!" I cried. All at once I saw Karsten's light
hair and big ears over on a bench. He was throwing his arms about in the
air and was frightfully excited. "This is the way he did," shouted he;
"he hung over the railing this way, looking for the five crowns."--It
was Mr. Singdahlsen who had fallen overboard. Oh, poor Mrs. Singdahlsen!
She cried and called out unceasingly.

"He is weak in the understanding!" she cried, "and therefore the Lord
gave me sense enough for two--so that I could look after him;--catch
him--catch him. He will drown before my very eyes."

I held Karsten by the jacket as in a vise. I was going to look after him
now. The boat was by this time close to Mr. Singdahlsen. They drew his
long figure out of the water and laid him in the bottom of the boat. The
next minute they had reached the side of the steamer again, clambered
up with Singdahlsen, and laid him on the deck. He looked exactly as if
he were dead. They stripped him to his waist, and then they began to
work over him according to the directions in the almanac for restoring
drowned people. If I live to be a million years old I shall never forget
that scene.

There lay the long, thin, half-naked Singdahlsen on the deck, with two
sailors lifting his arms up and down, Mrs. Singdahlsen on her knees by
his side drying his face with a red pocket-handkerchief, the sun shining
baking hot on the deck, and the smoke of the steamer floating out far
behind us in a big thick streak. At length he showed signs of life and
they carried him into the cabin. Then, what do you suppose happened?
Mrs. Singdahlsen was angry at _me_! Wasn't that outrageous? The whole
thing was my fault, she said, for if I hadn't lost the five crowns, her
son wouldn't have fallen overboard.

"Now you can pay for the doctor and the apothecary, and for my anxiety
and fright besides," said Mrs. Singdahlsen. But everybody laughed and
said I needn't worry myself about that.

"You said yourself that you had sense enough for two, Mrs. Singdahlsen,"
said Storekeeper Andersen.

"I haven't met any one here who has any more sense," said Mrs.
Singdahlsen stuffily.

"Humph!" thought I to myself, "if I had to pay for Mrs. Singdahlsen's
fright the damages would be pretty heavy."

Just then we swung round the point by the rectory, where Karsten and I
were going to land. Uncle's hired boy was waiting for us with a boat. I
recognized him from the year before. He is a regular landlubber, brought
up