Part 8

When I had run a few steps away from him, I got hold of a little stick and began to tease him. I danced round and round him, poked him with the stick and sang a nonsense song that always made him frightfully angry:

“Anna Pelanna with light blue beard, If you live till summer You’ll lay an egg, You’ll lay an egg——”

“If I once get hold of you, you young villain,” said Evan Henny-Penny.

He tried to hit me with his stick, time after time, while I kept on dancing round and round him and chanting, “You’ll lay an egg. You’ll lay——”

Without knowing it, I had danced to the very edge of the wharf and—splash! over I went, down into the black water.

Never to my dying day shall I forget that moment. To fall and fall, to feel the ice-cold water covering me, nothing to catch hold of, knowing myself sinking—— The water seemed to freeze my very heart. I tried to scream, but could not; the water thundered in my ears. I clutched with both hands—everything failed me—only ice-cold water—I sank—sank——

I came up again. Oh, there was the wharf! I gave a piercing shriek, then—what was that? Something was let down from the wharf, something that moved. I grabbed it, and recognized it as Evan Henny-Penny’s staff. Keeping tight hold with both hands, I felt the staff pulled from above. How little Evan managed it, I can’t understand. People who heard about it afterward said it was a perfect miracle, but up to the wharf he drew me, till I could catch hold of the edge. Then he grasped my arms, pulled and pulled with all his might, and there I was on the wharf.

“Oh, Evan—Evan! Don’t be angry, Evan,” were the first words I said.

“I got you up,” said Evan, with a sly smile. “You screamed horribly there by the wharf.”

“Come home with me, Evan,” I said. “Please do.”

I felt that I must have him go home with me or I couldn’t thank him enough.

“Not a bit of it. You needn’t think I’ll do that,” answered Evan Henny-Penny.

So I had to run home alone, in my dripping clothes. My teeth chattered, I was so cold. I ran all the way, and right up-stairs to Gunhild, who put me to bed and sent some one to call Mother.

Oh, how I cried when I got to bed—because it was Evan Henny-Penny who had saved me; Evan, whom I had teased and been so horrid to, always, always!

“Oh, Mother, Mother! You must give Evan a lot to eat—lots of good things!”

“Yes, child, you may be sure I shall; but you must beg his pardon for behaving so outrageously to him, Inger Johanne; and you must never tease him or any other such poor creatures again.”

Since that October afternoon Evan has had dinner at our house every single day. When we have anything especially good, I am glad for his sake. I always look out that the best isn’t all eaten up at our table, but that Evan, out in the kitchen, gets a good big portion.

And now I never tease any of them any more, never,—Mrs. Lennertsen, Jens Julsen, or Evan; and if anybody else attempts it when I am around, I put an end to it pretty quickly, you may depend upon that. I run after a policeman immediately. Not after Mr. Weiby, who would only say, “Well, well. Off with you!” but after Mr. Skarnes, who takes them by the neck and strikes out with his club. Of course, all the children are terribly afraid of him, so teasing is getting out of fashion in our town, I am happy to say.

XV

SURPRISING THE CLOCKMAKER

Never in my life have I liked Clockmaker Krause, and for that I have three good reasons. The first is that he never bows to me, although Consul Gjertz and the Chief of Police take off their hats to me when I curtsey—and he also might do as much as that, I think.

The second reason is that I can’t bear the way he carries himself when he walks. Some persons stoop forward, but Clockmaker Krause leans over back. From his heels to the top of his head, his figure makes a slanting line backward just like the mast of a sailboat in a heavy sea. He carries himself that way just because he thinks himself of so much consequence.

The third reason for my not liking him is that he has nailed some boards together in the fence around his yard, so that we can’t run through that short way when the clock says ten minutes to nine and we are rushing to school in a hurry. It is really awfully mean of Clockmaker Krause to do that, for it can’t hurt him a mite if we run through his yard two or three times a day.

Clockmaker Krause is never out except in the evening, when there is moonlight; and he never walks farther than from his own steps to the deacon’s fence—from the deacon’s fence to his own steps;—that’s the way he keeps on,—and he looks like a thin slanting streak in the moonlight.

I really believe it was Teresa Billington’s fault that the fence was nailed together. Yes, I’m sure we can thank her for that. Teresa is housekeeper for Clockmaker Krause, and she is even more exasperating to me than he is. She is fat and pale and the expression of her face never changes; and when people are consequential like Krause and with such a set face as Teresa’s, I call it exasperating. She has nothing to feel high and mighty about. She is not from our town.

Although her expression is so set, I made her change it once, at any rate. It was one summer evening when I was allowed to ride the truckman’s horse home. This man lived a little outside of the town; and there were many persons on the road taking a walk in the twilight. As I rode along, I suddenly saw Teresa Billington with her red parasol and her disgustingly haughty air. “Now I’ll just see if I can’t make that set expression change,” I thought, and with that I turned the big horse towards her and rode right close to her.

Goodness gracious! You may well believe that her face took on a different look. The red parasol dropped into the road, Teresa Billington opened her mouth wide and shrieked and stretched her arms up against the steep hillside. It was impossible for her to go anywhere, you see, for the bank was straight up and down like a wall. But I very calmly turned the horse and rode on my way.

Another time that Teresa was angry with me was about the kittens, but that time I was innocent. It was Mrs. Pussy’s fault. Our dear delightful Mrs. Pussy had four little kittens and I put them in a basket in our attic. It was a fine basket, beautifully trimmed with lace and with a doll’s blanket in the bottom of it; but, only think! Mrs. Pussy wouldn’t stay there.

Clockmaker Krause lives a little way from us, back on the hill. In his yard there is a tumble-down woodshed and in its attic, yes, there, if you please, was where Mrs. Pussy wanted to keep her kittens. One by one she carried them, holding them by the neck, from that lace-trimmed basket in our attic, up the hill and into the loft of that rickety woodshed of Krause’s. Naturally I followed her, and, sure enough, on a heap of rags in a corner lay Mrs. Pussy purring, with all the four black, silky-soft kittens scrambling over her.

The very minute I got up there Teresa Billington came also.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice quivering, for she was in a regular rage.

“I am just taking our kittens away,” I said, gathering them up in my apron.

“Such alley-cats that go into other folks’ houses—it would serve them right if they had their heads chopped off,” said Teresa. “And such gad-about children, too,” she shouted down the ladder after me. “Children that grow up to be nothing but nuisances to other folks.”

* * * * *

Well, later came the time that I planned the surprise for Clockmaker Krause. One moonlight night he was walking up and down the street as usual. Karen and I went past him again and again and curtsied every time, but he looked only at the moon. Then we took a great notion to play some joke on him; and do you know what we did?

The clocks in his shop had struck seven almost at one and the same instant. Some boomed slowly in deep muffled tones, some rang delicate quick strokes. It sounded like chimes when all his clocks were striking.

The clockmaker had just gone away from his steps, and we knew that there was no one in the shop when he took these little walks.

“I’m going to run in and move the hands of all the clocks around to eight,” said I. “So the next time Krause comes to his shop door, they will strike again. My! What a surprise it will be for him, won’t it?”

Karen was to stand outside and whistle through her fingers if Krause came down the street sooner than we expected.

I dashed up the high flight of stone steps into the shop and shoved the hands quickly around on five clocks. Just then Karen whistled furiously through her fingers—right under the window—and I heard Krause on the stone steps.

Never shall I forget my fright. I ducked down behind the counter in the darkest corner, and there I lay. Sin brought its own punishment that time, I can tell you, for it was horrible lying there expecting every minute to be discovered. Krause busied himself with something over on a table; then two of the clocks whose hands I had moved began to strike, and the strokes rang out sharp and clear in the stillness. Krause turned hastily around.

“What’s that?” he exclaimed aloud. Another clock began to strike, then another and another. I can’t describe how I felt as I lay there and heard them.

Krause could scarcely believe his own ears.

“What in the world is the matter?” he exclaimed. “The clocks are all striking eight, five minutes after they have struck seven!”

Just then Karen whistled again under the window.

“It’s those rascally young ones who have been doing mischief here!” shouted Krause suddenly, and he rushed headlong out-of-doors.

That was my salvation; for Krause naturally thought that whoever had meddled with his clocks was out in the street. He had no idea that I was lying behind his counter.

When he had dashed out, it didn’t take me long to get out either, I can tell you! Down the stone steps in two hops, up the street and around Mrs. Milberg’s corner; and there I was—safe. Karen came breathlessly the other way through Miss Fretteland’s garden. Krause had not seen her, either, and joyful indeed were we at our escape.

A little later we, with a most innocent air, walked up and down past Clockmaker Krause, who stood in his doorway watching. But would you believe it? I was found out after all! Now you shall hear.

The next morning when I was on my way to school, Teresa stood at the clockmaker’s door.

“Are not these yellow gloves yours?” she asked.

Yes, of course they were mine. They were deep yellow and very stylish, and I made a great display of them whenever I had them on.

“Well, well. They are yours, are they? They lay on the floor in the shop, so perhaps you know who it was went in there and ruined all the clocks for Krause.”

“Ruined them?” I said aghast, looking up at Teresa in real fright.

“Krause, Krause!” called Teresa. “Come out here.”

But I dared not stay any longer to talk with Teresa, for it was late and I must hurry to school; so I took to my heels and ran away, not sorry to avoid meeting the clockmaker.

At school I felt all the time that there was something weighing upon me, something disagreeable. Nothing was pleasant. I got “one” on my composition about “Love of Country,” but even that did not cheer me. What Teresa had said,—that I had ruined the clocks,—was too dreadful.

Suppose Krause said I must pay for those five big clocks! Ugh! I was so upset that my heart was in my mouth all day.

By now Krause had probably been up to see Father. For a moment I thought I would not go home that day; I would go up on the hill and eat frozen whortleberries for dinner,—or stay down on the wharf all day and sleep in our old barn, and never go home any more,—or go off in a steamship. Oh, what should I do? What should I do?

When school was over I went around by the wharf to drag out the time. Every one had gone home to dinner but myself and Constable Stiksrud, and it was absolutely still over the whole market-place. A dog barked up by the corner and Stiksrud turned around quickly with an angry face. Everything is to be very quiet and orderly at the market-place in our town, you see.

“Aren’t you going home to your dinner?” asked Stiksrud, at last. So of course I had to go.

As soon as I got home I had a suspicion that they knew what I had done. There was a heavy feeling in the air at the dinner table. Everybody was so silent—so silent! I ate all the soup from my plate—something I seldom do. I didn’t believe Father was silent because he knew about the clocks, for he always keeps still at meals; but Mother usually talks, and to-day there wasn’t a word breathed from behind the soup tureen.

After we had finished dinner, the blow came. Mother called me into the pantry.

“Clockmaker Krause’s housekeeper has been up here, Inger Johanne. You have been doing something wrong again, haven’t you?”

“No, Mother—I don’t believe I ruined the clocks—I only—I only shoved the hands around—very quickly, you know——”

“Shoved the hands, you say?”

“Yes—just for fun, Mother—don’t be angry—just so that the clocks should strike again—Krause would be so surprised.”

Mother looked thoughtfully out of the pantry window.

“Well, we shall have to see about finding a way out of all this; perhaps we ought to send you to boarding-school in Germany, for you are really as wild as the worst boy.”

“No, no, Mother. Don’t send me away—I’ll never think of any more mischief—I’ll be so good——”

“The heart is good enough,” said Mother, opening the pantry door. “But, my dear Inger Johanne, don’t let me hear any more complaints about you.”

Ugh! They always threaten me with these horrid boarding-schools, where I should learn to behave properly. When I have done something that is a little bad, then I am to go to boarding-school in Sondfjord, but when I have been perfectly wild, as Mother calls it—then I am to go to Germany or to Pommeren, wherever that is.

However, none of the clocks were damaged at all. Teresa had only said they were ruined to frighten me. But just think! I never got my yellow gloves back. Teresa kept them and I couldn’t bear to ask her for them.

Well, that’s the way I surprised Clockmaker Krause, and I got more trouble than fun out of it. However, I shall never curtsey to him any more; he may depend upon that.

XVI

GHOSTS

All the people in the town think that our house is haunted. They say that old Customs Officer Borgen, who used to own the house and who has been dead for many, many years is the ghost that haunts it.

The house is awfully old, with a tremendously long sloping roof, a big garret, lots of closets and poke-holes under the eaves, and a pitch-dark hall with unexpected steps, over which people who don’t know about them tumble head over heels.

Above the big garret, in the high peak of the roof, there are two lofts, one above the other; and it is in the topmost loft that the old customs officer walks about and busies himself; at least, so people say.

“V-s-s-s,” sounds from up there, and a little while after, “Bum, bum, bum.” It may be the wind in under the roof-tiles that says, “V-s-s-s,” but no one can explain the “Bum, bum, bum.” That must be the customs officer, you see.

The maids are always afraid to go to the uppermost loft after dark, and really it isn’t pleasant to go up there when it is light, either. It seems so queer, somehow, as if some one stood behind you all the time who would grab hold of your dress or your braids. Karsten is just as afraid as I am, but he will never own it; he just brags.

“Pooh! It’s nothing. Girls and women are afraid of everything. Well, here’s the boy so strong that he could and would throttle seven customs officers, if necessary.”

Ugh! Karsten has grown so conceited lately that he is beyond everything. He is always saying that I am nothing but a girl, but that he is a boy, he is. (Oh, you wait, Karsten Cocky-cub; you’ll get paid for such talk, depend upon it.)

The thought of the customs officer wouldn’t bother me much if I didn’t need now and then to go into the top loft, but I do need to, you see. Up there in one corner lies a great heap of papers that old Mr. Borgen left in the house, stiff yellow papers with accounts on them. Whenever Karsten and I want any paper,—and that is almost every day, you know,—we are allowed to take what we need from that heap.

Mother doesn’t like us to bring too much of the old dusty paper down at one time, and that’s why I have to go up often for it. But I go like the wind up and back again. Not that I have ever seen old Mr. Borgen there, but it isn’t pleasant to think that he rambles around the loft in his felt shoes and with a shade over his eyes. That’s the way he looks, people say.

One evening Father and Mother were going out to a party, and Karsten and I would be alone at home, except that I was to have Massa and Mina to supper. The weather was perfectly horrid that night. The wind wrestled with the old maple-trees around the house, pulled and tugged at them till they creaked. The branches of the pear-tree outside the drawing-room windows swayed to and fro and struck against the panes.

We had been romping at a great rate all the afternoon before dark, and had danced so hard that the drawing-room floor shook, and Ingeborg, the cook, had come up from the basement to know whether we were going to tear the house down. But we didn’t bother ourselves about what she said, for she is always fussy.

Later we teased Karsten, chasing him through all the rooms, the parlor, the little room, dining-room, living-room and out through the kitchen; and we kept shouting at him:

“Karsten Cocky-Cub, In a half butter-tub.”

The boys at school call him that, and it always makes him furious. His white hair was standing straight up, his face was fiery red. Suddenly he turned and sprang towards us, waving a piece of knotted rope which he said was a Russian “knout.” Massa, Mina, and I screeched like locomotive whistles, hid behind doors and shrieked again in terror when Karsten caught us.

Just then Ingeborg appeared again and said in her scolding voice, “Now, children, don’t you know you shouldn’t race and romp like this so late in the evening, and here in this house where it isn’t safe, and in such weather?”

“Look out for the customs officer, Ingeborg; he’ll soon be here,” shouted Karsten.

Ingeborg shook her fist at him. “Don’t talk ugly, boy; he may come before you think.”

I don’t know why it was, but suddenly I lost all desire for noisy fun. I proposed that we go into the drawing-room again. Great, broken clouds hurried over the sky, the moon shone out now and then and gleamed into the room, bright and clear between the leafless, swaying branches.

I should much rather have had the lamps lighted, but since the others preferred sitting in the dark I said nothing. We packed ourselves together on a sofa in a corner. The moon had gone behind a cloud now, the branches kept tapping, tapping, the big room was perfectly dark and had grown cold, too.

“Let’s tell ghost-stories,” suggested Massa. “I suppose you have heard about Eyvind who met a ghost in the churchyard once.”

“Oh, Massa! don’t tell that. I’m so afraid I’m going to put my feet up on the sofa,” said Mina.

All of us must have our feet up, even Karsten the braggart.

“Well, people say, you know, that the attic in this house is haunted,” said Massa.

“Yes, but that is only nonsense,” said Karsten scornfully.

“Don’t you be so superior, Karsten boy,” I said. “You would not dare to go up in the top loft, not for a million dollars.”

“Yes, indeed, I dare.”

“Well, go then.”

“That would be the easiest thing in the world for me,” Karsten announced; “but there is nothing brave about going up there now.”

“Oh, he’s afraid!” “Shame on him!” “It’s a disgrace for a boy to be afraid.”

We taunted and teased him, all three of us, and pointed scornful fingers at him. “Sha-a-me!”

“I’d just as soon go up there this very minute, if that’s what you want,” said Karsten, stoutly.

Yes, it was exactly what we wanted. Another long argument from him, more and more teasing from us; at last he was sick of it.

“Well, I’m going. You shall see I’m no ’fraid-cat, not I.” And out of the door he ran. We heard him tramp up the attic stairs, and stumble around making all the noise he could as he crossed the long garret.

Never had I admired Karsten so much. He isn’t anything to admire in daily life, more’s the pity, but when he ran up to that haunted attic I had to admire him.

Down-stairs on the sofa we listened with nerves on edge. The wind whined and roared; there came a sudden, violent blast down the chimney, but we heard not a sound from Karsten. Oh, how terror-stricken I was! Suppose the ghost was choking Karsten that moment, and it was I who had teased him into going up there.

I sprang to the door. “Oh, Karsten, Karsten, come down! Come down!”

“Bum, bum, bum!” sounded with frightful distinctness from the loft.

“Did you hear that? Oh, oh, oh, Karsten, Karsten!”

A fresh blast of wind came, the hall door blew open, and in the very same instant there was such a bang and a crash up in the attic as I never heard the equal of. It sounded exactly like an earthquake. It’s true there’s never been an earthquake in our town and I don’t know what kind of noise it would make, but I imagine it would be just about as loud and terrifying as that thundering commotion in the loft. I thought I should die of fright. Massa, Mina, and I clung to each other.

“Oh, I shall die! My heart is thumping dreadfully,” I said.

Just then we heard Karsten. He darted through the hall in a flash, wild with fright.

“Oh, oh, oh, the customs officer said ‘V-s-s-s’ right in my ear!”

We took no long time to think, I assure you, but rushed all together to the door of the drawing-room that led into Father’s office. We did not dare run through the hall, for the customs officer was surely right on Karsten’s heels. It was perfectly pitch-dark in the office. Mina upset a chair as she ran, Massa dashed into a bookcase and screamed. My knees shook so that my legs would scarcely carry me when I got to the office entry.

There is only one door from the office to the courtyard. The important thing now was to unbolt this outside door quickly. Oh, how I pulled! At last I got the door open and the cold outside air struck us. I felt that we were saved as we rushed out into the black night.

“Let’s run home to my house,” said Massa.

So down the hill we all sprang in desperate haste, Karsten leading. How the wind blew! Not a person was to be seen on the whole street down which we ran as if for our lives.

We came within an inch of frightening the wits out of Massa’s mother when we rushed in upon her, white as a sheet and panting for breath. We could scarcely speak we were so terrified.

“Oh! Oh! Such a terrible noise, Mrs. Peckell,” I exclaimed. “Exactly like Pompeii.” I meant “Vesuvius,” but I didn’t remember the right name that minute.

When we had quieted down and had eaten some fig-cake and sweetmeats, we found to our amazement that Karsten denied positively that he had been afraid.

“I ran because you ran,” said he. “And it was just because it was so dark up there that I ran down from the loft. I am not a cat to see in the dark. The rumbling was terrible and something whispered ‘V-s-s-s’ close to my ears; but if the customs officer himself had come he’d have got a warm welcome. Here’s the boy to manage him,” said Karsten.

After a while Ingeborg, with a most bewildered face and carrying our outside things, came to Mrs. Peckell’s to inquire whether we were there.

When she couldn’t find us in any of the rooms and discovered the office door wide open she understood that we had gone out. She had been frightfully worried and had searched for us a long time, and now she was very angry.

“Who ever saw the like of you children? Such outrageous behavior!” grumbled Ingeborg, hurrying us home.