Dikken Zwilgmeyer

“ For a long time afterward, [Pg 239] when I wished to tease Karsten, I would call him Mrs. Peter Olsen, for that made him furious.
We drove along in the moonlight over hills and frozen ponds, and through groves where the branches hung so low that they hit our heads and sent an avalanche of soft wet snow down our necks.
On Sandy-point fjord, the moonlight shed its silver radiance over the ice; and the ice gave forth a hollow roaring sound under the big sleigh and the heavy feet of the horses. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Sorry, ashamed, disgraced!
“You may go out into the hall, Inger Johanne, and stay there the rest of the hour,” said Mr. Juul in a deep voice.
I went out, every one in the class still staring at me.
I had been sent out into the hall before, but that was because I had been too lively; never for cheating. Never in my life for cheating. Oh, what a disgrace! What a disgrace! It was the very worst thing I could have done. What would Father say when he saw the marks in my report book? For I should surely be marked; I saw that by Mr. Juul’s manner. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Andreas choked and cried and dried his eyes on his jacket-sleeves, first one and then the other; but Karsten fairly bellowed—his way of crying.
The men kept on tearing up the heather so as to stop the fire, and scolding us constantly. I wonder whether you can possibly imagine how perfectly horrid it was. I shall never again have a bonfire of my own, if I live to be a hundred years old. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Well, besides the toys there is the big tortoise. That was brought home by a sailor many years ago, and has now crept and crawled over Madam Knoll’s floor for at least ten years. It is slow and clumsy about turning around, but it has lively little black eyes. Sometimes when I sit and look at the tortoise I think how dreadful for it just to crawl about in the half-darkness between the chair legs when it had been used to glorious sunshine and soft warm white sand and sea-water thoroughly warmed by the sun, down on the coast of Guinea where it came from. ”

“ I had just got Karsten in the hay under me and heaped so much hay on top of him that he could scarcely breathe, when we heard Aunt [Pg 253] Magda’s sweet, gentle voice from the barn door.
“Oh, you dear, dear children! Don’t do that! Great-Aunt says that you might lose a pin in the hay that a cow would eat, and the pin might stick in her insides. Come, dears, be good children and don’t play in the hay any more.”
“Oh, no, Aunt Magda! Don’t say that. Just come and see what fun it is. I haven’t a single pin about me, Aunt Magda.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 [Pg 99] 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. ”

“ She was pretty good to us children, though she never liked any of our fun or play, no matter what it was. Karsten was her especial favorite. He amused her mightily because he exaggerated so much. She would listen with a most serious face to Karsten’s yarns.
“We have a cat at home,” Karsten told her, “that is the wickedest cat in the whole town. No other cat dares come into our yard, for our cat either bites its head off or kills it at once.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ She almost never talks but when she does say anything, every word is so sensible that she might as well be eighty years old.
Ugh! that Anna Brynildsen!
Now I will tell you how a day at school goes with us. One only time in all my life have I cheated at school, and it is that particular day I am going to tell about.
I must begin at the beginning, and that is old Ingeborg who cleans the schoolroom, wipes up the dust, puts wood in the stove, and so on. But old Ingeborg is so old that she can’t see the dust, and when we come to school it is lying thick everywhere. ”

“ Every once in a while, a traveling photographer comes to our town. They take rather spotty pictures in one or another courtyard under the open sky, seldom pay for the room where they have lodged, and are suddenly gone. Such traveling photographers look almost alike, usually having black curly hair with pomade in it, and pale faces; they parade around in the street, walking quickly as if they were awfully busy.
But one summer a photographer came who was altogether different. In the first place, his name was Cavallius, and he was a little bit of a man ”

“ Karsten was furious.
“It was your fault, you are so heavy and clumsy; and now the box is smashed that we were to use this afternoon in the snow-fight.”
“A fight? With whom?”
“With the boys at Tangen, of course. Why should they have that grand big coast all to themselves? We boys from the town never go there with a sled without their coming at us and hitting us; and we have only this miserable little hill to coast on.” ”

“ Tobiesen gave a long whistle of relief, but if he had known that we were in his grand parlor he’d have whistled louder yet! I had a little hope that he might go up-stairs again; but no, he went into a room just across the hall.
“Oh, Mina! How splendid that they have gone!”
“But I’m almost as afraid of Tobiesen as I am of Lars and Guro,” whispered Mina, looking up at me.
“Sh—just keep still. We must wait a little while.” We listened and listened; not a sound was to be heard in the whole house. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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, [Pg 219] 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. ”

“ It rained and it rained. What in the world should Karsten and I do? Slide down the banisters we mustn’t, swing in the woodshed we mustn’t; but to lay a board across the chopping block and play seesaw, surely there could be no harm in that.
We found a board and seesawed up and down, up and down, until Nella, the parlor maid, came out with the message that we were to stop. We might pinch our fingers, Great-Aunt thought!
“Well, let’s go and jump in the hay in the barn,” suggested Karsten. “That’s awfully good fun.” ”

“ 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 [Pg 218] 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. ”

“ The islands are swarming with people who eat cake and drink fruit-juice and laugh and dance and sometimes fight.
[Pg 70]
The bonfires crackle and flash up against the dark sky and the sparks fly around far and near. Suddenly a piece of board or a charred butter-firkin tumbles down from the fire and the boys make wagers as to which of them can come nearest to the fire without burning himself. Their faces are so black with soot that they look like chimney-sweeps. ”

“ 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 [Pg 116] land, and their smoke makes a straight black streak in the sunshine. ”

“ 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. [Pg 110] 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. ”

“ When the steamer reached our town, Karsten and I were the first on the wharf. We leaped up the hill to our home in just about one bound, and up the steps. We hadn’t time to shut the doors after us, but left them standing open all the way to Mother’s room. There [Pg 261] sat Mother in an easy-chair, reaching out her arms to us.
“Oh, Mamma! Mamma! Mamma!” And Mother took us in her arms, pressing us close to her breast.
“Oh, my dear, dear children!”
There is nothing in the world so delightful as to come home. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I am allowed to go about and play with anything and everything. I wind up the music-boxes till our ears ring with opera melodies. I wind the tops, too, and get a whole crowd of them spinning on the floor at once. Oh, there is plenty of fun to be had up in Madam Knoll’s attic room, I assure you. And Madam Knoll sits on the little platform beside the window, singing in a quavering voice and sewing on shirts, for she sells them as well as toys.
However, few customers climb the steep stairs up to Madam Knoll’s room. ”