“Aren’t you going home to your dinner?” asked Stiksrud, at last. So of course I had to go.
As soon as I got home I had a suspicion that they knew what I had done. There was a heavy feeling in the air at the dinner table. Everybody was so silent—so silent! I ate all the soup from my plate—something I seldom do. I didn’t believe Father was silent because he knew about the clocks, for he always keeps still at meals; but Mother usually talks, and to-day there wasn’t a word breathed from behind the soup tureen.
After we had finished dinner, the blow came. Mother called me into the pantry.
“Clockmaker Krause’s housekeeper has been up here, Inger Johanne. You have been doing something wrong again, haven’t you?”
“No, Mother—I don’t believe I ruined the clocks—I only—I only shoved the hands around—very quickly, you know——”
“Shoved the hands, you say?”
“Yes—just for fun, Mother—don’t be angry—just so that the clocks should strike again—Krause would be so surprised.”
Mother looked thoughtfully out of the pantry window.
“Well, we shall have to see about finding a way out of all this; perhaps we ought to send you to boarding-school in Germany, for you are really as wild as the worst boy.”
“No, no, Mother. Don’t send me away—I’ll never think of any more mischief—I’ll be so good——”