"You—when you're knock-kneed!—you would look nice, Inger Johanne, you would."
"You look after your own knees, Karsten, I'm going to be a circus-rider, all the same, I really am."
"Oh, what bosh!"
"Well, you'll see; when the circus-riders go I'm going with them. You mustn't tell a soul, Karsten, but a circus-rider is what I'm going to be."
Karsten looked at me rather doubtfully.
"But you must help me to get into the barn through that hole at the back, for I shall have to practice, you understand."
"Well, will you give me that red-and-blue pencil of yours then?"
"Oh, yes, only come along."
We stole behind the barn. Karsten kept hold of me while I climbed up—there, now I was in the barn. How it looked! When twelve horses must stand in five stalls, there isn't much room left, you know, and they had been put every which way,—one pony stood in the calf-pen.
All the horses except two were lying down resting. The white horse over by the window was standing up; he turned around and looked at me with big sorrowful eyes. It had really been my plan to get on him, for he was the handsomest of them all, but I didn't dare to venture among the big shining bodies of the horses lying all over the floor. No, I should have to be satisfied with the little black one that stood in the calf-pen. Karsten had thrust the upper part of his body in through the hole. I went up to the black horse.