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

and have your meals at home. We ought to be able to manage it that way.”

Pelle did not answer; he felt no desire to be apprenticed to the clerk. He had taken out his knife, and was cutting something on a post of one of the stalls. It represented the big bull with his head down to the ground, and its tongue hanging out of one corner of its mouth. One hoof right forward at its mouth indicated that the animal was pawing up the ground in anger. Lasse could not help stopping, for now it was beginning to be like something. “That’s meant to be a cow, isn’t it?” he said. He had been wondering every day, as it gradually grew.

“It’s Volmer that time he took you on his horns,” said Pelle.

Lasse could see at once that it was that, now that he had been told. “It’s really very like,” he said; “but he wasn’t so angry as you’ve made him! Well, well, you’d better get to work again; that there fooling can’t make a living for a man.”

Lasse did not like this defect in the boy⁠—making drawings with chalk or his penknife all over; there would soon not be a beam or a wall in the place that did not bear marks of one or the other. It was useless nonsense, and the farmer would probably be angry if he came into the stable and happened to see them. Lasse had every now and then to throw cow-dung over the most conspicuous drawings, so that they should not catch the eye of people for whom they were not intended.

Up at the house, Kongstrup was just going in, leaning on his wife’s arm. He looked pale but by no means thin. “He’s still rather lame,” said Lasse, peeping out; “but it won’t be long before we have him down here, so you’d better not quite destroy the post.”

Pelle went on cutting.

“If you don’t leave off that silly nonsense, I’ll throw dirt over it!” said Lasse angrily.

“Then I’ll draw you and Madam Olsen on the big gate!” answered Pelle roguishly.

“You⁠—you’d better! I should curse you before my face, and get the parson to send you away⁠—if not something worse!” Lasse was quite upset, and went off down to the other end of the cow-stable and began the afternoon’s cleaning, knocking and pulling his implements about. In his anger he loaded the wheelbarrow too full, and then could neither go one way nor the other, as his feet slipped.

Pelle came down with the gentlest of faces. “Mayn’t I wheel the barrow out?” he said. “Your wooden shoes aren’t so firm on the stones.”

Lasse growled some reply, and let him take it. For a very short time he was cross, but it was no good; the boy could be irresistible when he liked.

XXI

Pelle had been to confirmation-class, and was now sitting in the servants’ room eating his dinner⁠—boiled herring and porridge. It was Saturday, and the bailiff had driven into the town, so Erik was sitting over the stove. He never said anything of his own accord, but always sat and stared; and his eyes followed Pelle’s movements backward and forward between his mouth and his plate. He always kept his eyebrows raised, as if everything were new to him; they had almost grown into that position. In front of him stood a mug of beer in a large pool, for he drank constantly and spilt some every time.

Fair Maria was washing up, and looked in every now and then to see if Pelle were finished. When he licked his horn spoon clean and threw it into the drawer, she came in with something on a plate: they had had roast loin of pork for dinner upstairs.

“Here’s a little taste for you,” she said. “I expect you’re still hungry. What’ll you give me for it?” She kept the plate in her hand, and looked at him with a coaxing smile.

Pelle was still very hungry⁠—ravenous; and he looked at the titbit until his mouth watered. Then he dutifully put up his lips and Maria kissed him. She glanced involuntarily at Erik, and a gleam of something passed over his foolish face, like a faint reminiscence.

“There sits that great gaby making a mess!” she said, scolding as she seized the beer-mug from him, held it under the edge of the table, and with her hand swept the spilt beer into it.

Pelle set to work upon the pork without troubling about anything else; but when she had gone out, he carefully spat down between his legs, and went through a small cleansing operation with the sleeve of his blouse.

When he was finished he went into the stable and cleaned out the mangers, while Lasse curried the cows; it was all to look nice for Sunday. While they worked, Pelle gave a full account of the day’s happenings, and repeated all that the parson had said. Lasse listened attentively, with occasional little exclamations. “Think of that!” “Well, I never!” “So David was a buck like that, and yet he walked in the sight of God all the same! Well, God’s long-suffering is great⁠—there’s no mistake about that!”

There was a knock at the outer door. It was one of Kalle’s children with the message that grandmother would like to bid them goodbye before she passed away.

“Then she can’t have long to live,” exclaimed Lasse. “It’ll be a great loss to them all, so happy as they’ve been together. But there’ll be a little more food for the others, of course.”

They agreed to wait until they were quite finished, and then steal away; for if they asked to be let off early, they would not be likely to get leave for the funeral. “And that’ll be a day’s feasting, with plenty of food and drink, if I know anything of Brother Kalle!” said Lasse.

When they had finished their work and had their supper, they stole out through the outside door into the field. Lasse