The Days of a Man 1:1883 



In 1883 we visited Norway also, admiring greatly 

 its noble waterfalls and mountain lakes, delighting 

 as well in the wholesome Northern people and the 

 intimate ways of travel by Stolkjaerre and pony 

 from station to station. 



In Bergen we engaged a small steamer to take us 

 up to Odde at the head of the Hardanger fjord. 

 At Nord- There we had expected to spend the night at Nord- 

 hjemsund hjemsund in Nils Sandven's Inn, a little "starred" 

 hostelry; but arriving at 10 p.m. — still bright day- 

 light in the long twilight of the North — we found 

 the place closed, and called lustily for the landlord. 

 Awakened at last by our outcry, he thrust his 

 head from the window, saying, "Ikke Senge; ikke 

 Plats" — "No bed; no place." Meanwhile, how- 

 ever, the aroused villagers had become interested. 

 The schoolmaster therefore proposed to take us 

 three miles up the mountain to the Oeftshusfos — 

 "Falls of the Uppermost House" — a cascade "be- 

 hind which we could walk dry-shod." This offer 

 we sleepily declined. Finally some one suggested 

 that as they were all up and couldn't rest much 

 longer anyhow, each should turn over his place for 

 the rest of the night to one of the party. We thus 

 made acquaintance with the Norwegian peasant bed, 

 a wooden box holding a deep layer of hay and two 

 or three blankets, the whole usually beset with 

 fleas. Underneath, the family stores its winter 

 supply of Fladbrod — great, thin, circular pancakes 

 of rye folded while still warm into triangles — dry 

 eating at any time. But there is always an abun- 



n 254 3 



