Well! There we had to sit, five of us in a row, as stiff as posts the whole long afternoon. Ugh! how angry I was at Great-Aunt.
The next day there was service in the church again, and the two deacons tried as hard as ever to out-sing each other; but Uncle did not invite any one home to dinner. I suppose he didn’t wish to displease Great-Aunt again.
“There now! To-day he might have invited half the town,” said Great-Aunt, “for to-day I have plenty of food.”
It rained and it rained. What in the world should Karsten and I do? Slide down the banisters we mustn’t, swing in the woodshed we mustn’t; but to lay a board across the chopping block and play seesaw, surely there could be no harm in that.
We found a board and seesawed up and down, up and down, until Nella, the parlor maid, came out with the message that we were to stop. We might pinch our fingers, Great-Aunt thought!
“Well, let’s go and jump in the hay in the barn,” suggested Karsten. “That’s awfully good fun.”
I had just got Karsten in the hay under me and heaped so much hay on top of him that he could scarcely breathe, when we heard Aunt Magda’s sweet, gentle voice from the barn door.
“Oh, you dear, dear children! Don’t do that! Great-Aunt says that you might lose a pin in the hay that a cow would eat, and the pin might stick in her insides. Come, dears, be good children and don’t play in the hay any more.”
“Oh, no, Aunt Magda! Don’t say that. Just come and see what fun it is. I haven’t a single pin about me, Aunt Magda.”
“Well, but you might lose a button, Great-Aunt says, and a cow might get it in her throat and choke on it; so come now, like good children.”