What Happened To Inger Johanne Part 15

That's the way it was at Goodfields, beauty and plenty everywhere. And it all belonged to Mother Goodfields. And she was the nicest person in the world, for she was so kind. She wasn't the least bit cross when we tagged after her in the dairy and the grain-house, and we might eat all the green gooseberries in the garden, if we wanted to. And everybody who was poor and sick went to Mother Goodfields, as all the people in the neighborhood called her. She was big and strong and earnest and helped them all. She was a widow and had no children, and it seemed to her so lonely on the big farm that she took summer boarders.

On the fjord the little steamboat went up one day and down the next, with foreigners who sat stretching their legs out on the deck and stared sleepily at the mountains.

I am not fond of mountains, to tell the truth. Ugh! when you stay among them it seems so cramped and horrid. You feel just like a little ant at last. No, give me the sea, with its seaweed tossing on the waves, and its rocking boats and vessels, and the reefs and the fresh wind.

There were many times at Goodfields when it was so downright hot in the valley that I felt like crying when I thought of the sea. My brother Karsten felt exactly the same.

There were eight mothers and eleven children and five teachers at Goodfields that summer. I can't describe them, it would take too long; besides all grown up women are alike, it seems to me. There were only two big children of my age at Goodfields, Petter Kloed and Andrine Voss.

Petter Kloed was very elegant; only think, he wore yellow gloves way off there in the country. And what he liked best in the world was ice-cream and champagne. Never in my life had I tasted either ice-cream or champagne, but I didn't say so, for that would be awkward. And then Petter Kloed was not really nice to his mother, I think, and that was a great shame, for Mrs. Kloed doted on him, and would give him anything if he only looked at it.

Andrine Voss was hardly pretty at all, but she had awfully long eyelashes and when she half shut her eyes she looked very mysterious.

But she only looked so, she wasn't the least bit mysterious, for she was my best friend and did everything I wanted her to the whole summer.

We have decided that she shall marry a county judge, and I a doctor, but we will live in the same house and have just the same number of children. And we are going to be friends all our lives.

The other children who were at Goodfields that summer were just little ones, some roly-polys and some thin, pale, little things who were dressed in laces and took malt extract, and had legs no bigger than drumsticks.

One Sunday we went to church. Four fat horses and four wagons started from Goodfields with the churchgoers.

It was so peaceful and so beautiful; down on the fjord one boat after another set out from the opposite side bringing people to church; the boats left a broad streak behind them in the calm, smooth water.

We drove past little groups of peasants--women and girls with white linen head-dresses, and men in s.h.i.+rt-sleeves with their jackets over their arms, for the sun was roasting hot on the open roads. "Good cheer," they all greeted us with, and when we had pa.s.sed I heard them whisper to each other: "They are the summer folk from Goodfields."

More and more people gathered along the quiet roads; and there on a height stood the church,--a white wooden church with a low tower, and a church-bell which rang with a cracked sound out over the leafy forest and the fields and the still water.

The horses were tied in a long row on the other side of the road, and the boys and men stood leaning against the stone wall around the churchyard, but the women were farther in among the graves. They all exchanged greetings, shaking hands loosely, standing well away from each other. "Thanks for our last meeting," they said, looking quickly away.

It was so queer. People don't do like that in town.

They sang without an organ, and it sounded so innocent, somehow, and the church door stood wide open to the suns.h.i.+ne. But what do you think happened? In came a goat right in the midst of the hymn.

The church clerk stood in the choir door and led the singing; one of his arms was of no use; I had heard of that. All at once there in the open church door stood a goat. I wonder what's going to happen now, thought I.

The goat turned his head first one way, then the other,--then as true as you live he came pattering in. Patter, patter, sounded short and sharp over the church floor. Every one turned to look, and the singing died away, little by little, but no one got up to put the goat out.

Farther and farther up towards the choir pattered the goat. Suddenly the clerk saw him. For a moment he looked terribly bewildered, then very thoughtfully he laid his psalm-book aside and walked down the aisle.

Then you should have seen the clerk engineer the goat out with his one arm. He had hold of one horn, and the goat resisted, and the clerk shoved, and so, little by little, they worked themselves down the church. Oh, I shall never forget it!

The singing stopped altogether, except that one and another old woman off in the corners held the tune with shaky voices. I was awfully interested in seeing how the goat and the clerk got on. If it had been I, I should have hurried that goat out faster than the clerk did, I'll wager.

Down by the door the goat got all ready to jump, wanting to start up the aisle again. If the tussle had lasted a moment longer I should have had to laugh--but then the clerk made a mighty effort, turned the goat entirely around, and there it was--out!

The clerk in the meantime had risen to the occasion, for at the very instant that the goat went head over heels down the steps, he took up the tune just where he had left off, and sang all the way up the aisle.

Awfully well done of him, I think.

There! Now you understand what it was like at Goodfields, and now you shall hear about all the different things that happened in our summer vacation.

CHAPTER XIII

OLEANA'S CLOCK

At Goodfields, the houses for the farm laborers are up in the forest.

Towards Goodfields itself, the forest is thick and dark, but up where it has been cleared, willows and alders grow in clumps, and there are tiny little fields and still smaller potato patches, belonging to each sun-scorched hut with its turf roof and windows of greenish gla.s.s. From the clearing you can look upward to the mountains, or downward, over the thick pines and through the leafy trees, to the smooth, s.h.i.+ning fjord.

All the huts for the farm-hands were full to running over with children.

In Henrik-hut there were nine, in Steen-hut eight, and in North-hut eleven; and they were all tow-headed and bare-footed and all had mouths stained with blueberries.

Henrik-hut was the place we summer-boarder-children liked best because there was a dear old grandmother there with such soft, kind eyes. She could not go out any more, but sat always in an armchair beside the window; on the window-sill lay her much-worn brown prayer-book.

Oleana was Grandmother Henrik-hut's daughter. She was big, very much freckled, always good-natured, and talked a steady stream, often about her husband. She didn't seem highly delighted with him.

"Poor Kaspar!" said Oleana. "He hasn't brains enough for anything. No, I can truly say he hasn't much sense under his hat. Things would be pretty bad at Henrik-hut if there were no Oleana here." And Kaspar agreed with her perfectly.

"I haven't much sense, or learning either," said Kaspar. "But that's the way it goes in the world,--one clever one and one stupid one come together; and so Oleana manages everything, you see."

Even with Oleana to manage, however, things had often been bad enough at Henrik-hut. They had almost starved at times, Grandmother, Kaspar, Oleana and all the nine children.

"It isn't worth speaking of now," said Oleana, "the hard scratching we have had many a time. But when the summer boarders,--fine city folk,--came to Goodfields, luck came to Henrik-hut."

Oleana did the was.h.i.+ng for these summer guests and earned money that way, you see.

"It's just as if all this money were given to me!" said Oleana. "For our Lord fills the brooks with water and the work I put on the clothes is nothing to count."

There were beds everywhere in the one room of the hut, and what with shelves and clothes, wooden bowls and buckets and even s.h.i.+ny sc.r.a.p-pictures on the walls, there wasn't a vacant spot anywhere. The floor was s.h.i.+ningly clean, however, and strewn with juniper boughs, and the sun shone cheerily through the greenish window-panes, on Grandmother and the nine tow-headed children, and all.

Oleana had been married twenty-one years and in all that time had never owned a clock. Through the long darkness of the winter afternoons and evenings, when the snow lay thick and heavy on the pine-trees round about, and the roads were blocked in every direction with high drifts, there they would be in the hut;--Oleana and Grandmother and the nine tow-heads and the husband without much sense under his hat,--and not even the clever Oleana would have the remotest idea what o'clock it was.

In summer she looked at the sun to tell the time, and on clear winter nights at the stars; though to see these, she had to get up in the cold and breathe on the thickly frosted window-pane to make a s.p.a.ce to peep through.

One day while I was at Henrik-hut talking with Oleana, it occurred to me that we summer-boarder-children might put our money together and buy a clock for Oleana. The grown-up people wanted to help, and so we got a lot of money; and a big clock with a white dial and red roses was bought in the city.

Then it was such fun surprising Oleana with it! We had an awfully jolly time. A message was sent to her asking her to come to Goodfields; and down she came with her hair wet and smooth, and a clean stiff working-dress on, but having no notion what we wanted of her.

The clock had been hung up in the hall at Goodfields and its s.h.i.+ning bra.s.s pendulum was swinging with a slow and sure tick-tock. All the ladies stood around and I was to present the clock.

"Oleana," said I, "we wanted to give you a clock;--and that's it."

Oleana looked as if the sky had fallen.

"Oh no, no, no!" she cried. "It isn't possible--of course not! Why should I have that clock?"

"Because you have so many children," said I.

Just then the clock struck six clear strokes, and Oleana began to cry.

"I never knew there were such kind people in the world," said Oleana, as she stood with folded hands, looking up at the clock through her tears.