The Author's Home in Tromso
Tromso in Summer-time
With the assistance of the rest of the party we were finally unravelled. I arose only to repeat the performance, not with the same resultant intimacy and proximity as in my first experience, however, for the young women arranged to keep at a certain distance and I was allowed to navigate by myself. My courage was not much slackened by the first unhappy incident, for I tackled each hill as it came, although I knew that I should come to grief in the shape of a tangled mass at the bottom. I made a jolly good fool of myself, I know, and at each attempt swept everything before me, dragging down Norwegian widows, massage artists, fishermen's daughters—and all within arms' reach as I swooped by. This performance continued until we arrived at the cabin.
Soon we were all refreshed by coffee and sandwiches which the girls prepared and we sat around the big log fire singing and smoking. Everybody smoked, women and all, for it is a common thing for the fair sex to use cigarettes in Norway. I dreaded to see the time approach for us to depart, for I knew that our return home would be a repetition of our eventful journey to the cabin. It was two o'clock in the morning and the sun was rising on the distant horizon—and I thought I might show signs of improvement when assisted by daylight. We started back, the leaders of the party very judiciously selecting a course which was not so hilly and which portended a more peaceful journey. It is a rather simple matter to glide along on the level, and the way we returned didn't prove nearly so disastrous as the way we came. I managed to conduct myself fairly well, for the time being.
When we reached the edge of the town, where the hard packed road which led down hill to the main street begins, we all took off our ski and converted them into small sleds by sitting on them and riding into the village. I decided to try this new method. We all strung out at intervals of about twenty feet and started from the summit on a mile shoot into the heart of the town. I managed to begin all right. I had only gone a few yards, however, when the ski beneath me became unmanageable and I could not steer them. We had all acquired a terrific speed. I was sandwiched in between two young women, one sliding a few feet in front of me and the other several paces in the rear, I reached a curve in the road! I lost my ski and continued sliding down the cold and hard road on the seat of my trousers. The next minute over I turned and grabbed the first object with which I came in contact. It was the girl behind me who had overtaken me. I clung to her like a leech and the two of us rolled over for several yards and finally landed in a heap on the side of the road. Another intimate pile. She had lost her ski; her skirts were clustered around her neck; my hat had disappeared—and we lay in the gutter like two pairs of scissors. My feminine associate had her feet extended towards the summit of the hill and mine were pointing towards the town below. We unwound. I got up and assisted her to her feet. We walked the rest of the way to the village.
To be the cause of so much human wreckage was enough to discourage me. However, I made up my mind to persist, for ski-ing was the only outdoor sport in this part of the world. One of the young women condoled with me when she learned that ski-ing was not in vogue in my country, for she thought it was a pity that we had no outdoor sports. During two-thirds of the year there is not a wheeled vehicle to be seen in Tromso, all transportation being conducted on sleds and the majority of the inhabitants spending much of their time on ski. Even the five-year-olds are expert at this method of locomotion. I, therefore, decided to learn, in spite of all my reverses, and in a few weeks became so proficient that I welcomed hills and often complained because they were not steep enough.