The little platform over in the corner, where the heavy old baby-carriage stands and old boxes and all the other rubbish, is the most magnificent stage any one could wish; and the long, narrow woodshed is a fine place for the spectators. There is also a dressing-room for the actors in the old carriage-house. True, you have to creep through a hole rather high up in the wall to get in there from the woodshed, but that is a small matter. What is worse is that a box of red ochre stands right under the hole and there’s always danger of falling into it. Except for that the carriage-house is a capital dressing-room.
There are no windows in the woodshed. When we shut the door, the only light is what comes through cracks and holes and sifts down between the tiles in the roof; but there are so many cracks and openings that there is more than enough light, anyway.
All the year round, Otto, the woodcutter, stands in the woodshed with sawdust in his hair and chops and saws with his rough purplish hands.
I often sit on a chopping-block near him and tell him fairy tales that I invent myself. Little reward do I get for my trouble, for Otto says never a word about my stories, though I make them as exciting as ever I can.
Well, once we girls decided that we would act a play.
“Warburg’s Company” had just been in town and played “Cousin Lottie” and “Adventures on a Walking Tour.” We had had free tickets every evening and I had sat in the front row and been in the seventh heaven of ecstasy.
Oh, you should have seen Warburg! Such eyes! Such a beautiful nose! And he spoke so charmingly! All the girls in our class went to the wharf to see him off when he left town, and Karen Jensen cried because she would not see him any more. She will not own up now that she cried, but I distinctly saw tears shining in her eyes.
It was when we went home from the wharf that time, that we decided we would act a play. There were Massa, Mina, Karen, Lolla, and I. We should need Karsten, but not any of the other boys,—they are all so disgusting nowadays. They whistle through keys and laugh and whisper when we go past them, and I call such behavior disgusting.
But we must have Karsten, because he sings so charmingly. His voice is so clear, so clear! When he sings:
“Ja, vi elsker dette landet,”[4]