There were eight mothers and eleven children and five teachers at Goodfields that summer. I can't describe them, it would take too long; besides all grown up women are alike, it seems to me. There were only two big children of my age at Goodfields, Petter Kloed and Andrine Voss. Petter Kloed was very elegant; only think, he wore yellow gloves way off there in the country. And what he liked best in the world was ice-cream and champagne. Never in my life had I tasted either ice-cream or champagne, but I didn't say so, for that would be awkward. And then Petter Kloed was not really nice to his mother, I think, and that was a great shame, for Mrs. Kloed doted on him, and would give him anything if he only looked at it.
Andrine Voss was hardly pretty at all, but she had awfully long eyelashes and when she half shut her eyes she looked very mysterious. But she only looked so, she wasn't the least bit mysterious, for she was my best friend and did everything I wanted her to the whole summer.
We have decided that she shall marry a county judge, and I a doctor, but we will live in the same house and have just the same number of children. And we are going to be friends all our lives.
The other children who were at Goodfields that summer were just little ones, some roly-polys and some thin, pale, little things who were dressed in laces and took malt extract, and had legs no bigger than drumsticks.
One Sunday we went to church. Four fat horses and four wagons started from Goodfields with the churchgoers.
It was so peaceful and so beautiful; down on the fjord one boat after another set out from the opposite side bringing people to church; the boats left a broad streak behind them in the calm, smooth water.
We drove past little groups of peasants—women and girls with white linen head-dresses, and men in shirt-sleeves with their jackets over their arms, for the sun was roasting hot on the open roads. "Good cheer," they all greeted us with, and when we had passed I heard them whisper to each other: "They are the summer folk from Goodfields."
More and more people gathered along the quiet roads; and there on a height stood the church,—a white wooden church with a low tower, and a church-bell which rang with a cracked sound out over the leafy forest and the fields and the still water.
The horses were tied in a long row on the other side of the road, and the boys and men stood leaning against the stone wall around the churchyard, but the women were farther in among the graves. They all exchanged greetings, shaking hands loosely, standing well away from each other. "Thanks for our last meeting," they said, looking quickly away. It was so queer. People don't do like that in town.
They sang without an organ, and it sounded so innocent, somehow, and the church door stood wide open to the sunshine. But what do you think happened? In came a goat right in the midst of the hymn.