CHAPTER III
MY FIRST JOURNEY ALONE
Well! I didn't travel entirely alone, either, you must know; for, you see, I had Karsten with me. But he was only nine years old that summer, so that it was about the same or even worse than traveling alone. To make a journey with small children by steamer isn't altogether comfortable, as any grown person will tell you.
It is curious how tedious everything gets at home in your own town when you have decided to make a journey. Whatever it might be that the boys and girls wanted to play—whether it was playing ball in the town square, or hide-and-go-seek in our cellar, or caravans in the desert up on the hilltop, or frightening old Miss Einarsen by knocking on her window (which is generally great fun)—it all seemed stupid and tiresome beyond description now.
For I was going to travel, going on a journey, and that is the jolliest, jolliest fun! Alas! for the poor stay-at-homes who couldn't go away but had to walk about the same old town streets, and smell street dust, and gutters, and stale sea-water in by the wharves.
But I have clean forgotten to tell you where I was going. Mother has a sister who is married to a minister. They live fifteen or twenty miles from our town and we go there every summer. But this summer, it had been decided that Karsten and I should go there alone for the first time.
The afternoon before we were to set out I went down back of our wood-shed, where all the boys and girls that I go with generally come every afternoon. It was hot enough to roast you and awfully dry and dusty; but I took my new umbrella down with me all the same. It wasn't really silk, but I had wound it and fastened it so tightly together that it looked just as slender and delicate as a real silk one. I wouldn't play ball with the rest of them. I just stood and swung my umbrella about.
"Have you got a new umbrella?" said Karen. "Is it a silk one?" asked Netta. "You've got eyes in your head," I answered. And so they all thought it was a silk one. I couldn't play ball with them, I said, because I had to go in and pack. Now that wasn't true at all, for I knew well enough that Mother had done all the packing; but it sounded so off-hand and important. They all teased me to stay down with them for a while, but no indeed, far from it. "I have too much to do. I start to-morrow morning early. Good-bye."
"Good-bye and a happy journey," shouted the company.
When I got in the house I was a little sorry that I hadn't stayed out with the others; for I hadn't a thing to do but go from one room to another and tighten the shawl-straps for the twentieth time at least. I thought the afternoon would never come to an end.
Early in the morning, before it was really light, the maid came into the room and shook me and whispered, "Now you must get up. It's half-past four o'clock. Get up! The steamer goes at half-past five, you know." Oh, how dreadfully sleepy I was, but it was great fun all the same. The sun was not shining into my room yet, but on the church tower it glowed like a fire. The weather was going to be good. Hurrah! All the doors and windows of the sleeping-rooms stood wide open. It was so sweet and fresh and quiet everywhere, fragrant with the smell of the trees and fresh garden earth outside. We went in to say good-bye to Father and Mother at their bedside.
"Remember us to everybody and be nice, good children," said Mother.
"Don't lose everything you have with you," said Father. Humph! Lose—Father seemed to forget that I was nearly grown up now.
As we went down the hill, the stones under the elm-trees were still all moist with dew. Oh! how quiet it was out-of-doors! Suddenly away down in the town a cock crew. Everything seemed very strange.
Karsten and I ran ahead and Ingeborg, the maid, came struggling after us with our big green tine.[1] Suddenly a desperate anxiety came over me. Suppose the steamboat should go off and leave us! Then how we ran! We left Ingeborg and the tine and everything else behind. When we turned round the corner into the market square, the sun streamed straight into our eyes and there by the custom-house wharf lay the steamboat, with steam up and sacks of meal being put on board. Karsten and I dashed across the square. Pshaw! we were in plenty of time. There wasn't a single passenger aboard yet. It is a little steamboat, you know, that only goes from our town over to Arendal. I got Karsten settled on a seat, kneeling and facing the water, and then established myself in a jaunty, free and easy manner by the railing as if I were accustomed to travel. Ole Bugta and Kristen Snau and all the other clodhoppers on the wharf should never imagine that this was the first time I had been aboard a steamboat.
[1] Tine (pronounced tee´ne) a covered wooden box with handle on top.
Soon that skin-and-bone Andersen, the storekeeper, got on the boat, and then came little Magnus, the telegraph messenger, jogging along. Magnus is really a dwarf. He is forty years old and doesn't reach any higher than my shoulder; but he has an exceedingly large old face. He clambered up on a bench. He has such short legs that when he sits down his legs stick straight out into the air, just as tiny little children's do when they sit down. Then came Mrs. Tellefsen, in a French shawl, and dreadfully warm and worried. "When the whistle blew the first time, I was still in my night-clothes," she confided to me.
The whistle blew the third time. I smiled condescendingly down to Ingeborg, our maid, who stood upon the wharf. I wouldn't for a good deal be in her shoes and have to turn back and go home again now. Far up the street appeared a man and woman shouting and calling for us to wait for them. "Hurry up! Hurry up!" shouted the captain. That was easier said than done; for when they came nearer I saw that it was that queer Mr. Singdahlsen and his mother. Mr. Singdahlsen is not right in his mind and he thinks that his legs are grown together as far down as his knees. So he doesn't move any part of his legs in walking except the part below his knees. Of course he couldn't go very fast. His mother pushed and pulled him along, the captain shouted, and at last they came over the gangway and the steamboat started.
The water was as smooth and shining as a mirror, and it seemed almost a sin to have the steamboat go through it and break the mirror. Over at the Point the tiny red and yellow houses shone brightly in the morning light and the smoke from their chimneys rose high in the quiet air.
Then my troubles with Karsten began. Yes, I entirely agree that children are a nuisance to travel with. In the first place, Karsten wanted to stand forever and look down into the machinery room. I held on to him by the jacket, and threatened him and told him to come away. Far from it! He was as stubborn as a mule. Humph! a great thing it would have been if he had fallen down between the shining steel arms of the machinery and been crushed! O dear me! At last he had had enough of that. Then he began to open and shut the door which led into the deck cabin; back and forth, back and forth, bang it went!
"Let that be, little boy," said Mr. Singdahlsen. Karsten flushed very red and sat still for five whole minutes. Then it came into his head that he absolutely must see the propeller under the back of the boat. That was worse than ever, for he hung the whole upper part of his body over the railing. I held fast to him till my fingers ached. For a minute I was so provoked with him that I had a good mind to let go of him and let him take care of himself;—but I thought of Mother, and so kept tight hold of him.
We went past the lighthouse out on Green Island. The watchman came out on his tiny yellow balcony and hailed us. I swung my umbrella. "Hurrah, my boys," shouted Mr. Singdahlsen in English. "Hurrah, my boys," imitated Karsten after him. Little Magnus dumped himself down from the seat and waved his hat; but he stood behind me and nobody saw him. It was really a pretty queer lot of travelers.
Just then the mate came around to sell the tickets. Father had given me a five-crown note for our traveling expenses. As Karsten and I were children and went for half-price, I didn't need any more, he said. So there I stood ready to pay.
"How old are you?" asked the mate.
Now I have always heard that it is impolite to question a lady about her age; I must say I hadn't a speck of a notion of telling that sharp-nosed mate that I lacked seven months of being twelve years old.
"How old are you?" he asked again.
"Twelve years," said I hastily.
"Well, then you must pay full fare."
I don't know how I looked outside at that minute. I know that inside of me I was utterly aghast. Suppose I didn't have money enough! And I had told a lie!
Now my purse is a little bit of a thing, hardly big enough for you to get three fingers in. I took it out rather hurriedly—everything that I undertake always goes with a rush, Mother says. How it happened I don't know, but my five-crown note whisked out of my hand, over the railing and out to sea.
"Catch it! Catch it!" I shouted.
"That is impossible," said the mate.
"Yes, yes! Put out a boat!" I cried. All the passengers crowded together around us.
"Did the five crowns blow away?" piped Karsten.
"Was it, perhaps, the only one you had?" asked the mate. Ugh! how horrid he was. Storekeeper Andersen and Mrs. Tellefsen and the mate laughed as hard as they could. Karsten pulled at my waterproof.
"You're a good one! Now they will put us ashore because we haven't any money. You always do something like that!"
"Are you going to put us ashore?" I asked.
"Oh, no," said the mate. "I will go up to your father's office and get the money some time. That's all right."
Pshaw! that would be worse than anything else. Father would be raving. He always says I lose everything.
"You'll catch it from Father," whispered Karsten.
Oh, what should I do! What should I do! Karsten and Mr. Singdahlsen clambered up on some rigging away aft to get sight of the five-crown note. Mr. Singdahlsen peered through the hollow of his hand and both he and Karsten insisted that they saw it. But that couldn't help us any.
Oh! how disgusting everything had become all at once. The visit at Uncle's and Aunt's would be horrid, too. To go there alone in this way, and have to talk alone with Uncle, a minister, and all the other grown-up people at the rectory—it would be disgustingly tiresome. There was nothing that was any fun in the whole world. It would be disgusting to go home again; for Father would be so dreadfully angry—and it was most disgusting of all to be here on the steamboat where everybody laughed at me.
And all on account of an old rag of a five-crown bill which had blown away. Besides, I had told a lie and said I was twelve years old. Oh-oh-oh! how sad everything was!
I sat with my hand under my cheek, leaning against the railing and staring into the sea. All at once a plan occurred to me which I thought a remarkably good one then. Now I think it was frightfully stupid. I would ask the mate if he wouldn't take something of mine as payment for our passage.
I had a little silver ring—one of those with a tiny heart hanging to it;—I thought of that first. I took it off of my finger and looked at it. It was really a tiny little bit of a thing—it couldn't be worth so very much. At home I had a pair of skates, sure enough. I would willingly sell them. But I couldn't possibly ask the mate to go up into our attic and get them and sell them for me. What in the world should I give him? Suddenly a brilliant idea struck me. My new umbrella—he should have my new umbrella. And I would tell the mate at the same time that I had made a mistake, that I wasn't twelve years old, only eleven years and five months. I took the umbrella and went quickly across the deck to find the mate. To be on the safe side I took the ring off of my finger and held it in my hand. It might be he would want both ring and umbrella. But it was impossible to find him. I wandered fore and aft and peeked into all the hatchways—but I couldn't get a glimpse of that sharp nose of his anywhere. Finally I discovered him sitting in a little cabin, writing.
I established myself in the doorway and swung my umbrella. To save my life I couldn't get out a single word of what I had planned to say. Think of having to say "I told you a lie!"
"Do you want anything?" asked the mate at last.
"Oh, no!" I said hastily. "Well, yes. How far is it to Sand Island now?"
"An hour's sail, about;"—at the very minute that he was speaking these words a terrible shriek was heard from aft, a loud shriek from several people all screaming as hard as they could. I never was so scared in my whole life. The mate almost pushed me over, he sprang so quickly out of the door. All the people aft were crowded at one side. In the midst of the shrieks and cries I heard some one say, "Man overboard!"
O horrors! It must be Karsten! I was sure of it. I hadn't thought of him or taken any care of him for the last ten minutes. I hardly know how I got aft, my knees were shaking so. The steamboat stopped and two sailors were already up on the railing loosing the life-boat.
"Karsten! Karsten! Karsten!" I cried. All at once I saw Karsten's light hair and big ears over on a bench. He was throwing his arms about in the air and was frightfully excited. "This is the way he did," shouted he; "he hung over the railing this way, looking for the five crowns."—It was Mr. Singdahlsen who had fallen overboard. Oh, poor Mrs. Singdahlsen! She cried and called out unceasingly.
"He is weak in the understanding!" she cried, "and therefore the Lord gave me sense enough for two—so that I could look after him;—catch him—catch him. He will drown before my very eyes."
I held Karsten by the jacket as in a vise. I was going to look after him now. The boat was by this time close to Mr. Singdahlsen. They drew his long figure out of the water and laid him in the bottom of the boat. The next minute they had reached the side of the steamer again, clambered up with Singdahlsen, and laid him on the deck. He looked exactly as if he were dead. They stripped him to his waist, and then they began to work over him according to the directions in the almanac for restoring drowned people. If I live to be a million years old I shall never forget that scene.
There lay the long, thin, half-naked Singdahlsen on the deck, with two sailors lifting his arms up and down, Mrs. Singdahlsen on her knees by his side drying his face with a red pocket-handkerchief, the sun shining baking hot on the deck, and the smoke of the steamer floating out far behind us in a big thick streak. At length he showed signs of life and they carried him into the cabin. Then, what do you suppose happened? Mrs. Singdahlsen was angry at me! Wasn't that outrageous? The whole thing was my fault, she said, for if I hadn't lost the five crowns, her son wouldn't have fallen overboard.
"Now you can pay for the doctor and the apothecary, and for my anxiety and fright besides," said Mrs. Singdahlsen. But everybody laughed and said I needn't worry myself about that.
"You said yourself that you had sense enough for two, Mrs. Singdahlsen," said Storekeeper Andersen.
"I haven't met any one here who has any more sense," said Mrs. Singdahlsen stuffily.
"Humph!" thought I to myself, "if I had to pay for Mrs. Singdahlsen's fright the damages would be pretty heavy."
Just then we swung round the point by the rectory, where Karsten and I were going to land. Uncle's hired boy was waiting for us with a boat. I recognized him from the year before. He is a regular landlubber, brought up away back in a mountain valley, and is mortally afraid when he has to row out to the steamboat. His face was deep red, and he made such hard work of rowing and backing water, and came up to the steamboat so awkwardly, that the captain scolded and blustered from the bridge. At last we got down into the rowboat and were left rocking and rocking in the steamer's wake.
John, the farm boy, mopped his face and neck. He was all used up just from getting a rowboat alongside the steamer!
"Whew, whew! but it's dreadful work," said he.
The rectory harbor lay like a mirror. The island and trees and the bath-house stood on their heads in the clear, glassy water; and between the thick foliage of the trees there was a wide space through which we could see the upper story of the rectory and the top of the flagstaff. It is worth while to go traveling after all. I won't give another thought to that old rag of a five-crown bill.