1
“Oh, Mother, I hear Uncle Jens’s folks are going up the mountain to the saeter tomorrow. Can I go along this time, do you suppose?” Arne’s tongue was flying as he burst into the kitchen, and his blue eyes looked eagerly around for his mother.
No one was in sight but his grandmother, busy with her mixing bowl at the kitchen table. “Where’s Mother, Besta?” he asked. “Cousin Bergel just told me they’re going to take the cows and goats up the mountain tomorrow. Do you know who all are going? Do you suppose I can—”
“For goodness’ sake, boy, you go on like a spinning wheel! It must be that red hair of yours that drives you along so fast. Just be quiet a minute, will you? I can only answer five or six questions at a time. Your mother and sister Margret are over helping Aunt Tina get things ready for the trip tomorrow.”
“They’re going, then! Oh, I hope I get to go too. I think I will, don’t you?” Arne helped himself to a bit of cooky dough from the sticky yellow mass on his grandmother’s floured board, looking warily at her out of the corner of his eye. Her hand was quick, and he might get a sharp rap on the knuckles.
But he didn’t this time. She merely moved her board away from him and began adding flour to the dough. “Such a boy!” she exclaimed. “It would be a rest to me if your mother let you stay up on the mountain all summer.”
Arne knew she didn’t mean that. The two were the best of friends. Grandmother Dalen, whom everyone called Besta as a shortened form of the dignified Norwegianbedstemor, seemed to enjoy his tricks and teasing. She had even been heard to say, when she didn’t know Arne was around, “I like naughty boys.” Then she had caught sight of him and added briskly, “They give you something to work on.”
Now she nipped off a piece of dough and molded it into a soft long roll which she deftly tied into a bowknot. She filled her pan with rows of similar bowknots and slipped it into the hot oven.
“Who’s going, Besta, do you know?” asked Arne,watching the cooky-making with interest but wishing she would hurry and answer his questions. “I just wish we had a saeter of our own.”
“Lots of use your father would have for such a thing!” scoffed Besta.
Arne’s father was in the fish-packing business and owned just enough land to grow a little hay and keep a cow or two and some goats. But Uncle Jens was a real farmer; and, like most farmers in Norway, he had his own skyland pastures high in the mountain valleys where the grass grew green and lush. These were called saeters, and each had its little cabin where some of the daughters of the family spent their summers. The girls milked the cows and goats which were taken from the home farm to be pastured up there, made the cheese, and churned the butter. Arne thought some of the best fun of the summer was at the saeter. The day of moving up there was especially jolly.
“Cousin Signe will have to go, of course,” he said, “and Bergel, I suppose.”
“Yes, Bergel’s old enough to help this year—almost as old as you. She’s eleven now. Your sister Margret will take our own cows and goats up and tend to them. And of course Uncle Jens and Aunt Tina and little Knut will take the housekeeping things and help get the girls settled. And Cousin Evart—”
“And me—did they say I’m going?” Arne asked eagerly, as she paused.
Besta was something the shape of one of her ownbutterballs, but that did not keep her from moving fast, or talking fast either, as a rule. Now, however, she seemed intent on her work, and when she answered she spoke almost reluctantly. “I haven’t heard anything about your going, Arne. I did hear your father say he needed some extra help balinglutfisk. He said he was glad school is out so you can help.”
“Balinglutfisk!” said Arne despairingly. He had done that before, plenty of times, especially when father had a shipment he wanted to get off in a hurry. “That’s such a tiresome job, and so smelly! Do I have to stay home for that stuff?”
“You likelutfiskas well as anyone when it comes to the table,” Besta reminded him. “Don’t you know how good it is, with melted butter or nice milk gravy?”
Arne knew that well enough, but he certainly did not relish the idea of staying home from the first saeter trip of the summer to balelutfisk. Part of the work connected withlutfiskwas all right. It was fun to help unload the big cod from the fishing boats, to watch the men expertly split and clean the fish and spread them to dry. Ole Berg, the old fisherman who was father’s right-hand man, had showed Arne how it was done, and even let him help.
Father thought Arne was a little young to handle the big, sharp knives, but Ole said the boy was very quick with his hands. So Herr Dalen gave his son a good Norwegian hunting knife with a silver handle shaped like a horse’s head and a neat leather sheath which fitted on his belt. Arne was very proud of it and put it to good use under Ole’s directions. But baling those bundles of dried fish was a very different matter. And certainly tomorrow was no day to spend on the packing-house dock at a tedious job like that. Then a hopeful thought struck him, and he asked, “Well, then, is Gustav going to help balelutfisktoo?”
His big brother Gustav was at home just now between voyages to sea—Gustav, who was going to be a ship’s captain some day. He would sail as first mate the very next time the steamerLakscame to port here in Nordheim on its way up the fjord.
“What’s that about Gustav?” called out a big voice; and a tall, dark-eyed young man with curly black hair came into the kitchen. “Oh, good for you, Besta! You’re makingkringler! Are those for the trip to the saeter?”
“Are you going to the saeter too, Gustav?” cried Arne accusingly. “And I have to stay home and bale smelly oldlutfisk!”
Disappointment swept over him. It was worse than ever if Gustav was going and he couldn’t. There was a lump in his throat, and it seemed to him he could hardly breathe. All spring he had been looking forward to this trip. He longed to be in the gay procession that would wind its way from the little village up the mountain road. Up it would go until the road became only a path, then still up and up. At last they would come to the little log house right on the cliff overlooking the fjord, with the pastures and valleys behind and mountains, gray with granite and green with pines, rising above it all.
First would go Suri, Uncle Jens’s fat, light tan fjord pony with its black mane and tail. Arne was a great favorite of Suri’s, for he always had a lump or two of sugar in his pocket, and she had learned to nuzzle for it as he patted and talked to her. Suri would pull the light hay cart piled with pots and kettles, milk pails and cans, chums and bedding, and all the other housekeeping things. When they reached the place where the road became no more than a trail, they would tether the pony and leave her to spend a pleasant day cropping tender mountain grass.
Aunt Tina would drive, and little Knut would ride beside her. The girls would be in charge of the cows andgoats. Uncle Jens and Evart and Gustav would carry big packs, because they couldn’t burden fat little Suri too heavily. No horse-loving Norwegian would think of it.
There they would go, the bells on the pony’s harness jingling, the cowbells ringing, little Knut tooting or whistling, everyone singing and laughing. Even his cousin Bergel, just a girl and almost a year younger than he was, would be in that jolly procession; and he couldn’t go. This year it would be more fun than ever, for Gustav was going too, and there was always a special lot of fun where Gustav was. It seemed to Arne he would fairly burst with disappointment.
He had hard work to keep from crying, but of course you couldn’t do that when you were twelve years old—especially when there were people around. But his nose pricked and his throat ached; he had to wink fast and turn and walk over to the sink as if he wanted a drink of water—which he didn’t.
Gustav stood looking at Besta, and Besta stood looking back to him.
“You’ll be going up later on in the summer, Arne,” said Besta comfortingly.
“I don’t care about going later,” said Arne, and his voice came out something like a croak. “I want to go now,when Gustav’s going, and everything getting ready—”
“I was thinking,” said Gustav slowly. “They’re going to need all the help they can get to carry the stuff from where we leave Suri. Arne’s a pretty big boy now, and he could be a lot of help. I know that’s one of the reasons they want me to go.”
“They want you because everyone wants to have you around,” said Arne, his voice still muffled. But the heavy feeling in his chest lightened a little, and he turned half around, looking hopefully at his brother. Gustav was pretty good at finding a way out of things.
Gustav said, “Lutfiskcould be baled tonight as well as tomorrow. Father wants to have the shipment ready to send off day after tomorrow, that’s all. We can work down there tonight. It’s light on the dock till nearly midnight, these June nights.”
“We?” Arne’s grin began to break out. “Do you mean you’re going to help?”
“Why not? I baledlutfiskwhen I was smaller than you are, and helped pack the kegs of pickled herring too, sampling as I packed. I used to kind of like to hang around that packing house. And it’s fun to think of fish from the little port of Nordheim going all over, even as far as America. Come on, boy.”
Arne dashed joyfully across the room. “Say, I like to hang around the warehouse, too, but I can do that any time, and the saeter—well, that’s different. And this year Uncle Jens is going to rig up an extra good kind of special works to send the milk cans and hay from the top of the cliff down to the level land. We’ve been talking a lot about it. I want to help with that.”
“Well, why not? You’re pretty good at that kind of thing. Now we’ll go down to the packing house, and I’ll show you how to grab up those stiff oldlutfiskand wind the wire around in a hurry. I’ve got a good technique. We’ll work fast, and if we get enough done, maybe Father will let you go tomorrow.”
The two brothers did not have very far to go, although their white house with its red roof and doors stood near the edge of the little harbor town far up on the Norwegian coast, where a mighty fjord joins the sea. They walked quickly along the narrow, cobbled street that twisted its way down to the wharf, past the brightly-painted houses—orange, green, and red—past thestavkirkewith its roofs and gables rising one above another.
Arne liked that old church. He liked the carved dragon heads which sprung from the highest gables androse above the small turret that topped the whole edifice.
“We’re lucky to have it, you know,” said Gustav. “There aren’t many of those old churches around Norway, and none at all anywhere else. It’s nearly a thousand years old; did you know that? It’s lasted since the days the old Vikings used to have to carry spears or bows and arrows when they went to church.”
“I like those old Vikings. And those were good days, Gustav,” said Arne. “They didn’t have to be sendinglutfiskto America in those days.”
Gustav laughed. “Well, we do. So shake a leg.”
The packing house stood at the edge of the fjord, handy for unloading the fishing boats and for loading the ships that carried the kegs and cans and bales of fish to far-off ports.
Father was a little surprised to see them; and he was pleased, too, though he didn’t say so. Usually he had to make it very clear when he expected Arne to report for duty. And here the boy had come down himself and offered to help. Here was Gustav, too, who was on a vacation and not expected to do real work.
Gustav did have a very quick way of handling thatlutfisk. He picked up several of the long stiff pieces of fish which Arne thought looked exactly like pieces of wood.These he arranged neatly in a bundle, bound it with wire, fastened and clipped it. As he worked, he sang some of the rollicking folk songs Besta had taught them long ago; and that made the job go even faster. Old Ole worked with them; he knew songs Arne had never heard. Before long Father joined the group; and by the time they stopped for supper, a good share of the work was out of the way.
“There, now,” said Father with satisfaction. “We are going to see to it that those poor folks in America do not starve for good Norwegianlutfisk. Time to stop for supper. I wonder what Mother will have for us to eat.”
“Hope it won’t belutfisk,” said Arne fervently, and they all laughed.
When they entered the kitchen a few minutes later, they were pleased to see that Mother was cooking a large pan of meat balls.
Arne thought his mother was very pretty, with her coppery hair that shone like one of her own brightly-polished pots, her deep blue eyes and quick smile. And he knew very well she was the most comfortable person in the world to be around. There was a capable air about her that made one feel good inside.
His mouth watered as she filled a large platter withmeat balls while Margret set big mugs of milk on the table and Besta brought a large bowl of steaming hot potatoes. It was a favorite meal of Arne’s, but for once he was the first to finish. He ran around the table to bow to his mother and father with the customary Norwegian, “Tak for mad,” which meant, “Thank you for the meal.” Then he said, “Now, let’s get back to thatlutfisk.”
Father glanced at Mother, and his voice sounded as if he wanted to smile. But all he said was, “I’m afraid Arne is working himself out of a job.”
Mother had been talking to Besta, and now she answered soberly, though her eyes twinkled. “It may be he will have to go along on that saeter trip and help there, if he’s so eager to work.”
Arne looked from one to the other. They sounded serious, but they often joked that way. He grinned and brought his hands together in a noisy clap. “Am I going to the saeter, then?”
“Let’s see how we get along this evening with the work,” was all Father would say. But Arne’s heart felt light as he went back to the dock with the others. His fingers flew, and he sang louder than anyone.