HAPPY TIMES IN Norway
Books by Sigrid Undset
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
Happy Times in Norway
Sigurd and His Brave Companions:
A Tale of Medieval Norway
Illustrated by Gunvor Bull Teilman
True and Untrue and Other Norse Tales
Illustrated by Frederick T. Chapman
HAPPY TIMES IN
NORWAY
Sigrid Undset
The University of Minnesota Press gratefully acknowledges financial assistance provided for the publication of this book from the Sons of Norway Foundation.
Originally published in 1942 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
First University of Minnesota Press edition, 2013. Reprinted by arrangement with H. Aschehoug & Company, Norway.
Copyright 1942 by Sigrid Undset. Renewed 1969 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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CONTENTS
Part I Merry Christmas
Part II The Seventeenth of May
Part III Summer Vacation
Preface to the 1942 Edition
PART I
MERRY CHRISTMAS
1
“POTATO-DIGGING VACATION” BEGAN WITH RAIN AND ended with rain, and the boys were bored and cross. They could not find anything to do themselves, and nothing that Mother and Thea suggested was any fun.
“You ought to be ashamed of yourselves,” Thea said. “In the country the children have to go out and dig potatoes rain or shine. You don’t even do so much as help straighten up the garden for your mother.”
What she said was so true. At all the farms around the little town, grownups and children alike were out in the muddy potato fields, bent over the long rows of potato vines, with gunny sacks over their heads to ward off the pouring rain.
But Anders and Hans were unimpressed. It had always been impossible to interest either of them in gardening, though Thea kept telling them early and late how children in the country had to make themselves useful from the time they were only knee high to a grasshopper. She had had to, when she was little. The boys knew that what she said was true, for many of their schoolmates lived on farms.
But between potato-digging and Christmas, there was not one single holiday—except Sundays, of course. And Anders claimed he could remember one year when it had snowed so early they could go skiing at potato-digging time.
“Don’t you remember, Mother? It was that time I was supposed to be in the school ski contest, and when I came to say good-by to you, you pulled down that scarf I had over my face and saw the measles I had got during the night.”
Mother said he must be mistaken. There had never been snow on the ground here as early as potato-digging, and besides, the school ski contest was always in January, so that act he was so proud of—trying to sneak off skiing when he had measles—certainly must have taken place at some other time of the year. At potato-digging time it always rained—practically.
And it continued to rain and rain. The boys came home from school looking like two bedraggled crows.
“Go up and change,” Mother said. “Socks too.”
“And underwear,” added Thea. “Here, let me see—”
She pulled down Hans’s breeches to confirm the fact that yes, indeed, his underwear was wet from top to bottom. Anders was so big now she could not very well investigate him that way but, judging from his brother’s state . . .
“Will Madam tell Anders that he also must change his underwear?”
And then Thea would be cross with them for throwing their wet clothes all over their room and leaving pools and puddles everywhere—on the floor, on the chairs, on the beds, and even on their school-books on the table, so that they got spotted and spoiled. As if the boys’ books were not spotted enough already! And then to have to try to dry out all those things in front of stoves and to have their heavy boots hanging over the kitchen range. . . . “Oh,” Thea sighed, “what a mess!” . . . And every morning when the boys started to school Thea had to run and catch them at the door, for they always forgot their oilskin slickers. Then she would discover that the slickers were covered with mud, and she would have to get a damp cloth and wipe them off before she could let the boys go. So they were late for school, because of that, though on other days they were usually late for some other reason.
The drone of the waterfalls in the forest became louder day by day. From the bedrooms upstairs the river’s plunging, fall after fall, down over the wooded ridge east of town could nearly always be heard. Only in midsummer was its voice hushed, and even then it could be heard drumming after a rain if there were a southerly breeze.
One morning white mist-smoke rose over the fir and spruce tops over Hellgate. The next day a broad band lay from the ridge top clear down to the bridge in Main Street. On Sunday it lifted a little, and Mother suggested that they take a walk to the river to see how high it was. Anders, who in sheer desperation had hauled out all his mathematics books, was studying for his entrance examination at Christmas. Mathematics was the only subject he found any fun. But Hans was not one to seek comfort in schoolbooks and he was ready at once to go with Mother.
They clambered over the fence at the garden’s farthest end and took the path across the fields. The path was underwater and they had to hop and leap from one mound to another, and every time Hans slid and splashed into the path he howled with delight. Occasionally Mother would plump into it too, and then he would howl even more ecstatically.
“Now you got wet, Mother! What do you think Thea will say now?”
For an instant the sun peeped from behind a cloud bank, shining goldenly into the little puddles and making the naked birch and the newly washed dark-green fir boughs glisten. Yes, it was beautiful, but. . .
“Just think, Hans! Only one month today until Christmas Eve.”
“You will have to begin reading to me soon, mother. About Jesus being born. . . .”
Mother always read the Christmas story to her younger son just before Christmas.
“Say, mother, you probably know it by heart, don’t you? You could tell it to me now. Then you wouldn’t have to read it to me tonight after I have gone to bed, and you could read me an adventure story instead.”
Of course it was only admirable that Hans was both pious and practical.
Mother began telling the story. Hans thrust his little fist into her hand, for now they had reached the road, and the walking was easier than it had been along the footpath in the field.
“. . . and there were some shepherds, you see, watching over their flocks . . .”
“And they were drunk,” Hans interjected, tense and enraptured.
“Are you crazy, child!” Mother exclaimed, horrified. “Of course they were not drunk. How can you say such a thing? They were unusually good and pious men.”
“Yes, Mother. But men who stay out in the fields all night are always drunk.”
There was Prohibition in Norway in those y
ears, after the First World War. And to everyone, down to the tiniest urchin, violators of the alcoholic liquor law were enormously exciting topics of conversation. Before Mother could pick up where she had left off, and continue the Bible story, Hans remarked thoughtfully:
“The prodigal son you read about one time, mother, he was out at night too because he had got so bad, drinking and carousing. Don’t you remember? Where do you think he got the stuff, by the way? From the Pharisees?”
“No, no. The Pharisees were just the opposite. The trouble with them was that they were altogether too particular about obeying all the laws, and so on.”
“Phewy! I’ll bet they were just putting on, mother. It was probably just because they were always carrying on themselves that they were always fighting with the Customs.”
That the stories he heard during Religious Instruction had taken place in gray antiquity was not clear to Hans. Father Sund had been considerably astonished that day when he was telling the children about Adam and Eve being expelled from Paradise.
“Now they’ve opened a beauty parlor in Main Street,” Hans had announced. “Poor Eva. Well, she probably had to do whatever she could to make her living.”
A new beauty parlor had just opened in town and it was called “Eve.”
They were almost there. Mist from the falls came driving toward them, wetting them through and through, and over the spruce tops rose and fell the mighty, pale-gold column of water where the flooded river charged against the cliff wall in Hellgate. It was impossible to talk any more; one could not hear one’s own voice for the roar of the falls. But Hans shrieked to heaven in glee. The little bathing house at the dam below the falls lay swirling round and round in the streaming dark-yellow water. Slowly, slowly, it was drifting toward the brink. It tottered—tipped, and then disappeared in the boiling white foam—to bob up in splinters an instant later farther down the stream. Hans, wild with excitement at seeing something destroyed, ran down alongside.
Beneath the wet, dripping branches, white and grayish-white mushrooms were growing—whole little forests of them, with pine needles and bits of litter clinging to their slippery, wet caps. But they were good and fresh, and Mother and Hans picked so many they had to use Mother’s windbreaker as a kind of basket in which to carry them. That deliciously fragrant odor of woods and moss and fresh mushrooms!
“I’ll bet Mother’s feet are wet now. She’s much wetter than I,” Hans shouted in jubilation as Thea came and unlatched the gate for them.
“Shouldn’t Madam go up and change, at once?” Thea said in a highly suggestive tone. “Madam should not forget to change her stockings as well,” she called after them.
For their supper the boys had what they liked best in all the world—crisp bacon curls and mushrooms sautéed in bacon fat.
Anders took the dogs out, and when he came in, he reported that the stars were out—well, at least there were openings in the clouds where he could see some stars. Perhaps there would be frost tonight.
2
THE NEXT MORNING THE WEATHER WAS THE SAME, EXcept that the rain had thickened into sleet, but now and then a few wet, gray snow splotches fell to earth. It was, at least, snow. Later in the day, large soft flakes appeared, the garden turned white, and the tree branches began to bow under a burden of heavy, wet snow.
The boys leaped to life. They got their skis down from the storehouse attic and began overhauling them, and soon the whole house smelled of turpentine and tar from various mixtures of ski grease Anders had warming—and boiling over—in tin cups on the kitchen stove.
The next morning the fog was so thick one could not see farther than the nearest birches. Of the snow nothing remained but a few strips of slush along the garden’s edge!
Now Mother and Thea became infinitely weary of this endless rainy weather. For it was time to begin the Christmas preparations in earnest. In Norway Christmas is celebrated for thirteen days, and in order that wives and mothers and maids shall not have too much to do during the holiday season, it is the custom to cook and store many different kinds of food and bake heaps of cookies in advance. That way there is always something on hand when guests drop in who must be asked to stay for dinner or for the evening meal. This year Mother had ordered a whole pig, a sheep, and half a reindeer, for she expected a houseful of guests at Christmastime. If the weather is very cold, one needs only to pack down in tubs of snow the meat that is to be eaten fresh. But if the weather is mild—ah, then what a job! Some of the roasts must be partly precooked, other cuts peppered and salted down, pork sausages and blood puddings fried and baked and laid down in crocks that are then sealed over with fat. Besides this, all the other work must be done before Christmas—the pork hams laid in the salt tubs, the mutton hams sugar-cured, and headcheese made from the head and feet. Then the cookies must be baked. And besides all this there is a big washing to be done, and the Christmas house cleaning everywhere.
Thea began with the kitchen. Mari Moen came to do the washing. Mari was from up the valley—a tall, straight-backed old woman with handsome features and dark hair streaked with gray. She had the quietly distinguished air that Norwegian peasant women usually have, and everyone in the house was glad when she came. Thea saw to it that each day one of Mari’s favorite dishes appeared for dinner and when Mari was doing a big wash, Anders remembered, for a change, that as a Boy Scout he was duty-bound to help with the work at home. He carried the heavy baskets of wet clothes up from the basement for her and hung them out to dry in the back yard. As far as the other women in the household were concerned, Anders confined himself to saying he would prepare dinner someday, so they could see for themselves he had learned how to broil steak at the Boy Scout camp. Neither Mother nor Thea was eager to have him carry out his promise.
It was well enough to hang out the wash, but how was it to dry before Christmas? Anders and Mari finally had to carry it to the attic and hang it up there.
Suddenly one morning the fog split open. White swirls of mist began to wheel past a pale, glimmering sun that made the millions of waterdrops on the birches around the house glisten and gleam. For the first time in weeks, one could see the dark-forested ridges around the town and get a glimpse of the pale sea at the base of the hills. Beyond the garden hedge, in Lysgaard field, the horses were munching at the dead grass. Thea came up from the kitchen garden with a small bowl of freshly grown lettuce, and in the rock garden Hans found three full-blown pansies and some white Arabis. It was rather amusing in a way, but not as it should be at Christmastime in Norway.
And Tulla was so cross and restless. The phonograph was kept going all day, playing Christmas carols and marches for her, but neither Mother nor Thea had time to take her walking, or driving in the car, so she was peevish and restless.
Poor little Tulla. She had been ill ever since she was a year old and no doctor had been able to say for certain what ailed her. Now she was ten—three years younger than Anders and three years older than Hans. She could say only a few words and she could not help herself at all. There had to be someone with her constantly to care for her. That was why she was the pet of the entire household. When Mother came up from her workroom to rest, she would always take Tulla on her lap and sing to her. Thea cared for her as if she were a little princess, and the boys built houses of blocks just to give her the pleasure of tearing them down. For Tulla liked everything that tumbled and clattered.
It looked as if the cats too loved Tulla, for the moment they came into the living room they jumped into her lap as she sat in her armchair. Sissi usually paid only a short visit, but Sissi was a pampered darling, with her long, silky, black, white, and chestnut hair. She was one who always knew what she wanted. The dogs, Njord and Neri, were scared to death of her and she could put strange dogs and cats out of her garden in a jiffy. Her own son, Sissyfos, did not dare to come into the kitchen when his mother was there, for she could not bear to have him even look in the direction of the cat dish. The warmest spot under the stove and the softest sof
a pillow were Sissi’s prerogatives and her private possessions. And when Tulla pulled her fur, or burrowed her fingers into Sissi’s ears—Tulla did not realize she hurt the animals when she did things like that—Sissi drew slowly away, wholly in an attitude of self-defense, jumped down and crawled under the stove. She never scratched Tulla, though she took little from anyone else without showing her claws.
But when Tulla took Sissyfos and lifted him up by the tail, he merely closed his eyes and laid back his ears. When she let him go, he hopped right back into her lap again, cuddled up and began to purr. It almost seemed as though he liked to have Tulla handle him so cruelly. True, Sissyfos was the laziest tomcat on earth, Thea said. She claimed she had seen a mouse run right across his nose without bringing even a flick of his whiskers. But the boys thought it was because he was so dreadfully fond of Tulla that he let her do as she liked with him.
Sissi belonged to Hans. He got her when she was a tiny kitten and he was very proud of her, for everyone wanted Sissi’s kittens; they were always spoken for far in advance. Sissyfos had been promised to someone, but, as it turned out, the people who were to have him could not take him. Meanwhile he had grown so big that Mother did not have the heart to let him be killed. Besides, he was a very pretty cat—his body chestnut, his chest and boots white. But since he belonged to no one specifically and because it was more or less of an accident that he had stayed on, he was somehow less distinguished than his mother.
The dogs were Mother’s, of course. They were of that pedigree known as Norwegian collie, resembling an elkhound, and no dogs were ever more faithful. But they were rather snappish toward strangers, and it was useless for anyone to try to teach them dog tricks. And they were obstinate creatures with their own opinions as to what constituted a dog’s function. Njord was four years old, lively and spunky, and everyone said that if Mother would exhibit him at the spring show he would certainly take first prize. Neri was still only a pup, and he did not show off well. Even though he did have such a magnificent pedigree, he did not look exactly as a collie should. His legs were too long and his hair too thin. Nor did his tail have quite the proper arch. But Anders had lost his heart to Neri when he first arrived, a tiny puppy, from the farm up the valley where he was born. He was so young that he lay in his basket and whimpered all night. Poor thing, he was used to lying snug and warm beside all his sisters and brothers close under his mother’s body. Anders thought the little puppy was freezing, and lifted him up into bed with him. There Neri found a nice, soft place to sleep, sucking Anders’s finger every night until he had become used to his new family. And now Neri himself probably believed he was Anders’s dog, for it was at Anders’s heels he followed when the boys were home; and when Neri made an ass of himself and tried to play with Sissi’s tail, and got spat upon and had a swipe taken at his nose, it was to Anders that he fled, whimpering and complaining that Sissi had been mean to him.