ce indeed; he does everything
that I want him to.

Then there is my brother Karsten, but I've told you about him. He is a
little younger than the rest of us.

Another boy is Ezekiel Weiby. He is fourteen years old and has an
awfully narrow face--not much broader than a ruler. He is very clever
and reads every sort of book. But when he is out with the rest of us, he
wants us all to sit still and hear him tell about everything he has been
reading. For a while that is very pleasant, but I get tired of it pretty
soon, for I hate to sit still long at a time. That is a very funny
thing. Other people get tired of walking or running about, but I can't
stand it to sit still.

Nils Trap is the bravest of all the boys. He never wears an overcoat,
but goes around with his hands in his pockets whistling a funny tune:

"Ho, hei for Laaringa!"

which you probably don't know. Nils Trap clambers like a cat up in the
rigging of the vessels. Some people say that they have seen him lie out
straight on the ball at the top of the big mast of the _Palmerston_ and
spin himself round. But others say that is a whopper, for the
_Palmerston_ is the biggest ship in town with the very highest masts.
Perhaps he could lie and balance himself on top of it, but spin himself
round! That he couldn't do if he tried till he was blue in the face.

Then there are Massa, and Mina, and I. Mina is Nils's sister and my best
friend. She has a gold filling in one of her front teeth. Oh, if I could
only have such a shining little spot as that in my teeth! Mine are only
plain straight white ones and they look really dull beside hers.

Massa Peckell is plump and easy-going. She thinks the most beautiful
thing is to be pale and thin. She heard that it would give you a
delicate pale skin if you drank vinegar and ate rice soup, so she tried
it as hard as she could. But her beauty-cure only gave her the
stomach-ache. Her fat, red cheeks are just like Baldwin apples still.

Every day, summer and winter, we are together, all of us that I have
written about here. In summer there is a lot of fun to be had
everywhere, but especially on the delightful hill back of our house--(I
will tell you all about that hill some other time),--but in winter,
humph! What can girls and boys do in such horrid mild winters as we are
now having, I should really like to know! Last year we had no snow to
speak of, and here it is now after New Year's and I haven't yet, to my
recollectio