Lisbeth Longfrock Part 3

Lars Svehaugen came from the storekeeper's with ever so much fine white, shining cloth,--she had never seen the like. Then a woman came to help Kari cut out and sew, and they made pillows and a fine white garment that mother was to have on when she lay upon the pillows. And Lars Svehaugen began to make a new wooden bed for mother to lie in; and Bliros had her calf, and the calf was slaughtered; and Lars Svehaugen brought some small pine trees and nailed them at the gateposts and outside the house door, one at each side, and he strewed pine branches all the way from the door to the gate. And there came presents of food--oh! so many good things--from Kjersti Hoel and others. Lisbeth had never tasted such delicious food before.

Then came the day when mother was to be taken to the church and buried.

Many people came to the house that day,--among them Jacob in a bright new suit of gray woolen homespun; and there was a feast for them all, and everything was very still and solemn. Even the schoolmaster came; and oh, how beautifully he sang when Lars Svehaugen and three other men carried mother out through the door and set her couch upon a sledge.

Then they all went slowly away from the house, down the hill,--the sledge first and the people walking slowly behind. But down at the bottom of the hill, in the road, there stood two horses and wagons waiting; and, just think! Lisbeth and Jacob were invited to sit up in Kjersti Hoel's broad wagon and drive with her.

Then they came to the white church; and as they carried mother in through the big gateway the church bells up in the tower rang, oh, so beautifully!

After that Lisbeth did not see things quite so clearly, but they lowered mother down into the earth in the churchyard and strewed wreaths of green heather over her, and then the schoolmaster sang again, and all the men took off their hats and held them a long time before their faces.

After that the people went out of the churchyard, and Lisbeth and Jacob climbed into Kjersti Hoel's broad wagon again and drove away,--only this time they drove much faster. It looked as if the boards in the fences ran after each other in an opposite direction from the one in which she and Jacob were going. They both tried to count them, but could not.

All the people came back with them to Peerout Castle,--Kjersti Hoel, too. Kari Svehaugen, who had not gone to the church, had covered the table with a white tablecloth, and set it with plates and good things to eat. And all the people ate and talked,--but they did not talk very loudly.

When the meal was over, Lisbeth got Jacob to go out into the cow house to look at Crookhorn. Jacob conceded that the goat was an extremely fine animal, but she was a vixen, he was sure,--he could tell that by her eyelids.

Then they went over to the hill to look at the mill wheel that Jacob used to have there; but it had fallen into complete decay because he had been away from home so long. Such things need a boy's personal attention.

After that they were called into the house again and everybody drank coffee. When they had finished the coffee drinking, Kari began packing into baskets the food that was left; and when that was done, Kjersti Hoel said: "Well, now we have done everything that we can here. You may bring Crookhorn with you, Lisbeth, and come to live with me. That was the last thing I promised your mother."

Thus had it come about that Lisbeth Longfrock, holding Crookhorn by a rope, stood outside the gate at Peerout Castle with Kjersti Hoel and Bearhunter; and then it was that she looked behind her and began to cry.

On one road she saw Kari Svehaugen with a big basket on her arm and Bliros following her; and on the other she saw the back of Jacob, with whom she had just shaken hands, saying, "May you fare well." He looked singularly small and forlorn.

Last of all she saw Lars Svehaugen put a pine twig in the door latch as a sign that Peerout Castle was now closed, locked, and forsaken.

CHAPTER IV

SPRING: LETTING THE ANIMALS OUT TO PASTURE

One morning, a few weeks after the sad departure from Peerout Castle, Lisbeth Longfrock awoke early in the small sleeping room built under the great staircase at Hoel. She opened her eyes wide at the moment of waking, and tried to gather her thoughts together. She was conscious of a delightful, quivering expectancy, and felt that she had awakened to something great and new,--something that she had waited for and been exceedingly glad over; but she could not at once remember just what it was.

The little room, whose only furniture consisted of a bed, a chair, a stove, and a small wooden shelf with a mirror over it, was filled with daylight in spite of the early hour. The sun fell slanting down through a window set high up in the wall directly over Lisbeth's bed, and the windowpanes were pictured in bright yellow squares on the floor near the tiny stove. The corner of one square spread itself against the stove, and Lisbeth traced it with her eyes as she lay in bed. At the tip of the corner glimmered something light-green and shiny. Was it from there that a fine, wonderful fragrance came floating toward her?

She sniffed a little. Yes, indeed! now she remembered. The fragrance came from the fresh birch twigs she had decorated the room with yesterday. Out of doors it was spring,--the sprouting, bursting springtime. To-day the cattle were to be let out and the calves named.

To-day she would begin work in earnest and be a responsible individual.

In short, she would be the herd girl at Hoel Farm.

It was now a month since Lisbeth had come to Hoel Farm, but up to this time she had been treated merely as company. She had walked about the place, sauntered after Kjersti here and there in the house, ground the coffee, and brought out from a bowl in the pantry the small cakes that they ate with their coffee every afternoon. Frequently, too, she had had pleasant talks with Kjersti.

As for helping with the animals,--the sheep and the goats had been let out, to be sure, but nevertheless they did not need her care because they were allowed, so early in the season, to run about everywhere except in the garden, and that Bearhunter stood guard over. In the cow house there was nothing for her to do, for a milkmaid and an under-milkmaid did the work there. Of course the girl who tended the flocks ought really to be able to help in milking the cows; but it was thought that Lisbeth had better wait a year before she tried to do that,--her hands being rather too small as yet. Lisbeth had kept measuring her hands every now and then and pulling her fingers to make them grow; and after a while she had asked the milkmaid if she did not think they had grown large enough, but the milkmaid did not see that they were any larger. She could not have very good eyes!

Lisbeth had, of course, expected to take care of Crookhorn,--Kjersti and she both thought she ought to do that; but it had proved to be impossible. Crookhorn had become so freakish that sometimes they almost thought her out of her wits. In the building shared by the sheep and goats she ranged back and forth from wall to wall, knocking against the sheep and the other goats so hard as she went that their ribs rattled.

At last she had to be tied to one of the walls, and with the shortest rope possible at that. Nor would she allow herself to be milked peaceably in that building. The first time Lisbeth tried it, Crookhorn, with a toss of the head, gave a kick that sent Lisbeth and the pail rolling off in different directions. Afterward the milkmaid herself took Crookhorn in hand at milking time; but even for her it was always a feat of strength, and she had to have some one to help her by holding the goat's horns.

When Crookhorn was let out with the other goats, would she ramble with them over the fields and meadows, seeking food? No, indeed! She would station herself poutingly by the cow-house door and stand there the livelong day,--"bellowing like a cow" the farm boy said; and then in the evening, when the other goats came home plump and well fed, there Crookhorn would stand as thin and hungry as a wolf.

Lisbeth thought that Crookhorn, if provided with a stall in the cow house, would act like a reasonable creature again. But neither Kjersti nor the milkmaid would consent to the removal; they thought a goat ought not to be humored in such unreasonable fancies.

Thus it was that Lisbeth had not had much to do during her first month at Hoel Farm. The only thing that Kjersti had required of her was to keep her own little room under the hall staircase in nice order, and that she had done. Every day she had made the bed herself, and every Sat.u.r.day she had washed the floor and the shelf, and spread juniper twigs about. Last Sat.u.r.day Kjersti had come out to take a look at it, and had said to her that she kept her room in better order than the grown-up girls in the south chamber kept theirs; and Lisbeth knew that this was true, for she had noticed it herself.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LISBETH'S ROOM UNDER THE STAIRS]

But now everything was going to be different. Kjersti Hoel had come to Lisbeth's room the night before and said that the cows were to be let out early in the morning, and that Lisbeth, like all the rest of the Hoel Farm people, must be up early to help. Later in the day the calves that had been born in the cow house during the winter were to be let out for the first time, and Lisbeth would have to look after them for that afternoon at any rate. Kjersti had said also that Lisbeth was to be allowed to give the calves their names,--names that they would keep all their lives, even after they had grown to be full-sized cows.

The next day after the letting out of the animals Lisbeth was to take a lunch bag and begin her spring work of going into the forest all day to watch the sheep and goats. It would not do to have them running about the fields at home any longer, Kjersti said.

Suddenly Lisbeth recollected what it was that she had pondered over so long as she lay awake the evening before,--it was the names of the calves. In spite of all her pondering she had got no farther than to wonder whether the cow with the red sides and white head and the gentle but bright-looking face should not be called Bliros. That idea, however, she had given up; it seemed to her that only one cow in the world could be called Bliros. Then she had determined to think no longer about Bliros or the names of the calves, and so had fallen asleep.

What if she had overslept herself now! She hoped not, with all her heart, for she had heard Kjersti Hoel say that she did not like girls to lie abed late and dally in the morning. How mortifying it would be for her not to be on the spot as early as the others to-day, her very first working day!

Wide-awake now, Lisbeth hopped quickly out of bed and popped into her long frock. Then, having made her bed[6] with all haste, she opened the door, went out through the hall way, and stood on the outside steps.

[6] Lisbeth meant to be very neat and tidy, but she should have let her bed air longer before making it!

The sun had just risen above the highest spruce tops over the edge of the eastern hills, and the light was flooding the sides of the valley like a waterfall. In the meadows and on the sloping fields the sunbeams quivered in the dew. They sifted in gold, they glittered in green, they silvered the clear brooks that babbled down the hills. From every bush came a twittering and chirping and clapping of wings. From everything, everywhere, came a message of joy and activity and sprouting life.

Mingled in one great morning effervescence, single sights and sounds were lost; only the call of the cuckoo, far up on the birch-clad slope, was heard above the other sounds, and from every shining window glanced a big, serene eye of reflected sun rays.

And just as there were thousands of different sounds, so were there also thousands of different odors,--from the steaming earth, from the growing gra.s.s, from buds and blossoms; and above them all, like the cuckoo's call that was heard above the thousands of blended sounds, rose the fine, penetrating fragrance of newly sprouted birch trees.

Lisbeth stood still awhile, drawing deep breaths and letting the sweet air and the effervescence of spring stream in upon her. Then she looked around at the different farm buildings. Quiet brooded within them and every door was shut. Of all the living creatures belonging to the farm, not one was to be seen except Bearhunter, who got up slowly from the flat stone where he had been lying, comfortably sunning himself, and came over to her, looking up into her face and wagging his tail.

Truly, she believed she was the first one up on the whole farm to-day.

Well, of course she would have to wait. So she sat herself down on the steps.

Oh, no; it was just as she might have known it would be. Kjersti Hoel was up. Lisbeth heard her come out of her own room into the kitchen, take a big stick, and knock three times on the ceiling to waken the girls in the south chamber.

In a moment Lisbeth heard a thump! thump! as the girls hopped out of bed, and then a clattering noise as they put on their shoes. Soon Kjersti came out of the house. She was going over to the building where the men slept to waken them.

Catching sight of Lisbeth, she exclaimed: "No! this cannot be Lisbeth already up. What a wide-awake little girl! I think I shall have to make you head milkmaid."

At this Lisbeth became so shy that she could not raise her eyes to look at Kjersti; but it must be acknowledged that when the head milkmaid and the other girls came downstairs a certain small nose was tilted a little higher than usual.

Soon there was life and motion over the whole farm. The activity was very different from that of ordinary days, for everything was done with extra haste, and all that was done seemed to have some connection with the cow house. The doors at both ends of this building stood wide open, and every one seemed to have an errand which obliged him to pa.s.s through. The spring air streaming in made the cows turn around in their stalls, stretch their nostrils, and look out. When Kjersti herself appeared on the scene, after the girls had begun milking, and talked to the cows and patted the neck of the bell cow, the creatures at once realized what day it was. The bell cow threw up her head and bellowed till the cow house echoed. That was a signal for all the other cows.

They pulled at their chains, swung their tails, and one after another, along the whole row, joined in a manifold bellow of joyful expectancy that shook the entire cow house and seemed as if it would never end.

Above the many-voiced chorus could be heard the bellowing of the big bull, deep and even and good-natured, as if he did not need to exert himself in the least in order to be heard.

Although everything went so much more speedily to-day than usual, the time seemed long to Lisbeth Longfrock. When the farm people went into the house to eat their early breakfast, she could not understand how they could sit at the table so long. She finished her meal very quickly and asked if she might not go and let out the smaller animals,--the sheep and the goats,--so that that would be done. Yes, Kjersti said she might. In a trice, therefore, she had them out, and as usual they scattered in every direction, leaping and capering,--all except Crookhorn, who seized her chance to slink into the cow house through the open door; but Lisbeth was so busy that she did not notice this.

All at once there came an instant's stillness, as if everything listened. Then from the farmhouse the tuneful clanging of a deep-toned bell was heard, and in a moment this was answered by such a joyful lowing and bellowing, such a sniffing and rattling of chains, that it seemed as if a thunderstorm were pa.s.sing over the farm; for when the animals recognized the sound of that deep-toned bell, which they had not heard since they were shut up in the cow house the autumn before, they knew that the time for being let out into the open air was close at hand.

A formal procession now issued from the farmhouse. Kjersti marched at the front, carrying the big iron-bound cow collar to which the deep-toned bell was fastened; next came the head milkmaid, followed by the under-milkmaid; then the girls who worked in the farmhouse; and then the two farm hands, with thick sticks, which they afterwards dealt out to the company, giving one to Lisbeth as well as to the rest. Last of all came Bearhunter, who also wanted to have a part in what was going on.

When the procession reached the cow house there was again a sudden silence. The cows, one and all, turned their heads toward the people as they came in, and looked at them with large, expectant eyes.