In such weather the damaged ships come in. One autumn there came a Spanish steamship, with a green funnel and a white hull. It lay with almost its whole stern under water when the pilot from Krabbesund brought it in. That was jolly; not for the people on board,—it was anything but jolly for them,—but for us children.
When we choose, we go out into the harbor in boats and row round and round among the strange ships. At last, very likely, the sailors call out to us and ask us to come on board, and then it doesn't take us long to scramble up the ladder, you may be sure! On board, it is awfully jolly. Once a French skipper gave us some pineapple preserves; but generally we only get crackers. When the Spanish ship was in, the streets swarmed with foreign sailors, with long brown necks and burning black eyes. Then the old policeman, Mr. Weiby, strutted about, and sent Father long written reports about street rows and disturbances. The Spaniards didn't bother themselves a mite about old Weiby, puffing around with his chin high in the air!
Sometimes on summer afternoons when the water lies calm and shining, we slip off and borrow a boat (Mr. Terkelsen's, quite often) and go rowing around the island. Then, afterwards, we float about,—dabbling and splashing in the darkened water until evening comes on. Ah! that is pleasure!
An Adventure
One summer evening Massa Peckell, Mina Trap and I saved two people from drowning; and we were praised for it in the newspapers. Really it is most delightful to see your name in print! I should like ever so much to do something else that the papers would praise me for, but I don't know what it could be!
This is how it happened that time. We had borrowed old Terkelsen's boat and rowed quite a way out. From a wharf on one of the islands another boat laden with wood came towards us. The wood was in slabs and chips and was piled high fore and aft. Down between the piles sat two children rowing. As they came nearer we saw that it was Lisa and George, the lighthouse-keeper's children. Mina and I were rowing, but I was so much stronger that I kept rowing her round and round, so that we were laughing and having a jolly time. Probably George and Lisa were watching us and forgetting all about their top-heavy boat; for, the next thing we knew, both piles of wood, George and Lisa, and the boat were all upset in the water. It was a dreadful thing to see!
"We—we'll go ashore and get help!" shrieked Massa. Humph! A pretty time they would have if we did that! Mina and I had more sense, so we turned our boat quickly and were over to the spot in two or three strokes of the oars. The boat was completely capsized and the chips floated over the water as thick as a floor. But George and Lisa were nowhere to be seen!
Then you may believe that Mina and I yelled with all our might! You know how it sounds over the water. My! how we did shriek! It must have been heard all over town. I saw people away back on the wharves running to the water to see what was the matter.
Then, there bobbed Lisa's head up among the chips, and Mina and I hauled her up by the arms into the boat. Massa had to hang away over on the starboard so that our boat shouldn't upset, too. Old Terkelsen is always so mad when we take his boat without leave. I can't imagine, for the life of me, why he should get so provoked over it. We always bring it back just as good as ever! Massa and Mina and I have no desire, forsooth, to set out to sea through the Skagerak and sail away with it! But on that day it was fortunate that we had taken his boat, and not some miserable little thing belonging to anybody else.
As soon as Lisa got her breath, she cried out: "Oh! the chips! the chips!" But just then George's head appeared, and Mina and I made a grab for him; but he was so stupidly heavy that we couldn't pull him in; so we only held him fast and screamed and screamed. Out from the wharves and from the islands came ever so many boats and lots of people. Those minutes that we hung over the edge of that boat and held on with all our might to the half-drowned George, who was as heavy as lead—shall I ever forget? George was drawn up into another boat and they took us in tow. Lisa sat like a drowned rat and cried till she choked. Then Massa began to cry, too;—and so we came to the wharf.