There lay the long, thin, half-naked Singdahlsen on the deck, with two sailors lifting his arms up and down, Mrs. Singdahlsen on her knees by his side drying his face with a red pocket-handkerchief, the sun shining baking hot on the deck, and the smoke of the steamer floating out far behind us in a big thick streak. At length he showed signs of life and they carried him into the cabin. Then, what do you suppose happened? Mrs. Singdahlsen was angry at me! Wasn't that outrageous? The whole thing was my fault, she said, for if I hadn't lost the five crowns, her son wouldn't have fallen overboard.
"Now you can pay for the doctor and the apothecary, and for my anxiety and fright besides," said Mrs. Singdahlsen. But everybody laughed and said I needn't worry myself about that.
"You said yourself that you had sense enough for two, Mrs. Singdahlsen," said Storekeeper Andersen.
"I haven't met any one here who has any more sense," said Mrs. Singdahlsen stuffily.
"Humph!" thought I to myself, "if I had to pay for Mrs. Singdahlsen's fright the damages would be pretty heavy."
Just then we swung round the point by the rectory, where Karsten and I were going to land. Uncle's hired boy was waiting for us with a boat. I recognized him from the year before. He is a regular landlubber, brought up away back in a mountain valley, and is mortally afraid when he has to row out to the steamboat. His face was deep red, and he made such hard work of rowing and backing water, and came up to the steamboat so awkwardly, that the captain scolded and blustered from the bridge. At last we got down into the rowboat and were left rocking and rocking in the steamer's wake.
John, the farm boy, mopped his face and neck. He was all used up just from getting a rowboat alongside the steamer!
"Whew, whew! but it's dreadful work," said he.
The rectory harbor lay like a mirror. The island and trees and the bath-house stood on their heads in the clear, glassy water; and between the thick foliage of the trees there was a wide space through which we could see the upper story of the rectory and the top of the flagstaff. It is worth while to go traveling after all. I won't give another thought to that old rag of a five-crown bill.