ing but pleasant; for every time it exploded we fared very badly;
in the first place, we had our hair pulled and our ears boxed, and in
the next, long written harangues in our mark-books about our behaviour.

Susanna was often utterly merciless; it came to such a pass, that with
only a little wink in the corner of her eye, she could instantly put us
in a state of fever, so that we would sit with cheeks as red as apples,
and our eyes fastened on our books, until we could contain ourselves no
longer. She tried especially to work upon me, though she knew I must pay
dearly for misconduct at home; for father was a severe man, who had very
little comprehension of children.

In play hours, we romped with more animation than children generally
indulge in.

In contrast to the strict, gloomy life at home, with father always
either out on business, or up in the office; where, from the blue room,
often came noises and cries from my poor insane mother, and where Anne
Kvaen was always going about, like a wandering spirit, playing with the
parsonage children was like a life in some other and happier, more
sunshiny part of the globe.

CHAPTER II

_ON THE SHORE_

The shore is an even more attractive playground for children in Nordland
than here in the south of Norway. At low-tide there is a much longer
stretch of beach than here.

The sandy bottom lies bare, with pools in it here and there, in which
small fish swim, while down by the sea there sits a solitary gull on a
stone, or a sea-fowl walks by the water's edge. The fine, wave-marked
sand is full of heaps, covered with lines, left by the large, much
sought after bait-worms, that burrow down into the earth. Hidden among
the stones, or in the masses of sea-weed, lie the quick, transparent,
shrimp-like sand-hoppers, which dart through the shallow water when they
are pursued. They are used by small boys as bait, upon a bent pin, to
catch young coal-fish.

Upon the high grassy hill above the beach, among some large stones, we
three children built our own warehouse of flat stone slabs, with
store-house, boat-house and quay below.

In the boat-house we had all kinds of boats, small and great, from the
four-oared punt up to the ten-oared galley, some of wood and bark,
others of the boat-shaped, blue mussel shells. Our greatest pride, the
large yacht--a great, mended trough, with one mast and a deck, that was
constantly being fitted out for the Bergen market--was still not