Part 4

“May I ask the ladies up there to indulge us with their absence?” said Cavallius.

Oh! how we laughed! No, it was altogether too amusing for us to be willing to leave. “No, Cavallius, we’re not going; do not imagine that we are.” Of course we did not dare to say that aloud.

Repeated exhortations to Barbara from Cavallius to look pleasant. Barbara looked, if possible, still more angry, and assured him most positively that if there was anything in the world she would not do, it was to look pleasant “at such a one as you.”

Massa and I laughed till we were worn out with it.

“That’s right, Barbara,” shouted Massa, “look more fierce. Don’t give in, Barbara.”

“Go away,” said Cavallius, shaking his little stumpy hand threateningly towards us. “Go away, ladies; I will not endure this, on my honor I will not. Go!”

Just think, he called us “ladies”! We ducked down behind the window in silent laughter, then we peeped out again. Cavallius kept on threatening us.

“Go, I say!” We ducked down but popped up again the next instant. Cavallius grew more and more angry. We kept popping down and up and laughing continually, but go away we would not, you may be sure.

At last Barbara’s picture was ready.

“Well, my girl,” said Cavallius, “it isn’t my fault that you look like a lion-tamer in your picture.”

“What is it I look like?” asked Barbara. “It’s your fault if it’s a horrid picture.”

“That’s right, Barbara,” called Massa. “Scowl at him. Of course it is his fault.”

“Go away!” roared Cavallius up at us.

Barbara drew backward towards the door and bumped into old Mrs. Huus who was just coming in to be photographed. Mrs. Huus wore a brown silk dress, gold brooch, gold chain, gold bracelets, and some quivering golden ornaments in her hair. People in the town said that Mrs. Huus stuffed cotton into her cheeks to fill them out so as to look younger. I don’t know whether this is true or not, but Mrs. Huus certainly does speak as if her mouth were full.

Cavallius conducted her most respectfully to a chair, but as he went, he shook his fist threateningly again up towards us in the barn window. Mrs. Huus did not see us, but I noticed that she cast a frightened glance at Cavallius as he shook his fist in the air.

He got down on one knee and arranged the brown silk dress in careful folds. While he knelt there, he turned and again made the threatening gesture towards us. Mrs. Huus sent an anxious look heavenward; evidently she thought he was crazy.

Massa and I tumbled over each other below the window in fits of laughter, although we choked back the noise. Then we heard Cavallius talking, and I put my head up cautiously. Cavallius saw me and threatened again with both fists, but still Mrs. Huus had not seen a sign of us, so to her his angry gestures were unaccountable.

“No, no, no,” she said hastily, getting up. “I don’t think I am very well. I don’t think I care to be photographed to-day.” With that she darted, swift as an arrow, out of the gate without even saying good-bye.

I heard later that she had been mortally afraid the few minutes she was in Cavallius’ studio, because of his shaking his fists towards heaven, and she thought herself fortunate to have come away unharmed.

When Mrs. Huus was gone, Cavallius, with hands at his side, looked up at us.

“There now, ladies, whose fault was that? Whose fault was it, I ask, 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!”

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.”