RABBITS FOR COW

The one-year-old rabbit Bugs was sold to the Germans ...

It was an early Saturday evening in summer 1944. Petter had gone to the attic to replace wearing long trousers and a clean shirt that his mother had presented to him, before she and her father had tense horse Bjuty for trolley and driven in a feast for the family at Hagestad.
The three sisters had dutifully been with parents, but Petter had insisted on spending Saturday evening among comrades who gathered downstairs in the parsonage, and since he was the eldest son almost 14 years old, gave his mother after he got what he wanted.

While he was looking for shoes under the bed, he heard strange voices, and when he stuck his head out of the open attic window, he saw a group of German soldiers coming up the farm road to the house, and the fear he seized the chest and squeezed. "Some people have gossiped on father," he muttered to himself, and began to breathe heavily, "and now they are coming to take him."

First impulse was to hide in the cupboard where his father had hidden his rifle and radio under a few loose floorboards, but then grabbed the reason him and he realized that something like this had to be some of the stupidest he could do. "Best to get down into the yard to hear what they want", he thought - and to his relief he noticed that the soldiers came sauntering up the road with shouts and laughter and apparently was not under strict military command. But it could be a charade, so it was best to be cautious.

The first soldier smiled a bit tentative to Petter and said, "Guten Abend, mein Junge". And Petter responded politely: "Good ape (monkey), main young," and all the German soldiers laughed noisily to this before they were crowding in front of rabbit cages in front of the barn-bridge. There had Petter two major - and one smaller cage with white country-rabbits. In each of the major was there three adult female rabbits, and in the smaller cage was a male rabbit named Bugs. Just that day, he was one year old, and had been duly celebrated with carrots and salad, and with a long red  ribbon on the cage door. (1. price)

"Sieben große kaninchen - das ist wirklich gut!" the leader said to his comrades, and turned again smiling Petter: "Sind diese kaninchen zum Verkauf?"
Steve shook his head and waved his hands: "I do not understand what you mean. Verstehe nicht. "

But the Germans had as usual done a thorough preparation, and "der führer" put his fingers into the breast pocket and drew up a pencil stub and a green piece of paper as he turned to Peter. There stood written in capital letters:

RABBITS ZU SALE? YES NO.
WAS IST COST? ______ Kr.
WIE MANY? ____ Pcs.

Peter now knew that the soldiers had not come to the farm to take horses or rummage buildings, but to buy rabbits - and a heavy burden was lifted off his shoulders, and he felt relieved and happy - and kept on saying that they only could take all the rabbits and get off place, but immediately realized that it could be perceived as both rude and suspicious. Here it was probably best teaming.

He took the pencil and put a thick line under "YES" and the German smiled back and put his finger on the field behind "WAS IST COST?". Petter thought about it; among buddies in between they acted adults countries rabbits for 7 -  8 kroner. But now he saw his chance to warp some extra money from the hated occupiers and doubled the price to just over 14 kroner pieces. With firm grip on the pencil he wrote this reason that the price was 100 Kr and that number was 7.

"The leader" raised eyebrow and looked a bit uneasy, but the other soldiers was equally pleased with the pricing *, and the collection of money going fine and in a good tone.

* It was so part of the soldiers' daily allowance was paid in local currency, but for the vast majority who acquired Norwegian girls, there was little to spend money on, so somehow kroner lost value and since they now anyway would leave Norway and moved to the Eastern Front, it was okay to spend money on a festive farewell dinner in the barracks on Skrumonen.

One of the soldiers, who were expert in such twisted instantly head around - while he jerked and broke his neck - on the seven rabbits, and put them down into two sacks. Then they took with laughter and shouts quickest way down to the river.

Back stood Petter with three empty rabbit cage and with a stack of money in hand. When he somewhat trembling and bewildered got counted them up, the amount was exactly 700  kroner. (160 US dollar in 1944).

First he felt a great joy over his new wealth, but then came second thoughts, and he had to sit down on the edge of the barn bridge; What had he done? What had he done? Traded with the Germans ... and with big profits! What did the father  contemptuously called such people? War Profiteers?

Slowly he loosened the red silk-loop from the cage, went into the kitchen and cut a brown paper in the right size to wrap cash pile, folded paper exactly on the stack - and tied the red loop tight around the package. Then he went up to the attic and hid the package carefully inside the straw mattress.

Something delayed he locked house and rode down to the vicarage.

The father must have seen Petter when he came cycling home late at night, for he was waiting in the yard.
"The Germans came, and I sold the rabbits," he said to his father while he parked the bike inside the coach. "Yes, I realized that something like that had happened," his father said, "when I found this green green piece of paper down the road."

But then cracked man-mask in his son's face and the tears rolled out: "I was so scared, Dad. I thought they came to take you, and then I was so relieved when it was just the rabbits they were out after I sold all together - even Bugs. "
The father put his arm comforting around his son's shoulders: "You did quite right my boy, we had never come to eating the rabbits anyway."

"But Dad, I got too much for them. It's a shame! ". The father looked again at the note: "One hundred kroner for seven rabbits are well paid, but no blood price. You have nothing to be ashamed of. "He patted his son comforting on his head and added:" But come now, Petter, now you have to get you supper! "

So it was that Peter was the only one to carry on a big black secret.
...

When they reached the bank, refused Rødkolla to go a step further. Alexandrine spoke softly with cow and lid and pleaded, but to no avail; cow did not budge.

Seppo Jorma was a Finnish descended explosives expert who had moved into a poor little smallholding on Bringsjord-Neset. His wife Alexandrine was from Nordland in Norway and an accomplished woman; big and strong and unusually beautiful.

Norway was at this time conquered by the Germans, and military resistance was turned down. But the war went its course in Europe, and thousands of prisoners of war were sent to Norway, especially Poles, Russians and Serbs. These were primarily set to build roads, railways, airports and port facilities. In Lyngdal went there mostly for road construction, and there was great demand for qualified explosives experts (shoot bases) when the Germans did not allow the prisoners obtained the dynamite.

The Finnish ancestry man had in many ways sympathetic to the Germans who helped Finland militarily in "Continuation War" (1941-44) against the Soviet occupiers in Finnish Karelia, and he was promptly offered employment on road projects. This led immediately to increased prosperity in the house on the headland, and there was hustle and bustle of the barn with a beautiful dairy cow in the stall and rooster and hen in the lower end. Also cohabitation in the main house flourished as never before, and the oldest boy of five years got a younger sister to share bedrooms with.

Happiness did not last long. An early summer day in 1943 underwent an explosive charge of premature, and a stone splinter the size of a fist hit Seppo Jorma Sepoiinen in the back and made an open hole through his chest. When the priest came with the death message to the small læstadian family on Neset, he was amazed at how calm and restrained Alexandrine behaved, but he noticed that the glow was extinguished in the dark her eyes all the while she made coffee substitute and put forward cups.

In the evening they came with Seppo Jorma wrapped in a canvas, for she had given the priest instructed that she would not receive him in "Nazi coffin". The Germans gave her three additional months' pay, and a representative of NS stood up and thanked her for her husband's tireless efforts for his new fatherland.
The first time as a widow, she was plagued by German officers on Saturday evenings came in their Mercedes cars and stopped outside the house. But she declined sharply offered both this and that so that it soon became an end to the traffic.

Less than a year later the money was used up, the chickens slaughtered, and the credit on trade made dried up. The only thing she had left of movable property was Rødkolla, the good, faithful dairy cow. But what should the kids live on when they got no milk? To live only on potatoes and salt was not good enough for children who would grow and develop.

But she saw no alternative but to sell the cow. Oldest boy, Jani, would next week begin in grade school and needed school satchel and shoes. Emanuel on Bringsjord had some time ago offered her 700 kroner for the cow. This was a lot of money for a cow, and now she had to trust that he would keep his word. So from now they got rather take day by day as they came. If necessary, she sell the rest of the small land plots for consumption ... The war could not last forever, and now it went credible rumors that the Allies had landed in France, and that Hitler's "Eastern Front" was in full resolution.

A beautiful afternoon, while the children were visiting two older sisters on a neighboring farm that subsisted sewing dresses for a faithful customer crust, let Alexandrine away against Bringsjord farms with Rødkolla. But the cow was apparently in plain moody that day, she realized that something was wrong, and would turn. Here she just vent when she was horny and were visiting the bull to Emanuel. But there was no time for such today; it was only gone a couple of months since the last time she was there. Alexandrine had to be completely out astray.

When they arrived at the bank (an old stone and earth dam on the river), refused Rødkolla to go a step further. Alexandrine spoke softly with cow and lid and pleaded, but to no avail; cow did not budge.

Suddenly there came a bike from the Bringsjord farms tinkling down the hill to the bank, it was Petter who was heading to Nodeneset. When he saw Alexandrine stand there with teary eyes and bale with her cow, he slowed up and asked if she needed help. He knew her a little from before, when they both had been on day-work and put potatoes in the soil for several "bachelor farmers" the spring.

Alexandrine relieved her griefs and told all about the kids and school and on flour sack and yeast pitcher standing empty home in the kitchen sink. "And now I'm on my way to Emanuel to sell the cow, but she refuses to go a step further." She saw the boy in the eye with that tearful deer eyes: "Could you Petter be kind and help me get Rødkolla over on the other side of the bank?"

There was hardly a teenage boy in this world who could resist that gaze, and Petter was certainly not one of them; yet he was just standing by the bike, "How much will Emanuel pay for the cow?"

"He has offered me 700 kroner, and it is a good price," said Alexandrine and looked down. Then smiled Petter, as if he felt a kind of relief, "I'll give you 800 kroner for Rødkolla, cash in hand. Just let the cow pasture here at the roadside so bikes I home and fetch the money. "

Fifteen minutes later Petter was back with a brown package bound in red silk ribbon which he gave to the widow: "Here are most of the money we agreed on for Rødkolla. But ... I just counted them, and there are no more than 700 kroner in the package, so I owe you still hundred kroner. "

"Oh, that's okay," said Alexandrine and smiled relieved and happy, "seven hundred is more than enough for the cow."
But Petter just swept it away: "A deal is a deal, my father always tell. You can only take this money and cow back to your farm, "and when he saw the confusion in her eyes, he added; "Someday I my well earned 100 kroner so I can come and retrieve the cow."

Tears sprang up in Alexandrines eyes, and she had to turn away against Rødkolla, and then she felt that Petter hitting a bag in her other hand: "Just a little something from me to Jani; he may need some "grown out" boots this winter?" And before she had turned and thanked, he had raised himself on the bike and tramplet off against Node Neset. And it went fast cornering, for a great burden was gone.

EPILOG
An early morning on a spring day in 1945, was a little bull calf tied to an apple tree by the driveway where Petter lived. Parents were very puzzled over this, and knew neither in or out. The only characterized by calf was a red silk ribbon tied to his collar. The mother believed the loop broght memory of a loop Petter had used at rabbit cages, and so everything came for a day.
The calf grazed on Petters home farm throughout the summer, and in late autumn had the young "studepåsen" grown into harvestable. Then the young bull got the red silk ribbon tied to his collar again and were brought back to the old house at Neset where it was left tied to the barn wall.


NB! One of my sisters told this story from the war when I was denied schooling and was bedridden with chickenpox. I think I remember correctly and that most of it is true, but as a precaution I have anonymous names and place of residence.

This story was printed in the local newspaper "Lister" on Saturday 12 September 2015.