We are staying in the country, a long way out, where the real country
is.
Cows and horses, pigs and sheep, a beautiful dog and hens and ducks form
our circle of acquaintances. In addition to these, there are of course
the two-legged beings who own and look after the four-legged ones and
who, in my little boy's eyes, belong to quite the same kind.
The great sea lies at the foot of the slope. Ships float in the distance
and have nothing to say to us. The sun burns us and bronzes us. We eat
like thrashers, sleep like guinea-pigs and wake like larks. The only
real sorrow that we have suffered is that we were not allowed to have
our breeches made with a flap at the side, like the old wood-cutter's.
Presently, it happens that, for better or worse, we get neighbours.
They are regular Copenhageners. They were prepared not to find electric
light in the farm-house; but, if they had known that there was no water
in the kitchen, God knows they would not have come. They trudge through
the clover as though it were mire and are sorry to find so few
cornflowers in the rye. A cow going loose along the roads fills them
with a terror which might easily have satisfied a royal tiger.
The pearl of the family is Erna.
Erna is five years old; her very small face is pale green, with watery
blue eyes and yellow curls. She is richly and gaily dressed in a broad
and slovenly sash, daintily-embroidered pantalets, short open-work socks
and patent-leather shoes. She falls if she but moves a foot, for she is
used only to gliding over polished floors or asphalt.