er the captain came and talked with me. When I told him that I had
been left behind on the Horten wharf the afternoon before, he laughed so
that he got purple in the face. Now can you see anything to laugh at?
For all that, the captain was very kind, for he let me go up on the
bridge with him, and there I stayed all the time until we arrived.

On the wharf stood Uncle Karl, Mother, and Karsten waiting. Mother shook
her head and looked much displeased; but Uncle Karl, with his big white
mustache, laughed and nodded.

"I'm thankful to see you again," said Mother. "You must know I was
worried about you."

"Beautiful eyes, the puss has," said Uncle Karl suddenly.

I looked around astonished, for there didn't seem to be any puss
anywhere. But only think! he meant me. I have looked carefully at my
eyes since, but I don't think they are beautiful at all, for they are
too round and look so surprised.

Oh, what fun we had at Uncle Karl's! I do not know that I should ever
come to an end if I tried to tell about it, so I won't begin, for I have
a tremendous gift of gab when I once get started;--at least that is what
everybody says.

CHAPTER VI

IN THE MEAL CHEST

We have an awfully cosy cellar, you must know. Of course the whole house
is old and rather tumbledown, so the cellar is nothing very fine; but it
is awfully cosy and exactly right for playing in, in bad weather. I
don't know a cellar in the whole town that is cosier; and I am fairly
well acquainted with all of them, you may be sure.

Our cellar isn't underground. It is a high basement and in it is a big
brewery and laundry, a big servant's room, and a big wine cellar where
there is never any wine; on the other side of the basement is the
storeroom for food and the potato cellar. The walls are brown and dark
just from age; and the floor rocks so that I often wonder that the big
casks and barrels, and fat Christine and Maren the washerwomen, who are
forever washing there, do not fall through, perhaps into some deep
abyss underground. But it must be tough, that floor, for it still holds.

One day there was disgusting weather. Withered leaves flew around your
ears and the streets were soaking wet and muddy. Nils, Peter, Karen and
Antoinette had come up to our hill in order to have fun of some kind in
the drizzling weather; and we hit upon playing hide-and-seek in our
cellar. We divided into sides; Peter, Karsten and I on one side and the
other three on the