On the hills round about in the town the old people sit among the small houses and look at the blazing fires and think of the days when they were young and had jolly times out on the islands on St. John’s Night.
“Yes, yes!” say the old women, sitting with their hands under their aprons and wagging their heads sideways.
One after another the fires are lighted. “See there!” “And see there!” “And there!” The air is warm and soft and still. The islands are swarming with people who eat cake and drink fruit-juice and laugh and dance and sometimes fight.
The bonfires crackle and flash up against the dark sky and the sparks fly around far and near. Suddenly a piece of board or a charred butter-firkin tumbles down from the fire and the boys make wagers as to which of them can come nearest to the fire without burning himself. Their faces are so black with soot that they look like chimney-sweeps.
O bright, jolly St. John’s Night!
But now you shall hear how we celebrated it once. I shall never forget that celebration, for it ended in terror.
We shouldn’t have thought of having a bonfire if it hadn’t been for Andreas, a boy who came from near Stavanger last spring. His father, Oscar Eisland, works at the wharf in Espeviken, and he and his wife and five children live in a tiny red house on our hill. That is why I know the family so well.
In their house there are two beds, one bench, and one table, and nothing more except newspaper pictures on the walls; pictures of murders, weddings in Russia, kings, and so on.
Although Oscar and his family are surely not rich, I have never seen any people as happy as they are. That is why I like so much to be up there.
Well, it was Andreas who suggested that we children who lived on the hill should have a St. John’s Night bonfire of our very own. Children where he came from did that, he said; and my brother Karsten and I thought it would be awfully good fun.