"Here come the Lamphill children," cried the children of the town, as soon as they saw us.
We understood well enough what they meant, but for all that we did not ask what Lamphill children they alluded to, for our farm was, of course, never called Lamphill.
"Ah, ah! We know! You've gone and bought one of them lamps for your place. We know all about it!"
"But how came you to know about it already?"
"Your mother mentioned it to my mother when she went through our place. She said that your father had bought from the storeman one of that sort of lamps that burn so brightly that one can find a needle on the floor—so at least said the justice's maid."
"It is just like the lamp in the parsonage drawing-room, your father told us just now. I heard him say so with my own ears," said the innkeeper's lad.
"Then you really have got a lamp like that, eh?" inquired all the children of the town.
"Yes, we have; but it is nothing to look at in the daytime, but in the evening we'll all go there together."
And we went on sleighing down hill and up hill till dusk, and every time we drew our sleighs up to the hilltop, we talked about the lamp with the children of the town.
