Angemal Terkelsen threw himself on his stomach on a sled—he always wants to be so bold—and Jens Stub sat astride his back.
Peter, the dean’s son, started off with his flat red sled. It was made in the country and goes so slowly that the other boys call it the “Snail.” Then Peter gets offended, for he is the kind of boy who never gets angry, but only offended.
But in the midst of all the fun and hurrahing, I began to hear a pitiful sound of crying. When I looked about, I found it came from the little boy with the kerchief on his head, the child I had noticed dragging a stick of wood by a string. It was Tollef, our washerwoman’s little boy.
A snowball had hit him in the eye, he had lost his stick of wood, and he was crying and crying. He knocked on the door of a little house, but his mother had gone out and the door was locked.
In the house next to the one outside of which Tollef stood crying, lived a man whom the whole town called Jack-of-all-trades, because he fixed lamps, soldered old teakettles, and mended all sorts of things. He was a little, grimy man and was now standing out on his front steps.
“Will you take away even this little bit of pleasure from the poor folks’ children?” asked Jack-of-all-trades. He looked at our boys laughing and shouting as they coasted down the long hill. His black eyes flashed and I came pretty near being afraid of him as I stood there. And all at once it struck me what a shame it was and what a horrid, mean thing we had done when we drove those poverty-stricken children from that hill of theirs. I rushed to the snowball box, tipped it over and trampled what snowballs there were left into the snow with all my might.
I remember that I began to cry when I got home; I told Mother that my knee pained me from the knock it got when I coasted on the box, and that was true; but really my crying was more because of what Jack-of-all-trades had said, and because we had spoiled the fun of poor little bow-legged Tollef.
However, the Tangen boys got their hill back again before long, you may be sure of that! And I’m glad to say that our boys have let them alone ever since.
XVIII
A CHRISTMAS VISIT
A few days before Christmas, whether because Mother was sick or for some other reason, it was decided that Karsten and I should be sent to the Parsonage for a short visit. Peter Olsen, from Uncle’s parish, was just then in town, so a message was sent to him, asking if he would take us with him in his sleigh. All waters were frozen, even the fjord, so we could drive the whole distance.