XV
SURPRISING THE CLOCKMAKER
Never in my life have I liked Clockmaker Krause, and for that I have three good reasons. The first is that he never bows to me, although Consul Gjertz and the Chief of Police take off their hats to me when I curtsey—and he also might do as much as that, I think.
The second reason is that I can’t bear the way he carries himself when he walks. Some persons stoop forward, but Clockmaker Krause leans over back. From his heels to the top of his head, his figure makes a slanting line backward just like the mast of a sailboat in a heavy sea. He carries himself that way just because he thinks himself of so much consequence.
The third reason for my not liking him is that he has nailed some boards together in the fence around his yard, so that we can’t run through that short way when the clock says ten minutes to nine and we are rushing to school in a hurry. It is really awfully mean of Clockmaker Krause to do that, for it can’t hurt him a mite if we run through his yard two or three times a day.
Clockmaker Krause is never out except in the evening, when there is moonlight; and he never walks farther than from his own steps to the deacon’s fence—from the deacon’s fence to his own steps;—that’s the way he keeps on,—and he looks like a thin slanting streak in the moonlight.
I really believe it was Teresa Billington’s fault that the fence was nailed together. Yes, I’m sure we can thank her for that. Teresa is housekeeper for Clockmaker Krause, and she is even more exasperating to me than he is. She is fat and pale and the expression of her face never changes; and when people are consequential like Krause and with such a set face as Teresa’s, I call it exasperating. She has nothing to feel high and mighty about. She is not from our town.
Although her expression is so set, I made her change it once, at any rate. It was one summer evening when I was allowed to ride the truckman’s horse home. This man lived a little outside of the town; and there were many persons on the road taking a walk in the twilight. As I rode along, I suddenly saw Teresa Billington with her red parasol and her disgustingly haughty air. “Now I’ll just see if I can’t make that set expression change,” I thought, and with that I turned the big horse towards her and rode right close to her.
Goodness gracious! You may well believe that her face took on a different look. The red parasol dropped into the road, Teresa Billington opened her mouth wide and shrieked and stretched her arms up against the steep hillside. It was impossible for her to go anywhere, you see, for the bank was straight up and down like a wall. But I very calmly turned the horse and rode on my way.
Another time that Teresa was angry with me was about the kittens, but that time I was innocent. It was Mrs. Pussy’s fault. Our dear delightful Mrs. Pussy had four little kittens and I put them in a basket in our attic. It was a fine basket, beautifully trimmed with lace and with a doll’s blanket in the bottom of it; but, only think! Mrs. Pussy wouldn’t stay there.
Clockmaker Krause lives a little way from us, back on the hill. In his yard there is a tumble-down woodshed and in its attic, yes, there, if you please, was where Mrs. Pussy wanted to keep her kittens. One by one she carried them, holding them by the neck, from that lace-trimmed basket in our attic, up the hill and into the loft of that rickety woodshed of Krause’s. Naturally I followed her, and, sure enough, on a heap of rags in a corner lay Mrs. Pussy purring, with all the four black, silky-soft kittens scrambling over her.
The very minute I got up there Teresa Billington came also.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice quivering, for she was in a regular rage.
“I am just taking our kittens away,” I said, gathering them up in my apron.
“Such alley-cats that go into other folks’ houses—it would serve them right if they had their heads chopped off,” said Teresa. “And such gad-about children, too,” she shouted down the ladder after me. “Children that grow up to be nothing but nuisances to other folks.”
Well, later came the time that I planned the surprise for Clockmaker Krause. One moonlight night he was walking up and down the street as usual. Karen and I went past him again and again and curtsied every time, but he looked only at the moon. Then we took a great notion to play some joke on him; and do you know what we did?
The clocks in his shop had struck seven almost at one and the same instant. Some boomed slowly in deep muffled tones, some rang delicate quick strokes. It sounded like chimes when all his clocks were striking.
The clockmaker had just gone away from his steps, and we knew that there was no one in the shop when he took these little walks.
“I’m going to run in and move the hands of all the clocks around to eight,” said I. “So the next time Krause comes to his shop door, they will strike again. My! What a surprise it will be for him, won’t it?”
Karen was to stand outside and whistle through her fingers if Krause came down the street sooner than we expected.
I dashed up the high flight of stone steps into the shop and shoved the hands quickly around on five clocks. Just then Karen whistled furiously through her fingers—right under the window—and I heard Krause on the stone steps.
Never shall I forget my fright. I ducked down behind the counter in the darkest corner, and there I lay. Sin brought its own punishment that time, I can tell you, for it was horrible lying there expecting every minute to be discovered. Krause busied himself with something over on a table; then two of the clocks whose hands I had moved began to strike, and the strokes rang out sharp and clear in the stillness. Krause turned hastily around.
“What’s that?” he exclaimed aloud. Another clock began to strike, then another and another. I can’t describe how I felt as I lay there and heard them.
Krause could scarcely believe his own ears.
“What in the world is the matter?” he exclaimed. “The clocks are all striking eight, five minutes after they have struck seven!”
Just then Karen whistled again under the window.
“It’s those rascally young ones who have been doing mischief here!” shouted Krause suddenly, and he rushed headlong out-of-doors.
That was my salvation; for Krause naturally thought that whoever had meddled with his clocks was out in the street. He had no idea that I was lying behind his counter.
When he had dashed out, it didn’t take me long to get out either, I can tell you! Down the stone steps in two hops, up the street and around Mrs. Milberg’s corner; and there I was—safe. Karen came breathlessly the other way through Miss Fretteland’s garden. Krause had not seen her, either, and joyful indeed were we at our escape.
A little later we, with a most innocent air, walked up and down past Clockmaker Krause, who stood in his doorway watching. But would you believe it? I was found out after all! Now you shall hear.
The next morning when I was on my way to school, Teresa stood at the clockmaker’s door.
“Are not these yellow gloves yours?” she asked.
Yes, of course they were mine. They were deep yellow and very stylish, and I made a great display of them whenever I had them on.
“Well, well. They are yours, are they? They lay on the floor in the shop, so perhaps you know who it was went in there and ruined all the clocks for Krause.”
“Ruined them?” I said aghast, looking up at Teresa in real fright.
“Krause, Krause!” called Teresa. “Come out here.”
But I dared not stay any longer to talk with Teresa, for it was late and I must hurry to school; so I took to my heels and ran away, not sorry to avoid meeting the clockmaker.
At school I felt all the time that there was something weighing upon me, something disagreeable. Nothing was pleasant. I got “one” on my composition about “Love of Country,” but even that did not cheer me. What Teresa had said,—that I had ruined the clocks,—was too dreadful.
Suppose Krause said I must pay for those five big clocks! Ugh! I was so upset that my heart was in my mouth all day.
By now Krause had probably been up to see Father. For a moment I thought I would not go home that day; I would go up on the hill and eat frozen whortleberries for dinner,—or stay down on the wharf all day and sleep in our old barn, and never go home any more,—or go off in a steamship. Oh, what should I do? What should I do?
When school was over I went around by the wharf to drag out the time. Every one had gone home to dinner but myself and Constable Stiksrud, and it was absolutely still over the whole market-place. A dog barked up by the corner and Stiksrud turned around quickly with an angry face. Everything is to be very quiet and orderly at the market-place in our town, you see.
“Aren’t you going home to your dinner?” asked Stiksrud, at last. So of course I had to go.
As soon as I got home I had a suspicion that they knew what I had done. There was a heavy feeling in the air at the dinner table. Everybody was so silent—so silent! I ate all the soup from my plate—something I seldom do. I didn’t believe Father was silent because he knew about the clocks, for he always keeps still at meals; but Mother usually talks, and to-day there wasn’t a word breathed from behind the soup tureen.
After we had finished dinner, the blow came. Mother called me into the pantry.
“Clockmaker Krause’s housekeeper has been up here, Inger Johanne. You have been doing something wrong again, haven’t you?”
“No, Mother—I don’t believe I ruined the clocks—I only—I only shoved the hands around—very quickly, you know——”
“Shoved the hands, you say?”
“Yes—just for fun, Mother—don’t be angry—just so that the clocks should strike again—Krause would be so surprised.”
Mother looked thoughtfully out of the pantry window.
“Well, we shall have to see about finding a way out of all this; perhaps we ought to send you to boarding-school in Germany, for you are really as wild as the worst boy.”
“No, no, Mother. Don’t send me away—I’ll never think of any more mischief—I’ll be so good——”
“The heart is good enough,” said Mother, opening the pantry door. “But, my dear Inger Johanne, don’t let me hear any more complaints about you.”
Ugh! They always threaten me with these horrid boarding-schools, where I should learn to behave properly. When I have done something that is a little bad, then I am to go to boarding-school in Sondfjord, but when I have been perfectly wild, as Mother calls it—then I am to go to Germany or to Pommeren, wherever that is.
However, none of the clocks were damaged at all. Teresa had only said they were ruined to frighten me. But just think! I never got my yellow gloves back. Teresa kept them and I couldn’t bear to ask her for them.
Well, that’s the way I surprised Clockmaker Krause, and I got more trouble than fun out of it. However, I shall never curtsey to him any more; he may depend upon that.