That is the way Karsten would go on, and Great-Aunt was tremendously amused by it.
But now I must tell you how things went during Christmas tide.
The whole place was in perfect order, freshly cleaned from cellar to attic, shining and beautiful. When we came down-stairs in the morning, the regular Christmas Eve dinner was already under way. I sat on the kitchen bench and ate various Christmas goodies.
Later, I went to the barn and stable and to see the pigs and the poultry.
When evening came, it wasn’t as cosy and delightful as Christmas Eve at home always is, but it wasn’t so bad, after all. Karsten never behaves himself anything extra when he is away from home, and he didn’t this time. First, he slept while Uncle preached, and nodded so that he nearly fell off his chair several times. Then he was sick in the night because he had eaten too much, as he has done every single Christmas as far back as I can remember.
Uncle gave me a gold-piece,—an English sovereign. Aunt Magda gave me a religious book in red binding and with gilt edges that will look very bright and handsome in my bookcase; and Great-Aunt gave me a charming little brooch of silver filigree.
It was really a pleasant Christmas Eve, after all; but when I had gone to bed, I lay awake and thought of Mother, and at last I couldn’t help crying. I smothered my crying in the blankets, however, so that Karsten should not hear, for if he heard me crying, he would begin; and he roars so when he cries that he would have aroused the whole house.
Well, what do you think? On Christmas morning it rained! Yes, a fine drizzling rain with fog out over the sea and up on the hill. When the church bells rang, they sounded like big muffled cow-bells through the fog. From the shore came the church folk, walking slowly in large groups. They did not go into the church but stood out in the drizzling rain, by the door or by the stone wall of the churchyard, waiting for the minister to go in first.
Uncle in his cassock was walking up and down the living-room floor talking with the deacon. The deacon was a big, fat man in a frock coat that was too narrow for him and pinched at the armholes. Everything about Deacon Vebjornsen was unusually large—except his frock coat. His mouth was big, his smile was big and his neck was very, very big.
“Well, well!” said Uncle.