"Surely, Katrina," I said, "it cannot be harder than the Frithiof's Saga, of which you have read me so much."
"Dat is very different," was all I could extract from her. I think that she felt a certain pride in not having her own stanzas fail of true appreciation owing to their being put in broken English. At last, however, I got it. She had been hard at work a whole forenoon in her room with her dictionary and pencil. In the afternoon she came to me, holding several sheets of much-scribbled brown paper in her hand, and said shyly, "Now I can read it." I wrote it down as she read it, only in one or two instances helping her with a word, and here it is:—
SONG ON MY DEPARTURE FROM BERGEN FOR AMERICA.
The time of departure is near,
And I am no more in my home;
But, God, be thou my protector.
I don't know how it will go,
Out on the big ocean,
From my father and mother;
I don't know for sure where at last