cabin stairs, but I didn't know what it was.

Oh, everything was so glorious! This was fun; if only they would go
farther out to sea, farther yet--farther yet.

The lady with the footstool had disappeared long ago. The yellow
footstool was taking care of itself and tumbled from one side to the
other. Then a stewardess came up with a message from Mother that I
should come down-stairs at once. That must have been what she said when
she was disappearing down the cabin stairs.

In the cabin Mother and Karsten lay pale as death, each on a sofa. I
must lie down, too, Mother said. Really, I hadn't any wish to lie down
on a sofa now that the fun on deck was just beginning; but as long as
Mother said so----

Hurrah! Cups and plates and trays crashed over each other in the
serving-room, people fell over each other on the stairs. The
traveling-wraps hanging out in the corridor, and the green curtains
before the staterooms swung violently back and forth, the ship tossed
so.

"Isn't there any one that will help me?" begged a complaining but
familiar voice behind one of the curtains. That was certainly the lady
with the footstool. I jumped behind the curtain; yes, so it was. She was
sitting on the edge of her berth; she said she didn't believe she could
get out again if she squeezed herself in, she was so fat.

You may be sure she set me to work. She had lost all her things, one
wrister here and one wrister there; I had to find everything, a bouquet
in the saloon, and overshoes under the sofa. Finally it was the
footstool up on deck.

It was only fun to run up on deck again. Of course I tumbled from one
side to the other and laughed and laughed, enjoying it hugely.

When I was down-stairs again, the stewardess must have thought that I
flew around too much and was in the way, for she pushed me suddenly into
a stateroom. There sat the woman with the covered basket.

"Isn't there any one that will help me?" the complaining voice kept on
in the stateroom opposite us.

"Can you imagine why such folks travel?" said the woman, jerking her
head in the direction the voice came from, "when they have their good
home, and their good bed and everything to suit them--why should they
rove around from pillar to post?"

"What are you traveling for?"

"Oh, I have been on a little trip off to Grimstad, to my sister's, for
three weeks; I didn't think I should stay longer than a week at the
most, so I didn't take more than one change with