hat I had run
up here beyond the chicken-yard)--and perhaps I should have to stay
caught in the fence the whole night, when it was dark.

I cried and sobbed, then I called; at last I screamed and roared. I
heard the hens in the yard flap their wings and run about wildly,
evidently frightened by the noise I made.

Down on the road, people stood still and gazed upward; then of course I
shrieked the louder. But no one looked up to the chicken-yard; and even
if they had, they couldn't very well see, from so far down, a round
brown head sticking through a brown fence. I roared incessantly, and at
last I saw a woman start to run up the hill--and then a man started--but
they did not see me and soon disappeared among the trees, although I
kept on bawling, "Help! I am right here! I am caught in the fence!"

Just then I saw Karsten and Nils Peter come out of Nils Peter's house.
They stood a moment as if listening, and naturally they recognized my
voice.

Then they started running. If Karsten had raced over there, he
certainly raced back again, too.

I kept bawling the whole time: "Here! here! in the fence! I am stuck
fast in the fence!" It wasn't many minutes before both Karsten and Nils
Peter stood behind me.

"Have you gone altogether crazy?" said Karsten in the greatest
astonishment.

I felt a little offended, but there's no use in being offended when you
haven't command over your own head, so I said very meekly:

"Ugh! such a nuisance! My head is stuck fast in here. Can't you help
me?"

Would you believe it? They didn't laugh a bit--awfully kind, I call
that--they just hauled and pulled me as hard as they could; it fairly
scraped the skin off behind my ears and I thought I should be scalped if
they kept on.

"No, it's no use," I said, crying again. "Run after Father, run after
Mother, get everybody to come--uh, hu, hu!"

Well, they came. I couldn't see them, but I could hear the whole lot of
them behind me.

Now there _was_ a scene! The same story began again; they pulled and
twisted my head, Father gave directions, I cried and Olaug cried and
everybody talked at once.

"No," said Father at last, "it can't be done. Hurry down to Carpenter
Wenzel and ask him to come and to bring his saw with him."

"Uh, huh! He'll saw my head off!" I wailed.

But Mother patted me on the back and comforted me, and all the others
standing behind kept saying it would be all right soon, while I stood
there like a mouse in a tr