Part 4 (1/2)

O pshaw! Running like that he would soon catch Olaug. It was frightfully exciting, like a horse-race or a hunt after wild animals.

Well, that isn't a very good comparison, for nothing could be less like a wild animal than Olaug; but it was awfully exciting to see whether she would keep ahead and get the Chili stamp from Nils Peter.

So that I might see better how the race ended I sprang up to our chicken-yard, or rather beyond it, on our own hill. You could see the whole path up over Kranheia better from there than from any other place.

But just where I must be to see best was that awfully high board fence, too high for me to see over, that went from the chicken-yard quite a long way beyond on the hill.

Pooh! What of it? I just wiggled a board that was already loose, pulled it away and stuck my head in the opening. It was a little narrow but I got my head through. Oh--oh! Karsten had caught up to Olaug and run past her like an ostrich at full speed--I've always heard that an ostrich runs faster than anything else in the world--yes, there he was swinging in towards Nils Peter's house.

O pshaw! Now that Chili stamp was lost for ever and ever.

Olaug had plumped herself right down; she had to sit still and get her breath, poor thing!

Now that there was nothing more for me to watch, I started to draw my head back out of the narrow opening between the thick boards. But, O horrors! It stuck fast! I couldn't possibly get it back. I turned and twisted my head this way and that, and up and down; I tried to pull and squeeze it back, but no, that was utterly impossible. How in the world I had ever got my head through the opening in the first place I can't understand to this day, but that I had got it through was only too sure.

New struggles to get loose--I thought I should tear my ears off--Goodness gracious, what should I do!

At first I wasn't a speck afraid. I just wriggled and pulled as hard as I could. But when I realized that I simply could not free myself, a sort of terror came over me.

Just think--if I never got my head out? Or suppose there came a cross dog and bit me while my head was as if nailed fast in the fence! And suppose n.o.body found me--(for of course n.o.body would know that I had run up here beyond the chicken-yard)--and perhaps I should have to stay caught in the fence the whole night, when it was dark.

I cried and sobbed, then I called; at last I screamed and roared. I heard the hens in the yard flap their wings and run about wildly, evidently frightened by the noise I made.

Down on the road, people stood still and gazed upward; then of course I shrieked the louder. But no one looked up to the chicken-yard; and even if they had, they couldn't very well see, from so far down, a round brown head sticking through a brown fence. I roared incessantly, and at last I saw a woman start to run up the hill--and then a man started--but they did not see me and soon disappeared among the trees, although I kept on bawling, ”Help! I am right here! I am caught in the fence!”

Just then I saw Karsten and Nils Peter come out of Nils Peter's house.

They stood a moment as if listening, and naturally they recognized my voice.

Then they started running. If Karsten had raced over there, he certainly raced back again, too.

I kept bawling the whole time: ”Here! here! in the fence! I am stuck fast in the fence!” It wasn't many minutes before both Karsten and Nils Peter stood behind me.

”Have you gone altogether crazy?” said Karsten in the greatest astonishment.

I felt a little offended, but there's no use in being offended when you haven't command over your own head, so I said very meekly:

”Ugh! such a nuisance! My head is stuck fast in here. Can't you help me?”

Would you believe it? They didn't laugh a bit--awfully kind, I call that--they just hauled and pulled me as hard as they could; it fairly sc.r.a.ped the skin off behind my ears and I thought I should be scalped if they kept on.

”No, it's no use,” I said, crying again. ”Run after Father, run after Mother, get everybody to come--uh, hu, hu!”

Well, they came. I couldn't see them, but I could hear the whole lot of them behind me.

Now there _was_ a scene! The same story began again; they pulled and twisted my head, Father gave directions, I cried and Olaug cried and everybody talked at once.

”No,” said Father at last, ”it can't be done. Hurry down to Carpenter Wenzel and ask him to come and to bring his saw with him.”

”Uh, huh! He'll saw my head off!” I wailed.