ng upon her and threw
the scenes of the day into confusion. She saw a pair of big horns that
plowed like a snow plow through a swarming crowd, and then she saw
Brindle standing in her stall with her head on one side and a big
bandage over one of her horns, looking exactly like an old peasant
woman with a kerchief tied around her head for a headache; and then she
thought she saw, written in the air, a couplet that she had once heard:

Rearing its tail against the sky,
Danced the calf on the hilltop high.

And then Lisbeth Longfrock fell asleep.

* * * * *

The next day, with the lunch bag upon her back, Lisbeth Longfrock set
out for a forest that lay not far off, taking the sheep and goats with
her. She had not succeeded in getting Crookhorn to go along, however.
The self-willed goat had taken the shortest cut up to the north meadow,
where the cows were again pastured.

Lisbeth's second working day, like her first, seemed a very long one,
for the forest was wonderfully lonesome and still. The little girl had
time to think of many, many things,--of her mother and Jacob and
Peerout Castle; and it must be acknowledged that she cried a wee bit,
too.

CHAPTER V

SUMMER: TAKING THE ANIMALS UP TO THE SAETER

Upward over the open slope across the valley from Hoel Farm a lengthy
procession was taking its way.

Kjersti Hoel stood at the window of her room, following the procession
with her eyes as long as she could, for soon it would vanish from the
open slope into the wooded part of the mountain. The herds belonging to
Hoel Farm were that day being taken up to the saeter,[8] to spend the
summer grazing on the rich grass which grows in sunny spaces here and
there on the mountain heights.

[8] Pronounced (approximately) say'ter.

At the head of the procession rode the milkmaid on the military
horse,[9] which for this occasion had a woman's saddle upon its back.
The saddle had a high frame, so that it looked almost like an
easy-chair; and the milkmaid sitting aloft on it, dressed in her best,
and with a white linen kerchief on her head, was rosy, plump, and also
somewhat self-conscious, for was not she the most important person in
the company, the one who was to give all the commands?

[9] In some districts of Norway the farmers are required to keep
one or more horses subject to the needs of the government, under
certain conditions of us