of her ears, and with white eyelashes—that’s the way she looked; but
search Norway over and you wouldn’t find any one to match her at
rowing and paddling and such things. She was lively and jolly, too,
and full of all kinds of marvelous stories about mermaids and ghosts
and many other queer things that had been seen on the sea. Louisa
believed in these stories as if they were gospel truth.
Well, I attached myself to her that summer and fun enough we had
every single day. I would take luncheon for both of us and Louisa
would take the rowboat.
If her grandfather objected, we had only to promise to whittle some
pitch-pine firelighters for him and he would let us have the boat at
once.
We would stay on the water the whole afternoon rowing out to the
islands or away off in Dams bay, fishing, catching crabs and mussels,
talking, laughing, and having the jolliest kind of times.
But once something frightful happened to us, and that is what I shall
tell you of now.
We seldom rowed out as far as Bird Island, for the open sea was right
outside of that, and there was always a heavy swell there, even when
the weather was not rough.
But one afternoon we were tired of splashing around near the land
and we decided that we would row out to Bird Island and just make a
flying visit. Louisa knew a woman who lived in the only house on the
island and it would be great fun to see how everything was out there.
A light breeze blew from the southeast, the sun was shining gaily,
the skiff was as dry as a floor, for we had just emptied it; and I
had four pieces of rye cake, spread with extra good Danish butter,
in my pocket.
Oh, everything was splendid! Louisa told sea stories and we bent to
our oars with a will.
“Grandfather says,” announced Louisa, “that you may be all by
yourself on the sea on board a schooner or a yacht or whatever, and
you think that you are alone, and you are not, for the sea-spirits
are with you.”
“Ugh, Louisa! that would be horrid.”
“And Grandfather says,” continued Louisa, “that they can take
different forms. It may happen that one shows itself as a big
flapping bird or a gray maiden. Grandfather himself has seen a spirit
in the form of a cloud of fire.”
“Oh, come now, Louisa! You’re talking nonsense.”
“If it isn’t true, you may chop my head off,” said Louisa.
“Grandfather was just outside of Dröbak in his yacht; it was in the
middle of the night in late autumn, and all at once as he sat there,
a queer shape of fire glided close to him.”
“Don’t talk of spirits, Louisa—don’t. I won’t listen any more.”
“Well, there are sea-spirits and they are ugly, too,” insisted Louisa.
It was farther to Bird Island than we had counted on, and we rowed
and rowed till our arms were tired and weak with rowing so far; but
at last our boat scraped against the little wharf.
Andrea’s house stood lonely and forlorn on the rocky island. It was a
two-story house painted red, with big vacant windows, up-stairs and
down.
“Andrea’s husband is a sailor, and I saw her and her son in town
to-day with fish to sell,” said Louisa.
We went everywhere around the locked-up, forlorn house. In front was
the open sea, gulls and other sea-birds flapped their wings over our
heads, bare rocks and stones were everywhere.
“Really, it must be jolly to live here,—like Robinson Crusoe on a
desert island,” said I. “To do everything for yourself, live on fish
and go in a boat whenever you like.”
“Oh, no!” said Louisa. “No, I should be afraid to live here. Hush,
keep still! Hear what a sighing comes from the sea.”
A green yacht was moored down in front of the house. There was no one
on board and it lay dipping slowly up and down in the swell of the
sea. On the stern was painted the name of the yacht in yellow letters
on a black ground,—_Seven Stars_.
“Oh, let’s row out to the yacht and go on board and look it over,”
said I. Louisa made no objection though she said stoutly:
“But you can say what you will, there _are_ spirits here on the
island in the afternoons.”
This was not particularly comfortable to hear just then, but I
pretended not to notice it. Twenty or thirty strokes would take us to
the _Seven Stars_,—not many more, at any rate.
It was difficult to climb on board, but Louisa, whose arms were very
strong, pulled herself up first and drew me up after her.
Then we discovered that a frightful thing had happened. We had let
go the rope to the skiff! Whether Louisa had had hold of it or I, or
neither of us, I don’t know. I only know that as Louisa drew me up
after her, I chanced to kick the rowboat; it glided away and in the
same moment was several feet from the _Seven Stars_.
I can’t say that I was awfully afraid just then. We must be able to
get hold of the boat one way or another, I thought; but it drifted
farther and farther out and there we stood.
Then we began to quarrel.
“It was your fault, Louisa; you pulled me so hard.”
“Why, the idea! It was you who kicked it away.”
“But you should have held on to the rope.”
“No, you should have held it.”
The boat drifted, drifted, farther and farther away. Neither of us
could swim. What in the world should we do?
Not a person on Bird Island. Not a person on the other islands. Far,
far back in the bay lay the town. Not a boat was to be seen—nothing,
in fact, but gulls and sea-swallows flapping their white wings and
whirling swiftly about in the air.
Louisa, with her freckled face and her white eyelashes, looked at me.
“Suppose Andrea stays in town over night at her married
daughter’s,—she does that sometimes,—then no one would come here
until morning.”
“But her son August will come, you know,” I said.
“Well, I’m afraid, I am,” said Louisa.
“Oh, no, Louisa, dear. We are perfectly safe here, you know.”
“But there are so many sounds, and it’s so lonely and strange, it’s
uncomfortable to be here; and if there are spirits anywhere, they
will be here, you may depend upon it.”
Louisa whispered the last, although we stood absolutely alone on the
_Seven Stars_, alone on the wide sea.
The skiff, bobbing and rocking, had now drifted quite a distance
beyond Bird Island.
“It’s drifting out to sea!” shouted Louisa, despairingly. “Oh,
deliver me from Grandfather! He’ll be so angry about his boat.”
O dear! O dear! How worrisome it was! And now the sun had gone and it
would soon begin to grow dark. We had not had time to look about on
the yacht yet, and it seemed as if we must prepare ourselves to stay
there for a while. But the doors were locked and nothing did we find
on the deck but a man’s old weather-worn hat.
What should we do? Stay on the open deck all night? There was no use
in shouting for help out in this solitude.
Louisa had gone to the stern, but came running back, with her eyes
starting out of her head.
“Oh, Inger Johanne! Some one is groaning in the cabin!”
“What nonsense!”
“No, no, it’s true, it’s true.” Louisa was almost beside herself.
“Some one is groaning and sighing, I tell you.”
We listened and yes,—think of it! A queer, heavy sound did come from
the locked cabin, a strange sound, as if from the bottom of the sea,
it seemed to us.
I thought Louisa had gone out of her senses, she was so afraid; for
imagine! she wanted to jump overboard.
“It is the spirits,” she whispered. “I’d rather jump into the sea—I
will jump, I will.”
I was afraid enough, but it was all very exciting, too. I kept hold
of Louisa’s dress.
“Don’t be so stupid as to jump overboard,” I said.
But at that instant fear overwhelmed me, too. Everything was so
still, so unspeakably quiet, only the sound of the waves washing
against the island, spurting up a little, then falling back; the wide
silent sky over us, the town far, far away.
From beneath the deck, however, the strange sound came louder and
louder. There really must be something queer down there. Louisa was
right—it must be sea-spirits. Fear clutched at my heart.
If only the gray maiden does not come—for she is the worst of all.
Suppose a gray figure glided noiselessly up from the cabin——
We were both ready to jump overboard now. I did not know what I was
doing, I was so possessed by fear. Not a boat to be seen, only the
gray, boundless sea!
Oh, that horrible _Seven Stars_!
Louisa sat with both legs outside of the railing; it would not take
an instant for her to jump down.
The sound from below grew louder, and it was as if some one were
walking there with a slow, dragging step. We caught hold of each
other’s hands and stared horror-stricken at the cabin door. Some one
tried to open it from the inside, turned the key—and a big tousled,
carroty head peeped out.
I drew a deep sigh of relief. The head was Singdahlsen’s, crazy
Singdahlsen who imagined that his legs had grown together down to
his knees. He was somewhat ill-tempered and particularly ugly when
he was teased. Often and often he would be on the chase after boys
who had plagued him. His pursuit was not swift, however, as you can
understand, since he thought he could only move his legs from the
knees down.
Oh, what a relief that it was Singdahlsen and not a ghostly gray
maiden! Louisa and I let go of each other’s hands and went over to
him.
“Was it you who sang the Columbia Song?” he asked with a threatening
look.
No, indeed. We could certainly declare ourselves innocent on that
score. Nothing could have been farther from our thoughts than singing.
“Well, if it had been you, I’d have hurled you into the sea, both of
you.”
Singdahlsen had once been to America and ever since then the worst
thing any one could do was to sing an American song to him. He took
it as a personal insult, though nobody knew why.
Pooh! We could get along with him perfectly well.
“How did you come here, Singdahlsen?” asked Louisa. Evidently she
should not have asked that, for he looked angry at once.
“How did you come here on my boat?” he retorted quickly.
“It is an awfully pretty yacht, this _Seven Stars_,” I said.
“Yes, when I once get it gilded over, and set a diamond as big as
that (measuring with his hands) upon the mast, then it will be as it
should be.”
“Oh, yes! Then it will be charming,” we both said.
“Really, I ought to be king of the seas,” said Singdahlsen.
“Yes, you ought; and have a crown upon your head.”
“No, indeed! I’ll have no crown upon my head.” And there he was, as
mad as a hornet again.
We kept on talking with him, though. One time he was so angry that he
tramped after us around the whole deck with his legs squeezed tight
together. But we were not a bit afraid of him even then, for we were
so mightily glad he was not a ghost.
Our rowboat showed now only like a thin black streak far away from
Bird Island. What if Louisa and I should have to stay out here on the
_Seven Stars_ all night with crazy Singdahlsen? It would be horrible.
Suddenly he shouted: “Up the mast with you! Both of you!”
We tried to turn his mind from that, but no, indeed; we must climb
the mast, he said, or he would throw us into the sea.
“I’m sick and tired of you now, so up the mast with you, I say.”
I can’t deny that I began to be a little afraid of him. We tried our
best to be agreeable and talked of diamonds and gold-pieces,—things
which he usually liked to talk of; but it was of no use.
“Now I shall count twelve,” said crazy Singdahlsen. “And if you are
not at the top of the mast when I say twelve, out you go into the
sea.”
Oh! Oh! What should we do? I cast a terrified glance over the lonely
sea.—Just think! A boat was at that instant rounding the point and in
it was Andrea! We knew her by the plaid kerchief on her head.
Oh, how glad, how glad we were! All fear left us at the sight of her.
“Andrea! Andrea!” we shouted. We were almost crying, the relief was
so great.
Five minutes after, we were in her boat and then we did cry, cried as
if we had been whipped. Andrea knew nothing one way or another, but
it was plain that she believed Singdahlsen was wholly to blame.
While rowing us home, she told us that he was in her care for board
and lodging; and that when she went to town with fish, she put him
on the yacht so that he should not do any mischief while she was gone.
You may well believe that Louisa’s grandfather wasn’t at all pleasant
to meet when we went back without his rowboat. However, a pilot from
Krabbesund found it and brought it home the next day; so Grandfather
didn’t have to worry long.
X
A MOLASSES CAKE STORY
Every one in our town says that Mrs. Simonsen’s molasses cakes are
the best in the world,—they are so thick and soft and extraordinarily
tasty. Mrs. Simonsen doesn’t make them herself,—Heinrich Schulze, the
head baker, does that. How in the world could she ever have learned
to make such good cakes? But she stands behind the counter in her
shop and sells them every single day.
Mrs. Simonsen came from Telemarken. When I was a little bit of a girl
she was the servant in Madam Land’s house, at the foot of our hill.
At that time she was Sigrid—something or other—some queer surname
that I’ve forgotten. She had azure-blue eyes and golden hair that
lay in small curly waves just as if she didn’t do a thing all day in
Madam Land’s kitchen but crimp her hair! Sigrid married the baker
Simonsen, and he died; and ever since then Heinrich Schulze has been
the head baker.
Although I had known Madam Simonsen such a long time there was no use
in going into her shop without money, you may be sure; but whenever I
have money, I go there and buy molasses cakes. If I have no money I
go in the back way through the gate and beg from Heinrich Schulze. As
a matter of fact, I go oftenest the back way.
I can always find him in the yard there. He is usually hurrying to
and fro between the shop and the bakery, and often the molasses cake
dough hangs over his shoulder like a long sausage. Schulze says that
good molasses cake dough should be so tough that it will hang over
one’s shoulder without breaking. Some people think it is disgusting
for him to carry the dough that way, but I don’t. I even eat it raw,
right from his shoulder, very often.
For Schulze and I are great friends, let me tell you. He is German,
rather old and small, has black eyes and is very wide-awake, and
quick in his motions.
One day I got him to give me his photograph. On the back of the
picture is written, “_Heinrich Schulze, geboren in Halle_.” So I
know exactly how his name is spelled. I am delighted to have his
photograph, for it is so amusing and so “grown-up” to have a good
many pictures in your album. Heinrich Schulze’s is the nicest one
I have. He looks so free and easy, standing with his legs crossed,
beside a curtain. I have an old picture of Father, and one of
Grandfather, but that has his legs torn off. Then I have a picture
of Mrs. Huus’s little dog; I begged that from the photographer
because it was so sweet. And finally I have Marie Lokke’s lover. She
wouldn’t keep his picture any longer, because he had become engaged
to another girl without her knowing anything about it; so she gave
his photograph to me. These are all the pictures I have,—few enough,
it seems to me,—and Schulze’s is the very nicest. So you see that is
why I am so friendly with him. If we had not been such good friends,
there would not have been any molasses cake story.
I know just exactly the days when he bakes molasses cakes; and on
those days I hang around the door and tease and tease.
“Give me a little dough, Schulze, just a little piece, Schulze.” And
he almost always gives me some.
One Thursday afternoon, (my, how vividly I remember it!) Schulze,
with the dough over his shoulder, came swinging out into the back
yard where I sat on a barrel waiting. It happened that I had in my
hand a tiny china doll, one of those little “bath dolls” without any
clothes on.
Schulze was in grand good humor that day.
“It may happen that I shall be the master of this bakery here in the
town. Then Heinrich Schulze will be on top and can snap his fingers
at the whole world,” said Schulze, with the dough over his shoulder
and snapping his fingers in the air as he spoke. I think that what
made him so happy was that Mrs. Simonsen had been extra kind to him
and he thought she would probably marry him; then he would be the
master of the bakery.
I don’t know how I happened to think of it, but while Schulze stood
there talking, I stuck that little china doll right into the dough.
Schulze didn’t notice what I was doing. I smoothed over the place
where I had poked the doll in and a moment after, Schulze vanished in
the bake-house.
Ha, ha, ha! What fun it will be when he finds the doll in the dough!
He won’t be the least bit angry; he will only laugh. So I sat still
on the barrel and waited, but he didn’t come back.
Oh, well, he just wanted to fool me, I was sure; for of course he
must have found the doll.
I stole over to the bake-house door. The molasses cakes were in the
pans, ready to be put into the oven that minute.
Schulze never likes to have any one come into the bake-house, so I
dared not go farther than the door. Not a word did he say about the
doll. He was surely trying to fool me into thinking he had not found
it. Suddenly I remembered that I had not studied my lessons; so I at
once started on a run for home.
That whole evening I laughed to myself every time I thought of the
doll in the cakedough. I would get the little thing back from Schulze
in the morning. But he said not a word about it then, either; nor was
he the least bit roguish or joky.
Suppose he hadn’t found the doll! Suppose it was baked in a cake and
sold, and should get into some one’s stomach and the person should
die of it!
That was a dreadful thought, and I grew so frightened, oh! so
frightened; but I didn’t dare say a word to any one about it. Mrs.
Simonsen and Schulze would both be furious, and perhaps some one in
the town was dying to-day—it might be just now—some one dying from
that molasses cake with my little china doll in it!
Oh, how I did suffer that day! I begged Father for twenty _öre_ and
spent it all on molasses cakes, for perhaps the little doll might be
in one of those I bought. No such good luck. I ate so many molasses
cakes, I got perfectly sick of them; I ate them with despair in my
heart.
At last I stationed myself beside the steps of Mrs. Simonsen’s shop
and stared at every one who came out who had bought molasses cakes.
“Perhaps it is you who will get the doll in your stomach,—or perhaps
it is you,” I kept thinking. But if it had been to save my life, I
could not have said anything to them even though I was so worried.
When children bought the cakes, however, I took their cakes without
any ceremony and squeezed them to find out whether the doll was
inside. No, I did not find it.
At last I was really sick, I was so anxious. Several times I was on
the point of going in and telling Mrs. Simonsen; but it would be so
difficult and so frightfully embarrassing. Anyway, I couldn’t muster
up courage enough to do it.
The day dragged on. At night I dreamed of the doll in the cake and in
the afternoon when I came from school, I sat again on the steps of
the bakery. Mrs. Simonsen stood in the doorway, sunning herself.
“It is warm and pleasant these days,” said Mrs. Simonsen.
Yes, I, too, thought it was warm. Indeed, I broke into a perspiration
whenever I thought of the molasses cake with the doll in it.
“Why, true as you live, if there isn’t the Collector of the Port
himself coming here,” exclaimed Mrs. Simonsen. “He’s even coming into
the shop, I declare! Go away from the steps, child.”
Yes, it was really the old Collector himself, with his keen face, his
bent back and his cap with broad gold braid on it. He stopped beside
the steps, stuck his cane between the pavingstones and looked up at
Mrs. Simonsen in the doorway.
“Is this Mrs. Simonsen who sells molasses cakes?”
Mrs. Simonsen curtsied.
“Yes, your honor,” she answered, respectfully.
The old wooden steps creaked under the Collector’s heavy tread. Now
he was in the shop. I peeped in at the door.
“May I then ask you, my good woman,” continued the Collector, “what
you call this?”
He searched in one vest pocket, searched a long time,—searched in the
other vest pocket; then oh! wonder of wonders! Between his crooked
thumb and big pointer finger, he held high in the air my little china
doll!
The instant I saw it, I was awfully, awfully glad, for now I knew
that no one had swallowed it, that it wasn’t lying in any one’s
stomach causing pain if not death.
“What do you call this?” repeated the Collector, staring in a
terrifying way at Mrs. Simonsen from under his bushy eyebrows.
There was utter vacancy in Mrs. Simonsen’s sky-blue eyes as she
looked from the doll to the Collector and from the Collector to the
doll. He had to ask her three times before she answered.
“That—that is a—a doll,” said Mrs. Simonsen at last, so frightened
that she was ready to sink to the floor.
“Yes, perfectly true—a doll. But then may I ask what a doll has to do
in my molasses cake? What has it to do there, I ask you?”
“In your molasses cake?” exclaimed Mrs. Simonsen in the utmost
astonishment. It seemed, however, as if she were a little braver now
that the talk came to molasses cakes. There she felt herself surer.
“Yes, right in the molasses cake,” snapped the Collector. “I sat
drinking my coffee and eating my cake, when I suddenly felt something
sc-r-runch between my teeth. I came within a hair’s breadth of
getting it in my throat and choking to death,—giving up the ghost
instanter; and that molasses cake came from you,” concluded the
Collector, putting his silver-mounted cane right against Mrs.
Simonsen’s breast as if it were a pistol.
“Has the Collector found a doll in his molasses cake?” cried Mrs.
Simonsen in dismay.
“Exactly, my much respected Mrs. Simonsen,—a doll in my molasses
cake.”
Then there was a great to-do! Schulze was called from the bake-house
and in his baker’s cap and apron stood there talking German and
insisting that he knew nothing about the doll. The Collector scolded
and fumed, and Mrs. Simonsen never got any further than to say,
“But, your honor, your esteemed highness——” before the Collector
interrupted her:
“Keep still, I say. It is I who will talk.”
Oh, how frightened I was! Several times I was about to spring in and
say that the doll was mine and that it was I who had put it in the
dough; but I didn’t dare.
“I will just give you notice, my good woman, that hereafter no cakes
for me shall be purchased here;” and the Collector struck his cane
on the floor many times with great emphasis.
When he said that, I felt so sorry for Mrs. Simonsen and nice kind
Heinrich Schulze that before I knew it, I was in the bakery.
“Oh, it was I who did it! It was I who put the doll into the
dough,—just for fun,—just for a joke on Schulze. Oh, I have been so
sorry about it—uh, hu, hu!” I threw myself down across the counter
and lay there, crying and sobbing; but it was a relief to have told
at last.
“Well, I must say!” exclaimed the Collector, but his tone and manner
had changed. “Is it here we have the sinner? And you did that for
fun? for _fun_?”
“Yes, I thought Schulze would find it right away,” I sobbed.
“Whose child are you?” asked the Collector. I told him through all my
tears and without raising my head from the counter.
“H’m, h’m.” The Collector cleared his throat. “Well, well. Let it
pass, my good Mrs. Simonsen. I shall, after all, continue to buy
my molasses cakes here; they are exactly to my taste. And you,
child,”—he tapped my head with the silver head of his cane,—“you must
find some other kind of fun than putting dolls into molasses cakes
for people to choke on.” With that the Collector stamped heavily out
of the shop.
Mrs. Simonsen was angry with me and so was Schulze; but I was so glad
to have the doll in my hands again, so glad that no one had died from
it, and that I had eased my conscience by confessing,—oh, I can’t
express how glad I was!
“Please don’t be angry. I did it just for a joke, you know. I will
never, never do anything like that again. No, indeed, indeed I will
not.”
But what do you think? Somehow, since that time, I don’t feel like
going as often as I used to into Mrs. Simonsen’s shop or into
the back yard to see Schulze; and I scarcely ever get a bit of
molasses-cake dough any more.
I was perfectly disgusted that my splendid joke should have turned
out not to be funny at all; but the doll that was baked in a molasses
cake and all but swallowed by the Collector of the Port, I still
treasure.
XI
MADAM KNOLL’S TORTOISE
Up in the attic of Lindquist, the tailor, lives a comical person,
Madam Knoll. She is big and broad and very rheumatic, but she laughs
at almost everything, although she can get angry enough, too, as you
shall hear.
But my, how Madam Knoll can laugh! She shakes all over and makes
scarcely a sound except a couple of hoarse cackles at the last when
her breath gives out. It is rather alarming until she catches her
breath again and hurries on with her talk just where she left off.