Karsten had been so desperately bored the afternoon before that he had put up a swing in the loft. As I called him I saw his face up there in the dusty green window. The second after, he was down in the yard, and we were both off for the hilltop. The one single tool that we have to work with is a little old trough which we use for dipping up water when we need to.
Oh! such a summer day as it was up on that hilltop! with the sun sparkling on the wet purple heather, on the blueberries and red whortleberries and great wavy ferns covered with pearly water-drops! But Karsten and I had something else to do, I can assure you, than to look at all this beauty. For to-day we were going to make Niagara Falls! We had water enough.
O my! how Karsten and I slaved that morning! We made an entirely new watercourse so that we had ever so much more water for the pond. And then the pond itself had to be made better and bigger. It was ready to overflow any minute,—it was so full. Karsten slipped in twice and got wet way above his knees. My! how we laughed!
It seemed as if there was always a little tuft of moss to stuff in or a stone to lay in better position, in order to make the pond really tight and firm; but at last we had it finished.
But now there was no one at hand, not a single person, to admire the glorious sight of the waterfall, and I didn't want to have all our hard work go for nothing. Karsten wanted to let the waterfall loose anyway, but I wouldn't do it, and we had almost got into a quarrel when, as good luck would have it, Thora Heja came trudging along across the hilltop. Thora Heja is an old peasant woman who used to work in the fields but now goes round getting her living by drowning cats and cutting hens' heads off for people.
"Thora Heja, where are you going?" I called out.
"Oh! I am going down to attend to two hens at the sexton's," shouted Thora across to us.
"Wait a little and you shall see Niagara Falls!"
"See what?"
"Wait a little and you shall see something wonderful!"