drumsticks.

One Sunday we went to church. Four fat horses and four wagons started
from Goodfields with the churchgoers.

It was so peaceful and so beautiful; down on the fjord one boat after
another set out from the opposite side bringing people to church; the
boats left a broad streak behind them in the calm, smooth water.

We drove past little groups of peasants--women and girls with white
linen head-dresses, and men in shirt-sleeves with their jackets over
their arms, for the sun was roasting hot on the open roads. "Good
cheer," they all greeted us with, and when we had passed I heard them
whisper to each other: "They are the summer folk from Goodfields."

More and more people gathered along the quiet roads; and there on a
height stood the church,--a white wooden church with a low tower, and a
church-bell which rang with a cracked sound out over the leafy forest
and the fields and the still water.

The horses were tied in a long row on the other side of the road, and
the boys and men stood leaning against the stone wall around the
churchyard, but the women were farther in among the graves. They all
exchanged greetings, shaking hands loosely, standing well away from each
other. "Thanks for our last meeting," they said, looking quickly away.
It was so queer. People don't do like that in town.

They sang without an organ, and it sounded so innocent, somehow, and the
church door stood wide open to the sunshine. But what do you think
happened? In came a goat right in the midst of the hymn.

The church clerk stood in the choir door and led the singing; one of his
arms was of no use; I had heard of that. All at once there in the open
church door stood a goat. I wonder what's going to happen now, thought
I.

The goat turned his head first one way, then the other,--then as true as
you live he came pattering in. Patter, patter, sounded short and sharp
over the church floor. Every one turned to look, and the singing died
away, little by little, but no one got up to put the goat out.

Farther and farther up towards the choir pattered the goat. Suddenly the
clerk saw him. For a moment he looked terribly bewildered, then very
thoughtfully he laid his psalm-book aside and walked down the aisle.

Then you should have seen the clerk engineer the goat out with his one
arm. He had hold of one horn, and the goat resisted, and the clerk
shoved, and so, little by little, they worked themselves down the
church. Oh, I shall nev