“Oh that was just because I wanted you to carry the heaviest loads,” said Gustav, with a wink. “I plan to take it easy. Don’t you loaf on the job, boy.”
He smiled and gave a friendly yank at a lock of Arne’s red hair, and the boy felt so happy he ran and jumped nearly all the way home.
It was still broad daylight when Arne tumbled into his feather bed and pulled another feather bed over him for covering. June nights grew cold along the fjord.
It seemed to him he had hardly fallen asleep when his sister Margret was calling, “Get up, lazybones, if you want to come with the rest of us.”
Almost before Arne had finished his breakfast of mush and milk and cheese, he heard a clatter on the upper road behind the house and dashed out.
There they all came, just as he had pictured it. His cousin Bergel ran to meet him, her blue eyes shining. “Can you go, Arne?” she cried, and at his nod, “Oh, good! I like it lots better if you’re along.”
“So do I,” said Arne, and they both laughed.
He adjusted his pack and fell in with Gustav and Uncle Jens and Evart. Margret, flushed and pretty, ran around trying to persuade their two cows and the goats to fall in with the others. Arne would have enjoyed helping her with that, but cows and goats were definitely the province of womenfolk. He knew very well that Margret didn’t want any interference from him. Bergel and Signe came to her aid; and soon the procession was on its way, bells ringing, everyone singing and waving and laughing, while Mother and Father and Besta called out, “A pleasant trip!” “Good luck!” “God be with you!”
The road ran at first along the foot of the mountain. It was a good road, though there were fences across it in many places, marking someone’s land boundary. But each fence had a gate which was opened to let the little cavalcade through, and then carefully closed. Before long they branched off to a road which climbed the mountain ever more steeply and presently turned into a trail. Here they tethered fat little Suri, and the cart’s load was divided among them. The men would have to make more than one trip down to get the rest of the goods.
Arne had been here many times before, and he rushed ahead so fast that Uncle Jens called him a mountain goat and told him not to fall into the fjord if he got to the saeter before the others.