poem and had paused a little, he
would cry, and his eyes would twinkle,--

"Up, small trolls! and go nicely home without any noise,--go quietly,
that I may only hear good of you, little toddlers!"

But when they were making the most noise in hunting up their books and
dinner-pails, he shouted above it all,--

"Come again to-morrow, as soon as it is light, or I will give you a
thrashing. Come again in good season, little girls and boys, and then
we will be industrious."

CHAPTER IV.

Of Oyvind's further progress until a year before confirmation there is
not much to report. He studied in the morning, worked through the day,
and played in the evening.

As he had an unusually sprightly disposition, it was not long before
the neighboring children fell into the habit of resorting in their
playtime to where he was to be found. A large hill sloped down to the
bay in front of the place, bordered by the cliff on one side and the
wood on the other, as before described; and all winter long, on
pleasant evenings and on Sundays, this served as coasting-ground for
the parish young folks. Oyvind was master of the hill, and he owned
two sleds, "Fleet-foot" and "Idler;" the latter he loaned out to larger
parties, the former he managed himself, holding Marit on his lap.

The first thing Oyvind did in those days on awaking, was to look out
and see whether it was thawing, and if it was gray and lowering over
the bushes beyond the bay, or if he heard a dripping from the roof, he
was long about dressing, as though there were nothing to be
accomplished that day. But if he awoke, especially on a Sunday, to
crisp, frosty, clear weather, to his best clothes and no work, only
catechism or church in the morning, with the whole afternoon and
evening free--heigh! then the boy made one spring out of bed, donned
his clothes in a hurry as if for a fire, and could scarcely eat a
mouthful. As soon as afternoon had come, and the first boy on skees
drew in sight along the road-side, swinging his guide-pole above his
head and shouting so that echoes resounded through the mountain-ridges
about the lake; and then another on the road on a sled, and still
another and another,--off started Oyvind with "Fleet-foot," bounded
down the hill, and stopped among the last-comers, with a long, ringing
shout that pealed from ridge to ridge all along the bay, and died away
in the far distance.

Then he would look round for Marit, but when she had com