyes.
“Isn’t it awfully tedious to sit here all day long and only look out of the window?” I asked when we had composed ourselves a little.
“Oh, no! One gets used to anything. It will soon be fifteen years since the Lord took the use of my legs from me. First, I sat in the corner by the bed for twelve years, but I got very tired of that. I knew every nail-head in the floor and every dot in the wall-paper. So I moved over to the window and have sat here for three years; and it is much better.”
Think of it! She had sat in her chair much longer than I had lived! How terribly sad it was!
“But how do you get to bed, Madam Igland?” I asked.
“Oh, Oline helps me. She’s a kind person, I can tell you. The good Lord sent her to me, you see. Yes, and then there are all the kind people who come often to see me, old and lame as I am.”
Only think! The good Lord had sent Oline to Madam Igland! How many queer things there are in the world! It had never occurred to me that God thought about Oline.
“Yes, she is faithful, she is faithful,” said Madam Igland with a happy face, rocking herself back and forth.
Who would have supposed there was any one who rejoiced over queer old Oline?
I really liked being in there with Madam Igland.
“I ought to have something to treat you with,” said Madam Igland at last. “It’s a shame that I haven’t anything. But you must come in again, for there will soon be some kittens here, and perhaps I may then have some good little treat for you.”
I had sat and pondered over something I wanted to say, but I couldn’t get it out until we were at the door.
“Madam Igland, won’t you let me come in and help you sometimes? Help you get to bed or whatever you like?”
“Oh, no, child. I am heavy, very heavy. No, the good Lord managed wonderfully well for me when He sent me Oline; and He won’t forget you, who have a heart for one who is old and lame. Adieu, adieu, children.”
Ever since that time, whenever we pass her house, Madam Igland nods to us and we smile and wave to her. One day she tapped on the window. The kittens had come.
IX
ON BOARD THE SEVEN STARS
I love the sea. I know nothing else I delight in so much. Just to get the smell of seaweed, or to see the white spray dashing over a bare island, makes me happy. Poor naked hills and rocks, the salty sea air, old wharves, rocking boats, ships that have been on long voyages and are now laid up in the harbor,—all such things are the pleasantest to be found anywhere in the world. If you don’t think so, you can’t ever have known them, I am sure.
Sometimes I think that the sea is most beautiful in summer, when it lies like a polished mirror and the yellow seaweed sways lazily and silently against the steep gray shore; when the sun glitters out over Skagerak so that it hurts your eyes; when the sloops lie becalmed with loose sails and stay in one spot while the big steamers hurry past, bound for some foreign land, and their smoke makes a straight black streak in the sunshine.
But when the southwest wind rushes in and puts white-caps everywhere on the sea, and the sky is so clear and so blue; and the pilot-boat with the broad red stripe in its sail seems to hop over the waves, while the boat we are rowing in rocks and bobs up and down, and our hair blows all over our faces,—oh, then I think that is the very jolliest time on the sea, after all!
In the autumn when the sea moans and roars, and the water looks black while the spray rises like great white ghosts out on the islands, the sea often seems grim and terrible; for there is always some one on the water we are afraid will not come back,—there are so many wrecks in the autumn.
One summer I was on the sea almost every day, although we had no boat of our own. Father says that if he bought us a boat we would certainly get drowned, all of us. However, I could always manage to get a boat some way. If there were no other to be had, it was usually easy to get hold of Sorensen’s old skiff; just climb over two fences, creep around behind a little mound, and then jump right down the steep bank on to Sorensen’s wharf, where the boat is tied.
Once, however, it happened that I jumped almost on old Sorensen’s head as he stood looking out over the sea and talking to himself. Then I was in a bad fix, for he is not a person to joke with.
Another time I had just untied the boat and rowed a few strokes, when an old cracked voice called out:
“Let that skiff alone, drat you!” It was Sorensen’s, so of course I had to row back to land and tie the boat fast again, and he came down to the wharf and nearly scolded my head off,—he was so angry.
But I happened to get acquainted with his granddaughter Louisa, and then everything was as smooth as butter. It was that summer I was on the water almost every day.
The equal of Sorensen’s good old rowboat I’ve never seen in all my days, and I’ve seen plenty of rowboats, I can tell you. It was pretty old and water-soaked, but for all that, it was a remarkably comfortable boat, and easy to row.
Louisa wasn’t so bad, either. Bright red hair, freckled to the tips of her ears, and with white eyelashes—that’s the way she looked; but search Norway over and you wouldn’t find any one to match her at rowing and paddling and such things. She was lively and jolly, too, and full of all kinds of marvelous stories about mermaids and ghosts and many other queer things that had been seen on the sea. Louisa believed in these stories as if they were gospel truth.
Well, I attached myself to her that summer and fun enough we had every single day. I would take luncheon for both of us and Louisa would take the rowboat.
If her grandfather objected, we had only to promise to whittle some pitch-pine firelighters for him and he would let us have the boat at once.
We would stay on the water the whole afternoon rowing out to the islands or away off in Dams bay, fishing, catching crabs and mussels, talking, laughing, and having the jolliest kind of times.
But once something frightful happened to us, and that is what I shall tell you of now.
We seldom rowed out as far as Bird Island, for the open sea was right outside of that, and there was always a heavy swell there, even when the weather was not rough.
But one afternoon we were tired of splashing around near the land and we decided that we would row out to Bird Island and just make a flying visit. Louisa knew a woman who lived in the only house on the island and it would be great fun to see how everything was out there.
A light breeze blew from the southeast, the sun was shining gaily, the skiff was as dry as a floor, for we had just emptied it; and I had four pieces of rye cake, spread with extra good Danish butter, in my pocket.
Oh, everything was splendid! Louisa told sea stories and we bent to our oars with a will.
“Grandfather says,” announced Louisa, “that you may be all by yourself on the sea on board a schooner or a yacht or whatever, and you think that you are alone, and you are not, for the sea-spirits are with you.”
“Ugh, Louisa! that would be horrid.”
“And Grandfather says,” continued Louisa, “that they can take different forms. It may happen that one shows itself as a big flapping bird or a gray maiden. Grandfather himself has seen a spirit in the form of a cloud of fire.”
“Oh, come now, Louisa! You’re talking nonsense.”
“If it isn’t true, you may chop my head off,” said Louisa. “Grandfather was just outside of Dröbak in his yacht; it was in the middle of the night in late autumn, and all at once as he sat there, a queer shape of fire glided close to him.”
“Don’t talk of spirits, Louisa—don’t. I won’t listen any more.”
“Well, there are sea-spirits and they are ugly, too,” insisted Louisa.
It was farther to Bird Island than we had counted on, and we rowed and rowed till our arms were tired and weak with rowing so far; but at last our boat scraped against the little wharf.
Andrea’s house stood lonely and forlorn on the rocky island. It was a two-story house painted red, with big vacant windows, up-stairs and down.
“Andrea’s husband is a sailor, and I saw her and her son in town to-day with fish to sell,” said Louisa.
We went everywhere around the locked-up, forlorn house. In front was the open sea, gulls and other sea-birds flapped their wings over our heads, bare rocks and stones were everywhere.
“Really, it must be jolly to live here,—like Robinson Crusoe on a desert island,” said I. “To do everything for yourself, live on fish and go in a boat whenever you like.”
“Oh, no!” said Louisa. “No, I should be afraid to live here. Hush, keep still! Hear what a sighing comes from the sea.”
A green yacht was moored down in front of the house. There was no one on board and it lay dipping slowly up and down in the swell of the sea. On the stern was painted the name of the yacht in yellow letters on a black ground,—Seven Stars.
“Oh, let’s row out to the yacht and go on board and look it over,” said I. Louisa made no objection though she said stoutly:
“But you can say what you will, there are spirits here on the island in the afternoons.”
This was not particularly comfortable to hear just then, but I pretended not to notice it. Twenty or thirty strokes would take us to the Seven Stars,—not many more, at any rate.
It was difficult to climb on board, but Louisa, whose arms were very strong, pulled herself up first and drew me up after her.
Then we discovered that a frightful thing had happened. We had let go the rope to the skiff! Whether Louisa had had hold of it or I, or neither of us, I don’t know. I only know that as Louisa drew me up after her, I chanced to kick the rowboat; it glided away and in the same moment was several feet from the Seven Stars.
I can’t say that I was awfully afraid just then. We must be able to get hold of the boat one way or another, I thought; but it drifted farther and farther out and there we stood.
Then we began to quarrel.
“It was your fault, Louisa; you pulled me so hard.”
“Why, the idea! It was you who kicked it away.”
“But you should have held on to the rope.”
“No, you should have held it.”
The boat drifted, drifted, farther and farther away. Neither of us could swim. What in the world should we do?
Not a person on Bird Island. Not a person on the other islands. Far, far back in the bay lay the town. Not a boat was to be seen—nothing, in fact, but gulls and sea-swallows flapping their white wings and whirling swiftly about in the air.
Louisa, with her freckled face and her white eyelashes, looked at me.
“Suppose Andrea stays in town over night at her married daughter’s,—she does that sometimes,—then no one would come here until morning.”
“But her son August will come, you know,” I said.
“Well, I’m afraid, I am,” said Louisa.
“Oh, no, Louisa, dear. We are perfectly safe here, you know.”
“But there are so many sounds, and it’s so lonely and strange, it’s uncomfortable to be here; and if there are spirits anywhere, they will be here, you may depend upon it.”
Louisa whispered the last, although we stood absolutely alone on the Seven Stars, alone on the wide sea.
The skiff, bobbing and rocking, had now drifted quite a distance beyond Bird Island.
“It’s drifting out to sea!” shouted Louisa, despairingly. “Oh, deliver me from Grandfather! He’ll be so angry about his boat.”
O dear! O dear! How worrisome it was! And now the sun had gone and it would soon begin to grow dark. We had not had time to look about on the yacht yet, and it seemed as if we must prepare ourselves to stay there for a while. But the doors were locked and nothing did we find on the deck but a man’s old weather-worn hat.
What should we do? Stay on the open deck all night? There was no use in shouting for help out in this solitude.
Louisa had gone to the stern, but came running back, with her eyes starting out of her head.
“Oh, Inger Johanne! Some one is groaning in the cabin!”
“What nonsense!”
“No, no, it’s true, it’s true.” Louisa was almost beside herself. “Some one is groaning and sighing, I tell you.”
We listened and yes,—think of it! A queer, heavy sound did come from the locked cabin, a strange sound, as if from the bottom of the sea, it seemed to us.
I thought Louisa had gone out of her senses, she was so afraid; for imagine! she wanted to jump overboard.
“It is the spirits,” she whispered. “I’d rather jump into the sea—I will jump, I will.”
I was afraid enough, but it was all very exciting, too. I kept hold of Louisa’s dress.
“Don’t be so stupid as to jump overboard,” I said.
But at that instant fear overwhelmed me, too. Everything was so still, so unspeakably quiet, only the sound of the waves washing against the island, spurting up a little, then falling back; the wide silent sky over us, the town far, far away.
From beneath the deck, however, the strange sound came louder and louder. There really must be something queer down there. Louisa was right—it must be sea-spirits. Fear clutched at my heart.
If only the gray maiden does not come—for she is the worst of all. Suppose a gray figure glided noiselessly up from the cabin——
We were both ready to jump overboard now. I did not know what I was doing, I was so possessed by fear. Not a boat to be seen, only the gray, boundless sea!
Oh, that horrible Seven Stars!
Louisa sat with both legs outside of the railing; it would not take an instant for her to jump down.
The sound from below grew louder, and it was as if some one were walking there with a slow, dragging step. We caught hold of each other’s hands and stared horror-stricken at the cabin door. Some one tried to open it from the inside, turned the key—and a big tousled, carroty head peeped out.
I drew a deep sigh of relief. The head was Singdahlsen’s, crazy Singdahlsen who imagined that his legs had grown together down to his knees. He was somewhat ill-tempered and particularly ugly when he was teased. Often and often he would be on the chase after boys who had plagued him. His pursuit was not swift, however, as you can understand, since he thought he could only move his legs from the knees down.
Oh, what a relief that it was Singdahlsen and not a ghostly gray maiden! Louisa and I let go of each other’s hands and went over to him.
“Was it you who sang the Columbia Song?” he asked with a threatening look.
No, indeed. We could certainly declare ourselves innocent on that score. Nothing could have been farther from our thoughts than singing.
“Well, if it had been you, I’d have hurled you into the sea, both of you.”
Singdahlsen had once been to America and ever since then the worst thing any one could do was to sing an American song to him. He took it as a personal insult, though nobody knew why.
Pooh! We could get along with him perfectly well.
“How did you come here, Singdahlsen?” asked Louisa. Evidently she should not have asked that, for he looked angry at once.
“How did you come here on my boat?” he retorted quickly.
“It is an awfully pretty yacht, this Seven Stars,” I said.
“Yes, when I once get it gilded over, and set a diamond as big as that (measuring with his hands) upon the mast, then it will be as it should be.”
“Oh, yes! Then it will be charming,” we both said.
“Really, I ought to be king of the seas,” said Singdahlsen.
“Yes, you ought; and have a crown upon your head.”
“No, indeed! I’ll have no crown upon my head.” And there he was, as mad as a hornet again.
We kept on talking with him, though. One time he was so angry that he tramped after us around the whole deck with his legs squeezed tight together. But we were not a bit afraid of him even then, for we were so mightily glad he was not a ghost.
Our rowboat showed now only like a thin black streak far away from Bird Island. What if Louisa and I should have to stay out here on the Seven Stars all night with crazy Singdahlsen? It would be horrible.
Suddenly he shouted: “Up the mast with you! Both of you!”
We tried to turn his mind from that, but no, indeed; we must climb the mast, he said, or he would throw us into the sea.
“I’m sick and tired of you now, so up the mast with you, I say.”
I can’t deny that I began to be a little afraid of him. We tried our best to be agreeable and talked of diamonds and gold-pieces,—things which he usually liked to talk of; but it was of no use.
“Now I shall count twelve,” said crazy Singdahlsen. “And if you are not at the top of the mast when I say twelve, out you go into the sea.”
Oh! Oh! What should we do? I cast a terrified glance over the lonely sea.—Just think! A boat was at that instant rounding the point and in it was Andrea! We knew her by the plaid kerchief on her head.
Oh, how glad, how glad we were! All fear left us at the sight of her.
“Andrea! Andrea!” we shouted. We were almost crying, the relief was so great.
Five minutes after, we were in her boat and then we did cry, cried as if we had been whipped. Andrea knew nothing one way or another, but it was plain that she believed Singdahlsen was wholly to blame.
While rowing us home, she told us that he was in her care for board and lodging; and that when she went to town with fish, she put him on the yacht so that he should not do any mischief while she was gone.
You may well believe that Louisa’s grandfather wasn’t at all pleasant to meet when we went back without his rowboat. However, a pilot from Krabbesund found it and brought it home the next day; so Grandfather didn’t have to worry long.
X
A MOLASSES CAKE STORY
Every one in our town says that Mrs. Simonsen’s molasses cakes are the best in the world,—they are so thick and soft and extraordinarily tasty. Mrs. Simonsen doesn’t make them herself,—Heinrich Schulze, the head baker, does that. How in the world could she ever have learned to make such good cakes? But she stands behind the counter in her shop and sells them every single day.
Mrs. Simonsen came from Telemarken. When I was a little bit of a girl she was the servant in Madam Land’s house, at the foot of our hill. At that time she was Sigrid—something or other—some queer surname that I’ve forgotten. She had azure-blue eyes and golden hair that lay in small curly waves just as if she didn’t do a thing all day in Madam Land’s kitchen but crimp her hair! Sigrid married the baker Simonsen, and he died; and ever since then Heinrich Schulze has been the head baker.
Although I had known Madam Simonsen such a long time there was no use in going into her shop without money, you may be sure; but whenever I have money, I go there and buy molasses cakes. If I have no money I go in the back way through the gate and beg from Heinrich Schulze. As a matter of fact, I go oftenest the back way.
I can always find him in the yard there. He is usually hurrying to and fro between the shop and the bakery, and often the molasses cake dough hangs over his shoulder like a long sausage. Schulze says that good molasses cake dough should be so tough that it will hang over one’s shoulder without breaking. Some people think it is disgusting for him to carry the dough that way, but I don’t. I even eat it raw, right from his shoulder, very often.
For Schulze and I are great friends, let me tell you. He is German, rather old and small, has black eyes and is very wide-awake, and quick in his motions.
One day I got him to give me his photograph. On the back of the picture is written, “Heinrich Schulze, geboren in Halle.” So I know exactly how his name is spelled. I am delighted to have his photograph, for it is so amusing and so “grown-up” to have a good many pictures in your album. Heinrich Schulze’s is the nicest one I have. He looks so free and easy, standing with his legs crossed, beside a curtain. I have an old picture of Father, and one of Grandfather, but that has his legs torn off. Then I have a picture of Mrs. Huus’s little dog; I begged that from the photographer because it was so sweet. And finally I have Marie Lokke’s lover. She wouldn’t keep his picture any longer, because he had become engaged to another girl without her knowing anything about it; so she gave his photograph to me. These are all the pictures I have,—few enough, it seems to me,—and Schulze’s is the very nicest. So you see that is why I am so friendly with him. If we had not been such good friends, there would not have been any molasses cake story.
I know just exactly the days when he bakes molasses cakes; and on those days I hang around the door and tease and tease.
“Give me a little dough, Schulze, just a little piece, Schulze.” And he almost always gives me some.
One Thursday afternoon, (my, how vividly I remember it!) Schulze, with the dough over his shoulder, came swinging out into the back yard where I sat on a barrel waiting. It happened that I had in my hand a tiny china doll, one of those little “bath dolls” without any clothes on.
Schulze was in grand good humor that day.
“It may happen that I shall be the master of this bakery here in the town. Then Heinrich Schulze will be on top and can snap his fingers at the whole world,” said Schulze, with the dough over his shoulder and snapping his fingers in the air as he spoke. I think that what made him so happy was that Mrs. Simonsen had been extra kind to him and he thought she would probably marry him; then he would be the master of the bakery.
I don’t know how I happened to think of it, but while Schulze stood there talking, I stuck that little china doll right into the dough. Schulze didn’t notice what I was doing. I smoothed over the place where I had poked the doll in and a moment after, Schulze vanished in the bake-house.
Ha, ha, ha! What fun it will be when he finds the doll in the dough! He won’t be the least bit angry; he will only laugh. So I sat still on the barrel and waited, but he didn’t come back.
Oh, well, he just wanted to fool me, I was sure; for of course he must have found the doll.
I stole over to the bake-house door. The molasses cakes were in the pans, ready to be put into the oven that minute.
Schulze never likes to have any one come into the bake-house, so I dared not go farther than the door. Not a word did he say about the doll. He was surely trying to fool me into thinking he had not found it. Suddenly I remembered that I had not studied my lessons; so I at once started on a run for home.
That whole evening I laughed to myself every time I thought of the doll in the cakedough. I would get the little thing back from Schulze in the morning. But he said not a word about it then, either; nor was he the least bit roguish or joky.
Suppose he hadn’t found the doll! Suppose it was baked in a cake and sold, and should get into some one’s stomach and the person should die of it!
That was a dreadful thought, and I grew so frightened, oh! so frightened; but I didn’t dare say a word to any one about it. Mrs. Simonsen and Schulze would both be furious, and perhaps some one in the town was dying to-day—it might be just now—some one dying from that molasses cake with my little china doll in it!
Oh, how I did suffer that day! I begged Father for twenty öre and spent it all on molasses cakes, for perhaps the little doll might be in one of those I bought. No such good luck. I ate so many molasses cakes, I got perfectly sick of them; I ate them with despair in my heart.
At last I stationed myself beside the steps of Mrs. Simonsen’s shop and stared at every one who came out who had bought molasses cakes. “Perhaps it is you who will get the doll in your stomach,—or perhaps it is you,” I kept thinking. But if it had been to save my life, I could not have said anything to them even though I was so worried.
When children bought the cakes, however, I took their cakes without any ceremony and squeezed them to find out whether the doll was inside. No, I did not find it.
At last I was really sick, I was so anxious. Several times I was on the point of going in and telling Mrs. Simonsen; but it would be so difficult and so frightfully embarrassing. Anyway, I couldn’t muster up courage enough to do it.
The day dragged on. At night I dreamed of the doll in the cake and in the afternoon when I came from school, I sat again on the steps of the bakery. Mrs. Simonsen stood in the doorway, sunning herself.
“It is warm and pleasant these days,” said Mrs. Simonsen.
Yes, I, too, thought it was warm. Indeed, I broke into a perspiration whenever I thought of the molasses cake with the doll in it.
“Why, true as you live, if there isn’t the Collector of the Port himself coming here,” exclaimed Mrs. Simonsen. “He’s even coming into the shop, I declare! Go away from the steps, child.”
Yes, it was really the old Collector himself, with his keen face, his bent back and his cap with broad gold braid on it. He stopped beside the steps, stuck his cane between the pavingstones and looked up at Mrs. Simonsen in the doorway.
“Is this Mrs. Simonsen who sells molasses cakes?”
Mrs. Simonsen curtsied.
“Yes, your honor,” she answered, respectfully.
The old wooden steps creaked under the Collector’s heavy tread. Now he was in the shop. I peeped in at the door.
“May I then ask you, my good woman,” continued the Collector, “what you call this?”
He searched in one vest pocket, searched a long time,—searched in the other vest pocket; then oh! wonder of wonders! Between his crooked thumb and big pointer finger, he held high in the air my little china doll!
The instant I saw it, I was awfully, awfully glad, for now I knew that no one had swallowed it, that it wasn’t lying in any one’s stomach causing pain if not death.
“What do you call this?” repeated the Collector, staring in a terrifying way at Mrs. Simonsen from under his bushy eyebrows.
There was utter vacancy in Mrs. Simonsen’s sky-blue eyes as she looked from the doll to the Collector and from the Collector to the doll. He had to ask her three times before she answered.
“That—that is a—a doll,” said Mrs. Simonsen at last, so frightened that she was ready to sink to the floor.
“Yes, perfectly true—a doll. But then may I ask what a doll has to do in my molasses cake? What has it to do there, I ask you?”
“In your molasses cake?” exclaimed Mrs. Simonsen in the utmost astonishment. It seemed, however, as if she were a little braver now that the talk came to molasses cakes. There she felt herself surer.
“Yes, right in the molasses cake,” snapped the Collector. “I sat drinking my coffee and eating my cake, when I suddenly felt something sc-r-runch between my teeth. I came within a hair’s breadth of getting it in my throat and choking to death,—giving up the ghost instanter; and that molasses cake came from you,” concluded the Collector, putting his silver-mounted cane right against Mrs. Simonsen’s breast as if it were a pistol.
“Has the Collector found a doll in his molasses cake?” cried Mrs. Simonsen in dismay.
“Exactly, my much respected Mrs. Simonsen,—a doll in my molasses cake.”
Then there was a great to-do! Schulze was called from the bake-house and in his baker’s cap and apron stood there talking German and insisting that he knew nothing about the doll. The Collector scolded and fumed, and Mrs. Simonsen never got any further than to say, “But, your honor, your esteemed highness——” before the Collector interrupted her:
“Keep still, I say. It is I who will talk.”
Oh, how frightened I was! Several times I was about to spring in and say that the doll was mine and that it was I who had put it in the dough; but I didn’t dare.
“I will just give you notice, my good woman, that hereafter no cakes for me shall be purchased here;” and the Collector struck his cane on the floor many times with great emphasis.
When he said that, I felt so sorry for Mrs. Simonsen and nice kind Heinrich Schulze that before I knew it, I was in the bakery.
“Oh, it was I who did it! It was I who put the doll into the dough,—just for fun,—just for a joke on Schulze. Oh, I have been so sorry about it—uh, hu, hu!” I threw myself down across the counter and lay there, crying and sobbing; but it was a relief to have told at last.
“Well, I must say!” exclaimed the Collector, but his tone and manner had changed. “Is it here we have the sinner? And you did that for fun? for fun?”
“Yes, I thought Schulze would find it right away,” I sobbed.
“Whose child are you?” asked the Collector. I told him through all my tears and without raising my head from the counter.
“H’m, h’m.” The Collector cleared his throat. “Well, well. Let it pass, my good Mrs. Simonsen. I shall, after all, continue to buy my molasses cakes here; they are exactly to my taste. And you, child,”—he tapped my head with the silver head of his cane,—“you must find some other kind of fun than putting dolls into molasses cakes for people to choke on.” With that the Collector stamped heavily out of the shop.
Mrs. Simonsen was angry with me and so was Schulze; but I was so glad to have the doll in my hands again, so glad that no one had died from it, and that I had eased my conscience by confessing,—oh, I can’t express how glad I was!
“Please don’t be angry. I did it just for a joke, you know. I will never, never do anything like that again. No, indeed, indeed I will not.”
But what do you think? Somehow, since that time, I don’t feel like going as often as I used to into Mrs. Simonsen’s shop or into the back yard to see Schulze; and I scarcely ever get a bit of molasses-cake dough any more.
I was perfectly disgusted that my splendid joke should have turned out not to be funny at all; but the doll that was baked in a molasses cake and all but swallowed by the Collector of the Port, I still treasure.
XI
MADAM KNOLL’S TORTOISE
Up in the attic of Lindquist, the tailor, lives a comical person, Madam Knoll. She is big and broad and very rheumatic, but she laughs at almost everything, although she can get angry enough, too, as you shall hear.
But my, how Madam Knoll can laugh! She shakes all over and makes scarcely a sound except a couple of hoarse cackles at the last when her breath gives out. It is rather alarming until she catches her breath again and hurries on with her talk just where she left off.
For Madam Knoll can talk, too, I assure you. She says that because she is alone so much, words get all tangled up for her and she forgets how to use speech; but I’ve never noticed this, not yet, at any rate.
“Uf!” says Madam Knoll when I go to see her. “I’ve had no one to speak to all day and I’m perishing for talk; it is good to have you come.”
To tell the truth, I go up there because there is so much to amuse myself with. In the first place, Madam Knoll has a toy shop. Two great wide tables are packed full of all kinds of toys. On the walls hang jumping-jacks and red-cheeked dolls that shine and simper in the sun; and from the ceiling hang small birdcages and brownies and every such thing that can in any way be made to hang from a ceiling. I am allowed to go about and play with anything and everything. I wind up the music-boxes till our ears ring with opera melodies. I wind the tops, too, and get a whole crowd of them spinning on the floor at once. Oh, there is plenty of fun to be had up in Madam Knoll’s attic room, I assure you. And Madam Knoll sits on the little platform beside the window, singing in a quavering voice and sewing on shirts, for she sells them as well as toys.
However, few customers climb the steep stairs up to Madam Knoll’s room. Many days can pass when I am the only customer, and of course, I never buy anything.
Madam Knoll had married a Danish glazier, but the name, Knoll, had always been a thorn in the flesh to her, so, all of her own accord, she began to call herself Madam Hansen, for she thought Hansen an extremely pretty name. On one side of the tailor’s front door there is a green sign with white letters which says:
“Shirts Made at Any Time by Madam
Hansen”
and on the other side of the entrance:
“Newest Toys for Sale. Madam
Hansen”
People read the signs, then go in and ask for Madam Knoll.
It is not true that the newest toys are to be bought at her shop, though; for, between you and me, she never buys any new ones.
“I should be pretty stupid if I bought new things before I had sold out the old ones,” says Madam Knoll. But it is stupid of her not to, I think.
Well, besides the toys there is the big tortoise. That was brought home by a sailor many years ago, and has now crept and crawled over Madam Knoll’s floor for at least ten years. It is slow and clumsy about turning around, but it has lively little black eyes. Sometimes when I sit and look at the tortoise I think how dreadful for it just to crawl about in the half-darkness between the chair legs when it had been used to glorious sunshine and soft warm white sand and sea-water thoroughly warmed by the sun, down on the coast of Guinea where it came from.
But Madam Knoll does not like me to say that the tortoise does not enjoy itself with her.
“I should be thankful, if I were a tortoise, to walk about in quietness on a clean, scoured floor, instead of being swallowed by a shark or roasted by the sun,” says Madam Knoll. But I am not sure that the tortoise would have the same opinion as she about its home. However, Madam Knoll takes great pleasure in the tortoise. “Its eyes are so much like my man Knoll’s eyes,” she says.
Lindquist, the tailor, owns the house and lives on the first floor. He has one son, Kalle, an idle good-for-nothing boy who has a great habit of sitting on the stairs leading to Madam Knoll’s room; and on that account, she and Kalle live in continual warfare. She says that he keeps customers away, because he is always sitting on her stairs. Time after time she limps to the hallway and peers down to see whether he is there. She keeps an old broom in the corner just to have something at hand to thump Kalle’s head with if he won’t go off her stairs.
“Now be a good boy, Kalle,” says Madam Knoll, holding the broom behind her, “and go away when I tell you to.”
“No,” says Kalle from the stairs.
“Are you defying me, you impudent lazybones? Go away—and that quickly.” A warning thump with the broom on Kalle’s head. “Do you think it is any help to me to have you sit there?” Thump, thump. “Do you think folk will take the trouble to jam themselves against the wall past you when they want to come up to do some business with an old friend?” A heavy thump on Kalle’s red head.
“No,” says Kalle, not stirring.
“Well, then, I shall knock on the floor for your father.” Since Madam Knoll has had the rheumatism, it hurts her to go up and down stairs, so she calls Lindquist that way. He knows well what it means, darts out to the stairs and hauls Kalle by force into his room. This happens quite often, but really not many more customers come to Madam Knoll when Kalle isn’t sitting on the stairs than when he is.
Madam Knoll has lived in the tailor’s attic for seventeen years. She has thought of giving up her lodging every day in all these years, she says; but there is one thing that keeps her from moving, and that is that nowhere in the whole town could she find such a good warm floor for her own feet and for the tortoise’s, because Lindquist keeps a good fire both summer and winter to heat his irons for pressing.
One day, to my great astonishment, I met Madam Knoll and Policeman Weiby away up in Grand Street. Madam Knoll, you see, almost never goes down-stairs, even. Her face was as red as a boiled lobster and she talked incessantly as she limped along. Policeman Weiby’s under lip stuck out, and he toddled beside her with short mincing steps, for he’s an old man. Naturally, I joined them at once.
“They have stolen my tortoise,” said Madam Knoll. “Oh, that beautiful, poor, dear creature!”
“Who stole it?” I asked.
“Well, if I knew that,” said Madam Knoll angrily, “I shouldn’t have needed to get a policeman. Haven’t I walked with my bad legs all the way over here after Weiby?”
When we arrived at the house Weiby searched the whole attic, poked his cane under the bed and the commode and shook the mat the tortoise usually lay on.
“I’ve done all that myself,” said Madam Knoll angrier than ever.
“Yes, the turtle is gone,” said Weiby.
“Turtle!” said Madam Knoll, so indignant that she could scarcely get the word out.
“We must advertise it,” said Weiby.
“Advertise? Much good that would do!” sniffed Madam Knoll.
“What did you call the police for, Madam Knoll, if you won’t do what he says?” Weiby was angry, too, now.
“Call me Madam Hansen, as my name is,” said Madam Knoll. “However, you may as well go. I can see that you would never find the tortoise if you stumbled over it.” And now she and the policeman were decidedly at loggerheads.
The end was that Weiby stamped down the stairs promising that it would be a long time before he would come there again.
“What is such a man good for?” said Madam Knoll. “Shake the mat and look under the bed as if he had thought of something brand-new, when he might know that I had done all that; he’d never find my tortoise, not if he walked on his head all over town, I could see that by his whole make-up. Oh, the poor lost tortoise! Do you think that whoever has taken it knows that it has four raisins every day,—uh, hu, hu!—and a carrot? Well, I’ll say this,” concluded Madam Knoll, drying her eyes; “if you find the tortoise, you shall have the music-box that plays, ‘Bim bam! Bilibum, bum, bum,’ and my thanks besides.”
Oh-h! Wonder of wonders! That charming music-box for my own!
And so began the time when I hunted for the tortoise. It was really great fun, you know,—exactly as if I were a detective; though people said I would never make a detective, for I was too indiscreet and talked too much.
My! The places I went to, to inquire about that tortoise! Into yards and barns and sheds of all sorts, down in the town, and up on the hill; and I talked with every man, woman and child about the lost tortoise. But no. No one had seen anything a bit like such a creature.
“Well?” Madam Knoll would say questioningly, looking over her spectacles, the minute I opened the door. “Have you found any trace of my dear, beautiful tortoise?”
It began to look as if there were little hope of my getting the music-box that played, “Bim bam! Bilibum, bum, bum.”
Eight days had passed since the tortoise had disappeared. Shame on me, I scarcely thought of it any more; but a person can’t go on thinking of one thing forever.
One day, though, when I went home from school, past the cemetery, I suddenly wanted awfully to play hop-scotch on Peter Bertzen’s gravestone, it is so remarkably flat and broad, just the thing for hop-scotch. While I was hopping there, something moved among the barberry-bushes over by the stone wall. When I went to find out what it was, I saw Kalle Lindquist squatting on the ground, handling something. I crept softly up to him—and just think! It was the tortoise! It had been lying in the stone wall, I could see, for Kalle had taken out some stones from there.
“Kalle, you rascal!” I said, grabbing him by the hair.
“Kalle, you rascal!” I said, grabbing him by the hair.
“Let me go! Let me go!” screamed Kalle. But I had no idea of doing that until I had got the tortoise from him.
The tortoise was dead; I saw that instantly. The little black eyes usually so lively were half-shut and dim.
“Oh, you cruel Kalle!” I said. “You put the poor thing in the stone wall and let it starve to death. You’d better look out for Madam Knoll. You’ll catch it from her!”
Kalle only laughed and dug in the dirt with a stick.
I took the tortoise in my apron and ran full gallop to Madam Knoll’s. I forgot my schoolbooks altogether and left them in their strap on Peter Bertzen’s gravestone.
“Well?” said Madam Knoll as usual, looking over her spectacles as soon as I appeared at the door.
I was so out of breath that I couldn’t speak; I just showed her what I had in my apron.
Madam Knoll struck her hands together, but when she saw that the tortoise was dead, she began to cry.
“It was Kalle who took it,” said I.
“Kalle!” shouted Madam Knoll. “Give me the broom!” she shouted even louder.
When she got the broom, she pounded on the floor and called “Lindquist!” so that people heard her far up the street. Lindquist came hastily up, his tailor’s sewing-ring on his finger and holding a needle with a long thread trailing from it. He must have thought that the house was on fire, he looked so frightened.
“See here!” said Madam Knoll in a quivering voice. “See here what your bad boy has done.” She laid the tortoise on its back and presented it to him in that manner, so that Lindquist should see at once how dead it was.
“What—what does this mean?” asked Lindquist, bewildered.
“Mean?” cried Madam Knoll. “It means that I shall move from here to-morrow, Lindquist, understand that. It means that your son has killed my tortoise.”
Madam Knoll talked louder and louder as she threatened Lindquist with both the police and the Parliament. Lindquist was utterly unable to make himself heard when he tried to speak, for Madam Knoll entirely out-talked him. My, but there was a hullabaloo in her attic that day!
But Madam Knoll did not move from his house as she had threatened to, after all, for she lives there even now.
Although the tortoise was dead when I found it, I got the music-box, nevertheless. It stands beside my bed. In the mornings everything has to go in such a tearing hurry that I have no time to think of music-boxes; but every night when I undress, I wind it up and then fall asleep while it plays, oh, so delicately and prettily, “Bim, bam! Bilibum, bum, bum!”
XII
PLAY ACTING
Oh, I am so angry with Otto, the woodcutter! for it was all his fault. Just because he was cross over Father’s having bought so much green wood, he had to——Well, I’m going to tell you all about it.
A better theater than our woodshed is not to be found in the whole town. Emil Rasmussen’s hall, where all the traveling actors play, can’t come up to our woodshed, that is certain. Of course I mean in the summer when there isn’t any wood there.
The little platform over in the corner, where the heavy old baby-carriage stands and old boxes and all the other rubbish, is the most magnificent stage any one could wish; and the long, narrow woodshed is a fine place for the spectators. There is also a dressing-room for the actors in the old carriage-house. True, you have to creep through a hole rather high up in the wall to get in there from the woodshed, but that is a small matter. What is worse is that a box of red ochre stands right under the hole and there’s always danger of falling into it. Except for that the carriage-house is a capital dressing-room.
There are no windows in the woodshed. When we shut the door, the only light is what comes through cracks and holes and sifts down between the tiles in the roof; but there are so many cracks and openings that there is more than enough light, anyway.
All the year round, Otto, the woodcutter, stands in the woodshed with sawdust in his hair and chops and saws with his rough purplish hands.
I often sit on a chopping-block near him and tell him fairy tales that I invent myself. Little reward do I get for my trouble, for Otto says never a word about my stories, though I make them as exciting as ever I can.
Well, once we girls decided that we would act a play.
“Warburg’s Company” had just been in town and played “Cousin Lottie” and “Adventures on a Walking Tour.” We had had free tickets every evening and I had sat in the front row and been in the seventh heaven of ecstasy.
Oh, you should have seen Warburg! Such eyes! Such a beautiful nose! And he spoke so charmingly! All the girls in our class went to the wharf to see him off when he left town, and Karen Jensen cried because she would not see him any more. She will not own up now that she cried, but I distinctly saw tears shining in her eyes.
It was when we went home from the wharf that time, that we decided we would act a play. There were Massa, Mina, Karen, Lolla, and I. We should need Karsten, but not any of the other boys,—they are all so disgusting nowadays. They whistle through keys and laugh and whisper when we go past them, and I call such behavior disgusting.
But we must have Karsten, because he sings so charmingly. His voice is so clear, so clear! When he sings:
“Ja, vi elsker dette landet,”[4]
it always makes the shivers go down my back; and old Miss Weyergang says that is a sign of the “highest artistic enjoyment” any one can have. Miss Weyergang was in Berlin once and heard “Lucca” sing, and she felt as if one pail of cold water after another were emptied over her; and nothing could have been more delightful, Miss Weyergang says.
So we must have Karsten. I can’t sing a bit. When I try to take a high note, there comes out the queerest sound. It is like the noise Karsten makes when I have shut him in the big empty meal-chest, and he screeches so frightfully from inside there.
But if you imagine Karsten is willing to help us with our performance, you make a great mistake.
“Do you think I will come and play with you girls? Be the only boy? No, thank you. Perhaps you can get such a girl-boy as Peter, the dean’s son, to do that, but not me. Very likely you’d dress me up as you used to when I was little. Humph! No, indeed. I’m a chap who has outgrown all that sort of thing.”
Well, this was going to cost us dear. To try to force Karsten would be of no use. We must coax him.
“If you will be in our theatricals, Karsten, I’ll rip off the two big buttons from the back of my winter coat and give them to you; crocheted buttons, you know.”
“We-ell, you’ll have to give me the two that are on the front of the coat, too.”
“Yes, yes; but then you must sing four times,—once for each button.”
Karsten grumbled a little at this, but Massa promised him a cornucopia full of plums from their shop, and so he gave in.
At school the next day, off in a corner of the class-room, we wrote the program. All the other girls crowded about us, wishing to know what the secret was. Massa and I stood in front and pushed them away, while behind us Mina and Karen wrote as fast as they could on the program. Such an excitement!
The principal came to the door, displeased at the noise; and Anna Brynildsen went and tattled, saying that I had pulled Kima Pirk’s hair. Well, it was true that I had clutched Kima by that red-brown hair of hers, but it was purely in self-defense, for Kima is much stronger than I.
At last the program was all written out. Here it is:
FIRST APPEARANCE OF THE GIOJA COMPANY
In the Judge’s Woodshed
Saturday, the 12th
1. Ja, vi elsker - Sung by Young Gioja
(That was Karsten.)
2. Declamation - - Miss Ella Gioja
(That was I.)
3. The Play, “Cousin Lottie.” Freely rendered from memory. By the whole Gioja Company.
4. “The Wild Duck Swims in Silence,” Young Gioja
5. Perhaps two extra numbers.
Entrance fee: What you please, but not less than one öre for each person.
It was certainly a magnificent program and a great deal for the money. In the next recess we put the program up on the wall so that every one could see it. They all said they would come.
Right after dinner on Saturday Mina and I cleared up the woodshed. You may well believe we worked hard. Chopping-blocks, boards, shavings, axes, and saws,—away into the corners with them all. We swept and swept and arranged and rearranged; but we made it look awfully nice, you may depend upon that.
We wouldn’t try to have scenery or “wings.” To fix up such theater contrivances is tremendously troublesome. No, we could creep in and out of the hole in the wall; that was much more convenient.
When it came to the point, Karsten was determined that he would not dress in costume, and of course he must, or it wouldn’t be like a real theater.
More coaxing of Karsten, a promise of another button from my winter coat, and a very rare Rio Janeiro stamp,—and at last he yielded. We took off his jacket, put a red scarf over one shoulder, slanting down to his waist, and set an old peaked felt hat on his head. His face was awfully red and angry,—he hated the whole thing, you see,—but he couldn’t resist that rare Rio Janeiro stamp.
Now the spectators began to come. We peeped through the hole to see them, and my goodness! how quickly the woodshed was filled! Pshaw! There were the boys, Nils and Anton and Ezekiel and all. Ugh! Massa stood at the door and took the money and I saw her shove some boys out who were trying to get in without paying.
It was five o’clock, the time for the performance to begin.
I rang a little cow-bell and Karsten crept through the hole in the wall in full costume. I followed him with an accordion for I was to play an accompaniment, you see. I can’t play the accordion very well but I hoped I might get along all right, nevertheless.
“Ja, vi elsker,” began Karsten, and I accompanied him as well as I could but he sang faster than I played, so I kept several notes behind him.
“You’re playing wrong,” said Karsten, stopping short in the song.
“I’m not, either. We’ll soon get together. You just keep on singing.”
We went at it again.
“If you can’t play properly I won’t sing any more,” said Karsten after a few more notes.
“Oh, you horrid thing! Keep on singing. I’ll catch up.”
But Karsten sprang at me and thumped me over the head two or three times. I grabbed him by both ears but he wrenched himself away. There was a roar of laughter throughout the whole woodshed, and the boys shouted, “Bravo! Bravo!”
O pshaw!
Karsten had already clambered back through the hole. I saw only his legs when I turned around. Under the circumstances, there was nothing for me to do but to creep after him.
In the woodshed, the spectators whistled through their fingers, shouted and screeched. After draping a black shawl over my head I again made my entrée in as dignified a manner as was possible through the hole.
Until the very moment I stepped forward on the stage, I was in the most horrible uncertainty as to what I should recite. It was impossible for me to decide whether it should be “Terje Vigen,” or “The Church Clock in Farum,” or “Little squirrel sat,” or what. The room was now still as death.
“Ahem! h’m!” I kept clearing my throat.
O dear me! Which poem should I choose?
But of all things in the world! There, at the woodshed door, stood Otto, the woodcutter, looking frightfully cross.
“What’s all this?” he called in a rough, angry voice.
I saw danger ahead, and spoke from the stage as mildly and soothingly as I could.
“This is a theater, Otto. We’re acting—having awfully good fun.” Almost before I had finished speaking, the spectators shouted in chorus:
“Theater, Otto! Theater!” and rushed at him, snatching at his jacket from behind, while Nils set up a blood-curdling Indian howl, such as only he can give; and everything was in a hullabaloo in no time.
Suddenly I saw Otto stride over to a heap of wood in the corner and grab a stick.
“Such trash! Such foolishness!” he shouted, swinging the stick in the air. “There must be a stop put to this, I tell you! Such goings on in a regular woodshed! Out with you!” He was like a furious savage.
“Look out! He harms people when he is so angry,” shouted Karsten from the hole.
All the spectators ran for the door, tumbling and scrambling over each other. I retired as hastily as possible through the hole, and darted out of the carriage-house door; and up the hill sprang spectators and actors in a wild rush.
All the rest of the day Otto went rummaging and ransacking around in the woodshed and scolding over wicked children, the foolishness of the world, and the misery of having green wood to cut up.
He was in a bad humor over the affair the whole summer, and will surely never forget it.
The next day at school, all the spectators came to us and wanted their money back. I thought that was mean, but, anyway, they didn’t get it; for of course we had immediately spent it on lemon-drops.