me in, gave me a special salute in that
elegant way, you know, holding up their whips before one eye. I liked
that awfully well. I was fairly beside myself with joy.

Well, now I knew what I wanted to be: I wanted to be a circus-rider! For
that was the grandest and jolliest thing in the whole world. Did you
ever feel about yourself that you were going to be something great,
something more than every one else, as if you stood on a high mountain
with all the other people far below you? Well, I had felt like that, and
now I knew what it was that I should be.

I lay awake far into the night and thought and thought. Yes, it was
plain, I should have to run away with the circus-riders. I could not
have a better opportunity. Certainly Father and Mother would never let
me go. It would be horrid to run away, but that was nothing; a
circus-rider I must be, I saw that plainly. The worst was, all the oil I
had heard that circus-riders must drink to keep themselves limber and
light. Ugh! no, I would not drink oil; I would be light all the same,
and awfully quick about hopping and dancing on the horses.

And after many years I would come back to the town. No one would know me
at first, and every one would be so terribly surprised to learn that the
graceful rider in blue velvet was the judge's Inger Johanne.

I forgot to say that we were to have two free tickets every evening
because Father was town judge. The first evening Karsten and I went,
but the second evening Mother said that the maids should go.

"You were there last night," said Mother. "We can't spend money on such
foolishness; to-morrow evening you may go again."

Oh, how broken-hearted I was because I couldn't go to the circus that
evening! and Mother called it foolishness! If she only knew I was going
to be a circus-rider! I wouldn't dare tell her for all the world.

In the evening, when it was time for the performance to begin, I went
down to the steamboat-landing just the same. The fat lady with the
shining black eyes sat there selling tickets; the people crowded about
the entrance, some had already begun to stream in; the big flag which
served as a door was constantly being drawn aside to let people in, and
at every chance I peeked behind the flag. To think that I wasn't going
to get in to-night! Suppose I ran home and asked Father very nicely for
a ticket; perhaps there was still time.

"Won't you have a ticket?" asked the black-eyed lady. She said she
remember