Ingeborg and the Well

Ingeborg, her husband Kjell and their
son Håkan, obviously much later
than the story Mom is telling here :)

One time I was sent to Grönede to look after Ingeborg. She was a toddler and Moster Rut had something special that she was going to do, and it was hard to look after Ingeborg too.  It was a nice summer day, and I got to take the bicycle Fram. It wasn’t very often that I got to take Fram by myself for a whole day. Well, Mama said, “When you get there, you park it on the outside of the fence and you don’t touch it while you’re there. Not until you go home. You do not take it in the yard.” So everything was going along fine. I had Ingeborg outside, and she was playing in the sand pile. She got so busy playing and that bicycle it beckoned to me from outside the fence there to come and ride it. I thought, “There’s nobody around and Ingeborg is so contented. Who will know if I take a little spin on the bicycle?” So I did. I went and got on it and rode just a little ways and back. I wasn’t gone very long but when I got back, Ingeborg was gone. I looked around and couldn’t find her.  I thought maybe she ran in the kitchen to her mother so I ran in there to see. Moster Rut said no she wasn’t there, and she just looked at me.  Then she ran out the door and down the yard. She kicked her shoes off as she ran because she could run faster and quieter in the grass without shoes. She thought she knew where Ingeborg had went. They didn’t have a fence around the yard but further down they had a well where they dipped up water for the cows. They had a pasture nearby where there was no natural spring. Twice a day they had to get the cows up into this pasture and dip up water and put it in a watering trough. So this well was open. There was no lock or lid on the well and no fence around it. By the time, Moster Rut and I got down there, Ingeborg stood looking down into the well. Moster Rut just went up behind her quietly and scooped her up. She didn’t dare holler

Moster Rut, about 20 years after this story.

because she was afraid that it would startle Ingeborg and she would fall forward into the well. When she turned around then with her child in her arms, the look she gave me burned. That was enough punishment for me. She never said a word to me about it. When I got home though, I thought I had to tell Mama. Mama said, “You see that when I tell you something, it is for a purpose. You have to listen.” And then it was never ever mentioned again.

Another time, Siri and Margaretha and I were left at Grönede to play with Ingeborg. She was a little bigger, three or four years old. We were playing house and in the dialect, she said she was going to run to a particular store and buy herself a cucumber. Well, the store she mentioned was a clothing store. She didn’t know that, of course. But oh, we giggled and giggled and repeated that for years.