Finally we started.
Whenever I go down on the wharf to watch the steamboat, it seems to me almost as if it were always the same people traveling. But to-day there were a whole lot of different kinds of people.
The first person I noticed was a tall old lady who had a footstool with her. Think of traveling with a yellow wooden footstool! If she had only sat still,—but she and the footstool were constantly on the go. At last she must have thought that I looked exactly cut out to carry the stool for her.
"Little girl," she said, "you're a good girl, aren't you, and will help me a little?" After that I couldn't go anywhere near her without there being something I must do for her. The worst was hunting for a parasol that she couldn't find.
"There is lace over the weak place in it, my dear," said she. After this instruction I did find it. Then she offered me some candy, but it looked so gummy that I gave it to Karsten. I saw that he had to chew it well.
Mother had met a childhood friend and they sat talking together incessantly. Just think, it was twenty-two years since they had seen each other. How queer it would be to see my best friend Mina again in twenty-two years, with some of her teeth gone and a double-chin.
For a wonder Karsten sat perfectly still by Mother's side with his hands deep in the pockets of his new coat; and he didn't open his mouth; but I ran about the whole time. I wasn't still an instant.
Off by herself on a bench sat a fat woman wrapped in a shawl, with a big covered basket which she dipped down into every other minute. Both sausage and fancy cakes came up out of the basket. She looked at me as if she would like to offer me something, and munched and munched.
Before long I went down below. When you were in the saloon the boat shook delightfully; the big white lamps that hung from the ceiling rattled and jingled, and there was such a charming steamboat smell. Everywhere on the reddish-brown plush sofas, ladies and gentlemen with steamer-rugs over them lay drowsing. I took a newspaper, for it looked grown-up to sit reading; but I didn't want to read the paper, after all, so I went straight up on deck again.
But the weather had changed! It was not anything like so bright as when we started. There were already little white-capped waves, and the wind whistled across the deck; and now the ship began to plunge enough to suit me.