V
THE DANCING-SCHOOL
A dancing-master had come to town and almost all the children were to go to his dancing-school. He was Swedish, his name was Baklind, and he had engaged a room at Madam Pirk’s.
Madam Pirk kept cows and made her living chiefly by selling milk. She sold cream, too; but into that she put potato flour so that it should look thick. She was glad to rent a room, you may be sure.
It was an immense room on the first floor and ran the whole length of the house; its big windows looked out on both the yard and the street. Under this room was the cellar where Madam Pirk kept her cows; that must have been why there was always such a peculiar odor in the room.
The wall-paper on this drawing-room represented a countless multitude of green-clad shepherds who played on golden horns in a crimson sunset glow. Midway down one of the long walls stood a monster of an old-fashioned stove, an enormous bulgy contrivance with a pipe that went straight up through the ceiling. To make a fire in that stove would take half a cord of wood, I do believe!
Fortunately for Madam Pirk and Mr. Baklind, there was no question of heating the room. The month of May had come, there was a south wind, and a constant drip-drip outside from the melting snow in the roof gutters. But probably the room was somewhat cold, for Mr. Baklind always wore his spring coat, I remember. If we children wished a little more warmth, the idea was that we should get it by dancing.
Mr. Baklind was a tall, stout man with long hair falling down over his neck. It never occurred to me then, but now I am pretty sure that he curled his hair with curling-tongs. I remember scarcely anything else about him but his legs, which were very thin. He wore striped stockings and pointed patent-leather shoes, and came every day with these dancing-shoes in his pocket, changing to them right there in the dancing-hall while we stood around looking at him.
Baklind himself was the whole orchestra; he played the violin, tramped out the rhythm, and sang, “Tra-la-la!” or Swedish songs. He was a happy fellow, that Mr. Baklind! I should like to know where he waltzes around now.
There were about thirty children who went to Baklind’s dancing-school. We stood arranged according to height; girls in a long row on one side of the room, boys on the other side. Massa was the tallest girl and I came next. Nils Trap was the tallest boy, and Massa was to have him as her partner.
Angemal Terkelsen fell to my lot, a big, awkward boy who could neither bow nor dance, and would never swing himself round except when he came to a corner of the hall, where he had to turn. At first he danced so poorly, that he had to practise all alone while the rest of us sat and watched him. He was stiff as a poker and looked bored all the time he was in the class.
I was mightily offended with Baklind because I had to have Angemal for my partner, although of course Baklind was not to blame that Angemal and I were of the same height. Still, I remember that at that time I thought it was all his fault. Dance with Angemal I must, two hours every day for six weeks.
Towards the last, however, he wasn’t so bad. Whether it was I or Baklind who had improved him, I don’t know, but he even grew rather agreeable. He found out one day that I was awfully fond of chocolate, and always after that he brought me a thick cake of chocolate, and sometimes two cakes. Angemal’s father was a storekeeper. I am afraid that many pounds of chocolate disappeared from the shop during those weeks of dancing-school.
Every evening between six and eight o’clock, Madam Pirk’s garden fence was full of street urchins who had climbed up there to look in at us who were dancing. They made a tremendous rumpus out there, threw each other down off the fence, laughed and shouted.
In the hall, the floor rocked under our sixty feet, the cows in the cellar lowed, the old stove shook and rattled. Baklind played the violin, struck one and another sinner with his bow, counted out the time: one-two-three-hop! one-two-three-hop! I shoved and dragged Angemal, and the whole hall was in a cloud of dust that sifted down from the ceiling and out of the corners and from Madam Pirk’s old straight-backed chairs.
In the breathing-time between dances, we sat and rested, like hens gone to roost, on Madam Pirk’s steep, white-scoured attic stairs; or else Baklind taught us how we should enter a room or look out of a window or do something else in a proper manner. The most beautiful, but also the most complicated way to look out of a window was the following: feet crossed, body in a curve, and arms leaning lightly on the window-sill. He added also that, having taken this position, the person ought to turn his gaze upward. I wonder if Angemal Terkelsen, or any other of us ever stands and looks out of the window in that fashion?
Once in a while Baklind would get frantic over the street boys perching on the garden fence and peeping in at us. Never in my life have I seen a person leap as our dancing-master did, when he dashed out after those boys. I am not exaggerating when I say that he took steps five or six feet long. With uplifted cane and curls flying every-which-way, he literally stretched himself out flat against Madam Pirk’s fence. But if Baklind thought he could get hold of Stian, the watchman’s boy, or George, the street-sweeper’s, he made a great mistake. They were up on the hill like a streak of lightning, pointing their fingers at him and roaring with laughter. “Such wolf-cubs—I’d like to break the noses off of those imps,” said Baklind when he came in all out of breath.
When dancing-school had lasted for about a month, the big old stove began to shake and clatter in a very disquieting manner.
“Poor old thing!” said Baklind. “He doesn’t care much for all this dancing. I think we must brace him up a little. We’ll tie a rope around him!”
Then things were lively for a few minutes. Angemal ran home for a rope. Baklind put one chair on another, balanced himself on the top one and tied the stout rope around the stove and then to some big nails in the wall.
“There! now I think the old fellow is happy!” said Baklind as he hopped down from the chairs and drew back in the hall to see how the arrangement looked.
But Baklind had that time reckoned without his hostess. The next evening Madam Pirk presented herself in the hall, her face wearing an extraordinarily displeased expression.
“What is that arrangement for?” asked Madam Pirk pointing to the rope-bound stove.
“I was afraid the old fellow would fall in a swoon,” said Baklind. “I thought it would be wise to support him a little.”
“No, thank your majesty! My stove can stand alone perfectly well.”
“As Madam will,” said Baklind. So he got up on the chairs again and took down the rope.
Two evenings later, we were dancing the polka mazurka with great gusto. Baklind played the violin, the floor rocked, the stove and even the pipe shook and rattled violently.
At home, I had heard Gunhild, one of the maids, say that to dance the polka mazurka “with bumps”—that is, bumping into the other couples, was the greatest fun in the world. I suggested to Angemal that we should dance that way, and he immediately agreed. We bumped against all the others, pushed and shoved, and enjoyed ourselves tremendously.
But all at once we heard a crash from the stove—a crash so loud that it drowned all the uproar we were making. Every one of us stopped instantly, and stared in terror at the big, old stove. And at that very moment—well, any one who has never seen a stove break all to pieces can have but a faint idea of it—at that very moment, it was as if the legs were struck from under the stove, it sprang apart in different places, and the big heavy iron pieces toppled, clanked against each other and fell with a frightful bang on the floor. The long stovepipe came last. It pitched far out in the room amongst us, and an avalanche of soot spread like thick smoke through the drawing-room. We all sprang for the door, Baklind with us. Madam Pirk and her maid came rushing into the entry. A heavy cloud of soot was pouring out of the door of the dancing-room.
“What is it?” shrieked Madam Pirk. “What is going on? Are you tearing the house down?”
“Oh, the old chap fell over. He wouldn’t stand there any longer,” said Baklind.
Madam Pirk shrieked and wept and scolded, scolded Baklind, shrieked to us that we should pack ourselves off out of her house. She didn’t wish to see even a shadow of any of us inside her doors ever again. But she wept over all the green-robed shepherds around the walls. It was indeed to be feared that they would never again play their horns in such rosy red light as heretofore.
“Well, it isn’t my fault,” said Baklind. “You wouldn’t let me tie it together.”
At this, all Madam Pirk’s wrath poured out on Baklind’s curly head.
“Is it work for a grown man to traipse around, and do nothing but dance? Well, if you don’t this minute dance out of my house, I shall call both the mayor and the police.”
Nothing would pacify her. We had danced for the last time in Madam Pirk’s big room.
During the two weeks that remained of the course, we had to crowd ourselves together in Baklind’s room at the hotel; and Angemal and I were not allowed to dance the polka mazurka “with bumps” any more.