er forget it!

The singing stopped altogether, except that one and another old woman
off in the corners held the tune with shaky voices. I was awfully
interested in seeing how the goat and the clerk got on. If it had been
I, I should have hurried that goat out faster than the clerk did, I'll
wager.

Down by the door the goat got all ready to jump, wanting to start up the
aisle again. If the tussle had lasted a moment longer I should have had
to laugh--but then the clerk made a mighty effort, turned the goat
entirely around, and there it was--out!

The clerk in the meantime had risen to the occasion, for at the very
instant that the goat went head over heels down the steps, he took up
the tune just where he had left off, and sang all the way up the aisle.
Awfully well done of him, I think.

There! Now you understand what it was like at Goodfields, and now you
shall hear about all the different things that happened in our summer
vacation.

CHAPTER XIII

OLEANA'S CLOCK

At Goodfields, the houses for the farm laborers are up in the forest.
Towards Goodfields itself, the forest is thick and dark, but up where it
has been cleared, willows and alders grow in clumps, and there are tiny
little fields and still smaller potato patches, belonging to each
sun-scorched hut with its turf roof and windows of greenish glass. From
the clearing you can look upward to the mountains, or downward, over the
thick pines and through the leafy trees, to the smooth, shining fjord.

All the huts for the farm-hands were full to running over with children.
In Henrik-hut there were nine, in Steen-hut eight, and in North-hut
eleven; and they were all tow-headed and bare-footed and all had mouths
stained with blueberries.

Henrik-hut was the place we summer-boarder-children liked best because
there was a dear old grandmother there with such soft, kind eyes. She
could not go out any more, but sat always in an armchair beside the
window; on the window-sill lay her much-worn brown prayer-book.

Oleana was Grandmother Henrik-hut's daughter. She was big, very much
freckled, always good-natured, and talked a steady stream, often about
her husband. She didn't seem highly delighted with him.

"Poor Kaspar!" said Oleana. "He hasn't brains enough for anything. No, I
can truly say he hasn't much sense under his hat. Things would be pretty
bad at Henrik-hut if there were no Oleana here." And Kaspar agreed with
her perfectly.

"I haven't muc