"He would like to be alone on the mountain, he would! And yet he tumbles over in fright at a ptarmigan!"
"If you can stand like a lamp-post in a cart that wobbles the way this rickety old cart does, I'll cover you with gold," said Karsten, offended.
That's the way we kept on. We quarreled and had a jolly time.
All at once a flock of goats came scrambling down the road as scared as if their lives were in danger. And we all wished that we might see a bear. Can you think of anything more exciting than to meet a bear on the road?
Petter Kloed would just go very quietly to him and scratch his back. He had done that a hundred times in the menagerie, he said. For if you just approached a bear in the right way it was a very good-natured beast, said Petter Kloed, as he lit a cigarette back there in the cart.
Karsten would rather wrestle with the bear and strangle him; for if any one wanted to see a muscle that was a stunner, they could just look here; and Karsten turned up his jacket sleeves while we all examined his muscle.
The road was unspeakably long, however. The horse jogged on and on but we didn't seem to get a bit farther. After we had eaten all the luncheon, I thought that never in the world would this road come to an end. When we asked Olsen how much farther we had to go, he would only say, "Far away there—and far away there." All I could think of was the fairy tale about the prince who had to go beyond the mountain into the blue. Andrine got drowsy and wanted to sleep, and I had to take Karsten in front with us; for, strangely enough, the longer we rode the less room there was for Karsten's and Petter's legs in the back of the wagon. At last they did nothing but kick each other, so Karsten had to come in front and Petter could sit in lonely grandeur on the wooden lunch-box.
Finally we came in sight of the water that we had to cross. It was a large lake, black and still.
"Hurrah! You must wake up now, Andrine!"
There lay the boat we were to row over in, and there was the enclosure where the horse was to be left. Oh, how good it was to stretch one's legs after sitting so long!