Inger Johanne's lively doings

I don’t know anything more delightful than St. John’s Night,—beautiful, bright St. John’s Night.

There are, though, three awfully jolly days in the year: Christmas, my birthday, and St. John’s or Midsummer Day.

Christmas, particularly Christmas Eve, is something very special; it stands entirely by itself, and seems to mean Father and Mother and all the family. No one should be with us then except those we are most fond of—those that belong here at home.

Then my birthday is my very own day. What I like best about that are the presents I get and also that I am a year older. For, really, isn’t it tedious to keep on being twelve years old everlastingly? Of course, when any one asked me last year how old I was, I always said, “In my thirteenth year.” That sounded older,—not so unspeakably childish.

But St. John’s Day! Then there is pleasure and sport for everybody. There is no school; the fields everywhere are bright with spring flowers, and the houses are decorated outside with little birch-trees standing beside the doors. Inside, birch leaves trim the stoves, fresh garlands hang from the ceiling around the walls, buttercups and daisies and long waving grasses are in bouquets in all the rooms.

And perhaps we have cream porridge for dinner.

Last and best of all, though, are the St. John’s bonfires in the evening, blazing and shining wherever you look.

No one stays at home on St. John’s Night except the very old folks. The other people of the town row out to the islands with big lunch-baskets and bottles of fruit-juice.

Many take accordions with them, and the music, coming over the water, sounds sad and joyful at the same time. It wouldn’t seem like St. John’s Night at all if Agent Levorsen did not play “Sons of Norway” out in the summer night on Green Island. The sailor boys at the Point play such tunes as:

And everything is oh, so jolly and gay!

On the hills round about in the town the old people sit among the small houses and look at the blazing fires and think of the days when they were young and had jolly times out on the islands on St. John’s Night.

“Yes, yes!” say the old women, sitting with their hands under their aprons and wagging their heads sideways.

One after another the fires are lighted. “See there!” “And see there!” “And there!” The air is warm and soft and still. The islands are swarming with people who eat cake and drink fruit-juice and laugh and dance and sometimes fight.

The bonfires crackle and flash up against the dark sky and the sparks fly around far and near. Suddenly a piece of board or a charred butter-firkin tumbles down from the fire and the boys make wagers as to which of them can come nearest to the fire without burning himself. Their faces are so black with soot that they look like chimney-sweeps.

O bright, jolly St. John’s Night!

But now you shall hear how we celebrated it once. I shall never forget that celebration, for it ended in terror.

We shouldn’t have thought of having a bonfire if it hadn’t been for Andreas, a boy who came from near Stavanger last spring. His father, Oscar Eisland, works at the wharf in Espeviken, and he and his wife and five children live in a tiny red house on our hill. That is why I know the family so well.

In their house there are two beds, one bench, and one table, and nothing more except newspaper pictures on the walls; pictures of murders, weddings in Russia, kings, and so on.

Although Oscar and his family are surely not rich, I have never seen any people as happy as they are. That is why I like so much to be up there.

Well, it was Andreas who suggested that we children who lived on the hill should have a St. John’s Night bonfire of our very own. Children where he came from did that, he said; and my brother Karsten and I thought it would be awfully good fun.

We were not going to say a word to any one about it. It was to be a glorious surprise for the whole town when all at once a big bonfire blazed out on our hill.

But it wasn’t easy to find things to burn, I can tell you. All that we collected we were to hide in a place on the hill that we called “Sahara.” We had many places on the hill that we had given names to, “Nagasaki,” “Paris,” and so on; but “Sahara” was the best for a hiding-place.

Andreas, Karsten, and I each had our particular work to do. Karsten was to get kerosene for us to pour over the fire to make it burn very briskly. And just think! He took an empty bottle and went around to all the cooks on our street and asked them for a few drops of kerosene. That was stupid, I thought, for naturally the maids would tattle—but Karsten said no, cooks never tattled.

I did nothing but spy around in all the woodsheds and lofts I could get into for things to burn. You see, we couldn’t expect to get hold of old boats as the people on the islands did. A few bits of board I found, of course, but nothing of any account.

Andreas was the handiest person you can imagine, swift as a chamois and very strong. Every day he, with dirty bare legs, appeared in our hall and asked if there was something for him to carry up to “Sahara,” for that was his business; but usually there was nothing.

Day after day went by, and still the store of fuel up in “Sahara” was not very big. Then one day my eyes fell on an old bedstead that stood in Mrs. Petersen’s woodshed. It was very dirty and had stood there a long time, surely half a year.

I could not get that bedstead out of my mind. Mrs. Petersen couldn’t care the least bit about it, since it had stood in the woodshed so long. It was very old, and painted red, and would burn gloriously. Probably Mrs. Petersen would only be thankful if we took it, dirty as it was, out of her way.

I consulted with Andreas and Karsten. “Oh, yes, we’ll take it,” said Andreas. I rather think Andreas would have taken the two beds out of his house, if he could, so as to have something to burn.

“If Mrs. Petersen were only not so severe, we might ask her for the bed,” said Karsten. Karsten always says people are “severe” when they are cross or angry.

No, ask Mrs. Petersen for the bed we dared not, that was sure. But we couldn’t have a bonfire without fuel, so if you’ll believe it, we took the old bedstead one evening without so much as saying “by your leave” to any one.

Andreas took it apart and carried it all up to “Sahara” as if it were a feather!

My, but that would make a grand bonfire!

First the bedstead, then a big butter-firkin filled with heather on top of it, and in the firkin we fixed a tall pole with an enormous bunch of heather soaked in kerosene tied on its top.

Now people needn’t plume themselves on their grand bonfires out on the island, for our bonfire would be seen as far away as Jomfruland, that was certain.

The weather wasn’t very good that St. John’s Night. It had been dingy and gray all day, getting ready to rain; and that was good surely, for we hadn’t had rain for four weeks and the grass was stiff and yellow and the heather as dry as tinder over the whole hill.

But since the rain had waited so long, it might as well wait until St. John’s Night was over. That is what I thought then, at any rate.

The whole afternoon we stayed up there on the hill, arranging and improving our pile of fuel, so that everything should be perfect for the evening. From that height we could see over the whole town, into the streets and courtyards. Men looked about as big as pins, and children looked like pinheads; yet we knew every pin and pinhead we saw down there. We saw the boys rowing out to the islands; and far beyond the islands we could see Skagerak, gray and billowy, with tiny white-capped waves, and with heavy gray air lying above its waters.

O dear, O dear! How the time dragged before it grew dark that evening! At last we could wait no longer but lighted our bonfire before any others were lighted.

The bunch of heather at the top of the pole blazed up like a great bouquet of fire. It looked perfectly magnificent, really.

There! Now Mrs. Petersen’s bedstead had caught. Hurrah! What fun! Greatest fun in the world!

We danced and skipped and shouted, “Hurrah!” looking towards the town all the time to see whether any one noticed our splendid bonfire. Hurrah! Hurrah!

The wind began to blow,—to blow very hard. Sparks flew all over the hill. We could not stand in the lee of the bonfire, for it would have been like standing in a sea of flame.

Well, if the townsfolk didn’t see that fire now, it must be that they had no eyes in their heads. Andreas turned somersaults in the heather. Hurrah! Hurrah!

But all at once I noticed some little flames springing up here and there.

“The heather is on fire!” I shouted.

“Hurrah!” shouted Andreas and Karsten in high glee.

But at that moment something seemed to tighten in my chest. I was afraid with a great sudden fear.

“Now all that will be a St. John’s Night bonfire,” said Karsten gleefully, pointing towards the moor.

“Are you crazy? Put it out! Only put it out!” I shouted.

The whole hill was covered with heather as far as one could see, heather as dry as tinder from the long drought. Suppose it should all get on fire! I rushed forward, tramped in the burning heather and beat it with a stick.

“Help me put it out! Help me put it out!” I cried. The boys were frightened, too, now, and we all worked frantically; but the sparks showered down faster and faster and the fire seemed to blaze up everywhere at the same instant.

It was terrible. Down in the streets people stopped and looked up and some began to run. I was ready to throw myself into the burning heather, so terrified was I. And the wind howled and blew and swarms of sparks danced about in all directions.

Suppose the whole moor should take fire,—and perhaps the whole world be burnt up—it would all be our fault. The bonfire crackled and blazed against the dark sky and the flames hissed in the heather.

Those moments I cannot write about. I don’t believe I thought of anything, I was so overwhelmed by fear.

I tramped, I shrieked, I ran right into the midst of the burning heather and shouted I don’t know what.

Over the moor some people came running swiftly, big, smoke-begrimed men, Constable Midsen, Alexander Brygga, Herman Dilt, and many, many others.

“What lawlessness and foolery is this?” shouted Constable Midsen. “There is hard punishment, and fines besides, for such doings. Help here, fellows. Quick!”

The whole of our beautiful bonfire was thrown down before you could count three, tramped on and put out, Constable Midsen giving the orders.

It seems to me I can hear his voice yet, mingled with the noisy blasts of the wind over the dark moor where the fire still crackled and snapped in the heather.

And it was all our fault! Such hard work as we had had, and such grand fun as we had expected to have! It would be best for me to run away at once, I thought; but no, it would be a shame to do that. Midsen held Karsten and Andreas as in a vise so that they should not run away; and it was just as much my fault as theirs.

I sat on a stone and cried hard; Andreas choked and cried and dried his eyes on his jacket-sleeves, first one and then the other; but Karsten fairly bellowed—his way of crying.

The men kept on tearing up the heather so as to stop the fire, and scolding us constantly. I wonder whether you can possibly imagine how perfectly horrid it was. I shall never again have a bonfire of my own, if I live to be a hundred years old.

Suddenly I felt a raindrop—then another and another—and then it began to pour.

“Well, you may thank the Lord for His merciful judgment,” said Midsen. “Now the fire will be put out by the rain.”

And what do you think? I cried harder than ever then for joy; and in my heart I thanked God over and over that He had let the rain come just at that time.

When the fire was entirely out and we trudged down the hill, it was almost pitch-dark; water trickled from my clothes, my eyes smarted from the smoke, my hands were scorched, but the worst was, I was unspeakably afraid of what Father would say.

What he said and what came afterward, I won’t tell of in detail for it was altogether too horrid. I was dreadfully, dreadfully sorry I had not asked Mother about having a bonfire, I can tell you.

Father had to pay Mrs. Petersen for her old bedstead. What do you think of that! Probably he had to pay extra for the dirt on it.

And yet, she was so “severe,” as Karsten would say, that she all but chased me out of her house with a broom when I went to beg her pardon.

I had to do that. Father said I must.

Ugh! But of course it was wrong to take her bedstead.