O pshaw! Running like that he would soon catch Olaug. It was frightfully exciting, like a horse-race or a hunt after wild animals.

Well, that isn't a very good comparison, for nothing could be less like a wild animal than Olaug; but it was awfully exciting to see whether she would keep ahead and get the Chili stamp from Nils Peter.

So that I might see better how the race ended I sprang up to our chicken-yard, or rather beyond it, on our own hill. You could see the whole path up over Kranheia better from there than from any other place.

But just where I must be to see best was that awfully high board fence, too high for me to see over, that went from the chicken-yard quite a long way beyond on the hill.

Pooh! What of it? I just wiggled a board that was already loose, pulled it away and stuck my head in the opening. It was a little narrow but I got my head through. Oh--oh! Karsten had caught up to Olaug and run past her like an ostrich at full speed--I've always heard that an ostrich runs faster than anything else in the world--yes, there he was swinging in towards Nils Peter's house.

O pshaw! Now that Chili stamp was lost for ever and ever.

Olaug had plumped herself right down; she had to sit still and get her breath, poor thing!

Now that there was nothing more for me to watch, I started to draw my head back out of the narrow opening between the thick boards. But, O horrors! It stuck fast! I couldn't possibly get it back. I turned and twisted my head this way and that, and up and down; I tried to pull and squeeze it back, but no, that was utterly impossible. How in the world I had ever got my head through the opening in the first place I can't understand to this day, but that I had got it through was only too sure.

New struggles to get loose--I thought I should tear my ears off--Goodness gracious, what should I do!

At first I wasn't a speck afraid. I just wriggled and pulled as hard as I could. But when I realized that I simply could not free myself, a sort of terror came over me.

Just think--if I never got my head out? Or suppose there came a cross dog and bit me while my head was as if nailed fast in the fence! And suppose n.o.body found me--(for of course n.o.body would know that I had run up here beyond the chicken-yard)--and perhaps I should have to stay caught in the fence the whole night, when it was dark.

I cried and sobbed, then I called; at last I screamed and roared. I heard the hens in the yard flap their wings and run about wildly, evidently frightened by the noise I made.

Down on the road, people stood still and gazed upward; then of course I shrieked the louder. But no one looked up to the chicken-yard; and even if they had, they couldn't very well see, from so far down, a round brown head sticking through a brown fence. I roared incessantly, and at last I saw a woman start to run up the hill--and then a man started--but they did not see me and soon disappeared among the trees, although I kept on bawling, "Help! I am right here! I am caught in the fence!"

Just then I saw Karsten and Nils Peter come out of Nils Peter's house.

They stood a moment as if listening, and naturally they recognized my voice.

Then they started running. If Karsten had raced over there, he certainly raced back again, too.

I kept bawling the whole time: "Here! here! in the fence! I am stuck fast in the fence!" It wasn't many minutes before both Karsten and Nils Peter stood behind me.

"Have you gone altogether crazy?" said Karsten in the greatest astonishment.

I felt a little offended, but there's no use in being offended when you haven't command over your own head, so I said very meekly:

"Ugh! such a nuisance! My head is stuck fast in here. Can't you help me?"

Would you believe it? They didn't laugh a bit--awfully kind, I call that--they just hauled and pulled me as hard as they could; it fairly sc.r.a.ped the skin off behind my ears and I thought I should be scalped if they kept on.

"No, it's no use," I said, crying again. "Run after Father, run after Mother, get everybody to come--uh, hu, hu!"

Well, they came. I couldn't see them, but I could hear the whole lot of them behind me.

Now there _was_ a scene! The same story began again; they pulled and twisted my head, Father gave directions, I cried and Olaug cried and everybody talked at once.

"No," said Father at last, "it can't be done. Hurry down to Carpenter Wenzel and ask him to come and to bring his saw with him."

"Uh, huh! He'll saw my head off!" I wailed.

But Mother patted me on the back and comforted me, and all the others standing behind kept saying it would be all right soon, while I stood there like a mouse in a trap and cried and cried.

But it was Sunday and the carpenter was not at home.

"Run after my little kitchen saw then," said Mother. "Bring the meat-axe, too," called Father.

Oh, how would they manage? It seemed to me my head would surely be sawed or chopped to pieces.

[Ill.u.s.tration: They just hauled and pulled me as hard as they could.--_Page 67._]

Well, now began a sawing and hammering around me. When Mother sawed I was not afraid, but when Father began I was in terror, for Father, who is so awfully clever with his head, is so unpractical with his hands that he can't even drive a nail straight. So you can imagine how clumsy he would be about getting a head out of a board fence.

The others all had to laugh finally, but I truly had no desire to laugh until my head was well out. In fact, I didn't feel much like laughing then either, for really it had been horrid.

Ever since that time Karsten and Nils Peter have teased me about that Chili stamp. They say that getting my head stuck fast was a punishment for putting my oar in everywhere. Think of it--as if I _did_ try to manage other people's affairs so very much!

But it certainly is horrid when you can't control your own head. You just try it and see.

CHAPTER V

LEFT BEHIND

Never in my life have I traveled so far as when Mother, Karsten and I visited Aunt Ottilia and Uncle Karl. And so unexpected as that journey was! I hardly had time to rejoice over it, even. It was all I could do to get time to write a post-card to Mina, who was visiting her grandmother at Horten, to ask her to come down on the wharf and see me, when the steamer stopped there on its way.

When we are to start on a journey, Father is always terribly afraid that we shall be too late for the steamboat.

"Hurry--hurry," he keeps saying, as he goes in and out. Mother gets tired of it, but that makes no difference. Besides, all husbands are like that, Mother says; unreasonable when other people go away, and still worse to travel with.

An hour and a half before the steamboat could be expected, we had to trudge down to the wharf; for Father wouldn't give in. Mother had to sit on a bench down there, with meal-sacks all around her; but Karsten and I and Ola Bugta and the other longsh.o.r.emen on the wharf went up on Little Beacon to look for the steamboat.

People usually wish for good weather when they are going to travel; but I wish for a storm; for to plunge through the waves, up and down, must be awfully jolly. And besides, it is so stupid that I have never been seasick, and don't know what it's like.

"What kind of weather do you think we'll have, Ola Bugta?" I asked him, up on Little Beacon.

Ola Bugta took the quid out of his mouth. "Oh, it is fine weather outside there." O dear, then we should have good weather to-day, too!

Well, at last we saw a faint streak of smoke far off in the mist.

Karsten and I almost tumbled head over heels down the hill to tell Mother that now we saw the smoke. Karsten had a new light spring coat for the journey. He looked queer in it, for it was altogether too long for him. I took the liberty of saying that he looked like a lay preacher in it; not that I ever saw a lay preacher in a light spring coat; but Karsten looked so tall and proper all at once.

Hurrah! now the steamer was in Quit-island Gap. How much more interesting a steamer looks when you are going to travel on it yourself!

It made a wide sweep when it came from behind the island, and glided in a big graceful curve up to the wharf. There were a great many pa.s.sengers on the boat. As soon as the gangway touched the wharf, I wanted to go on board, but the mail-agent pushed me aside. "The mail first," said he.

But I ran on right after the mail.

Oh, how awfully jolly it was! The deck crowded with pa.s.sengers, and trunks, and _tines_, and traveling-bags; the delightful steamboat smell; all my friends standing on the wharf; and I tremendously busy carrying Mother's portmanteau and hold-all on board. I certainly went six times back and forth across the gangway. O dear! so many boxes had to be put on board, I thought we should never get off. I nodded and nodded to every one on the wharf. At last I nodded to Ola Bugta; but he didn't nod back; he just turned his quid in his mouth.

Finally we started.