“Andrea! Andrea!” we shouted. We were almost crying, the relief was so great.
Five minutes after, we were in her boat and then we did cry, cried as if we had been whipped. Andrea knew nothing one way or another, but it was plain that she believed Singdahlsen was wholly to blame.
While rowing us home, she told us that he was in her care for board and lodging; and that when she went to town with fish, she put him on the yacht so that he should not do any mischief while she was gone.
You may well believe that Louisa’s grandfather wasn’t at all pleasant to meet when we went back without his rowboat. However, a pilot from Krabbesund found it and brought it home the next day; so Grandfather didn’t have to worry long.
X
A MOLASSES CAKE STORY
Every one in our town says that Mrs. Simonsen’s molasses cakes are the best in the world,—they are so thick and soft and extraordinarily tasty. Mrs. Simonsen doesn’t make them herself,—Heinrich Schulze, the head baker, does that. How in the world could she ever have learned to make such good cakes? But she stands behind the counter in her shop and sells them every single day.
Mrs. Simonsen came from Telemarken. When I was a little bit of a girl she was the servant in Madam Land’s house, at the foot of our hill. At that time she was Sigrid—something or other—some queer surname that I’ve forgotten. She had azure-blue eyes and golden hair that lay in small curly waves just as if she didn’t do a thing all day in Madam Land’s kitchen but crimp her hair! Sigrid married the baker Simonsen, and he died; and ever since then Heinrich Schulze has been the head baker.
Although I had known Madam Simonsen such a long time there was no use in going into her shop without money, you may be sure; but whenever I have money, I go there and buy molasses cakes. If I have no money I go in the back way through the gate and beg from Heinrich Schulze. As a matter of fact, I go oftenest the back way.
I can always find him in the yard there. He is usually hurrying to and fro between the shop and the bakery, and often the molasses cake dough hangs over his shoulder like a long sausage. Schulze says that good molasses cake dough should be so tough that it will hang over one’s shoulder without breaking. Some people think it is disgusting for him to carry the dough that way, but I don’t. I even eat it raw, right from his shoulder, very often.
For Schulze and I are great friends, let me tell you. He is German, rather old and small, has black eyes and is very wide-awake, and quick in his motions.