Pelle the Conqueror by Martin Andersen Nexø (great novels to read .TXT) 📕

It had been arranged that the present owner of the business should carry it on a little longer, while Pelle made himself at home in it all, learned to understand the machinery, and took lessons in bookkeeping. He was always busy, used his day and at night slept like a log. His brain was no longer in a perpetual ferment like a cauldron, for sleep put out the fire beneath it.

The essential thing was that they should be a party that could entirely rely upon one another, and Pelle unhesitatingly discharged those of his comrades who were not suited for work under new forms, and admitted others.

The first man he applied to was Peter Dreyer. Ellen advised him not to do so. “You know he’s on bad terms with the police,” she said. “You may have difficulties enough without that.” But Pelle needed someone beside him who was able to look at things from a new point of view, and quite understood what was essential; egoists were of no good, and this must be the very thing for a man who had grown restive at the old state of things.

Pelle had come home from his bookkeeping course to have his dinner. Ellen was out with Boy Comfort, but she had left the meal ready for him. It was more convenient to eat it in the kitchen, so he sat upon the kitchen table, reading a book on the keeping of accounts while he ate.

In the front room sat Lasse Frederik, learning his lessons with fingers in both ears in order to shut out the world completely. This was not so easy, however, for Sister had a loose tooth, and his fingers were itching to get at it. Every other minute he broke off his reading to offer her something or other for leave to pull it out; but the little girl always made the same answer: “No, father’s going to.”

He then gave up setting about it honorably, and tried to take her unawares; and at last he persuaded her to let him tie a piece of cotton round the tooth and fasten it to the doorhandle. “There! Now we’ve only got to burn through the cotton,” he said, lighting a piece of candle, “or else father’ll never be able to get the tooth out. It loosens it tremendously!” He talked on about all kinds of things to divert her attention, like a conjuror, and then suddenly brought the candle close to her nose, so that she quickly drew back. “Look, here’s the tooth!” he cried triumphantly, showing it to Sister, who, however, screamed at the top of her voice.

Pelle heard it all, but quietly went on eating. They would have to make it up by themselves. It was not long before Lasse Frederik was applying a plaster to his exploit; he talked to her and gave her her toys to put her into good humor again. When Pelle went in, they were both lying on the floor with their heads under the bed. They had thrown the tooth right into the wall, and were shouting together:

“Mouse, mouse!
Give me a gold tooth
Instead of a bone tooth!”

“Are you going to do anything now, father?” asked Sister, running up to him.

Yes, he had several things to do.

“You’re always so busy,” she said sulkily. “Are you going to keep on all your life?”

Pelle’s conscience smote him. “No, I’m not very busy,” he said quickly. “I can stay with you for a little. What shall we do?”

Little Anna brought her large rag doll, and began to drag chairs into position.

“No, that’s so stupid!” said Lasse Frederik. “Tell us about the time you minded the cows, father! About the big mad bull!” And Pelle told them stories of his childhood⁠—about the bull and Father Lasse, the farmer of Stone Farm and Uncle Kalle with his thirteen children and his happy disposition. The big farm, the country life, the stone-quarry and the sea⁠—they all made up a fairy-story for the two children of the pavement; the boy Pelle’s battle with the great oxen for the supremacy, his wonderful capture of the twenty-five-öre piece⁠—each incident was more exciting than the one before it. Most exciting of all was the story of the giant Eric, who became an idiot from a blow. “That was in those days,” said Pelle, nodding; “it wouldn’t happen like that now.”

“What a lot you have seen!” said Ellen, who had come home while they were talking, and was sitting knitting. “I can hardly understand how you managed⁠—a little fellow like that! How I should like to have seen you!”

“Father’s big!” exclaimed Sister appreciatively. Lasse Frederik was a little more reserved. It was so tiresome always to be outdone, and he would like to have found room for a parenthesis about his own exploits. “I say, there’s a big load of corn in the cabman’s gateway,” he said, to show that he too understood country life.

“That’s not corn,” said Pelle; “it’s hay⁠—clover hay. Don’t you even know what corn’s like?”

“We call it corn,” answered the boy confidently, “and it is corn too, for it has those tassels at the ends.”

“The ears, you mean! But those are on coarse grass too, and, besides, corn is descended from grass. Haven’t you ever really been into the country?”

“We were once going, and meant to stay a whole week, but it went wrong with mother’s work. I’ve been right out to the Zoological Gardens, though.”

Pelle suddenly realized how much the children must lose by living their life in the city. “I wonder if we shouldn’t think about moving out of town,” he said that evening when he and Ellen were alone.

“If you think so,” Ellen answered. She herself had no desire to move into the country, indeed she had an instinctive horror of it as a place to live in. She did not understand it from the point of view of the children either; there were so many children who got