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Page 4
"Oh! _tak fur sidst_[A] good Peder. Hi, though! What is that you bring
with you?"
[Footnote A: Thanks for seeing you again.]
Before she could be answered, the children, whose first nap was nearly
over, awoke and saw their father with the little girl clinging to his
hand, and looking shyly at them from his sheltering arm.
"Oh!" cried Olga, "a little sister! _My_ wish has come true!"--and she
ran to the new-comer and gave her sweet kisses of welcome; at which
father Peder said, "That is my own good Olga."
But grandmother Ingeborg, who had put on her spectacles, said:
"Ah! I see now! A good-for-nothing Lapp child! She shall not stay here,
surely!"
"Listen," said Peder Olsen, "and I will tell you why I brought home the
little Hansa, for that is her name,"--and he told the story of the
father's drinking so much finkel, and offering to give his little girl
for a pipe, and how he himself had purchased her. "But see!" added the
worthy Peder, turning toward Hansa, "you are not bound but for as long
as the heart says stay."
Hansa looked about, and, meeting Olga's sweet, entreating glance, said,
"I will stay ever."
Then Olga cried, joyously, "Now, indeed, have I a sister!" and took her
to her own little bed, where soon they both were sleeping, side by
side.
As for Olaf and Erik, they were still silent, though now from anger,
and that was very bad.
Grandmother Ingeborg, I think, was angry, too, for said she to herself:
"Now I shall have to spin more cloth, and sew and knit, that when her
own clothes wear out we may clothe this miserable Lapp child" (for the
good dame was a true Norwegian, and despised the Lapps); "and our
little ones must divide their brown bread and milk with her, for we are
too poor to buy more, and it is very bad altogether. Ah! I was sure
something bad would happen,"--and grandmother fairly grumbled herself
into bed.
In the morning all were awake early, you may be sure, and gazing
curiously at the new-comer, whom they had been almost too sleepy to see
perfectly before; and this is how she appeared to their wondering eyes.
She seemed about twelve years old, but no taller than Olga, who was
just ten. She had beautiful soft, brown eyes; and fair, flaxen hair,
which hung in rich, wavy locks far down her back. She wore a short
skirt of dark blue cloth, with yellow stripes around it; a blue apron,
embroidered with bright-colored threads; a little scarlet jacket; a
jaunty cap, also of scarlet cloth, with a silver tassel; and neat,
short boots of tanned reindeer-skin, embroidered with scarlet and
white.
Soon grandmother Ingeborg, who had been out milking the cow, came in,
and almost dropped her great basin of milk, in her anger.
"What!" cried she to Hansa, "all your Sunday clothes on? That will
never do!"
"But I have no others," said the little maid.
"Then you shall have others," said grandmother, and she took from a
great chest in the corner an old blue skirt of Olga's, a jacket which
Olaf had outgrown, and a pair of Erik's wooden shoes.
[Illustration: "HANSA'S GUARDIAN."]
Meekly, Hansa donned the strange jacket and skirt; but her tiny feet,
accustomed to the soft boots of reindeer-skin, could not endure the
hard, clumsy wooden shoes.
"Ah!" said grandmother, who was watching her. "Then must you wear my
old cloth slippers," which were better, though they would come off
continually.
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