Oh yes—that time——
In reality, this story isn’t much to my credit, but you shall hear it nevertheless.
You ought to see how many queer persons there are in our town. I mean persons who are not exactly right in their minds, but who are allowed to go about because they never do any harm. I used to think it was great fun to run after them and tease them, but I never do that any more; and the reason I do not is just what I am going to tell you about.
Well, Mrs. Lennertsen is one of these queer persons. She is awfully dressy, wears a French shawl that trails on the ground and carries a blue silk parasol with a jointed handle so that it can be turned at different angles. When any one greets her, she stands stockstill and makes a grand curtsey such as we learn at dancing-school. She is so old that there are criss-cross wrinkles all over her face.
With every single ship that comes in Mrs. Lennertsen expects seven barrels of gold, neither more nor less. Under her shawl she carries a whip and is not at all slow in bringing it out to use if any one teases her; and she is awfully comical then. But I never tease her any more, I really don’t.
Well, then there is Jens Julsen, with a humpy nose such as the ancient kings of Oldenborg had. He wears a worn-out silk hat and sings songs, one after the other, incessantly. After each song he says, “Finis,” and immediately starts a new one.
But never mind about Jens Julsen now. Evan “Henny-Penny” (I don’t know his real last name) is the one this story is about. He is small and rosy-cheeked and wears a gray coat that reaches down to his shoes; and he carries a big staff that is much longer than himself. It is really a big, stout fence rail, and you can understand what a long way he can reach and hit with that. He was once a school-teacher, but now he lives at the old yellow poorhouse, although he usually spends the whole day on the wharf. There is no one that all of us children have been so horrid to as to Evan Henny-Penny.
Whenever he showed himself at the street corner we were after him, shouting, teasing, and snatching at his coat. The rough boys from the Point may have treated him shamefully, but among the children in our part of the town, I believe I was the worst.
Every single day I thought of some new way to tease him. Of course, at that time, it seemed mighty good fun; now it makes me loathe myself to think how I plagued him, for if it had not been for that queer little Evan——
It was one afternoon in October. The weather was just the kind that I like so much, a strong gale blowing from the sea, high tide washing over the wharf, and a rumbling, roaring sound like thunder in the air. The big ash-trees near the church writhed and creaked and groaned; the weather-vane turned round and round, squeaking every minute. All that blowing and stir and noise everywhere suits me exactly. I just love it.