Look Back on Happiness Part 25

At one stop, her former traveling companion turned up again; he had been below in the cabin.

"Aren't you coming down, Ingeborg?" he asked.

She did not reply.

The carpenter looked from one to the other.

"Miss Torsen, then!" whimpered the traveling companion playfully. He stood waiting a moment, and finally went away.

"Ingeborg," the carpenter was probably thinking. "Miss Torsen," he was thinking.

"How long will you be in the town?" she asked, getting up.

"Oh, I'll be there some time."

"What are you doing there?"

He was a little embarra.s.sed, and since his skin was so fair, she could see at once that he reddened. He bent forward, planting his elbows on his knees before he replied.

"I want to learn a little more in my trade, be an apprentice, maybe. It all depends."

"Oh, I see."

"What do you think of it?" he asked.

"I think it's a good idea."

"Do you?"

They were on deck nearly the whole of the day, but toward evening it turned bitter cold and windy. When she had grown stiff with sitting, she got up and stamped her feet, and when she had stamped till she was tired, she sat down again. Once when she was standing a little distance away, she saw the carpenter place a parcel on the bench as though to keep her seat for her.

Her quondam traveling companion stuck his head out of a doorway, the wind blowing his hair forward over his forehead, and cried:

"Ingeborg, go below, will you!"

"Oh," she groaned. Suddenly she was seized with fury. The ship heeled over on its side as she walked toward him, and she had to take a few skips to keep her balance.

"I don't want you to talk to me again," she hissed at him. "Do you hear? I mean it, by all that's holy!"

"Good gracious!" he exclaimed and disappeared.

At about three o'clock, the carpenter turned up with coffee and sandwiches again.

"Really you mustn't be doing this all the time," she said.

He merely laughed good-naturedly again, and told her to eat if she thought it was good enough.

"We'll soon be there now," she said as she ate. "Have you someone to go to?"

"Oh, yes, I have a sister."

Slowly and thoughtfully he took another sandwich and turned it over, looking at it absently before he took a bite out of it. When he had finished one mouthful, he took another. And when he had finished that one, too, he said:

"I thought that as I'm going to stay in town over the winter, I'd better learn something. And what with the farm as well--"

"Yes, indeed."

"You think so too?"

"Oh, yes. I think so."

Why did he tell her about his private affairs? She had private affairs of her own. She thanked him for the sandwiches and got up.

As the boat drew alongside the pier, he offered her his hand and said:

"My name is Nikolai."

"Oh, yes?"

"I thought in case we meet again--Nikolai Palm--but I expect the town's too big--"

"Yes, I expect it is. Well, thanks ever so much for all your kindness.

Good-bye."

x.x.xII

I ask Miss Torsen:

"Have you met the carpenter since?"

"What carpenter? Oh--no, I haven't. I only told you about him because he's a sort of mutual acquaintance."

"Acquaintance?"

"Yes, of yours and mine. Only indirectly, of course. He happens to be the brother of that schoolmistress Miss Palm that was at the Tore Peak farm last summer."

"Well, the world's a small place. We all belong to the same family."

"And that's why I've told you all this about him."

"But you didn't find out about this relationship on the boat, did you? So you must have met him since."

"Yes,--well, no, that is to say I've seen him a few times, but not to speak to. We just said good morning and how are you and so on. Then he said he was her brother."

"Ha, ha, ha!"