Just think—if I never got my head out? Or suppose there came a cross dog and bit me while my head was as if nailed fast in the fence! And suppose nobody found me—(for of course nobody would know that I had run up here beyond the chicken-yard)—and perhaps I should have to stay caught in the fence the whole night, when it was dark.
I cried and sobbed, then I called; at last I screamed and roared. I heard the hens in the yard flap their wings and run about wildly, evidently frightened by the noise I made.
Down on the road, people stood still and gazed upward; then of course I shrieked the louder. But no one looked up to the chicken-yard; and even if they had, they couldn't very well see, from so far down, a round brown head sticking through a brown fence. I roared incessantly, and at last I saw a woman start to run up the hill—and then a man started—but they did not see me and soon disappeared among the trees, although I kept on bawling, "Help! I am right here! I am caught in the fence!"
Just then I saw Karsten and Nils Peter come out of Nils Peter's house. They stood a moment as if listening, and naturally they recognized my voice.
Then they started running. If Karsten had raced over there, he certainly raced back again, too.
I kept bawling the whole time: "Here! here! in the fence! I am stuck fast in the fence!" It wasn't many minutes before both Karsten and Nils Peter stood behind me.
"Have you gone altogether crazy?" said Karsten in the greatest astonishment.
I felt a little offended, but there's no use in being offended when you haven't command over your own head, so I said very meekly:
"Ugh! such a nuisance! My head is stuck fast in here. Can't you help me?"
Would you believe it? They didn't laugh a bit—awfully kind, I call that—they just hauled and pulled me as hard as they could; it fairly scraped the skin off behind my ears and I thought I should be scalped if they kept on.