AT GOODFIELDS
Now you shall hear about my summer vacation and all sorts of things.
We stayed at a farm in the country in a high valley. The farm was called
Goodfields, and they certainly were good fields, for such fat horses,
and such round cows, and such rich milk I never saw before in all my
life. For the horses could hardly get between the shafts of the
wagons--that is really true--and the cows were like trolls' cows; the
trolls' cows (in the fairy stories) are so well taken care of that they
shine so you can almost see your face in them, you know. The Goodfields
cows could thank old Kari, the milkmaid, for their plumpness.
Kari is seventy and looks very, very old.
All through the week she never sat down, but went puttering about the
whole day long; on Sunday evenings she sat out on the hill and smoked
her clay pipe. I used to lie beside her on the grass.
"The horse and the man
Have to bear all they can.
But the cow and the wife
Fare the hardest in life,"
said old Kari. And therefore she always raked away the best hay from the
horses and stuffed the cows with it.
It was out on the hill that Kari told about the Goodfields brownie in
the old days. Old Kari's mother had often driven in a sledge over
Goodfields hill while the brownie stood behind on the runner chuckling
and laughing. But the queer thing was that when they stopped at the top
of the hill or down in the valley, they didn't see him, but no sooner
had they started off than there was the brownie on the runner again.
It is really horrid that there are no brownies in the world any more!
Goodfields lay high up among the mountains. There were great green hills
and meadows stretching down towards the fjord, and dark spruce forests
above on the mountain, and far below, the still, shining fjord. And
behind each other as far as we could see there were just mountains,
exquisite blue mountains, rising into the bright sunny air.
The buildings were very big; there was nothing small at Goodfields, two
big main houses with big drawing-rooms and big canopied beds and big
down puffs, and big goats' milk cheeses like mountains, and big
milk-pans.
That's the way it was at Goodfields, beauty and plenty everywhere. And
it all belonged to Mother Goodfields. And she was the nicest person in
the world, for she was so kind. She wasn't the least bit cross when we
tagged after her in the dairy and the grain-house, and we might eat all
the green gooseberries in the garden, if we wanted to. And everybody who
was poor and sick went to Mother Goodfields, as all the people in the
neighborhood called her. She was big and strong and earnest and helped
them all. She was a widow and had no children, and it seemed to her so
lonely on the big farm that she took summer boarders.
On the fjord the little steamboat went up one day and down the next,
with foreigners who sat stretching their legs out on the deck and stared
sleepily at the mountains.
I am not fond of mountains, to tell the truth. Ugh! when you stay among
them it seems so cramped and horrid. You feel just like a little ant at
last. No, give me the sea, with its seaweed tossing on the waves, and
its rocking boats and vessels, and the reefs and the fresh wind.
There were many times at Goodfields when it was so downright hot in the
valley that I felt like crying when I thought of the sea. My brother
Karsten felt exactly the same.
There were eight mothers and eleven children and five teachers at
Goodfields that summer. I can't describe them, it would take too long;
besides all grown up women are alike, it seems to me. There were only
two big children of my age at Goodfields, Petter Kloed and Andrine Voss.
Petter Kloed was very elegant; only think, he wore yellow gloves way off
there in the country. And what he liked best in the world was ice-cream
and champagne. Never in my life had I tasted either ice-cream or
champagne, but I didn't say so, for that would be awkward. And then
Petter Kloed was not really nice to his mother, I think, and that was a
great shame, for Mrs. Kloed doted on him, and would give him anything if
he only looked at it.
Andrine Voss was hardly pretty at all, but she had awfully long
eyelashes and when she half shut her eyes she looked very mysterious.
But she only looked so, she wasn't the least bit mysterious, for she was
my best friend and did everything I wanted her to the whole summer.
We have decided that she shall marry a county judge, and I a doctor,
but we will live in the same house and have just the same number of
children. And we are going to be friends all our lives.
The other children who were at Goodfields that summer were just little
ones, some roly-polys and some thin, pale, little things who were
dressed in laces and took malt extract, and had legs no bigger than
drumsticks.
One Sunday we went to church. Four fat horses and four wagons started
from Goodfields with the churchgoers.
It was so peaceful and so beautiful; down on the fjord one boat after
another set out from the opposite side bringing people to church; the
boats left a broad streak behind them in the calm, smooth water.
We drove past little groups of peasants--women and girls with white
linen head-dresses, and men in shirt-sleeves with their jackets over
their arms, for the sun was roasting hot on the open roads. "Good
cheer," they all greeted us with, and when we had passed I heard them
whisper to each other: "They are the summer folk from Goodfields."
More and more people gathered along the quiet roads; and there on a
height stood the church,--a white wooden church with a low tower, and a
church-bell which rang with a cracked sound out over the leafy forest
and the fields and the still water.
The horses were tied in a long row on the other side of the road, and
the boys and men stood leaning against the stone wall around the
churchyard, but the women were farther in among the graves. They all
exchanged greetings, shaking hands loosely, standing well away from each
other. "Thanks for our last meeting," they said, looking quickly away.
It was so queer. People don't do like that in town.
They sang without an organ, and it sounded so innocent, somehow, and the
church door stood wide open to the sunshine. But what do you think
happened? In came a goat right in the midst of the hymn.
The church clerk stood in the choir door and led the singing; one of his
arms was of no use; I had heard of that. All at once there in the open
church door stood a goat. I wonder what's going to happen now, thought
I.
The goat turned his head first one way, then the other,--then as true as
you live he came pattering in. Patter, patter, sounded short and sharp
over the church floor. Every one turned to look, and the singing died
away, little by little, but no one got up to put the goat out.
Farther and farther up towards the choir pattered the goat. Suddenly the
clerk saw him. For a moment he looked terribly bewildered, then very
thoughtfully he laid his psalm-book aside and walked down the aisle.
Then you should have seen the clerk engineer the goat out with his one
arm. He had hold of one horn, and the goat resisted, and the clerk
shoved, and so, little by little, they worked themselves down the
church. Oh, I shall never forget it!
The singing stopped altogether, except that one and another old woman
off in the corners held the tune with shaky voices. I was awfully
interested in seeing how the goat and the clerk got on. If it had been
I, I should have hurried that goat out faster than the clerk did, I'll
wager.
Down by the door the goat got all ready to jump, wanting to start up the
aisle again. If the tussle had lasted a moment longer I should have had
to laugh--but then the clerk made a mighty effort, turned the goat
entirely around, and there it was--out!
The clerk in the meantime had risen to the occasion, for at the very
instant that the goat went head over heels down the steps, he took up
the tune just where he had left off, and sang all the way up the aisle.
Awfully well done of him, I think.
There! Now you understand what it was like at Goodfields, and now you
shall hear about all the different things that happened in our summer
vacation.