nothing left that could
amuse him. Andrine admires him sometimes, I know that very well, but
such silly puppies can go or stay for all I care. However, it was jolly
to have him with us on the saeter trip,--just for the fun of teasing
him, you know.

Karsten and Petter disputed the whole time as to how high we were in the
air and how high up it was possible to breathe. At last they got all the
way to the moon and Jupiter.

"I'll bet you anything you choose that Jupiter has air that people could
breathe," said Karsten.

"That's just the kind of thing such a cabbage-head as you would bet on,"
said Petter Kloed.

At that--only think! Karsten pitched into Petter and then they began to
fight in the back of the wagon.

"Are you Tartars both of you?" said I, and took a tight grip in the back
of Karsten's jacket. "Don't you jump out of your skin now! If you fly at
people this way as you are always doing, you shall trot back to
Goodfields alone!"

"He--he is just as much of a cabbage-head as I am," mumbled Karsten, but
he didn't dare to say another word, for after all, he has to respect me,
you see.

Then I suggested that we should eat some of our luncheon. It's so
pleasant to eat out-of-doors!

We were high, high up on the mountain, where we could see nothing but
forests and mountains, a whole sea of dark, thick pine forests, and just
mountains and mountains and mountains. There we drank toasts to Norway,
to the summer, and to each other, and sang: "_Ja, vi elsker dette
landet_," our national song, you know, and had an awfully jolly time.

But up there it was so still, so still! Nothing but gray-brown moor and
dwarf birches, and willows and ice-cold mountain brooks. Far over across
the moor we could see the road like a narrow gray ribbon in the
monotonous brown. Far west were the snow-capped peaks, sharp, jagged and
blue, and with great snow-drifts. It was very beautiful, unspeakably
strange and still. We all grew silent.

"Ugh! I wouldn't be alone here for a good deal," said Andrine.

"I would just as soon be here in pitch darkness--if I only had my knife
with me," said Karsten.

At that instant a ptarmigan flew up right at the side of the road, and
Karsten came near falling backwards out of the cart and measuring his
length on the ground.

You may be sure we all made fun of him then.

"He would like to be alone on the mountain, he would! And yet he tumbles
over in fright at a ptarmigan!"

"If you can stand