that that fine lady would not let herself be photographed to-day? It
was your fault. I saw that she looked up at you again and again. As
true as my name is Isaiah Cavallius, I won’t stand this any longer.
If you ladies don’t make yourselves scarce this instant,”—again he
shook his fist at us,—“I have something that will make you go, I warn
you.”
Massa and I disappeared from the window quick as lightning.
“We mustn’t tease him any more,” said Massa. “He’s too angry.”
“Oh, but it is such fun; so awfully comical.”
“Well, I’m scared; suppose he should shoot up here at us.”
“Nonsense, Massa. Let’s peep out once more.”
There were voices in the courtyard again. I put one eye to the window
and saw, if you’ll believe it, Herman Nibb, the storekeeper, who
had come to be photographed. Oh, what fun! That queer Nibb! No, we
couldn’t go now; it was impossible, with such a prospect of amusement
ahead. Cavallius couldn’t get hold of us up here, and if he tried, we
could run like the wind.
Nibb came into the courtyard, bowing and bowing. He always walks with
a dancing step in the street, as if he were on springs. He is surely
very vain, for in one day I have seen him wear as many as seven
different hats. That is absolutely true. Nibb always has something to
do with bankruptcy; either he has just gone bankrupt or is just about
to do so. There is never anything in his shop-window but a bunch of
shoe-lasts, and he sells only kerosene. Often I should like to go
into his shop because he is so queer, but since one can scarcely ask
for a sample of shoe-lasts or kerosene, I can’t make any errand in
there.
“Be so kind as to take a seat,” said Cavallius. “Vignette or the
whole figure?”
“Is it any dearer with legs than without legs?” asked Nibb.
“The price is the same for the whole figure,” was the satisfactory
answer.
Nibb placed himself in position. He looked as blank as if he didn’t
know enough to count four, as he stood there.
“That is a fine expression you have now,” said Cavallius. “Don’t lose
that expression and you will have a beautiful picture; don’t lose it.
Pshaw! You let it go, after all.”
Nibb strove in vain to re-capture the beautiful expression.
“How was it I looked?” he asked.
I can’t tell you how Massa and I laughed. “We must go, Massa, or I
shall die of laughing.” Nevertheless, we did not go.
“Are you there again?” shouted Cavallius. “On my honor, I will not
stand this any longer.” With that he went into the house, leaving
Nibb alone.
Nibb made an elegant bow to us, whom he saw in the loft window.
“Beautiful weather, little girls,” he observed politely.
“Oh, yes.” We felt as if we were in an oven, it was so hot, and Nibb
wiped his forehead every minute.
“Perhaps it is rather temperate,” he continued, bowing to us again.
“It wouldn’t matter if it were a little more temperate,” I said.
Nibb made no reply to this, but remarked, “A queer man, that one,”
pointing over his shoulder after Cavallius.
Yes, Massa and Nibb and I could all agree as to that.
But what in the world had become of Cavallius? Could he be looking
for us?
“O dear! Suppose he is standing inside behind a curtain and shoots us
with a gun!” said Massa. “He said he had something that would make us
go away, you know.”
The situation began to be rather uncomfortable; perhaps we had
better go away, notwithstanding the fun. At that instant, we heard
a strange, short, labored breathing from the loft stairway. We both
turned,—the stairs were just outside the door,—a yellow beard showed
in the dim light. True as gospel, it was Cavallius! If I live to
be as old as Methusaleh, I shall never forget how terribly Massa
shrieked. She shrieked as if beside herself, or as if some one had
stuck a knife into her.
I did not scream, but I must own that I wasn’t at all comfortable.
However, this was no time for any long meditation.
Cavallius’ little legs straddled over the high doorsill, and now his
whole body was in the loft. There was only one door, the door by
which he had entered; our “peep-hole” was the only window.
Not a word was exchanged between Massa and me, but with a common
impulse, we sprang over to the trap-door in the corner through which
the hay was thrown down into the stable below.
Plump! Massa was down. Plump! I was down. Both of us landed on a big
heap of hay that lay just under the trap-door.
I glanced up to see whether Cavallius were coming down the way we
did, but I saw nothing of him. We rushed to the stable door, out to
the Peckells’ courtyard, out to the street, but not even here dared
we stop. The safest place at that moment seemed to us to be the
dean’s garden, so in there we dashed, fastening the high garden gate
after us. There! Out of danger! Massa was chalk-white with terror.
Looking through the picket fence a moment after, we saw Cavallius
with more than usual dignity come out of Peckells’ yard and disappear
through Stiansen’s gate.
But how in the world Cavallius, a perfect stranger in the town, found
the way all by himself up to Peckells’ hayloft that day, will always
remain a mystery to me.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] An _öre_ is less than three-tenths of a cent.
VIII
MADAM IGLAND’S GARDEN
Madam Igland has an enormous garden with a high board fence around
it. To call it a beautiful garden would be a sin and a shame. The
whole place is filled with beds of carrots, parsley, cabbages, onions
and such things; while at one end there is a row of currant-bushes
and an old tumble-down summer-house that stands with one side on
the street. Madam Igland is a market-gardener, you see, and sells
vegetables to the townsfolk. However, I say wrong when I say she
is a gardener, for she can’t even walk, but sits all day long in
a wheel-chair by the window. She has a “spy-mirror” there which
reflects a part of the street she could not see otherwise.
No, it is not Madam Igland, it is Oline, who is really the gardener
and the ruler over the garden. Oline is an old servant, awfully old
and with only one tooth in her mouth; but that one is frightfully
long and white.
I used to think that if I were in Oline’s place, I should have that
tooth pulled out, for I thought that, being so very long, it must be
in the way. Once I asked Oline why she didn’t do that.
“No, indeed, I sha’n’t do that,” said Oline. “For if I hadn’t that
tooth, I couldn’t nourish myself.” Since that time I have looked at
it with more respect, considering it is all that keeps Oline alive.
Oline is frightfully deaf, yet it is she who sells the garden stuff
to people. All the money she gets for parsley, onions, or anything,
she puts in an enormous pocket which she wears under the front of her
apron.
Ola Silnes helps her in the garden. He always wears filthy white
canvas trousers and jacket, has a very red face, and when he talks,
grunts out something you can hardly understand from deep down in his
throat.
All through the long summer day, Oline with her bare, brown
weather-beaten legs is in the carrot-bed weeding. If you want five
cents’ worth of onion tops, or anything, you have to go right up to
her and take hold of her, for she doesn’t hear a thing. But I can
tell you it isn’t advisable to steal into the garden when you don’t
want to buy anything, for that makes her fly into a rage.
The board fence isn’t altogether tight at the back of the garden.
There are little cracks between the boards, just big enough to stick
your nose through and look in with one eye at a time; but through the
cracks you can see lots of big, delicious-looking currants. O dear!
There’s no pleasure in standing and looking through a crack at big,
juicy, red currants when you can’t get any of them.
Our currants were gone long ago. Karsten eats them when they are a
little red on one side, and the few that are left shrivel up in the
roasting hot sun; for our garden is awfully sunny, you see. But Madam
Igland’s garden, being on lower ground, is always cool and fresh,
with a sweetish, spicy smell of cabbage and herbs and onion and
newly-turned soil, and stiff, tall grasses in the outer corners of
the garden.
I had long known that there was a loose board in the fence,—well, not
entirely loose, but very shaky, you know. If you should just pull a
little hard on it, it would come loose, that was certain.
One afternoon Mina and I hadn’t a thing to do. We couldn’t play up
on the hilltop, it was so unbearably hot there. To play ball in such
heat was utterly impossible; besides, Karsten had lost our best ball.
The flat church steps which are so exactly suitable for playing
jackstones on, and where Mina and I play almost every afternoon, were
packed full of street boys who were playing with buttons.
Pshaw! There wasn’t a thing for us to do.
All at once, something flashed into my mind.
“Let’s go down to Madam Igland’s garden and see whether there are
many currants there,” said I.
Mina agreed instantly.
Soon we stood with our noses through the cracks. My! so big as those
currants were to-day, currants had surely never been before! And oh,
how ripe! The branches were so full that they drooped right down
to the ground. Ola Silnes was nowhere to be seen. Oline was in the
carrot-bed weeding. On her head she had a towel, pulled far forward
to keep the sun off of her face.
“Oh, Mina! Do you know there is a board loose over there?”
I went to it to show her. Yes, it was very, very shaky; almost ready
to come out.
“Mina, shall we pull the board away and creep through and eat a few
currants? Oline can’t hear even a gun-shot, you know.”
First a slight jerk at the board, then a longer pull; it creaked a
little and we peeped in, frightened. Oline’s toweled head had not
moved. She was still weeding in the burning hot sun.
“Come on, now.” I was already in the garden. Mina came quickly
after. We ran along beside the fence, hopped through some
cabbage-beds, and got behind the currant-bushes.
My, but those were currants! There were as many as fourteen on each
string. How we did eat and eat! Our mouths really felt sore at last
from eating so many. Now and then we peeped out at Oline, who still
stayed among the carrots, weeding and weeding.
“Can you understand how she can keep on in such heat?” said Mina.
“No, I can’t; but my, haven’t we had a jolly feast? It doesn’t show
a bit that any currants are gone, and think what a quantity we have
eaten!”
Neither of us could eat another one.
All at once we heard a shout outside the fence and some one called,
“Well, I declare! Is this where you are?”
It was Karsten. We looked anxiously along the fence, for at first we
couldn’t judge where the sound came from.
“Sh! Karsten. Sh!” He was tramping along outside the fence.
Evidently he, too, knew about the loose board. He pulled it away, and
was half inside the garden when—of all things!—Oline saw him.
“Out with you or I’ll make you stir your stumps, you scamp, you
good-for-nothing!”
“Well, some girls are behind the currant-bushes, Oline,” shouted
Karsten.
Oline didn’t hear a word he said, but she pushed him out through the
hole in the fence.
“Somebody is stealing your currants,” shouted Karsten from the
outside.
“Yes, you’ll catch it, you scamp.”
“Look behind the currant-bushes and you’ll see——”
“If you don’t go away and that quickly——”
We were on pins and needles, but Oline did not know what he said, of
course.
There was Karsten outside the fence near where we were crouching.
“You’ll get paid for this, Inger Johanne, depend upon it. You’ll get
paid. Shame on you! I shall tell about it at home.” And off he ran.
Mina and I felt that the prospect was anything but pleasant,—horrid,
in fact. Ugh!
Ola Silnes came into the garden, and Oline called to him, telling
about Karsten. Ola’s red face looked very thoughtful. They both
went to the fence and inspected the loose board very particularly.
Then—who’d have thought it?—Ola Silnes, who evidently carried a lot
of big nails in his pocket, took some out and with a big stone for a
hammer, whack! whack! he nailed the board fast!
Mina and I stared at each other. We were in a pretty fix. We couldn’t
possibly get out through the gate without being seen, as long as Ola
Silnes stayed in the garden. Our only hope was that he might go out
on some errand.
We crouched there behind the currant-bushes and kept peeping out at
Ola. Apparently he had no thought of leaving the garden. He wheeled
away one wheelbarrowful of weeds after another, and emptied them out
not far from us. We sat with our hearts in our mouths each time
until we saw the back of his canvas jacket. Ugh! How afraid we were
that he would see us!
The time dragged on endlessly.
“Come, let’s go out,” said Mina almost in tears. “It’s your fault.
You’re the one who thought of it. I can’t sit here any longer, and
I’m so afraid of Ola.”
“Oh, wait, Mina! Sit still, just sit still a little longer.”
At last, Oline seemed to have finished for the day. She put on her
wooden shoes and straightened the towel on her head. Ola had nothing
to arrange about his clothes, but the two stood a long time at the
gate. Oline screeched higher and higher. She was talking of Karsten.
“And that boy,” said Ola, “is a child out of a fine family!” He spat
as far as he could just to show his scorn.
Well, they finally went. I had had a little hope that they might
forget to fasten the gate. Far from it. No such good luck for us. I
heard the lock click as the key turned.
Mina and I crept out from behind the bushes. We were stiff from
sitting so long in one position. It was good to stir yourself. Pooh!
There wouldn’t be any difficulty about getting out of the garden now,
since Oline and Ola were both gone. You can always find one board or
another loose in a fence. We ran along and tugged at every single
board. No, they were all tight, as if they were nailed fast, as of
course they were; not a single board was even a bit shaky.
Ugh! That horrid Ola Silnes, who went about with nails in his pocket!
To climb over the fence was impossible for us; it was several feet
higher than I was tall. What in the world could we do? If we knocked
on the gate, people would come from the street and every one would
have to know what we had been doing.
Once again we went around the fence. No, it was absolutely impossible
to get out that way. And how hungry we were! We had certainly been
in the garden for four hours. What could we eat? Not currants, no,
not one more. What about carrots? Pshaw! They were too small, not
bigger than my little finger; but we ate some of them, anyway, or
perhaps we might have starved.
We went into the summer-house which had eight corners and a pointed
roof. Such air as there was in there,—stifling hot and full of dust.
The light-green paint on the walls was old and cracked; there was
nothing in the room but a pile of bean-poles at one side. The windows
were of colored glass.
Mina and I peeped out at the street through the red and blue and
yellow panes and disputed as to which was the prettiest. What if a
blood-red light such as there is when you look through red glass
should come suddenly over the whole world, how awfully frightened
people would be!
Really, it was rather cosy in the summer-house.
“Suppose we should have to stay here all night,” said I. “We could
lie on that heap of bean-poles and it wouldn’t be so very bad, Mina.”
“Oh, no! I want to get out,” said Mina. The sun was now almost gone
from the garden. “If you won’t knock on the gate now, I will. I will
not stay here any longer.”
“No, no, Mina. Wait a minute.” I looked anxiously about for some way
of escape.
Perhaps—perhaps we could climb the pear-tree in the corner, creep
carefully along the branch and jump down outside the fence; but the
branches began very high up on the tree-trunk.
First we pushed Ola’s wheelbarrow under the tree. O dear! Even on
the wheelbarrow I couldn’t reach anywhere near high enough. By the
summer-house stood an old barrel; we rolled this over to the tree,
and put it on top of the wheelbarrow. Mina held me and steadied me.
Hurrah! There I was on the slender branch. I shoved myself along very
slowly and carefully.
“If it only doesn’t break,” cried Mina. “Oh, it is breaking, it is
breaking!”
No, it didn’t break. I was soon on the fence, hung there by my arms a
minute and then dropped down on the outside.
“Now you come, Mina,” I shouted.
I could hear how she tried and tried, but finally when the barrel
rolled off of the wheelbarrow, she burst out crying.
“No, I can’t! I can’t climb up to that branch.”
Well there! It would have been better if Mina had climbed up first.
“Mina, don’t cry! Just wait. I’ll run and get a ladder, and be back
in a jiffy.”
I dashed up the street hoping to find Karsten or some of the other
boys. No, Karsten was probably out sailing and none of the others
were to be seen. The ladder I had expected to get was altogether too
heavy for me to carry without help. I ran back to Madam Igland’s
garden.
“Mina! Mina!”
[Illustration: “IF IT ONLY DOESN’T BREAK!” CRIED MINA.—_Page 108._]
Not a sound from inside. I peeped through the cracks. No Mina was to
be seen.
“Mina dear! Oh, Mina!”
No, she must certainly have got out, but how? Or perhaps she was
lying in the summer-house in a faint from all the excitement. I was
perfectly disgusted with myself for having left her, and ran around
the garden to the gate. Far down the street I saw Mina’s blue dress.
I rushed after her.
“How in the world did you get out?”
“Why, when you were gone I got so desperate because I was alone, that
I banged and hammered on the gate as hard as I could; and some one
went after Oline and she came and unlocked the gate.”
“Was she angry?”
“Yes, frightfully angry.”
* * * * *
When I reached home, Karsten had come back from his sailing and
had told of seeing Mina and me behind the currant-bushes in Madam
Igland’s garden, eating currants. That wanted to get in there
himself, he said not a word about, the rascal!
Mother scolded me. It is distressing when Mother scolds; not because
of what she says, exactly,—though that hurts, too,—but she looks so
grieved that it makes you unspeakably sad to see her.
“And of course, Inger Johanne, you must go to Madam Igland and beg
her pardon.”
When I came home from school the next day, Oline was standing in the
hall. “O dear! O dear! What is coming now?” I thought. Her errand was
to ask me to call at Madam Igland’s when I was passing by there.
That afternoon Mina and I went to Madam Igland’s house; through the
courtyard, over the high threshold into the tiny blue-painted hall
that led into her room.
“You must knock,” Mina whispered.
“No, you,” said I. Finally I had to knock at the door.
“Come in,” said a pleasant voice.
“Shall we run away?” whispered Mina.
But I had already lifted the latch, and there we were—in Madam
Igland’s room. I had never been in there before and the only thing I
saw now was Madam Igland in her wheel-chair by the window. She turned
her face towards us.
“Come right in, children. Why! Is it these two nice little girls who
would steal from a lame old woman’s garden when that is all she has
to live on?”
We began to cry, both of us.
“No, no! Don’t cry. It’s nothing to cry about. Come and sit here.”
“Uh-hu-hu!” sobbed Mina. “Have you nothing to live on but currants
and parsley, Madam Igland?”
“Oh, I live on the money I get for them, you know.”
“We’ll never, never do it again, Madam Igland,” I promised.
“No, no. You surely will not. But sit here now and talk a little with
me.”
So there we sat, each on her chair and Madam Igland in her immense
wheel-chair by the window where the “spy-mirror” was. In her lap she
had a black cat and on the window-sill sat another, blinking its
green eyes.
“Isn’t it awfully tedious to sit here all day long and only look out
of the window?” I asked when we had composed ourselves a little.
“Oh, no! One gets used to anything. It will soon be fifteen years
since the Lord took the use of my legs from me. First, I sat in the
corner by the bed for twelve years, but I got very tired of that. I
knew every nail-head in the floor and every dot in the wall-paper. So
I moved over to the window and have sat here for three years; and it
is much better.”
Think of it! She had sat in her chair much longer than I had lived!
How terribly sad it was!
“But how do you get to bed, Madam Igland?” I asked.
“Oh, Oline helps me. She’s a kind person, I can tell you. The good
Lord sent her to me, you see. Yes, and then there are all the kind
people who come often to see me, old and lame as I am.”
Only think! The good Lord had sent Oline to Madam Igland! How many
queer things there are in the world! It had never occurred to me that
God thought about Oline.
“Yes, she is faithful, she is faithful,” said Madam Igland with a
happy face, rocking herself back and forth.
Who would have supposed there was any one who rejoiced over queer old
Oline?
I really liked being in there with Madam Igland.
“I ought to have something to treat you with,” said Madam Igland at
last. “It’s a shame that I haven’t anything. But you must come in
again, for there will soon be some kittens here, and perhaps I may
then have some good little treat for you.”
I had sat and pondered over something I wanted to say, but I couldn’t
get it out until we were at the door.
“Madam Igland, won’t you let me come in and help you sometimes? Help
you get to bed or whatever you like?”
“Oh, no, child. I am heavy, very heavy. No, the good Lord managed
wonderfully well for me when He sent me Oline; and He won’t forget
you, who have a heart for one who is old and lame. Adieu, adieu,
children.”
Ever since that time, whenever we pass her house, Madam Igland nods
to us and we smile and wave to her. One day she tapped on the window.
The kittens had come.
IX
ON BOARD THE _SEVEN STARS_
I love the sea. I know nothing else I delight in so much. Just to
get the smell of seaweed, or to see the white spray dashing over a
bare island, makes me happy. Poor naked hills and rocks, the salty
sea air, old wharves, rocking boats, ships that have been on long
voyages and are now laid up in the harbor,—all such things are the
pleasantest to be found anywhere in the world. If you don’t think so,
you can’t ever have known them, I am sure.
Sometimes I think that the sea is most beautiful in summer, when it
lies like a polished mirror and the yellow seaweed sways lazily and
silently against the steep gray shore; when the sun glitters out over
Skagerak so that it hurts your eyes; when the sloops lie becalmed
with loose sails and stay in one spot while the big steamers hurry
past, bound for some foreign land, and their smoke makes a straight
black streak in the sunshine.
But when the southwest wind rushes in and puts white-caps everywhere
on the sea, and the sky is so clear and so blue; and the pilot-boat
with the broad red stripe in its sail seems to hop over the waves,
while the boat we are rowing in rocks and bobs up and down, and our
hair blows all over our faces,—oh, then I think that is the very
jolliest time on the sea, after all!
In the autumn when the sea moans and roars, and the water looks black
while the spray rises like great white ghosts out on the islands, the
sea often seems grim and terrible; for there is always some one on
the water we are afraid will not come back,—there are so many wrecks
in the autumn.
One summer I was on the sea almost every day, although we had no
boat of our own. Father says that if he bought us a boat we would
certainly get drowned, all of us. However, I could always manage
to get a boat some way. If there were no other to be had, it was
usually easy to get hold of Sorensen’s old skiff; just climb over two
fences, creep around behind a little mound, and then jump right down
the steep bank on to Sorensen’s wharf, where the boat is tied.
Once, however, it happened that I jumped almost on old Sorensen’s
head as he stood looking out over the sea and talking to himself.
Then I was in a bad fix, for he is not a person to joke with.
Another time I had just untied the boat and rowed a few strokes, when
an old cracked voice called out:
“Let that skiff alone, drat you!” It was Sorensen’s, so of course I
had to row back to land and tie the boat fast again, and he came down
to the wharf and nearly scolded my head off,—he was so angry.
But I happened to get acquainted with his granddaughter Louisa, and
then everything was as smooth as butter. It was that summer I was on
the water almost every day.
The equal of Sorensen’s good old rowboat I’ve never seen in all
my days, and I’ve seen plenty of rowboats, I can tell you. It was
pretty old and water-soaked, but for all that, it was a remarkably
comfortable boat, and easy to row.