At last--here came the horses! First a big white horse that a groom was leading by the bridle, then two small s.h.a.ggy ponies, then a big red horse that carried his head high, and then the whole troop following.

Some were loose and jumped in among us children; the grooms scolded and shouted both in German and in Polish; a few small, rough-coated dogs rushed around catching hold of the skirts of some of the girls, who ran and screamed.

Suddenly a little swarthy groom got furious at all of us children who were standing around and drove us down the hill. It made me angry to have him chase me away too, especially because all the others saw it. At first I thought of making a speech to him in German and telling him who I was and that the barn was mine; but I didn't know at all what barn was in German, so I had to give it up.

[Ill.u.s.tration: I stood on the barn steps with a long whip.--_Page 260._]

In the moonlight that evening the fat lady in the red dress, and two little girls came to see to the horses. Afterwards they sat for a long time out on the barn steps watching the moon. The two little girls had long light hair down their backs and short dresses above their knees.

I leaned against the dining-room window with my nose pressed flat, and stared at them. Oh, what a delightful time those little girls had!

Think! to travel that way--just travel--travel--travel, to ride on those lovely horses, and wear such short fancy skirts, and have your hair flowing loose over your back.

I never was allowed to go with my hair loose,--and I suppose I shall have to stay in this poky town all my days; and never in the world shall I get a chance to ride on a horse, I thought.

At night I lay awake and heard the horses stamping and thumping up in the barn. After all, even this was good fun, almost like being in the midst of a fairy tale.

The next day I was again late to school. There was not a single one of the swarthy fellows to be seen around the barn, so I climbed up on the wall and stuck gra.s.s through a broken window-pane to the big white horse. I patted him on his smooth pinky nose: "Oh, you sweet, lovely horse!"--I must go down for more gra.s.s, the very best gra.s.s to be found he should have.

"Inger Johanne, will you be so good as to go to school? It's very late"--it was Father calling from the office window; so there was an end to that pleasure.

Down by the steamboat-landing, in the big open square, the circus tent had been set up. Karsten and I were down there two hours before the performance was to begin. I was the first of all the spectators to go inside. It was a tremendously big, high tent, three rows of seats around it, and a staging of rough boards for the orchestra. Anything so magnificent you never saw. At last the performance began.

But to describe what goes on at a circus, that I won't do. About ordinary things, such as are happening every day at home, I can write very well, as you know, but anything so magnificent as that circus I can't describe.

I was nearly out of my wits, people said afterwards. I stood up on the seat--those behind me were angry, but that didn't bother me at all--clapped my hands and shouted "Bravo!" and "Hurrah!" Towards the last the riders, when they came in, gave me a special salute in that elegant way, you know, holding up their whips before one eye. I liked that awfully well. I was fairly beside myself with joy.

Well, now I knew what I wanted to be: I wanted to be a circus-rider! For that was the grandest and jolliest thing in the whole world. Did you ever feel about yourself that you were going to be something great, something more than every one else, as if you stood on a high mountain with all the other people far below you? Well, I had felt like that, and now I knew what it was that I should be.

I lay awake far into the night and thought and thought. Yes, it was plain, I should have to run away with the circus-riders. I could not have a better opportunity. Certainly Father and Mother would never let me go. It would be horrid to run away, but that was nothing; a circus-rider I must be, I saw that plainly. The worst was, all the oil I had heard that circus-riders must drink to keep themselves limber and light. Ugh! no, I would not drink oil; I would be light all the same, and awfully quick about hopping and dancing on the horses.

And after many years I would come back to the town. No one would know me at first, and every one would be so terribly surprised to learn that the graceful rider in blue velvet was the judge's Inger Johanne.

I forgot to say that we were to have two free tickets every evening because Father was town judge. The first evening Karsten and I went, but the second evening Mother said that the maids should go.

"You were there last night," said Mother. "We can't spend money on such foolishness; to-morrow evening you may go again."

Oh, how broken-hearted I was because I couldn't go to the circus that evening! and Mother called it foolishness! If she only knew I was going to be a circus-rider! I wouldn't dare tell her for all the world.

In the evening, when it was time for the performance to begin, I went down to the steamboat-landing just the same. The fat lady with the shining black eyes sat there selling tickets; the people crowded about the entrance, some had already begun to stream in; the big flag which served as a door was constantly being drawn aside to let people in, and at every chance I peeked behind the flag. To think that I wasn't going to get in to-night! Suppose I ran home and asked Father very nicely for a ticket; perhaps there was still time.

"Won't you have a ticket?" asked the black-eyed lady. She said she remembered me from the evening before when I had been so delighted.

"No, I have no money," said I, and my whole face grew red. It really was embarra.s.sing, but since she asked me I had to tell the truth.

"If you will stand there by the door and take the tickets, you may come in and look on," she said.

Wouldn't I! Just the thing for me! Not even a cat should slip in without a ticket. I was very strict at the door and pushed away the sailors who wanted to force themselves in. I was terribly clever, the lady said.

And so I went in again, and enjoyed it just as much as I had the evening before. I was tremendously proud of having earned my ticket, for in that way it was as if I were taken at once right into the circus troupe.

Every single night they performed I would take the tickets--yet no one in the whole town would know that Inger Johanne meant to go away with the circus. I would wait till the very last day it was in town before I asked the fat dark lady, who was the director's wife, if I might go. Of course I knew her now.

And I must say good-bye to Father and Mother and my brothers and sister, or I couldn't bear it. I wouldn't stay away forever, no, far from it, only a little while, until I was a perfectly splendid performer.

All at once it occurred to me that I ought to practise a little on horseback before I offered myself to the circus troupe. I ought at least to know what it was like to sit on a horse.

There certainly couldn't be any better opportunity than there was now, when our whole barn was full of horses. But I must take Karsten into my confidence; he would have to help me to climb through a hole in the back of the barn, for the grooms always fastened the barn door when they went away. At noon there was never any one up there, so I planned to crawl in then and practice getting on and off of a horse. Yes, I would stand up on him too,--on one leg--stretch out my arms, and throw kisses as they do at the circus.

"Karsten," said I the next day, "what should you say if I became a circus-rider?"

"You--when you're knock-kneed!--you would look nice, Inger Johanne, you would."

"You look after your own knees, Karsten, I'm going to be a circus-rider, all the same, I really am."

"Oh, what bosh!"

"Well, you'll see; when the circus-riders go I'm going with them. You mustn't tell a soul, Karsten, but a circus-rider is what I'm going to be."

Karsten looked at me rather doubtfully.

"But you must help me to get into the barn through that hole at the back, for I shall have to practice, you understand."

"Well, will you give me that red-and-blue pencil of yours then?"

"Oh, yes, only come along."

We stole behind the barn. Karsten kept hold of me while I climbed up--there, now I was in the barn. How it looked! When twelve horses must stand in five stalls, there isn't much room left, you know, and they had been put every which way,--one pony stood in the calf-pen.

All the horses except two were lying down resting. The white horse over by the window was standing up; he turned around and looked at me with big sorrowful eyes. It had really been my plan to get on him, for he was the handsomest of them all, but I didn't dare to venture among the big shining bodies of the horses lying all over the floor. No, I should have to be satisfied with the little black one that stood in the calf-pen.

Karsten had thrust the upper part of his body in through the hole. I went up to the black horse.

"He is angry; he is putting his ears back; look out, Inger Johanne!"

called Karsten.

"Pooh--do you think I mind that?" I climbed up on the calf-pen. For a moment I wondered whether I should try to stand on the horse at once. I put out my foot and touched him--no, he was so smooth and slippery, it would certainly be best to sit the first time I got on a horse. I gave a little jump, and there I sat.

O dear! What in the world was happening? I didn't know, but I thought the horse had gone crazy. First he stood on his fore legs with his hind legs in the air, and then on his hind legs, and threw me off as if I were nothing at all. I fell across the edge of the calf-pen--oh, what a whack my arm got! I literally couldn't move it for a whole minute; and there was a grand rumpus in the barn; some of the horses got up and whinnied, and the black one that I had sat on kicked and kicked with his hind legs every instant.

I could just see the top of Karsten's head at the hole now.

"Oh, Karsten--Karsten."

"Are you dead, Inger Johanne?"

I don't really know how I got out through the hole with my injured arm.

But outside of the barn I sat down right among all the nettles and cried.

When I went into the house there was a great commotion. Everybody was scared and the doctor was sent for. My sleeve was cut up to the shoulder, and the doctor said I had broken a small bone in my wrist, and besides had sprained and bruised my arm about as much as I could.

"You do everything so thoroughly, Inger Johanne," said the doctor.