But what do you think? Somehow, since that time, I don’t feel like going as often as I used to into Mrs. Simonsen’s shop or into the back yard to see Schulze; and I scarcely ever get a bit of molasses-cake dough any more.
I was perfectly disgusted that my splendid joke should have turned out not to be funny at all; but the doll that was baked in a molasses cake and all but swallowed by the Collector of the Port, I still treasure.
XI
MADAM KNOLL’S TORTOISE
Up in the attic of Lindquist, the tailor, lives a comical person, Madam Knoll. She is big and broad and very rheumatic, but she laughs at almost everything, although she can get angry enough, too, as you shall hear.
But my, how Madam Knoll can laugh! She shakes all over and makes scarcely a sound except a couple of hoarse cackles at the last when her breath gives out. It is rather alarming until she catches her breath again and hurries on with her talk just where she left off.
For Madam Knoll can talk, too, I assure you. She says that because she is alone so much, words get all tangled up for her and she forgets how to use speech; but I’ve never noticed this, not yet, at any rate.
“Uf!” says Madam Knoll when I go to see her. “I’ve had no one to speak to all day and I’m perishing for talk; it is good to have you come.”
To tell the truth, I go up there because there is so much to amuse myself with. In the first place, Madam Knoll has a toy shop. Two great wide tables are packed full of all kinds of toys. On the walls hang jumping-jacks and red-cheeked dolls that shine and simper in the sun; and from the ceiling hang small birdcages and brownies and every such thing that can in any way be made to hang from a ceiling. I am allowed to go about and play with anything and everything. I wind up the music-boxes till our ears ring with opera melodies. I wind the tops, too, and get a whole crowd of them spinning on the floor at once. Oh, there is plenty of fun to be had up in Madam Knoll’s attic room, I assure you. And Madam Knoll sits on the little platform beside the window, singing in a quavering voice and sewing on shirts, for she sells them as well as toys.
However, few customers climb the steep stairs up to Madam Knoll’s room. Many days can pass when I am the only customer, and of course, I never buy anything.
Madam Knoll had married a Danish glazier, but the name, Knoll, had always been a thorn in the flesh to her, so, all of her own accord, she began to call herself Madam Hansen, for she thought Hansen an extremely pretty name. On one side of the tailor’s front door there is a green sign with white letters which says: