My little boy is given a cent by Petrine with instructions to go to the
baker's and buy some biscuits.
By that which fools call an accident, but which is really a divine
miracle, if miracles there be, I overhear this instruction. Then I stand
at my window and see him cross the street in his slow way and with bent
head; only, he goes slower than usual and with his head bent more deeply
between his small shoulders.
He stands long outside the baker's window, where there is a confused
heap of lollipops and chocolates and sugar-sticks and other things
created for a small boy's delight. Then he lifts his young hand, opens
the door, disappears and presently returns with a great paper bag,
eating with all his might.
And I, who, Heaven be praised, have myself been a thief in my time, run
all over the house and give my orders.
My little boy enters the kitchen.
"Put the biscuits on the table," says Petrine.
He stands still for a moment and looks at her and at the table and at
the floor. Then he goes silently to his mother.
"You're quite a big boy now, that you can buy biscuits for Petrine,"
says she, without looking up from her work.
His face is very long, but he says nothing. He comes quietly in to me
and sits down on the edge of a chair.
"You have been over the way, at the baker's."
He comes up to me, where I am sitting and reading, and presses himself
against me. I do not look at him, but I can perceive what is going on
inside him.
"What did you buy at the baker's?"
"Lollipops."
"Well, I never! What fun! Why, you had some lollipops this morning. Who
gave you the money this time?"
"Petrine."
"Really! Well, Petrine is certainly very fond of you. Do you remember
the lovely ball she gave you on your birthday?"
"Father, Petrine told me to buy a cent's worth of biscuits."
"Oh, dear!"
It is very quiet in the room. My little boy cries bitterly and I look
anxiously before me, stroking his hair the while.
"Now you have fooled Petrine badly. She wants those biscuits, of course,
for her cooking. She thinks they're on the kitchen-table and, when she
goes to look, she won't find any. Mother gave her a cent for biscuits.
Petrine gave you a cent for biscuits and you go and spend it on
lollipops. What are we to do?"
He looks at me in despair, holds me tight, says a thousand things
without speaking a word.
"If only we had a cent," I say. "Then you could rush over the way and
fetch the biscuits."
"Father. . . ." His eyes open very wide and he speaks so softly that I
can hardly hear him. "There is a cent on mother's writing-table."
"Is there?" I cry with delight. But, at the same moment, I shake my head
and my face is overcast again. "That is no use to us, my little boy.
That cent belongs to mother. The other was Petrine's. People are so
terribly fond of their money and get so angry when you take it from
them. I can understand that, for you can buy such an awful lot of things
with money. You can get biscuits and lollipops and clothes and toys and
half the things in the world. And it is not so easy either to make
money. Most people have to drudge all day long to earn as much as they
want. So it is no wonder that they get angry when you take it.
Especially when it is only for lollipops. Now Petrine . . . she has to
spend the whole day cleaning rooms and cooking dinner and washing up
before she gets her wages. And out of that she has to buy clothes and
shoes . . . and you know that she has a little girl whom she has to pay
for at Madam Olsen's. She must certainly have saved very cleverly before
she managed to buy you that ball."
We walk up and down the room, hand in hand. He keeps on falling over his
legs, for he can't take his eyes from my face.
"Father . . . haven't you got a cent?"