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There are four brothers and sisters of us at home, and as I am the eldest, it is natural that I should describe myself first. I am very tall and slim (Mother calls it "long and lanky"); and, sad to say, I have very large hands and very large feet. "My, what big feet!" our horrid old shoemaker always says when he measures me for a pair of new shoes. I feel like punching his tousled head for him as he kneels there taking my measure; for he has said that so often now that I am sick and tired of it.
My hair is in two long brown braids down my back. That is well enough, but my nose is too broad, I think; so sometimes when I sit and study I put a doll's clothespin on it to make it smaller; but when I take the clothespin off, my nose springs right out again; so there is no help for it, probably.
Why people say such a thing is a puzzle; but they all, especially the boys, do say that I am so self-important. I say I am not—not in the least—and I must surely know best about myself, now that I am as old as I am. But I ask you girls whether it is pleasant to have boys pull your braids, or call you "Ginger," or to have them stand and whistle and give cat-calls down by the garden wall, when they want you to come out. I have said that they must once for all understand that my braids must be let alone, that I will not be whistled for in that manner, and that I will come out when I am ready and not before. And then they call me self-important!
After Olaug comes Karl, but he is only a little midget.
The afternoon before we were to set out I went down back of our wood-shed, where all the boys and girls that I go with generally come every afternoon. It was hot enough to roast you and awfully dry and dusty; but I took my new umbrella down with me all the same. It wasn't really silk, but I had wound it and fastened it so tightly together that it looked just as slender and delicate as a real silk one. I wouldn't play ball with the rest of them. I just stood and swung my umbrella about.
"Have you got a new umbrella?" said Karen. "Is it a silk one?" asked Netta. "You've got eyes in your head," I answered. And so they all thought it was a silk one. I couldn't play ball with them, I said, because I had to go in and pack. Now that wasn't true at all, for I knew well enough that Mother had done all the packing; but it sounded so off-hand and important. They all teased me to stay down with them for a while, but no indeed, far from it. "I have too much to do. I start to-morrow morning early. Good-bye."
"Good-bye and a happy journey," shouted the company.
As we went down the hill, the stones under the elm-trees were still all moist with dew. Oh! how quiet it was out-of-doors! Suddenly away down in the town a cock crew. Everything seemed very strange.
Karsten and I ran ahead and Ingeborg, the maid, came struggling after us with our big green tine. Suddenly a desperate anxiety came over me. Suppose the steamboat should go off and leave us! Then how we ran! We left Ingeborg and the tine and everything else behind. When we turned round the corner into the market square, the sun streamed straight into our eyes and there by the custom-house wharf lay the steamboat, with steam up and sacks of meal being put on board. Karsten and I dashed across the square. Pshaw! we were in plenty of time. There wasn't a single passenger aboard yet. It is a little steamboat, you know, that only goes from our town over to Arendal.
Right below our old house on the hillside stands the church. It is a little wooden church, white-painted and low, with irregular windows, one low and another high, over the whole church. The doors are low and even the tower is low; the spire scarcely reaches up over the big maple-trees, as we can see from our windows. But then the maple-trees are tremendously big.
Every one in town says that the bells in our church tower are remarkable. They are considered unusually musical, and I think they are, too; and nothing could be more fun than to stand up in the tower when those great bells are being rung!
It is awfully thrilling—exactly as if your ear-drums would be split. When you put your fingers in your ears, draw them quickly out, stuff them in again—it is like a roaring ocean of sound. You should just hear it!
It was little brother Karl who was with me. We children were going to have a blueberry party—that was the beginning of the whole thing. Immediately after breakfast I flew to the forest, for I knew a place where I wanted to pick berries all by myself. Just as I was climbing over the fence of the home hill-pasture, Karl saw me and called out, "I want to go with you—it's mean of you—oh! oh! to run away from me—I want to go too." He made such a hullabaloo with his screaming that I had to stop and wait for him. But one ought never in the world to humor screeching children, for no good comes of it. Yes, when I have children, I shall be awfully strict and decided with them.
It was cool there in the forest. The sunshine came in only in golden stripes and spots. Never in my life have I seen so many blueberries and such high blueberry bushes as we found that day. I picked and picked. Meanwhile Karl ate and ate, till he was nothing but one big blueberry stain,—he smeared himself so with the juice.
If you have never been in a great forest, you cannot possibly imagine anything so bewildering. Trees and trees and trees in every direction and nothing else; no clear space, no opening anywhere. But even yet I wasn't a bit afraid. The sunshine was bright, the forest air fragrant and I had three quarts of blueberries in my basket—three quarts at the very least. But Karl was heavy to drag along and my berry basket weighed down my other arm, and there was no end to the trees.
* This is not the entire story! I simply chose bits of it to illustrate and since I am using the pictures for cards, I wanted a lot of landscape. I am aware that the children are always clothed in the same clothes. That's for my own sense of continuity. The entire book, already delightfully illustrated, can be found here:
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