Pelle the Conqueror Part 161

Pelle nodded.

"What about my house then?" she asked slowly.

"Well, we bought that together with all the rest," said Brun. "But as far as that goes it can easily be separated from the rest, only it's rather soon to break up the cooperation before it's started." He waited a little, expecting that Ellen would say something, and when she continued silent he went on, rather shortly: "Well, then there's nothing more to be said about that? Fair play's a jewel, and to-morrow I'll make arrangements for the conveyance of the house to you for the fifteen thousand (850). And then we must give up the whole concern, Pelle. It won't do for the man at the head of it to live on his private property; so that plan's come to nothing!"

"Unless Ellen and I live in separate houses," said Pelle slyly. "I might build just the other side of the boundary, and then we could nod to one another at any rate."

Ellen looked at him gravely. "I only think it's rather strange that you settle my affairs without asking me first," she said at length.

"Yes, it was inconsiderate of us," answered Brun, "and we hope you'll forget all about it. You'll give up the house then?"

"I'm pretty well obliged to when Pelle threatens to move out," Ellen answered with a smile. "But I'm sorry about it. I'm certain that in a short time there'd have been money to make over it."

"It'll be nice, won't it, if the women are going to move into our forsaken snail-sh.e.l.ls?" said Brun half seriously.

"Ellen's always been an incorrigible capitalist," Pelle put in.

"It's only that I've never had so much money that I shouldn't know what it was worth," answered Ellen, with ready wit.

Old Brun laughed. "That was one for Mr. Brun!" he said. "But since you've such a desire for land-speculation, Mistress Ellen, I've got a suggestion to make. On the ground we've bought there's a piece of meadow that lies halfway in to town, by the bog. We'll give you that. It's not worth anything at present, and will have to be filled in to be of any value; but it won't be very long before the town is out there wanting more room."

Ellen had no objection to that. "But then," she said, "I must be allowed to do what I like with what comes out of it."

XIX

The sun held out well that year. Remnants of summer continued to hang in the air right into December. Every time they had bad weather Ellen said, "Now it'll be winter, I'm sure!" But the sun put it aside once more; it went far down in the south and looked straight into the whole sitting-room, as if it were going to count the pictures.

The large yellow Gloire de Dijon went on flowering, and every day Ellen brought in a large, heavy bunch of roses and red leaves. She was heavy herself, and the fresh cold nipped her nose--which was growing sharper--and reddened her cheeks. One day she brought a large bunch to Pelle, and asked him: "How much money am I going to get to keep Christmas with?"

It was true! The year was almost ended!

After the new year winter began in earnest. It began with much snow and frost, and made it a difficult matter to keep in communication with the outside world, while indoors people drew all the closer to one another.

Anna should really have been going to school now, but she suffered a good deal from the cold and was altogether not very strong, so Pelle and Ellen dared not expose her to the long wading through the snow, and taught her themselves.

Ellen had become a little lazy about walking, and seldom went into town; the two men made the purchases for her in the evening on their way home.

It was a dull time, and no work was done by artificial light, so they were home early. Ellen had changed the dinner-hour to five, so that they could all have it together. After dinner Brun generally went upstairs to work for another couple of hours. He was busy working out projects for the building on the Hill Farm land, and gave himself no rest. Pelle's wealth of ideas and energy infected him, and his plans grew and a.s.sumed ever-increasing dimensions. He gave no consideration to his weak frame, but rose early and worked all day at the affairs of the cooperative works. He seemed to be vying with Pelle's youth, and to be in constant fear that something would come up behind him and interrupt his work.

The other members of the family gathered round the lamp, each with some occupation. Boy Comfort had his toy-table put up and was hammering indefatigably with his little wooden mallet upon a piece of stuff that Ellen had put between to prevent his marking the table. He was a st.u.r.dy little fellow, and the fat lay in creases round his wrists. The wrinkles on his forehead gave him a funny look when one did not recall the fact that he had cost his mother her life. He looked as if he knew it himself, he was so serious. He had leave to sit up for a little while with the others, but he went to bed at six.

La.s.se Frederik generally drew when he was finished with his lessons. He had a turn for it, and Pelle, wondering, saw his own gift, out of which nothing had ever come but the prison, repeated in the boy in an improved form. He showed him the way to proceed, and held the pencil once more in his own hand. His chief occupation, however, was teaching little Anna, and telling her anything that might occur to him. She was especially fond of hearing about animals, and Pelle had plenty of reminiscences of his herding-time from which to draw.

"Have animals really intelligence?" asked Ellen, in surprise. "You really believe that they think about things just as we do?"

It was nothing new to Sister; she talked every day to the fowls and rabbits, and knew how wise they were.

"I wonder if flowers can think too," said La.s.se Frederik. He was busy drawing a flower from memory, and it _would_ look like a face: hence the remark.

Pelle thought they could.

"No, no, Pelle!" said Ellen. "You're going too far now! It's only us people who can think."

"They can feel at any rate, and that's thinking in a way, I suppose, only with the heart. They notice at once if you're fond of them; if you aren't they don't thrive."

"Yes, I do believe that, for if you're fond of them you take good care of them," said the incorrigible Ellen.

"I'm not so sure of that," said Pelle, looking at her teasingly. "You're very fond of your balsam, but a gardener would be sure to tell you that you treat it like a cabbage. And look how industriously it flowers all the same. They answer kind thoughts with grat.i.tude, and that's a nice way of thinking. Intelligence isn't perhaps worth as much as we human beings imagine it to be. You yourself think with your heart, little mother." It was his pet name for her just now.

After a little interlude such as this, they went on with their work. Pelle had to tell Sister all about the animals in her alphabet-book--about the useful cow and the hare that licked the dew off the clover and leaped up under the very nose of the cowherd. In the winter it went into the garden, gnawed the bark off the young trees and ate the farmer's wife's cabbage. "Yes, I must acknowledge that," Ellen interposed, and then they all laughed, for puss had just eaten her kail.

Then the child suddenly left the subject, and wanted to know whether there had always, always been a Copenhagen. Pelle came to a standstill for a moment, but by a happy inspiration dug Bishop Absalom out of his memory. He took the opportunity of telling them that the capital had a population of half a million.

"Have you counted them, father?" exclaimed Sister, in perplexity, taking hold of his sleeve.

"Why, of course father hasn't, you little donkey!" said La.s.se Frederik.

"One might be born while he was counting!"

Then they were at the c.o.c.k again, which both began and ended the book.

He stood and crowed so proudly and never slept. He was a regular prig, but when Sister was diligent he put a one-ore piece among the leaves.

But the hens laid eggs, and it was evident that they were the same as the flowers; for when you were kind to them and treated them as if they belonged to the family, they were industrious in laying, but if you built a model house for them and treated them according to all established rules, they did not even earn as much as would pay for their food. At Uncle Kalle's there was a hen that came into the room among all the children and laid its egg under the bed every single day all through the winter, when no other hens were laying. Then the farmer of Stone Farm bought it to make something by it. He gave twenty kroner (a guinea) for it and thought he had got a gold mine; but no sooner did it come to Stone Farm than it left off laying winter eggs, for there it was not one of the family, but was only a hen that they wanted to make money out of.

"Mother's balsam flowers all the winter," said Sister, looking fondly at the plant.

"Yes, that's because it sees how industrious we all are," said La.s.se Frederik mischievously.

"Will you be quiet!" said Pelle, hitting out at him.

Ellen sat knitting some tiny socks. Her glance moved lingeringly from one to another of them, and she smiled indulgently at their chatter.

They were just a lot of children!

"Mother, may I have those for my doll?" asked Anna, taking up the finished sock.

"No, little sister's to have them when she comes."

"If it _is_ a girl," put in La.s.se Frederik.

"When's little sister coming?"

"In the spring when the stork comes back to the farm; he'll bring her with him."

"Pooh! The stork!" said La.s.se Frederik contemptuously. "What a pack of nonsense!"

Sister too was wiser than that. When the weather was fine she fetched milk from the farm, and had learned a few things there.

"Now you must go to bed, my child," said Ellen, rising. "I can see you're tired." When she had helped the child into bed she came back and sat down again with her knitting.