Then Storm also made it conditional. "I can't allow Gertrude to go to a dance unless Ingmar goes along to look after her," he said.
Whereupon all three rushed up to Ingmar and begged him to accompany them.
"No!" he growled, without even glancing up from his book.
"It's no good asking him!" said Gertrude in a tone that made Ingmar raise his eyes. Gertrude looked radiantly beautiful after the dance. She smiled scornfully, and her eyes flashed as she turned away. It was plainly to be seen how much she despised him for sitting there so ugly and sulky, like some crotchety old man. Ingmar had to alter his mind and say "yes"—there was no way out of it.
A few evenings later while Gertrude and Mother Stina sat spinning in the kitchen, the girl suddenly noticed that her mother was getting uneasy. Every little while she would stop her spinning-wheel and listen. "I can't imagine what that noise is," she said. "Do you hear anything, Gertrude?"
"Yes, I do," replied the girl. "There must be some one upstairs in the classroom."
"Who could be there at this hour?" Mother Stina flouted. "Only listen to the rustling and the pattering from one end of the room to the other!"
And there certainly was a rustling and a pattering and a bumping about over their heads, that made both Gertrude and her mother feel creepy.
"There must surely be some one up there," insisted Gertrude.
"There can't be," Mother Stina declared. "Let me tell you that this thing has been going on every night since you danced here."