ith
all your cock-sureness, you were about to lose the game."

And such peals of laughter as went up from the children of both
schools and from the grown folk as well, the two schoolmasters had
never heard. Some of the youngsters had to stand up to have their
laugh out, while others doubled in their seats, and shrieked. That
put an end to all order.

"Now I think we'd better remove the benches and take a swing round
the Christmas trees," said old man Tyberg.

And never before had they had such fun in the schoolhouse, and
never since, either.

FISHING

It would hardly have been possible for any one to be as fond of the
little girl as her father was; but it may be truly said that she
had a very good friend in old seine-maker Ola.

This is the way they came to be friends: Glory Goldie had taken to
setting out fishing-poles in the brook for the small salmon-trout
that abounded there. She had better luck with her fishing than any
one would have expected, and the very first day she brought home a
couple of spindly fishes.

She was elated over her success, as can be imagined, and received
praise from her mother for being able to provide food for the
family, when she was only a little girl of eight. To encourage the
child, Katrina let her cleanse and fry the fish. Jan ate of it and
declared he had never tasted the like of that fish, which was the
plain truth. For the fish was so bony and dry and burnt that the
little girl herself could scarcely swallow a morsel of it.

But for all that the little girl was just as enthusiastic over her
fishing. She got up every morning at the ionic time that Jan did
and hurried off to the brook, a basket on her arm, and carrying in
a little tin box the worms to bait her hooks. Thus equipped, she
went off to the brook, which came gushing down the rocky steep in
numerous falls and rapids, between which were short stretches of
dark still water and places where the stream ran, clear and
transparent, over a bed of sand and smooth stones.

Think of it! After the first week she had no luck with the fishing.
The worms were gone from all the hooks, but no fish had fastened
there. She shifted her tackle from rapid to still water, from still
water to rippling falls, and she changed her hooks--but with no
better results.

She asked the boys at Boerje's and at Eric's if they were not the
ones who got up with the lark and carried off her fish. But a
question like that the boys would not deign