other. Nils, Antoinette and Karen hid themselves
first; but they just ran up into the kitchen and Ingeborg, the cook,
drove them down again; so nobody had a chance to search for them. Then
Peter, Karsten and I were to hide. Peter and Karsten placed themselves
in the big box-part of the mangle, and I put some sacks over them and
there they were, beautifully hidden.

For myself, I thought of creeping into a cupboard in the brewery. But
when it came to the point, I found that my legs had grown so long since
I last hid there that there wasn't room enough for them. I was at my
wits' end. Any instant I expected Nils to whirl like a tempest into that
room. I sprang into the wine cellar and looked about with a frantic
glance. Only bare shelves, not a thing to hide one's self in. Oh, yes!
There stood a meal chest. I lifted the lid--the chest was empty. Quick
as a flash I jumped in and slammed the lid down.

There I lay. It was pretty close quarters but not so bad after all.
Hurrah! What a first-rate hiding place! No one had ever before thought
of hiding here.

I lay still, rejoicing over being so wonderfully well hidden. The
minutes began to drag. At last I heard Karen and Antoinette running
about and searching. Twice they were in the wine cellar.

"No--there is nobody here," they said. I kept still as a mouse, of
course. Now they had found Peter and Karsten in the mangle box, for
there was a great uproar out there.

"But Inger Johanne! Where is Inger Johanne?"

"You'll be pretty smart if you find me!" I thought.

They ran about a while and rummaged in the brewery and then I heard them
go out into the court. I lay still as a stone a little longer but it
began to be somewhat warm in the meal chest, so I thought I would lift
the lid a little. I pushed my back against it--but what in the world! It
would not go up!

Once more I tried--and once more----Exactly what had happened I don't
know, but there was a hook on the lid and when I hastily slammed the lid
down, the hook probably dropped and caught on a nail in the meal chest
itself.

In the first instant I can't say that I was terribly afraid. I kept on
trying to get the lid up and all the time I thought, "They will soon
come in here again to look for me and then I'll shout!"

But far from it. No one came. It was perfectly silent. I heard nobody
either in the brewery or out in the court or up in the kitchen. And all
at once terror overwhelmed me,--terror at being shut