And then Lisbeth Longfrock fell asleep.
The next day, with the lunch bag upon her back, Lisbeth Longfrock set out for a forest that lay not far off, taking the sheep and goats with her. She had not succeeded in getting Crookhorn to go along, however. The self-willed goat had taken the shortest cut up to the north meadow, where the cows were again pastured.
Lisbeth's second working day, like her first, seemed a very long one, for the forest was wonderfully lonesome and still. The little girl had time to think of many, many things,—of her mother and Jacob and Peerout Castle; and it must be acknowledged that she cried a wee bit, too.
CHAPTER V
SUMMER: TAKING THE ANIMALS UP TO THE SÆTER
Upward over the open slope across the valley from Hoel Farm a lengthy procession was taking its way.
Kjersti Hoel stood at the window of her room, following the procession with her eyes as long as she could, for soon it would vanish from the open slope into the wooded part of the mountain. The herds belonging to Hoel Farm were that day being taken up to the sæter,[8 ] to spend the summer grazing on the rich grass which grows in sunny spaces here and there on the mountain heights.
At the head of the procession rode the milkmaid on the military horse,[9 ] which for this occasion had a woman's saddle upon its back. The saddle had a high frame, so that it looked almost like an easy-chair; and the milkmaid sitting aloft on it, dressed in her best, and with a white linen kerchief on her head, was rosy, plump, and also somewhat self-conscious, for was not she the most important person in the company, the one who was to give all the commands?