Читать книгу Pelle the Conqueror — Complete - Martin Andersen Nexø - Страница 17

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Christmas Eve was a great disappointment. It was the custom for the herd-boys to come out and spend Christmas at the farms where they served in the summer, and Pelle’s companions had told him of all the delights of Christmas—roast meat and sweet drinks, Christmas games and ginger-nuts and cakes; it was one endless eating and drinking and playing of Christmas games, from the evening before Christmas Eve until “Saint Knut carried Christmas out,” on January 7th. That was what it was like at all the small farms, the only difference being that those who were religious did not play cards, but sang hymns instead. But what they had to eat was just as good.

The last few days before Christmas Pelle had to get up at two or half-past two to help the girls pluck poultry, and the old thatcher Holm to heat the oven. With this his connection with the delights of Christmas came to an end. There was dried cod and boiled rice on Christmas Eve, and it tasted good enough; but of all the rest there was nothing. There were a couple of bottles of brandy on the table for the men, that was all. The men were discontented and quarrelsome. They poured milk and boiled rice into the leg of the stocking that Karna was knitting, so that she was fuming the whole evening; and then sat each with his girl on his knee, and made ill-natured remarks about everything. The old farm-laborers and their wives, who had been invited to partake of the Christmas fare, talked about death and all the ills of the world.

Upstairs there was a large party. All the wife’s relations were invited, and they were hard at work on the roast goose. The yard was full of conveyances, and the only one of the farm-servants who was in good spirits was the head man, who received all the tips. Gustav was in a thoroughly bad humor, for Bodil was upstairs helping to wait. He had brought his concertina over, and was playing love-songs. It was putting them into better spirits, and the evil expression was leaving their eyes; one after another they started singing, and it began to be quite comfortable down there. But just then a message came to say that they must make less noise, so the assembly broke up, the old people going home, and the young ones dispersing in couples according to the friendships of the moment.

Lasse and Pelle went to bed.

“What’s Christmas really for?” asked Pelle.

Lasse rubbed his thigh reflectively.

“It has to be,” he answered hesitatingly. “Yes, and then it’s the time when the year turns round and goes upward, you see! And of course it’s the night when the Child Jesus was born, too!” It took him a long time to produce this last reason, but when it did come it was with perfect assurance. “Taking one thing with another, you see,” he added, after a short pause.

On the day after Christmas Day there was a kind of subscription merrymaking at an enterprising crofter’s down in the village; it was to cost two and a half krones a couple for music, sandwiches, and spirits in the middle of the night, and coffee toward morning. Gustav and Bodil were going. Pelle at any rate saw a little of Christmas as it passed, and was as interested in it as if it concerned himself; and he gave Lasse no rest from his questions that day. So Bodil was still faithful to Gustav, after all!

When they got up the next morning, they found Gustav lying on the ground by the cow-stable door, quite helpless, and his good clothes in a sad state. Bodil was not with him. “Then she’s deceived him,” said Lasse, as they helped him in. “Poor boy! Only seventeen, and a wounded heart already! The women’ll be his ruin one of these days, you’ll see!”

At midday, when the farm-laborers’ wives came to do the milking, Lasso’s supposition was confirmed: Bodil had attached herself to a tailor’s apprentice from the village, and had left with him in the middle of the night. They laughed pityingly at Gustav, and for some time after he had to put up with their gibes at his ill-success; but there was only one opinion about Bodil. She was at liberty to come and go with whomsoever she liked, but as long as Gustav was paying for her amusements, she ought to have kept to him. Who but the neighbor would keep the hens that ate their grain at home and laid their eggs at the neighbor’s?

There had as yet been no opportunity to visit Lasse’s brother beyond the stone-quarry, but it was to be done on the second day of the new year. Between Christmas and the New Year the men did nothing after dark, and it was the custom everywhere to help the herdsman with his evening occupations. There was nothing of that here; Lasse was too old to assert himself, and Pelle too little. They might think themselves lucky they did not have to do the foddering for the men who went out as well as their own.

But to-day it was to come off; Gustav and Long Ole had undertaken to do the evening work. Pelle began to look forward to it as soon as he was up—he was up every day by half-past three. But as Lasse used to say, if you sing before breakfast you’ll weep before night.

After dinner, Gustav and Ole were standing grinding chopping knives down in the lower yard. The trough leaked, and Pelle had to pour water on the grindstone out of an old kettle. His happiness could be seen on his face.

“What are you so pleased about?” asked Gustav. “Your eyes are shining like the cat’s in the dark.”

Pelle told him.

“I’m afraid you won’t get away!” said Ole, winking at Gustav. “We shan’t get the chaff cut time enough to do the foddering. This grindstone’s so confoundedly hard to turn, too. If only that handle-turner hadn’t been broken!”

Pelle pricked up his ears. “Handle-turner? What’s that?” he asked.

Gustav sprang round the grindstone, and slapped his thigh in enjoyment of the joke.

“My goodness, how stupid you are! Don’t you even know what a handle-turner is? It’s a thing you only need to put on to the grindstone, and it turns it by itself. They’ve got one by-the-way over at Kaase Farm,” he said, turning to Ole; “if only it wasn’t so far away.”

“Is it heavy?” asked Pelle, in a low voice; everything depended upon the answer. “Can I lift it?” His voice trembled.

“Oh, no, not so awfully heavy. You could carry it quite well. But you’d have to be very careful.”

“I can run over and fetch it; I’ll carry it very carefully.” Pelle looked at them with a face that could not but inspire confidence.

“Very well; but take a sack with you to put it in. And you’ll have to be as careful as the very devil, for it’s an expensive thing.”

Pelle found a sack and ran off across the fields. He was as delighted as a young kid, plucking at himself and everything as he ran, and jumping aside to frighten the crows. He was overflowing with happiness. He was saving the expedition for himself and Father Lasse. Gustav and Ole were good men! He would get back as quickly as possible, so that they should not have to toil any more at the grindstone. “What, are you back already?” they would say, and open their eyes. “Then you must have smashed that precious machine on the way!” And they would take it carefully out of the sack, and it would be quite safe and sound. “Well, you are a wonder of a boy! a perfect prince!” they would say.

When he got to Kaase Farm, they wanted him to go in to a Christmas meal while they were putting the machine into the sack; but Pelle said “No” and held to it: he had not time. So they gave him a piece of cold apple out on the steps, so that he should not carry Christmas away. They all looked so pleasant, and every one came out when he hoisted the sack on his back and set off home. They too recommended him to be very careful, and seemed anxious, as if he could hardly realize what he was carrying.

It was a good mile between the farms, but it was an hour and a half before Pelle reached home, and then he was ready to drop. He dared not put down the sack to rest, but stumbled on step by step, only resting once by leaning against a stone fence. When at last he staggered into the yard, every one came up to see the neighbor’s new handle-turner; and Pelle was conscious of his own importance when Ole carefully lifted the sack from his back. He leaned for a moment over toward the wall before he regained his balance; the ground was so strange to tread upon now he was rid of his burden; it pushed him away. But his face was radiant.

Gustav opened the sack, which was securely closed, and shook out its contents upon the stone pavement. They were pieces of brick, a couple of old ploughshares, and other similar things. Pelle stared in bewilderment and fear at the rubbish, looking as if he had just dropped from another planet; but when laughter broke out on all sides, he understood what it all meant, and, crouching down, hid his face in his hands. He would not cry—not for the world; they should not have that satisfaction. He was sobbing in his heart, but he kept his lips tightly closed. His body tingled with rage. The beasts! The wicked devils! Suddenly he kicked Gustav on the leg.

“Aha, so he kicks, does he?” exclaimed Gustav, lifting him up into the air. “Do you want to see a little imp from Smaaland?” Pelle covered his face with his arms and kicked to be let down; and he also made an attempt to bite. “Eh, and he bites, too, the little devil!” Gustav had to hold him firmly so as to manage him. He held him by the collar, pressing his knuckles against the boy’s throat and making him gasp, while he spoke with derisive gentleness. “A clever youngster, this! He’s scarcely out of long clothes, and wants to fight already!” Gustav went on tormenting him; it looked as if he were making a display of his superior strength.

“Well, now we’ve seen that you’re the strongest,” said the head man at last, “so let him go!” and when Gustav did not respond immediately, he received a blow from a clenched fist between his shoulder-blades. Then the boy was released, and went over to the stable to Lasse, who had seen the whole thing, but had not dared to approach. He could do nothing, and his presence would only have done harm.

“Yes, and then there’s our outing, laddie,” he explained, by way of excuse, while he was comforting the boy. “I could very well thrash a puppy like Gustav, but if I did we shouldn’t get away this evening, for he wouldn’t do our work. And none of the others, either, for they all stick together like burrs. But you can do it yourself! I verily believe you’d kick the devil himself, right on his club-foot! Well, well, it was well done; but you must be careful not to waste your powder and shot. It doesn’t pay!”

The boy was not so easily comforted now. Deep down in his heart the remembrance of his injury lay and pained him, because he had acted in such good faith, and they had wounded him in his ready, cheerful confidence. What had happened had also stung his pride; he had walked into a trap, made a fool of himself for them. The incident burnt into his soul, and greatly influenced his subsequent development. He had already found out that a person’s word was not always to be relied upon, and he had made awkward attempts to get behind it. Now he would trust nobody straight away any more; and he had discovered how the secret was to be found out. You only had to look at people’s eyes when they said anything. Both here and at Kaase Farm the people had looked so strange about the handle-turner, as if they were laughing inside. And the bailiff had laughed that time when he promised them roast pork and stewed rhubarb every day. They hardly ever got anything but herring and porridge. People talked with two tongues; Father Lasse was the only one who did not do it.

Pelle began to be observant of his own face. It was the face that spoke, and that was why it went badly with him when he tried to escape a thrashing by telling a white lie. And to-day’s misfortune had been the fault of his face; if you felt happy, you mustn’t show it. He had discovered the danger of letting his mind lie open, and his small organism set to work diligently to grow hard skin to draw over its vital parts.

After supper they set off across the fields, hand in hand as usual. As a rule, Pelle chattered unceasingly when they were by themselves; but this evening he was quieter. The event of the afternoon was still in his mind, and the coming visit gave him a feeling of solemnity.

Lasse carried a red bundle in his hand, in which was a bottle of black-currant rum, which they had got Per Olsen to buy in the town the day before, when he had been in to swear himself free. It had cost sixty-six ores, and Pelle was turning something over in his mind, but did not know whether it would do.

“Father!” he said at last. “Mayn’t I carry that a little way?”

“Gracious! Are you crazy, boy? It’s an expensive article! And you might drop it.”

“I wouldn’t drop it. Well, only hold it for a little then? Mayn’t I, father? Oh do, father!”

“Eh, what an idea! I don’t know what you’ll be like soon, if you aren’t stopped! Upon my word, I think you must be ill, you’re getting so tiresome!” And Lasse went on crossly for a little while, but then stopped and bent down over the boy.

“Hold it then, you little silly, but be very careful! And you mustn’t move a single step while you’ve got it, mind!”

Pelle clasped the bottle to his body with his arms, for he dared not trust his hands, and pushed out his stomach as far as possible to support it. Lasse stood with his hands extended beneath the bottle, ready to catch it if it fell.

“There! That’ll do!” he said anxiously, and took the bottle.

“It is heavy!” said Pelle, admiringly, and went on contentedly, holding his father’s hand.

“But why had he to swear himself free?” he suddenly asked.

“Because he was accused by a girl of being the father of her child. Haven’t you heard about it?”

Pelle nodded. “Isn’t he, then? Everybody says he is.”

“I can hardly believe it; it would be certain damnation for Per Olsen. But, of course, the girl says it’s him and no one else. Ah me! Girls are dangerous playthings! You must take care when your time comes, for they can bring misfortune upon the best of men.”

“How do you swear, then? Do you say ‘Devil take me’?”

Lasse could not help laughing. “No, indeed! That wouldn’t be very good for those that swear false. No, you see, in the court all God’s highest ministers are sitting round a table that’s exactly like a horseshoe, and beyond that again there’s an altar with the crucified Christ Himself upon it. On the altar lies a big, big book that’s fastened to the wall with an iron chain, so that the devil can’t carry it off in the night, and that’s God’s Holy Word. When a man swears, he lays his left hand upon the book, and holds up his right hand with three fingers in the air; they’re God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. But if he swears false, the Governor can see it at once, because then there are red spots of blood on the leaves of the book.”

“And what then?” asked Pelle, with deep interest.

“Well, then his three fingers wither, and it goes on eating itself into his body. People like that suffer frightfully; they rot right away.”

“Don’t they go to hell, then?”

“Yes, they do that too, except when they give themselves up and take their punishment, and then they escape in the next life; but they can’t escape withering away.”

“Why doesn’t the Governor take them himself and punish them, when he can see in that book that they swore false?”

“Why, because then they’d get off going to hell, and there’s an agreement with Satan that he’s to have all those that don’t give themselves up, don’t you see?”

Pelle shuddered, and for a little while walked on in silence beside his father; but when he next spoke, he had forgotten all about it.

“I suppose Uncle Kalle’s rich, isn’t he?” he asked.

“He can’t be rich, but he’s a land-owner, and that’s not a little thing!” Lasse himself had never attained to more than renting land.

“When I grow up, I mean to have a great big farm,” said Pelle, with decision.

“Yes, I’ve no doubt you will,” said Lasse, laughing. Not that he also did not expect something great of the boy, if not exactly a large farmer. There was no saying, however. Perhaps some farmer’s daughter might fall in love with him; the men of his family generally had an attraction for women. Several of them had given proof of it—his brother, for instance, who had taken the fancy of a parson’s wife. Then Pelle would have to make the most of his opportunity so that the family would be ashamed to oppose the match. And Pelle was good enough. He had that “cow’s-lick” on his forehead, fine hair at the back of his neck, and a birth-mark on his hip; and that all betokened luck. Lasse went on talking to himself as he walked, calculating the boy’s future with large, round figures, that yielded a little for him too; for, however great his future might be, it would surely come in time to allow of Lasse’s sharing and enjoying it in his very old age.

They went across country toward the stone-quarry, following stone dikes and snow-filled ditches, and working their way through the thicket of blackthorn and juniper, behind which lay the rocks and “the Heath.” They made their way right into the quarry, and tried in the darkness to find the place where the dross was thrown, for that would be where the stone-breaking went on.

A sound of hammering came from the upper end of the ground, and they discovered lights in several places. Beneath a sloping straw screen, from which hung a lantern, sat a little, broad man, hammering away at the fragments. He worked with peculiar vivacity—struck three blows and pushed the stones to one side, another three blows, and again to one side; and while with one hand he pushed the pieces away, with the other he placed a fresh fragment in position on the stone. It went as busily and evenly as the ticking of a watch.

“Why, if that isn’t Brother Kalle sitting there!” said Lasse, in a voice of surprise as great as if the meeting were a miracle from heaven. “Good evening, Kalle Karlsson! How are you?”

The stone-breaker looked up.

“Oh, there you are, brother!” he said, rising with difficulty; and the two greeted one another as if they had met only the day before. Kalle collected his tools and laid the screen down upon them while they talked.

“So you break stones too? Does that bring in anything?” asked Lasse.

“Oh, not very much. We get twelve krones a ‘fathom’ and when I work with a lantern morning and evening, I can break half a fathom in a week. It doesn’t pay for beer, but we live anyhow. But it’s awfully cold work; you can’t keep warm at it, and you get so stiff with sitting fifteen hours on the cold stone—as stiff as if you were the father of the whole world.” He was walking stiffly in front of the others across the heath toward a low, hump-backed cottage.

“Ah, there comes the moon, now there’s no use for it!” said Kalle, whose spirits were beginning to rise. “And, my word, what a sight the old dormouse looks! He must have been at a New Year’s feast in heaven.”

“You’re the same merry devil that you were in the old days,” said Lasse.

“Well, good spirits’ll soon be the only thing to be had without paying for.”

The wall of the house stuck out in a large round lump on one side, and Pelle had to go up to it to feel it all over. It was most mysterious what there might be on the other side—perhaps a secret chamber? He pulled his father’s hand inquiringly.

“That? That’s the oven where they bake their bread,” said Lasse. “It’s put there to make more room.”

After inviting them to enter, Kalle put his head in at a door that led from the kitchen to the cowshed. “Hi, Maria! You must put your best foot foremost!” he called in a low voice. “The midwife’s here!”

“What in the world does she want? It’s a story, you old fool!” And the sound of milk squirting into the pail began again.

“A story, is it? No, but you must come in and go to bed; she says it’s high time you did. You are keeping up much too long this year. Mind what you say,” he whispered into the cowshed, “for she is really here! And be quick!”

They went into the room, and Kalle went groping about to light a candle. Twice he took up the matches and dropped them again to light it at the fire, but the peat was burning badly. “Oh, bother!” he said, resolutely striking a match at last. “We don’t have visitors every day.”

“Your wife’s Danish,” said Lasse, admiringly. “And you’ve got a cow too?”

“Yes, it’s a biggish place here,” said Kalle, drawing himself up. “There’s a cat belonging to the establishment too, and as many rats as it cares to eat.”

His wife now appeared, breathless, and looking in astonishment at the visitors.

“Yes, the midwife’s gone again,” said Kalle. “She hadn’t time to-day; we must put it off till another time. But these are important strangers, so you must blow your nose with your fingers before you give them your hand!”

“Oh, you old humbug! You can’t take me in. It’s Lasse, of course, and Pelle!” And she held out her hand. She was short, like her husband, was always smiling, and had bowed arms and legs just as he had. Hard work and their cheerful temperament gave them both a rotund appearance.

“There are no end of children here,” said Lasse, looking about him. There were three in the turn-up bedstead under the window—two small ones at one end, and a long, twelve-year-old boy at the other, his black feet sticking out between the little girls’ heads; and other beds were made up on chairs, in an old kneading-trough, and on the floor.

“Ye-es; we’ve managed to scrape together a few,” said Kalle, running about in vain to get something for his visitors to sit upon; everything was being used as beds. “You’ll have to spit on the floor and sit down on that,” he said, laughing.

His wife came in, however, with a washing-bench and an empty beer-barrel.

“Sit you down and rest,” she said, placing the seats round the table. “And you must really excuse it, but the children must be somewhere.”

Kalle squeezed himself in and sat down upon the edge of the turn-up bedstead. “Yes, we’ve managed to scrape together a few,” he repeated. “You must provide for your old age while you have the strength. We’ve made up the dozen, and started on the next. It wasn’t exactly our intention, but mother’s gone and taken us in.” He scratched the back of his head, and looked the picture of despair.

His wife was standing in the middle of the room. “Let’s hope it won’t be twins this time too,” she said, laughing.

“Why, that would be a great saving, as we shall have to send for the midwife anyhow. People say of mother,” he went on, “that when she’s put the children to bed she has to count them to make sure they’re all there; but that’s not true, because she can’t count farther than ten.”

Here a baby in the alcove began to cry, and the mother took it up and seated herself on the edge of the turn-up bedstead to nurse it. “And this is the smallest,” he said, holding it out toward Lasse, who put a crooked finger down its neck.

“What a little fatty!” he said softly; he was fond of children. “And what’s its name?”

“She’s called Dozena Endina, because when she came we thought that was to be the last; and she was the twelfth too.”

“Dozena Endina! That’s a mighty fine name!” exclaimed Lasse. “It sounds exactly as if she might be a princess.”

“Yes, and the one before’s called Ellen—from eleven, of course. That’s her in the kneading-trough,” said Kalle. “The one before that again is Tentius, and then Nina, and Otto. The ones before that weren’t named in that way, for we hadn’t thought then that there’d be so many. But that’s all mother’s fault; if she only puts a patch on my working-trousers, things go wrong at once.”

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, trying to get out of it like that,” said his wife, shaking her finger at him. “But as for that,” she went on, turning to Lasse, “I’m sure the others have nothing to complain of either, as far as their names are concerned. Albert, Anna, Alfred, Albinus, Anton, Alma and Alvilda—let me see, yes, that’s the lot. None of them can say they’ve not been treated fairly. Father was all for A at that time; they were all to rhyme with A. Poetry’s always come so easy to him.” She looked admiringly at her husband.

Kalle blinked his eyes in bashfulness. “No, but it’s the first letter, you see, and it sounds pretty,” he said modestly.

“Isn’t he clever to think of a thing like that? He ought to have been a student. Now my head would never have been any good for anything of that sort. He wanted, indeed, to have the names both begin and end with A, but that wouldn’t do with the boys, so he had to give that up. But then he hasn’t had any book-learning either.”

“Oh, that’s too bad, mother! I didn’t give it up. I’d made up a name for the first boy that had A at the end too; but then the priest and the clerk objected, and I had to let it go. They objected to Dozena Endina too, but I put my foot down; for I can be angry if I’m irritated too long. I’ve always liked to have some connection and meaning in everything; and it’s not a bad idea to have something that those who look deeper can find out. Now, have you noticed anything special about two of these names?”

“No,” answered Lasse hesitatingly, “I don’t know that I have. But I haven’t got a head for that sort of thing either.”

“Well, look here! Anna and Otto are exactly the same, whether you read them forward or backward—exactly the same. I’ll just show you.” He took down a child’s slate that was hanging on the wall with a stump of slate-pencil, and began laboriously to write the names. “Now, look at this, brother!”

“I can’t read,” said Lasse, shaking his head hopelessly. “Does it really give the same both ways? The deuce! That is remarkable!” He could not get over his astonishment.

“But now comes something that’s still more remarkable,” said Kalle, looking over the top of the slate at his brother with the gaze of a thinker surveying the universe. “Otto, which can be read from both ends, means, of course, eight; but if I draw the figure 8, it can be turned upside down, and still be the same. Look here!” He wrote the figure eight.

Lasse turned the slate up and down, and peered at it.

“Yes, upon my word, it is the same! Just look here, Pelle! It’s like the cat that always comes down upon its feet, no matter how you drop it. Lord bless my soul! how nice it must be to be able to spell! How did you learn it, brother?”

“Oh,” said Kalle, in a tone of superiority. “I’ve sat and looked on a little when mother’s been teaching the children their ABC. It’s nothing at all if your upper story’s all right.”

“Pelle’ll be going to school soon,” said Lasse reflectively. “And then perhaps I could—for it would be nice. But I don’t suppose I’ve got the head for it, do you? No, I’m sure I haven’t got the head for it,” he repeated in quite a despairing tone.

Kalle did not seem inclined to contradict him, but Pelle made up his mind that some day he would teach his father to read and write—much better than Uncle Kalle could.

“But we’re quite forgetting that we brought a Christmas bottle with us!” said Lasse, untying the handkerchief.

“You are a fellow!” exclaimed Kalle, walking delightedly round the table on which the bottle stood. “You couldn’t have given us anything better, brother; it’ll come in handy for the christening-party. ‘Black Currant Rum’—and with a gold border—how grand!” He held the label up toward the light, and looked round with pleasure in his eyes. Then he hesitatingly opened the cupboard in the wall.

“The visitors ought to taste what they brought,” said his wife.

“That’s just what was bothering me!” said Kalle, turning round with a disconsolate laugh. “For they ought, of course. But if the cork’s once drawn, you know how it disappears.” He reached out slowly for the corkscrew which hung on a nail.

But Lasse would not hear of it; he would not taste the beverage for the world. Was black-currant rum a thing for a poor beggar like him to begin drinking—and on a weekday, too? No, indeed!

“Yes, and you’ll be coming to the christening-party, you two, of course,” said Kalle, relieved, putting the bottle into the cupboard. “But we’ll have a ‘cuckoo,’ for there’s a drop of spirits left from Christmas Eve, and I expect mother’ll give us coffee.”

“I’ve got the coffee on,” answered his wife cheerfully.

“Did you ever know such a wife! You can never wish for anything but what it’s there already!”

Pelle wondered where his two herding-comrades, Alfred and Albinus, were. They were away at their summer places, taking their share of the good Christmas fare, and would not be back before “Knut.” “But this fellow here’s not to be despised,” said Kalle, pointing to the long boy in the turn-up bed. “Shall we have a look at him?” And, pulling out a straw, he tickled the boy’s nose with it. “Get up, my good Anton, and harness the horses to the wheelbarrow! We’re going to drive out in state.”

The boy sat up and began to rub his eyes, to Kalle’s great delight. At last he discovered that there were strangers present, and drew on his clothes, which had been doing duty as his pillow. Pelle and he became good friends at once, and began to play; and then Kalle hit upon the idea of letting the other children share in the merry-making, and he and the two boys went round and tickled them awake, all the six. His wife protested, but only faintly; she was laughing all the time, and herself helped them to dress, while she kept on saying: “Oh, what foolishness! Upon my word, I never knew the like of it! Then this one shan’t be left out either!” she added suddenly, drawing the youngest out of the alcove.

“Then that’s the eight,” said Kalle, pointing to the flock. “They fill the room well, don’t they? Alma and Alvilda are twins, as you can see. And so are Alfred and Albinus, who are away now for Christmas. They’re going to be confirmed next summer, so they’ll be off my hands.”

“Then where are the two eldest?” asked Lasse.

“Anna’s in service in the north, and Albert’s at sea, out with a whaler just now. He’s a fine fellow. He sent us his portrait in the autumn. Won’t you show it us, Maria?”

His wife began slowly to look for it, but could not find it.

“I think I know where it is, mother,” said one of the little girls over and over again; but as no one heard what she said, she climbed up on to the bench, and took down an old Bible from the shelf. The photograph was in it.

“He is a fine fellow, and no mistake!” said Lasse. “There’s a pair of shoulders! He’s not like our family; it must be from yours, Maria, that he’s got that carriage.”

“He’s a Kongstrup,” said Kalle, in a low tone.

“Oh, indeed, is he?” said Lasse hesitatingly, recollecting Johanna Pihl’s story.

“Maria was housemaid at the farm, and he talked her over as he has done with so many. It was before my time, and he did what he ought.”

Maria was standing looking from one to the other of them with a meaningless smile, but her forehead was flushed.

“There’s gentle blood in that boy,” said Kalle admiringly. “He holds his head differently from the others. And he’s good—so tremendously good.” Maria came slowly up to him, leaned her arm upon his shoulder, and looked at the picture with him. “He is good, isn’t he, mother?” said Kalle, stroking her face.

“And so well-dressed he is too!” exclaimed Lasse.

“Yes, he takes care of his money. He’s not dissipated, like his father; and he’s not afraid of parting with a ten-krone note when he’s at home here on a visit.”

There was a rustling at the inner door, and a little, wrinkled old woman crept out onto the threshold, feeling her way with her feet, and holding her hands before her face to protect it. “Is any one dead?” she asked as she faced the room.

“Why, there’s grandmother!” said Kalle. “I thought you’d be in your bed.”

“And so I was, but then I heard there were strangers here, and one likes to hear the news. Have there been any deaths in the parish?”

“No, grandmother, there haven’t. People have something better to do than to die. Here’s some one come to court you, and that’s much better. This is mother-in-law,” he said, turning to the others; “so you can guess what she’s like.”

“Just you come here, and I’ll mother-in-law you!” said the old lady, with a feeble attempt to enter into the gaiety. “Well, welcome to this house then,” she said, extending her hand.

Kalle stretched his out first, but as soon as she touched it, she pushed it aside, saying: “Do you think I don’t know you, you fool?” She felt Lasse’s and Pelle’s hands for a long time with her soft fingers before she let them go. “No, I don’t know you!” she said.

“It’s Brother Lasse and his son down from Stone Farm,” Kalle informed her at last.

“Aye, is it really? Well, I never! And you’ve come over the sea too! Well, here am I, an old body, going about here quite alone; and I’ve lost my sight too.”

“But you’re not quite alone, grandmother,” said Kalle, laughing. “There are two grown-ups and half a score of children about you all day long.”

“Ah yes, you can say what you like, but all those I was young with are dead now, and many others that I’ve seen grow up. Every week some one that I know dies, and here am I still living, only to be a burden to others.”

Kalle brought in the old lady’s arm-chair from her room, and made her sit down. “What’s all that nonsense about?” he said reproachfully. “Why, you pay for yourself!”

“Pay! Oh dear! They get twenty krones a year for keeping me,” said the old woman to the company in general.

The coffee came in, and Kalle poured brandy into the cups of all the elder people. “Now, grandmother, you must cheer up!” he said, touching her cup with his. “Where the pot boils for twelve, it boils for the thirteenth as well. Your health, grandmother, and may you still live many years to be a burden to us, as you call it!”

“Yes, I know it so well, I know it so well,” said the old woman, rocking backward and forward. “You mean so well by it all. But with so little wish to live, it’s hard that I should take the food out of the others’ mouths. The cow eats, and the cat eats, the children eat, we all eat; and where are you, poor things, to get it all from!”

“Say ‘poor thing’ to him who has no head, and pity him who has two,” said Kalle gaily.

“How much land have you?” asked Lasse.

“Five acres; but it’s most of it rock.”

“Can you manage to feed the cow on it then?”

“Last year it was pretty bad. We had to pull the roof off the outhouse, and use it for fodder last winter; and it’s thrown us back a little. But dear me, it made the loft all the higher.” Kalle laughed. “And now there’ll always be more and more of the children getting able to keep themselves.”

“Don’t those who are grown up give a hand too?” asked Lasse.

“How can they? When you’re young, you can use what you’ve got yourself. They must take their pleasures while there’s time; they hadn’t many while they were children, and once they’re married and settled they’ll have something else to think about. Albert is good enough when he’s at home on a visit; last time he gave us ten krones and a krone to each of the children. But when they’re out, you know how the money goes if they don’t want to look mean beside their companions. Anna’s one of those who can spend all they get on clothes. She’s willing enough to do without, but she never has a farthing, and hardly a rag to her body, for all that she’s for ever buying.”

“No, she’s the strangest creature,” said her mother. “She never can make anything do.”

The turn-up bedstead was shut to give room to sit round the table, and an old pack of cards was produced. Every one was to play except the two smallest, who were really too little to grasp a card; Kalle wanted, indeed, to have them too, but it could not be managed. They played beggar-my-neighbor and Black Peter. Grandmother’s cards had to be read out to her.

The conversation still went on among the elder people.

“How do you like working for the farmer at Stone Farm?” asked Kalle.

“We don’t see much of the farmer himself; he’s pretty nearly always out, or sleeping after a night on the loose. But he’s nice enough in other ways; and it’s a house where they feed you properly.”

“Well, there are places where the food’s worse,” said Kalle, “but there can’t be many. Most of them, certainly, are better.”

“Are they really?” asked Lasse, in surprise. “Well, I don’t complain as far as the food’s concerned; but there’s a little too much for us two to do, and then it’s so miserable to hear that woman crying nearly the whole time. I wonder if he ill-treats her; they say not.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t,” said Kalle. “Even if he wanted to—as you can very well understand he might—he dursn’t. He’s afraid of her, for she’s possessed by a devil, you know.”

“They say she’s a were-wolf at night,” said Lasse, looking as if he expected to see a ghost in one of the corners.

“She’s a poor body, who has her own troubles,” said Maria, “and every woman knows a little what that means. And the farmer’s not all kindness either, even if he doesn’t beat her. She feels his unfaithfulness more than she’d feel anything else.”

“Oh, you wives always take one another’s part,” said Kalle, “but other people have eyes too. What do you say, grandmother? You know that better than any one else.”

“Well, I know something about it at any rate,” said the old woman. “I remember the time when Kongstrup came to the island as well as if it had been yesterday. He owned nothing more than the clothes he wore, but he was a fine gentleman for all that, and lived in Copenhagen.”

“What did he want over here?” asked Lasse.

“What did he want? To look for a young girl with money, I suppose. He wandered about on the heath here with his gun, but it wasn’t foxes he was after. She was fooling about on the heath too, admiring the wild scenery, and nonsense like that, and behaving half like a man, instead of being kept at home and taught to spin and make porridge; but she was the only daughter, and was allowed to go on just as she liked. And then she meets this spark from the town, and they become friends. He was a curate or a pope, or something of the sort, so you can’t wonder that the silly girl didn’t know what she was doing.”

“No, indeed!” said Lasse.

“There’s always been something all wrong with the women of that family,” the old woman continued. “They say one of them once gave herself to Satan, and since then he’s had a claim upon them and ill-treats them whenever the moon’s waning, whether they like it or not. He has no power over the pure, of course; but when these two had got to know one another, things went wrong with her too. He must have noticed it, and tried to get off, for they said that the old farmer of Stone Farm compelled him with his gun to take her for his wife; and he was a hard old dog, who’d have shot a man down as soon as look at him. But he was a peasant through and through, who wore home-woven clothes, and wasn’t afraid of working from sunrise to sunset. It wasn’t like what it is now, with debts and drinking and card-playing, so people had something then.”

“Well, now they’d like to thresh the corn while it’s still standing, and they sell the calves before they’re born,” said Kalle. “But I say, grandmother, you’re Black Peter!”

“That comes of letting one’s tongue run on and forgetting to look after one’s self!” said the old lady.

“Grandmother’s got to have her face blacked!” cried the children. She begged to be let off, as she was just washed for the night; but the children blacked a cork in the stove and surrounded her, and she was given a black streak down her nose. Every one laughed, both old and young, and grandmother laughed with them, saying it was a good thing she could not see it herself. “It’s an ill wind,” she said, “that blows nobody any good. But I should like to have my sight again,” she went on, “if it’s only for five minutes, before I die. It would be nice to see it all once more, now that the trees and everything have grown so, as Kalle says they have. The whole country must have changed. And I’ve never seen the youngest children at all.”

“They say that they can take blindness away over in Copenhagen,” said Kalle to his brother.

“It would cost a lot of money, wouldn’t it?” asked Lasse.

“It would cost a hundred krones at the very least,” the grandmother remarked.

Kalle looked thoughtful. “If we were to sell the whole blooming thing, it would be funny if there wasn’t a hundred krones over. And then grandmother could have her sight again.”

“Goodness gracious me!” exclaimed the old woman. “Sell your house and home! You must be out of your mind! Throw away a large capital upon an old, worn-out thing like me, that has one foot in the grave! I couldn’t wish for anything better than what I have!” She had tears in her eyes. “Pray God I mayn’t bring about such a misfortune in my old age!”

“Oh, rubbish! We’re still young,” said Kalle. “We could very well begin something new, Maria and me.”

“Have none of you heard how Jacob Kristian’s widow is?” asked the old lady by way of changing the subject. “I’ve got it into my head that she’ll go first, and then me. I heard the crow calling over there last night.”

“That’s our nearest neighbor on the heath,” explained Kalle. “Is she failing now? There’s been nothing the matter with her this winter that I know of.”

“Well, you may be sure there’s something,” said the old woman positively. “Let one of the children run over there in the morning.”

“Yes, if you’ve had warning. Jacob Kristian gave good enough warning himself when he went and died. But we were good friends for many years, he and me.”

“Did he show himself?” asked Lasse solemnly.

“No; but one night—nasty October weather it was—I was woke by a knocking at the outside door. That’s a good three years ago. Maria heard it too, and we lay and talked about whether I should get up. We got no further than talking, and we were just dropping off again, when the knocking began again. I jumped up, put on a pair of trousers, and opened the door a crack, but there was no one there. ‘That’s strange!’ I said to Maria, and got into bed again; but I’d scarcely got the clothes over me, when there was a knocking for the third time.

“I was cross then, and lighted the lantern and went round the house; but there was nothing either to be seen or heard. But in the morning there came word to say that Jacob Kristian had died in the night just at that time.”

Pelle, who had sat and listened to the conversation, pressed close up to his father in fear; but Lasse himself did not look particularly valiant. “It’s not always nice to have anything to do with the dead,” he said.

“Oh, nonsense! If you’ve done no harm to any one, and given everybody their due, what can they do to you?” said Kalle. The grandmother said nothing, but sat shaking her head very significantly.

Maria now placed upon the table a jar of dripping and a large loaf of rye-bread.

“That’s the goose,” said Kalle, merrily sticking his sheath-knife into the loaf. “We haven’t begun it yet. There are prunes inside. And that’s goose-fat. Help yourselves!”

After that Lasse and Pelle had to think about getting home, and began to tie handkerchiefs round their necks; but the others did not want to let them go yet. They went on talking, and Kalle made jokes to keep them a little longer. But suddenly he turned as grave as a judge; there was a low sound of crying out in the little passage, and some one took hold of the handle of the door and let go of it again. “Upon my word, it’s ghosts!” he exclaimed, looking fearfully from one to another.

The sound of crying was heard again, and Maria, clasping her hands together, exclaimed: “Why, it’s Anna!” and quickly opened the door. Anna entered in tears, and was attacked on all sides with surprised inquiries, to which her sobs were her only answer.

“And you’ve been given a holiday to come and see us at Christmas time, and you come home crying! You are a nice one!” said Kalle, laughing. “You must give her something to suck, mother!”

“I’ve lost my place,” the girl at last got out between her sobs.

“No, surely not!” exclaimed Kalle, in changed tones. “But what for? Have you been stealing? Or been impudent?”

“No, but the master accused me of being too thick with his son.”

In a flash the mother’s eyes darted from the girl’s face to her figure, and she too burst into tears.

Kalle could see nothing, but he caught his wife’s action and understood. “Oh!” he said quietly. “Is that it?” The little man was like a big child in the way the different expressions came and went upon his good-natured face. At last the smile triumphed again. “Well, well, that’s capital!” he exclaimed, laughing. “Shouldn’t good children take the work off their parents’ shoulders as they grow up and are able to do it? Take off your things, Anna, and sit down. I expect you’re hungry, aren’t you? And it couldn’t have happened at a better time, as we’ve got to have the midwife anyhow!”

Lasse and Pelle drew their neckerchiefs up over their mouths after taking leave of every one in the room, Kalle circling round them restlessly, and talking eagerly. “Come again soon, you two, and thanks for this visit and your present, Brother Lasse! Oh, yes!” he said suddenly at the outside door, and laughed delightedly; “it’ll be something grand—brother-in-law to the farmer in a way! Oh, fie, Kalle Karlsson! You and I’ll be giving ourselves airs now!” He went a little way along the path with them, talking all the time. Lasse was quite melancholy over it.