The Family at Gilje. Jonas Lie

were out in the porch before the kitchen; the three girls and Jörgen stood wholly absorbed by the load and the horse, and the captain himself came down the stairs.

      "Well, Great-Ola, how has Svarten pulled through? Sweaty and tired, I see! Did you get my uniform buttons? Ah, well! I hope you did not forget the tobacco!—And my watch, could they do anything with that?—Have you the bill?—Well, then, you must put up Svarten—he shall have an extra feed of oats to-day. What? What have you got there?"

      Besides the bill, Great-Ola had taken out of his inside vest pocket a letter wrapped up in paper, blue postal paper, with a beautiful red seal on it. The captain looked at it a moment with surprise. It was the writing of the governor's wife and her seal in the wax, and without saying a word he hastened in to his wife.

      The load from the city, the great event of the half year, occupied the attention of the whole household. Its contents interested all, not the children alone, and when Great-Ola, later in the evening, sat in the kitchen, where he was treated as a guest on account of his return home, and told about his trip to the city and about Svarten and himself, what miracles they had wrought on such and such hills—and the load weighed this time at least two hundred pounds more than the last—then there was a sort of glamor about him and Svarten, too.

      One evening he had even found his way in a snowstorm, and once the salt-bag was forgotten, and then Svarten actually would not stir from the inn-yard, but lashed his tail at every cut of the whip, and kept looking back, until the boy came running out of the hall and shouted out about the bag, then off he started willingly enough.

      The captain had gone in and had wandered up and down in the room for a while with the letter of the governor's wife in blue postal paper in his hand. He looked very much offended at Ma, when she seemed to think more about the load from the city than about his letter. She only suggested gently that they must talk about all that in the evening.

      "All that—you say, Ma!—that Inger-Johanna is invited down there next winter—and we have Rönnow to thank for it. That is short and clear enough, I should think! What? What?" he roared out impatiently. "Is it not plain?—or have you some notions about it?"

      "No—no, dear Jäger!"

      "Well, then you should not delay the whole unloading of the goods with your quiet sigh, full of importance, and your secret meanings which always make me mad. You know I hate it! I go straight to the point always!"

      "I was merely thinking about your uniform coat, whether the tailor has sent the pieces with it, you know—"

      "You are right, you are right, Gitta," and out he rushed like a flash.

      The unpacking went on in the kitchen, before the spice closet with its numerous compartments, where raisins, prunes, almonds, the different kinds of sugar, allspice, and cinnamon, were each put into their own places. Now and then fell a tribute, a prune, two almonds, three raisins, to each of the children; and it could not be denied that this load from the city was like a foretaste of Christmas Eve.

      At first the captain was intensely interested in getting hold of the ink bottles, the tobacco, and the strong wares which were to be kept in the cellar—everything else must be put aside for them. And then he flew in and out, with one bill or another in his hand and a quill pen full of ink, to compare with the general bill which his wife had nailed up on the upper door of the spice closet.

      "Ma, can you conceive such extortion?" stopping suddenly before the bill, which still finally was always found to be right, and then turning thoughtfully round again, while he dried his pen in his chocolate-colored every-day wig.

      His plethoric, vociferous, somewhat confused nature always became furious when he saw a bill; it operated like a red cloth on a bull, and when, as now, all the half year's bills came storming down on him at once, he both roared and bellowed. It was an old story for his wife, who had acquired a remarkable skill in taking the bull by the horns.

      The wrongs, which thus he did not suffer, seemed nevertheless to awaken an increasing storm of resentment in him. With a violent tug at the door-latch, and his wig awry, he would come suddenly in, exclaiming—"Seventy-five dollars, three shillings, seventeen pence!—seventy-five—dollars—three shillings—and seventeen pence!—it is almost enough to make one crazy. And so you ordered citron—citron,"—he put on a falsetto tone, and laughed out of pure rage. "He, he, he, he!—now have we the means for that? And then, almond soap for the guest-chamber!" This last came in a deep, suppressed, gloomy bass. "I cannot understand how you could have hit on that!"

      "My dear, that was thrown in. Don't you see that it isn't carried out for anything?"

      "Thrown in—oh, thrown in—yes, there you see how they cheat! Seventy-five dollars, three shillings, and seventeen pence—plainly that is enough to be frightened at. Where shall I find the money?"

      "But you have already found it, Jäger!—Remember the servants," she whispered quickly. It was a quiet prayer to put off the rest of the outburst till later in the afternoon, between themselves.

      The captain's various ecstatic flashes of passion about the bills went over the house that afternoon like a refreshing and purifying thunderstorm before Christmas. The children, cowed and tortured, took refuge during the storm under the protection of their mother, who warded off the blast; but when his step was again heard in the office, they went on, just as persevering and inquisitive as before, peeping into and shaking out the bags in order to find a raisin or two or a currant that had been forgotten, collecting the twine, looking after the weight, and cutting up the bar soap.

      During all these anxieties the tall form of the mistress stood in uninterrupted activity, bowed like a crane over the box with the city wares, which had been lifted in on the kitchen floor. Jars, willow baskets filled with hay, small bags, and an infinity of packages in gray wrappers, tied up with twine, small and great, vanished by degrees into their different resting-places, even to the last, the bag with the fine wheat flour, which was brought in by Great-Ola and put by itself in the meal-chest in the pantry.

      When the spice closet was finally shut, the captain stood there for the twentieth time. With the air of a man who had been made to wait and been tormented long enough, he gently tapped her on the shoulder with his fingers and said, rather reproachfully, "It really astonishes me, Gitta, that you don't pay more attention to the letter we have received to-day."

      "I haven't been able to think of anything else than your troubles with the bills, Jäger. Now I think you might taste the French brandy this evening, to see if it is good enough for the Christmas punch. Cognac is so dear."

      "That's a good idea, Gitta!—Yes, yes—only let us have supper soon."

      The plates with oatmeal porridge and the blue milk in the cold cups were placed upon the table; they stood like black, dreary islands over the cloth, and presented no temptation to linger over the evening meal.

      After the necessary part of it was swallowed and the children were sent upstairs, the captain sat, now quite cozy and comfortable, before the table, which was still extended, with his tobacco and his taste of toddy made of the French brandy, whose transformation into Christmas punch was going on in the kitchen, from which there was also heard the sizzling of the waffle-iron.

      "Only strong, Ma—only strong!—Then you can manage with the brown sugar.—Yes, yes," tasting of the wooden dipper which his wife brought in, "you can treat the sheriff to that with pleasure."

      "Now Marit is coming in with the warm waffles—and then it was this about the letter of the governor's wife.—You see, Jäger, we cannot send the child there unless we have her suitably fitted out; she must have a black silk confirmation dress, city boots and shoes, a hat, and other things."

      "Black silk conf—"

      "Yes, and some other dresses, which we must order in Christiania; there is no help for it."

      Captain Jäger began to walk to and fro.

      "So, so!—So, so! Well, if that is your idea, then I think we will decline the invitation with thanks."

      "I knew that, Jäger! You would like to