I looked at Mrs. White. Her face seemed to get sharper and narrower just from severity; but Madam Tellefsen laughed so that she had to hold the end of her French shawl over her face. I had got very warm and my hair was very dusty from that expedition under the desks, but I didn't mind that.

Fully five minutes pa.s.sed before Mr. Gorrisen saw me. But all at once when I had begun to feel pretty safe, came:

"Why, Inger Johanne! Have you walked out of the corner without permission?"

"No, I have not walked, Mr. Gorrisen," said I.

"She crept," the others murmured faintly.

"She crept," said Kima aloud from her desk in the front row.

"What is this, Inger Johanne?" asked Mr. Gorrisen severely.

"It was so tedious to stand there, Mr. Gorrisen," I said.

"Yes, that was exactly why you were put there."

"And so I crept over here when you didn't see me."

Without another word, down across the floor he came. I turned my right ear towards him, for the left ear burned horribly even yet from the other time. But he evidently thought that an ear-pinch was too gentle a punishment for creeping through the whole cla.s.s-room. I was taken by the arm and led along out of the door. Outside in the hall he shook me by the arm. Oh, well! it was just a little shake anyway,--but then I had to hang around in that hall until the lesson was all over.

I can't understand now how I ever dared to creep that way in Mr.

Gorrisen's cla.s.s. O dear! I have been awfully foolish many times--unbelievably foolish!

Then there was that day Mr. Gorrisen fell off his chair. I was put out in the hall that day, too. But all the others ought to have been sent out as well, for we all laughed together. It was just because I couldn't stop laughing that I had to go. I surely have spasms in my cheeks, for long after all the others have stopped I keep on--I can't help it.

We were having our geography lesson. Mr. Gorrisen sat in an armchair by the table and stared at us, for he was not the kind of teacher that sharpens pencils or polishes his finger nails or does anything like that. He just sits and sways back and forth in his chair and stares incessantly. Well, never mind that. The lesson was on the peninsula of Korea. I remember distinctly.

"Now, Minka, Korea lies----" He swayed and swayed in his chair.

"Korea lies--ahem! Ko-re-a lies----"

Minka glanced anxiously around to see whether any one would whisper to her--"Korea lies between----"

There came a frightful explosive bang; the chair had gone over backward, making a horrible noise, and Mr. Gorrisen's small legs were up in the air above the corner of the table.

Oh, what shrieks of laughter pealed out through the cla.s.s-room! But quick as a flash Mr. Gorrisen was up again. He sat himself in the armchair as if nothing had happened, only his face was flaming red up to his hair. It was exactly as if there had been no interruption whatever, to say nothing of such a noisy comical topsy-turvy.

"Korea lies where, Minka?"

But that was more than I could bear. I burst out laughing again--he, he!

ha, ha!--and all the others joined in. If he had only laughed himself, I don't believe it would have seemed so funny--but he was as solemn as an owl.

"Stop laughing instantly." He struck the table with his ruler so that the room rang. We quieted down at once except for a hiccough here and there, but the worst of it was that Mr. Gorrisen stared only at me. I fixed my eyes on an old map on the wall and thought of all the saddest things I could, but it was of no use. My laughter burst out again; I was so full of it that it just bubbled over.

Mr. Gorrisen swayed back and forth in his chair as usual as if to show how perfectly unembarra.s.sed he was. But suddenly--true as Gospel--if he didn't almost tip over again! He clutched frantically at the table, gave a guilty glance at me. "Ha, ha! Ha, ha!" I could hear my own laughter above all the rest.

Mr. Gorrisen was up in a trice, and I was hurried out of the door so quickly that, almost before I knew it, I stood out in the cold hall. I nearly froze, it was so bitterly cold there; for it was nearly Christmas time, you see.

I opened the door a tiny bit just far enough to put my nose through the crack.

"Mr. Gorrisen."

"Well?"

"It's so cold out here. I won't laugh any more."

"Very well. Come in."

And so I went in again. At recess they all said they wondered how I ever dared ask Mr. Gorrisen to let me come in from the hall.

"Pooh!" said I. "I dare do anything with Mr. Gorrisen."

"Oh-h! you don't either! Far from it!"

"Well, I'd really dare pretty nearly anything. I'm not afraid of him."

"Would you dare sing right out loud in his cla.s.s?" asked Karen.

"Pooh! that wouldn't be anything much to do," said Minka. Then they all began to tease me.

"Fie, for shame! She is so brave and yet she does not dare to do such a little thing as that!"

"You shall see whether I dare or not," I said. And, would you believe it? I did sing aloud one time in Mr. Gorrisen's geography cla.s.s.

It was several days after he had tipped over. I had been watching my chance in all his cla.s.ses, but somehow it didn't seem to come. One day, however, I was just in the humor, and in the midst of the silence, while Mr. Gorrisen sat and wrote down marks in the record book, I sang out at the top of my voice:

"'Sons of Norway, that ancient kingdom'"--

I did not once glance at Mr. Gorrisen but looked around at all the others who lay over their desks and laughed till they choked. And I sang on:

"'Manly and solemn, let the sound rise!'"

Not a sound had come from the platform till that instant. Then I heard behind me the click, click, click of Mr. Gorrisen's heels across the floor and out of the door.

"You'll catch it! oh, you'll catch it, Inger Johanne."

"Oh, I wouldn't be in your shoes for a good deal!"

"Well, it was you who teased me to do it," I said.

"Yes, but to think that you should be so stupid as to do such a thing."

I did really get a little scared, especially because it was so long before Mr. Gorrisen came back.

"Run away!" said one.

"Hide under your desk," said another.