ed me from the evening before when I had been so delighted.

"No, I have no money," said I, and my whole face grew red. It really was
embarrassing, but since she asked me I had to tell the truth.

"If you will stand there by the door and take the tickets, you may come
in and look on," she said.

Wouldn't I! Just the thing for me! Not even a cat should slip in without
a ticket. I was very strict at the door and pushed away the sailors who
wanted to force themselves in. I was terribly clever, the lady said.

And so I went in again, and enjoyed it just as much as I had the evening
before. I was tremendously proud of having earned my ticket, for in that
way it was as if I were taken at once right into the circus troupe.
Every single night they performed I would take the tickets--yet no one
in the whole town would know that Inger Johanne meant to go away with
the circus. I would wait till the very last day it was in town before I
asked the fat dark lady, who was the director's wife, if I might go. Of
course I knew her now.

And I must say good-bye to Father and Mother and my brothers and sister,
or I couldn't bear it. I wouldn't stay away forever, no, far from it,
only a little while, until I was a perfectly splendid performer.

All at once it occurred to me that I ought to practise a little on
horseback before I offered myself to the circus troupe. I ought at least
to know what it was like to sit on a horse.

There certainly couldn't be any better opportunity than there was now,
when our whole barn was full of horses. But I must take Karsten into my
confidence; he would have to help me to climb through a hole in the back
of the barn, for the grooms always fastened the barn door when they went
away. At noon there was never any one up there, so I planned to crawl in
then and practice getting on and off of a horse. Yes, I would stand up
on him too,--on one leg--stretch out my arms, and throw kisses as they
do at the circus.

"Karsten," said I the next day, "what should you say if I became a
circus-rider?"

"You--when you're knock-kneed!--you would look nice, Inger Johanne, you
would."

"You look after your own knees, Karsten, I'm going to be a circus-rider,
all the same, I really am."

"Oh, what bosh!"

"Well, you'll see; when the circus-riders go I'm going with them. You
mustn't tell a soul, Karsten, but a circus-rider is what I'm going to
be."

Karsten looked at me rather doubtfully.

"But you must help me