Pelle the Conqueror Part 13

"Why, because then they'd get off going to h.e.l.l, 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!" La.s.se 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 La.s.se, 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. La.s.se 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 La.s.se'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 La.s.se, 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 La.s.se.

"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 La.s.se.

"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 La.s.se. "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 La.s.se, 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 La.s.se, 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 La.s.se, 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 sc.r.a.pe 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 was.h.i.+ng-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 sc.r.a.pe 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 La.s.se, 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 La.s.se. "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 La.s.se, "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 La.s.se 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 La.s.se, 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.

La.s.se turned the slate up and down, and peered at it.