For several days after the rescue I couldn't go into the street without people's stopping me and wanting a full account of how it all happened. Really, it is quite troublesome to be famous; but I like it pretty well, nevertheless.
When Mina and I met that stout, lighthouse-Lisa on the street next time, we couldn't imagine how we had ever been able to drag her into the boat! But you mustn't expect gratitude in this world. Many a time since then has Lisa come tiptoeing along after us on the street, tossing her head this way and that, mimicking us, to show how self-important we are! And that after we saved the stupid creature from drowning!
Our Home
We live up on a hill in a lovely old house. People call it an old rattletrap of a house, but that is nothing but envy because they don't live there themselves. There are big old elm-trees around the house which shade it and make the back part of the deep rooms quite dark. The rafters show overhead, and the floors rock up and down when you walk hard on them, just because they are so old. There is one place in the parlor floor where it rocks especially. When no one is in there except Karsten and myself, we often tramp with all our might where the floor rocks most, for we want dreadfully to see whether we can't break through into the cellar.
There are several gardens belonging to our house. One big garden has only plum-trees with slender trunks and a little cluster of branches and leaves high, high up. When I walk down there under the plum-trees, I often imagine that I am down in the tropics, wandering under palm-trees. I have a garden of my own, too. I wouldn't have mentioned it particularly if there weren't one remarkable fact about it. Really and truly, nothing will grow in it but that dark blue toad-flax—you know what that is. Every single spring I buy seeds with my pocket money, and plant and water and take care of them, but when summer comes there is nothing in the garden but great big toad-flax stalks all gone to seed. It is awfully tiresome, especially when they have such a horrid name.
Playmates
Now I think it is time to describe all of us boys and girls who play together, and whom I am going to tell about in my book.
There is Peter, the dean's son, with his sleepy brown eyes and freckles as big as barleycorns. Peter is a cowardly chap. He never has any opinion of his own. And if he had one he would never dare to stand by it if you contradicted him. He's terribly afraid of the cold, too, and goes about with a scarf wound around his neck, and mittens if a single snowflake falls. Still, Peter is very nice indeed; he does everything that I want him to.
Then there is my brother Karsten, but I've told you about him. He is a little younger than the rest of us.
Another boy is Ezekiel Weiby. He is fourteen years old and has an awfully narrow face—not much broader than a ruler. He is very clever and reads every sort of book. But when he is out with the rest of us, he wants us all to sit still and hear him tell about everything he has been reading. For a while that is very pleasant, but I get tired of it pretty soon, for I hate to sit still long at a time. That is a very funny thing. Other people get tired of walking or running about, but I can't stand it to sit still.