Glimpses of Three Coasts

by Helen Hunt Jackson

"There is your Gertrude bird, Katrina," said I. She looked bewildered. "The woman that Christ punished," I said, "and turned her into the Gertrude bird; do you not know the old story?" No, she had never heard it. She listened with wide-open eyes while I told her the old Norwegian legend, which it was strange that I knew and she did not,—how Christ and Peter, stopping one day at the door of a woman who was kneading her bread, asked her for a piece. She broke a piece for them; but as she was rolling it out, it grew under her roller till it filled her table. She laid it aside, saying it was too large, broke off another piece, rolled it out with the same result; it grew larger every moment. She laid that aside, and took a third bit, the smallest she could possibly break off: the same result; that too grew under her roller till it covered the table. Then her heart was entirely hardened, and she laid this third piece on one side, saying, "Go your ways, I cannot spare you any bread to-day." Then Christ was angry, and opened her eyes to see who he was. She fell on her knees, and implored his forgiveness; but he said, "No. You shall henceforth seek your bread from day to day, between the wood and the bark." And he changed her into a bird,—the Gertrude bird, or woodpecker. The legend runs, however, that, relenting, the Lord said that when the plumage of the bird should become entirely black, her punishment should be at an end. The Gertrude bird grows darker and darker every year, and when it is old, has no white to be seen in its plumage. When the white has all disappeared, then the Lord Christ takes it for his own, so the legend says; and no Norwegian will ever injure a Gertrude bird, because he believes it to be under God's protection, doing this penance.

"Is dat true?" asked Katrina, seriously. "Dat must have been when de Lord was going about on dis earth; ven he was ghost. I never hear dat."

I tried to explain to her the idea of a fable.

"Fable," she said, "fable,—dat is to teach people to be giving ven dey got, and not send peoples away vidout notings. Dat's what I see, many times I see. But I do not see dat de peoples dat is all for saving all dey got, gets any richer. I tink if you give all the time to dem dat is poorer, dat is de way to be richer. Dere is always some vat is poorer."

In the cosey little sitting-room of her white cottage, the farmer's wife gave us a lunch which would not have been any shame to any lady's table,—scrambled eggs, bread, rusks, milk, and a queer sort of election cake, with raisins but no sugar. This Katrina eyed with the greed of a child; watched to see if I liked it, and exclaimed, "We only get dat once a year, at Christmas time." Seeing that I left a large piece on my plate, she finally said, "Do you tink it would be shame if I take dat home? It is too good to be leaved." With great glee, on my first word of permission, she crammed it into her omnivorous pocket, which already held a dozen or more green apples that she had persisted in picking up by the roadside as we came.

As we drove down the mountain, the glimpses here and there, between the trees, of the fjord and islands were even more beautiful than the great panorama seen from the top. Little children ran out to open gates for us, and made their pretty Norwegian courtesies, with smiles of gratitude for a penny. We met scores of peasant women going out to their homes, bearing all sorts of burdens swung from a yoke laid across their shoulders. The thing that a Norwegian cannot contrive to swing from one side or the other of his shoulder-yoke must be very big indeed. The yokes seem equally adapted to everything, from a butter-firkin to a silk handkerchief full of cabbages. Weights which would be far too heavy to carry in any other way the peasants take in this, and trot along between their swinging loads at as round a pace as if they had nothing to carry. We drove a roundabout way to our hotel, to enable Katrina to see an old teacher of hers; through street after street of monotonous stucco-walled houses, each with a big open door, a covered way leading into a court behind, and glimpses of clothes-lines, or other walls and doorways, or green yards, beyond. Two thirds of the houses in Christiania are on this plan; the families live in flats, or parts of flats. Sometimes there are eight or ten brass bell-handles, one above another, on the side of one of these big doorways, each door-bell marking a family. The teacher lived in a respectable but plain house of this kind,—she and her sister; they had taught Katrina in Bergen when she was a child, and she retained a warm and grateful memory of them; one had been married, and her husband was in America, where they were both going to join him soon. Everywhere in Norway one meets people whose hearts are in America,—sons, husbands, daughters, lovers. Everybody would go if it were possible; once fourteen thousand went in one year, I was told. These poor women had been working hard to support themselves by teaching and by embroidering. Katrina brought down, to exhibit to me, a dog's head, embroidered in the finest possible silks,—silks that made a hair-stroke like a fine pen; it was a marvellously ingenious thing, but no more interesting than the "Lord's Prayer written in the circumference of two inches," or any of that class of marvels.

"Dey take dese to America," Katrina said. "Did you ever see anyting like dem dere? Dey get thirty kroner for one of dem dogs. It is chust like live dog."

After we returned, Katrina disappeared again on one of her mysterious expeditions, whose returns were usually of great interest to me. This time they brought to both of us disappointment. Coming in with a radiant face, and the usual little newspaper bundle in her hand, she cried out, "Now I got you de bestest ting yet," and held out her treasures,—a pint of small berries, a little larger than whortleberries, and as black and shining as jet. "Dis is de bestest berry in all Norway," she exclaimed, whipping one into her own mouth; "see if you like."

I incautiously took three or four at once. Not since the days of old-fashioned Dover's and James's powders have I ever tasted a more nauseous combination of flavors than resided in those glittering black berries.

"You not like dem berries?" cried poor Katrina, in dismay at my disgust, raising her voice and its inflections at every syllable. "You not like dem berries? I never hear of nobody not liking dem berries. Dey is bestest we got! Any way, I eat dem myself," she added philosophically, and retreated crestfallen to her room, where I heard her smacking her lips over them for half an hour. I believe she ate the whole at a sitting. They must have been a variety of black currant, and exclusively intended by Nature for medicinal purposes; but Katrina came out hearty and well as ever the next day, after having swallowed some twelve or sixteen ounces of them.