be sure!

"Jens, Jens-s-s! Come and open the door. I'm locked in the church."

Never in my life shall I forget how Jens looked when he heard me call.
He sank almost to his knees; his lips moved quickly but without a sound
coming forth.

[Illustration: And smashed a window-pane with it.--_Page 165._]

At last, when he had quite got it into his head that it was my familiar
face he saw at the vestry's broken window, he drew near very cautiously.

"Is she in the church?" was what came from him finally in the utmost
amazement.

"Why, yes, you can see that I am," said I. "Run as fast as you can and
get some one to open the door. Get the minister or the deacon or Peter,
the bellows-blower."

Jens set down a tin pail he carried and seemed to be thinking deeply.

"But how came she in church?"

I had no wish to explain to him.

"Oh, never mind that! Just run and get the key, do please, Jens." Then
Jens trudged away.

Oh, how long he was gone! I stared and stared at the lilac bushes
swaying back and forth before the window, twisting and bending low in
the storm, and I waited and waited, but no Jens appeared. It grew darker
and darker and Karl cried in earnest now, and wanted to smash all the
windows with the clasped book. The only thing that gave me comfort was
Jens' tin pail. It lay on the ground shining through the dark. I
reasoned that Jens was sure to come back to get his pail. Finally I
heard footsteps and voices, a key was put in the lock, and there at the
open door stood the deacon, Jens, and the deacon's eight children.

"Who is this disturbing the peace of the church?" asked the deacon with
the corners of his mouth drawn down.

"I haven't disturbed anything," said I. "I only want to get out."

"There must be an explanation of this," said the deacon. "I have no
orders to open the church at this time of the day."

I began to be afraid that the door would be shut again!

"Oh, but you will let me out!" said I pleadingly.

"Ah, in consideration of the circumstances," said the deacon. I did not
wait to hear more, but squeezed myself and Karl out and through the
deacon's flock of children.

Since that day when I meet old Jens, he bows to me in a very knowing
way; and if I want to tease him I say, "Weren't you the 'fraid-cat that
time I called to you from the church?"

I myself was more afraid than he was, but old Jens couldn't know that.

And what do you think of my having to pay for the pane of glass I