What Happened to Inger Johanne.

by Dikken Zwilgmeyer.

I, INGER JOHANNE

I have always heard grown people say that when you meet strangers and there is no one else to introduce you, it is highly proper and polite to introduce yourself. Uncle Karl says that polite people always get on in the world; and as I want dreadfully to do that, I will be polite and tell you who I am.

Everybody in our town knows me; and they call me "the Judge's Inger Johanne," because my father is the town judge, you see; and I am thirteen years old. So now you know me.

And just think! I am going to write a book! If you ask, "What about?" I shall have to say, "Nothing in particular," for I haven't a speck more to tell of than other girls thirteen years old have, except that queer things are always happening to me, somehow.

Probably it isn't easy to write a book when you have never done it before, especially when thoughts come galloping through your head as fast as they do through mine. Why, I think of a hundred things, while Peter, the dean's son, is thinking of one and a half! But, easy or not, since I, Inger Johanne, have set my heart on writing a book, write it I will, you may be sure; and now I begin in earnest.

CHAPTER I

OURSELVES, OUR TOWN, AND OTHER THINGS

OURSELVES

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 me comes Karsten. He has a large, fair face, light hair, and big sticking-out ears. It is a shame to tease any one, but I do love to tease Karsten, for he gets so excited that he flushes scarlet out to the tips of his ears and looks awfully funny! Then he runs after me--which is, of course, just what I want--and if he catches me, gives me one or two good whacks; but usually we are the best of friends. Karsten likes to talk about wonderfully strong men and how much they can lift on their little finger with their arm stretched out; and he is great at exaggeration. People say I exaggerate and add a sauce to everything, but they ought to hear Karsten! Anyway, I don't exaggerate,--I only have a lively imagination.

After Karsten there is a skip of five years; then comes Olaug, who is still so little that she goes to a "baby school" to learn her letters, and the Catechism. I often go to fetch Olaug home, for it is awfully funny there. When Miss Eina.r.s.en, the teacher, and her sister say anything they do not wish the children to understand, they use P-speech: Can-pan you-pou talk-palk it-pit? I went there often on purpose to learn it, for it is so ignorant to know only one language. But now I know both Norwegian and P-speech. Olaug always remembers exactly the days when the school money is to be paid, for on those days each child who brings the money gets a lump of brown sugar. Once a year the minister comes to Miss Eina.r.s.en's to catechize the children; but Miss Eina.r.s.en always stands behind the one who is being questioned and whispers the right answer. "Oh, Teacher is telling, Teacher is telling!"

the children say to each other. "Yes, I am telling," says Miss Eina.r.s.en.

"How do you think you would get along if I didn't?" On examination days Miss Eina.r.s.en always treats to thin chocolate in tiny cups, and the children drink about six cups apiece! Well, that's how it is at Olaug's school.

After Olaug comes Karl, but he is only a little midget. He thinks he can reach the moon if he stands on a chair by the window and stretches his arms away up high. He is perfectly wild to get hold of the moon because he thinks it would roll about so beautifully on the floor.

OUR TOWN

We live in a little town on the sea-coast. It is much more fun to live in a little town than a big one, for then you know every one of the boys and girls, and there are many more good places to play in; and all the sea besides. Oh, yes! I know very well that there are lots of small towns that do not lie by the sea. They must be horrid!

Think how we have the great ocean thundering in against the sh.o.r.e, wave after wave. Oh, it is delightful! Any one who has not seen that has missed a really beautiful sight. It is beautiful both in summer and winter; but I do believe it is most beautiful and wonderful in the time of the autumn storms. Go up on the hilltop some day in autumn, where the big beacon is, and look out over the sea! You have to hold on to your hat, hold on to your clothes, hold on to your body itself, almost.

Whew-ew! the wind! How it blows! How it blows! And the whole ocean looks as if it were astir from the very bottom. Big black billows with broad white crests of foam come rolling, rolling, rolling in--one wave does not wait for the other. And how they break over the islands out where the lighthouse is! The lighthouse stands like a tall white ghost against the dark sea and the dark sky;--sinks behind an enormous wave, rises again, sinks and rises again. How swiftly the clouds fly! How the ocean seethes and roars! We hear it all over town, sobbing, roaring, thundering! Away in by the wharves of the market square the waters are all in a turmoil. The little boats rock and rock, and the big ships dip up and down. The wet rigging sparkles, the mooring chains strain and creak, and there is _such_ a smell of salt in the air! You can almost taste the salt with your tongue.

In such weather the damaged ships come in. One autumn there came a Spanish steamship, with a green funnel and a white hull. It lay with almost its whole stern under water when the pilot from Krabbesund brought it in. That was jolly; not for the people on board,--it was anything but jolly for them,--but for us children.

When we choose, we go out into the harbor in boats and row round and round among the strange ships. At last, very likely, the sailors call out to us and ask us to come on board, and then it doesn't take us long to scramble up the ladder, you may be sure! On board, it is awfully jolly. Once a French skipper gave us some pineapple preserves; but generally we only get crackers. When the Spanish ship was in, the streets swarmed with foreign sailors, with long brown necks and burning black eyes. Then the old policeman, Mr. Weiby, strutted about, and sent Father long written reports about street rows and disturbances. The Spaniards didn't bother themselves a mite about old Weiby, puffing around with his chin high in the air!

Sometimes on summer afternoons when the water lies calm and shining, we slip off and borrow a boat (Mr. Terkelsen's, quite often) and go rowing around the island. Then, afterwards, we float about,--dabbling and splashing in the darkened water until evening comes on. Ah! that is pleasure!

AN ADVENTURE

One summer evening Ma.s.sa Peckell, Mina Trap and I saved two people from drowning; and we were praised for it in the newspapers. Really it is most delightful to see your name in print! I should like ever so much to do something else that the papers would praise me for, but I don't know what it could be!

This is how it happened that time. We had borrowed old Terkelsen's boat and rowed quite a way out. From a wharf on one of the islands another boat laden with wood came towards us. The wood was in slabs and chips and was piled high fore and aft. Down between the piles sat two children rowing. As they came nearer we saw that it was Lisa and George, the lighthouse-keeper's children. Mina and I were rowing, but I was so much stronger that I kept rowing her round and round, so that we were laughing and having a jolly time. Probably George and Lisa were watching us and forgetting all about their top-heavy boat; for, the next thing we knew, both piles of wood, George and Lisa, and the boat were all upset in the water. It was a dreadful thing to see!

"We--we'll go ash.o.r.e and get help!" shrieked Ma.s.sa. Humph! A pretty time they would have if we did that! Mina and I had more sense, so we turned our boat quickly and were over to the spot in two or three strokes of the oars. The boat was completely capsized and the chips floated over the water as thick as a floor. But George and Lisa were nowhere to be seen!

Then you may believe that Mina and I yelled with all our might! You know how it sounds over the water. My! how we did shriek! It must have been heard all over town. I saw people away back on the wharves running to the water to see what was the matter.

Then, there bobbed Lisa's head up among the chips, and Mina and I hauled her up by the arms into the boat. Ma.s.sa had to hang away over on the starboard so that _our_ boat shouldn't upset, too. Old Terkelsen is always so mad when we take his boat without leave. I can't imagine, for the life of me, why he should get so provoked over it. We always bring it back just as good as ever! Ma.s.sa and Mina and I have no desire, forsooth, to set out to sea through the Skagerak and sail away with it!

But on that day it was fortunate that we had taken his boat, and not some miserable little thing belonging to anybody else.

As soon as Lisa got her breath, she cried out: "Oh! the chips! the chips!" But just then George's head appeared, and Mina and I made a grab for him; but he was so stupidly heavy that we couldn't pull him in; so we only held him fast and screamed and screamed. Out from the wharves and from the islands came ever so many boats and lots of people. Those minutes that we hung over the edge of that boat and held on with all our might to the half-drowned George, who was as heavy as lead--shall I ever forget? George was drawn up into another boat and they took us in tow. Lisa sat like a drowned rat and cried till she choked. Then Ma.s.sa began to cry, too;--and so we came to the wharf.

For several days after the rescue I couldn't go into the street without people's stopping me and wanting a full account of how it all happened.

Really, it is quite troublesome to be famous; but I like it pretty well, nevertheless.

When Mina and I met that stout, lighthouse-Lisa on the street next time, we couldn't imagine how we had ever been able to drag her into the boat!

But you mustn't expect _grat.i.tude_ in this world. Many a time since then has Lisa come tiptoeing along after us on the street, tossing her head this way and that, mimicking us, to show how self-important we are! And _that_ after we saved the stupid creature from drowning!

OUR HOME

We live up on a hill in a lovely old house. People call it an old rattletrap of a house, but that is nothing but envy because they don't live there themselves. There are big old elm-trees around the house which shade it and make the back part of the deep rooms quite dark. The rafters show overhead, and the floors rock up and down when you walk hard on them, just because they are so old. There is one place in the parlor floor where it rocks especially. When no one is in there except Karsten and myself, we often tramp with all our might where the floor rocks most, for we want dreadfully to see whether we can't break through into the cellar.

There are several gardens belonging to our house. One big garden has only plum-trees with slender trunks and a little cl.u.s.ter of branches and leaves high, high up. When I walk down there under the plum-trees, I often imagine that I am down in the tropics, wandering under palm-trees.

I have a garden of my own, too. I wouldn't have mentioned it particularly if there weren't one remarkable fact about it. Really and truly, nothing will grow in it but that dark blue toad-flax--you know what that is. Every single spring I buy seeds with my pocket money, and plant and water and take care of them, but when summer comes there is nothing in the garden but great big toad-flax stalks all gone to seed.

It is awfully tiresome, especially when they have such a horrid name.

PLAYMATES

Now I think it is time to describe all of us boys and girls who play together, and whom I am going to tell about in my book.

There is Peter, the dean's son, with his sleepy brown eyes and freckles as big as barleycorns. Peter is a cowardly chap. He never has any opinion of his own. And if he had one he would never dare to stand by it if you contradicted him. He's terribly afraid of the cold, too, and goes about with a scarf wound around his neck, and mittens if a single snowflake falls. Still, Peter is very nice indeed; he does everything that I want him to.

Then there is my brother Karsten, but I've told you about him. He is a little younger than the rest of us.

Another boy is Ezekiel Weiby. He is fourteen years old and has an awfully narrow face--not much broader than a ruler. He is very clever and reads every sort of book. But when he is out with the rest of us, he wants us all to sit still and hear him tell about everything he has been reading. For a while that is very pleasant, but I get tired of it pretty soon, for I hate to sit still long at a time. That is a very funny thing. Other people get tired of walking or running about, but I can't stand it to sit still.

Nils Trap is the bravest of all the boys. He never wears an overcoat, but goes around with his hands in his pockets whistling a funny tune:

"Ho, hei for Laaringa!"