On Saturday, after prayers, the Principal said:
"There is a little girl here who is soon to leave us. It is Inger Johanne, as we all know. We shall miss you, Inger Johanne. You are a good girl in spite of all your pranks. May everything go well with you. God bless you."
This was terribly unexpected. Oh, what a beautiful speech—I began to cry—oh, how I cried! The very moment the Principal said: "There is a little girl here who is soon to leave us," everything seemed perfectly horrid all at once.
Just think, to leave the school and my friends, and the town, and everything, and never, never come back!
I laid my head down on the desk and cried, and cried, and couldn't stop. I had thought only of all the new things I was going to, and not that I should never in the world live here again,—here where I had been so happy.
O dear! if we were only not going, if we were just to stay here all our lives. At last the Principal came down and patted me on the head, and then I cried all the more.
When I got home they could hardly see my eyes, I had cried so.
"Now you see, Inger Johanne, it's not all pleasure, either," said Mother.
The last day, I ran up on the hill, and said good-bye to all the places where we used to play, to Rome and Japan, to Kongsberg and the North Cape,—for we had given names to some of them.
"Good-bye!" I shouted across the rocks and the heather and the juniper, "Good-bye!" I ran and ran, for I wanted to see all the places where we had played, before I went away forever. At home, on the outside wall of our old house, I wrote in pencil, "Good-bye, my beloved home!"