children to understand, they use P-speech:
Can-pan you-pou talk-palk it-pit? I went there often on purpose to
learn it, for it is so ignorant to know only one language. But now I
know both Norwegian and P-speech. Olaug always remembers exactly the
days when the school money is to be paid, for on those days each child
who brings the money gets a lump of brown sugar. Once a year the
minister comes to Miss Einarsen's to catechize the children; but Miss
Einarsen always stands behind the one who is being questioned and
whispers the right answer. "Oh, Teacher is telling, Teacher is telling!"
the children say to each other. "Yes, I am telling," says Miss Einarsen.
"How do you think you would get along if I didn't?" On examination days
Miss Einarsen always treats to thin chocolate in tiny cups, and the
children drink about six cups apiece! Well, that's how it is at Olaug's
school.

After Olaug comes Karl, but he is only a little midget. He thinks he can
reach the moon if he stands on a chair by the window and stretches his
arms away up high. He is perfectly wild to get hold of the moon because
he thinks it would roll about so beautifully on the floor.

OUR TOWN

We live in a little town on the sea-coast. It is much more fun to live
in a little town than a big one, for then you know every one of the boys
and girls, and there are many more good places to play in; and all the
sea besides. Oh, yes! I know very well that there are lots of small
towns that do not lie by the sea. They must be horrid!

Think how we have the great ocean thundering in against the shore, wave
after wave. Oh, it is delightful! Any one who has not seen that has
missed a really beautiful sight. It is beautiful both in summer and
winter; but I do believe it is most beautiful and wonderful in the time
of the autumn storms. Go up on the hilltop some day in autumn, where the
big beacon is, and look out over the sea! You have to hold on to your
hat, hold on to your clothes, hold on to your body itself, almost.
Whew-ew! the wind! How it blows! How it blows! And the whole ocean
looks as if it were astir from the very bottom. Big black billows with
broad white crests of foam come rolling, rolling, rolling in--one wave
does not wait for the other. And how they break over the islands out
where the lighthouse is! The lighthouse stands like a tall white ghost
against the dark sea and the dark sky;--sinks behind an enormous wave,
rises again, sinks and rises again