I had no wish to explain to him.
"Oh, never mind that! Just run and get the key, do please, Jens." Then Jens trudged away.
Oh, how long he was gone! I stared and stared at the lilac bushes swaying back and forth before the window, twisting and bending low in the storm, and I waited and waited, but no Jens appeared. It grew darker and darker and Karl cried in earnest now, and wanted to smash all the windows with the clasped book. The only thing that gave me comfort was Jens' tin pail. It lay on the ground shining through the dark. I reasoned that Jens was sure to come back to get his pail. Finally I heard footsteps and voices, a key was put in the lock, and there at the open door stood the deacon, Jens, and the deacon's eight children.
"Who is this disturbing the peace of the church?" asked the deacon with the corners of his mouth drawn down.
"I haven't disturbed anything," said I. "I only want to get out."
"There must be an explanation of this," said the deacon. "I have no orders to open the church at this time of the day."
I began to be afraid that the door would be shut again!
"Oh, but you will let me out!" said I pleadingly.
"Ah, in consideration of the circumstances," said the deacon. I did not wait to hear more, but squeezed myself and Karl out and through the deacon's flock of children.
Since that day when I meet old Jens, he bows to me in a very knowing way; and if I want to tease him I say, "Weren't you the 'fraid-cat that time I called to you from the church?"