to get into the barn through that hole at the
back, for I shall have to practice, you understand."

"Well, will you give me that red-and-blue pencil of yours then?"

"Oh, yes, only come along."

We stole behind the barn. Karsten kept hold of me while I climbed
up--there, now I was in the barn. How it looked! When twelve horses must
stand in five stalls, there isn't much room left, you know, and they had
been put every which way,--one pony stood in the calf-pen.

All the horses except two were lying down resting. The white horse over
by the window was standing up; he turned around and looked at me with
big sorrowful eyes. It had really been my plan to get on him, for he was
the handsomest of them all, but I didn't dare to venture among the big
shining bodies of the horses lying all over the floor. No, I should have
to be satisfied with the little black one that stood in the calf-pen.
Karsten had thrust the upper part of his body in through the hole. I
went up to the black horse.

"He is angry; he is putting his ears back; look out, Inger Johanne!"
called Karsten.

"Pooh--do you think I mind that?" I climbed up on the calf-pen. For a
moment I wondered whether I should try to stand on the horse at once. I
put out my foot and touched him--no, he was so smooth and slippery, it
would certainly be best to sit the first time I got on a horse. I gave a
little jump, and there I sat.

O dear! What in the world was happening? I didn't know, but I thought
the horse had gone crazy. First he stood on his fore legs with his hind
legs in the air, and then on his hind legs, and threw me off as if I
were nothing at all. I fell across the edge of the calf-pen--oh, what a
whack my arm got! I literally couldn't move it for a whole minute; and
there was a grand rumpus in the barn; some of the horses got up and
whinnied, and the black one that I had sat on kicked and kicked with his
hind legs every instant.

I could just see the top of Karsten's head at the hole now.

"Oh, Karsten--Karsten."

"Are you dead, Inger Johanne?"

I don't really know how I got out through the hole with my injured arm.
But outside of the barn I sat down right among all the nettles and
cried.

When I went into the house there was a great commotion. Everybody was
scared and the doctor was sent for. My sleeve was cut up to the
shoulder, and the doctor said I had broken a small bone in my wrist, and
besides had sprained and bruised my arm about as much as I