IV

At four, Lasse and Pelle were dressed and were opening the cow-stable

doors on the field side. The earth was rolling off its white covering

of night mist, and the morning rose prophetically. Lasse stood still in

the doorway, yawning, and making up his mind about the weather for the

day; but Pelle let the soft tones of the wind and the song of the

lark—all that was stirring—beat upon his little heart. With open mouth

and doubtful eyes he gazed into the incomprehensible as represented by

each new day with all its unimagined possibilities. “To-day you must

take your coat with you, for we shall have rain about midday,” Lasse

would then say; and Pelle peered into the sky to find out where his

father got his knowledge from. For it generally came true.

They then set about cleaning out the dung in the cow-stable, Pelle

scraping the floor under the cows and sweeping it up, Lasse filling the

wheelbarrow and wheeling it out. At half-past five they ate their

morning meal of salt herring and porridge.

After that Pelle set out with the young cattle, his dinner basket on

his arm, and his whip wound several times round his neck. His father

had made him a short, thick stick with rings on it, that he could

rattle admonishingly and throw at the animals; but Pelle preferred the

whip, because he was not yet strong enough to use it.

He was little, and at first he had some difficulty in making an

impression upon the great forces over which he was placed. He could not

get his voice to sound sufficiently terrifying, and on the way out from

the farm he had hard work, especially up near the farm, where the corn

stood high on both sides of the field-road. The animals were hungry in

the morning, and the big bullocks did not trouble to move when once

they had their noses buried in the corn and he stood belaboring them

with the short handle of the cattle- whip. The twelve-foot lash, which,

in a practised hand, left little triangular marks in the animal’s hide,

he could not manage at all; and if he kicked the bullock on the head

with his wooden shoe, it only closed its eyes good-naturedly, and

browsed on sedately with its back to him. Then he would break into a

despairing roar, or into little fits of rage in which he attacked the

animal blindly and tried to get at its eyes; but it was all equally

useless. He could always make the calves move by twisting their tails,

but the bullocks’ tails were too strong.

He did not cry, however, for long at a time over the failure of his

resources. One evening he got his father to put a spike into the toe of

one of his wooden shoes, and after that his kick was respected. Partly

by himself, and partly through Rud, he also learned where to find the

places on the animals where it hurt most. The cow-calves and the two

bull-calves all had their particular tender spot, and a well-directed

blow upon a horn could make even the large bullocks bellow with pain.

The driving out was hard work, but the herding itself was easy. When

once the cattle were quietly grazing, he felt like a general, and made

his voice sound out incessantly over the meadow, while his little body

swelled with pride and a sense of power.

Being away from his father was a trouble to him. He did not go home to

dinner, and often in the middle of his play, despair would come over

him and he would imagine that something had happened to his father,

that the great bull had tossed him or something else; and he would

leave everything, and start running homeward crying, but would remember

in time the bailiff’s whip, and trudge back again. He found a remedy

for his longing by stationing himself so that he could keep a lookout

on the fields up there, and see his father when he went out to move the

dairy-cows.

He taught himself to whittle boats and little rakes and hoes and

decorate sticks with patterns cut upon the bark. He was clever with his

knife and made diligent use of it. He would also stand for hours on the

top of a monolith—he thought it was a gate-post—and try to crack his

cattle-whip like a pistol-shot. He had to climb to a height to get the

lash off the ground at all.

When the animals lay down in the middle of the morning, he was often

tired too, and then he would seat himself upon the head of one of the

big bullocks, and hold on to the points of its horns; and while the

animal lay chewing with a gentle vibration like a machine, he sat upon

its head and shouted at the top of his voice songs about blighted

affections and horrible massacres.

Toward midday Rud came running up, as hungry as a hunter. His mother

sent him out of the house when the hour for a meal drew near. Pelle

shared the contents of his basket with him, but required him to bring

the animals together a certain number of times for every portion of

food. The two boys could not exist apart for a whole day together. They

tumbled about in the field like two puppies, fought and made it up

again twenty times a day, swore the most fearful threats of vengeance

that should come in the shape of this or that grown-up person, and the

next moment had their arms round one another’s necks.

About half-a-mile of sand-dunes separated the Stone Farm fields from

the sea. Within this belt of sand the land was stony and afforded poor

grazing; but on both sides of the brook a strip of green meadow-land

ran down among the dunes, which were covered with dwarf firs and

grass-wrack to bind the sand. The best grazing was on this meadow-land,

but it was hard work minding both sides of it, as the brook ran

between; and it had been impressed upon the boy with severe threats,

that no animal must set its foot upon the dune-land, as the smallest

opening might cause a sand-drift. Pelle took the matter quite

literally, and all that summer imagined something like an explosion

that would make everything fly into the air the instant an animal trod

upon it; and this possibility hung like a fate at the back of

everything when he herded down there. When Rud came and they wanted to

play, he drove the cattle up on to the poor pasture where there was

plenty of room for them.

When the sun shone the boys ran about naked. They dared not venture

down to the sea for fear of the bailiff, who, they were sure, always

stood up in the attic of the big house, and watched Pelle through his

telescope; but they bathed in the brook—in and out of the water

continually for hours together.

After heavy rain it became swollen, and was then quite milky from the

china clay that it washed away from the banks farther up. The boys

thought it was milk from an enormous farm far up in the island. At high

water the sea ran up and filled the brook with decaying seaweed that

colored the water crimson; and this was the blood of all the people

drowned out in the sea.

Between their bathes they lay under the dunes and let the sun dry them.

They made a minute examination of their bodies, and discussed the use

and intention of the various parts. Upon this head Rud’s knowledge was

superior, and he took the part of instructor. They often quarrelled as

to which of them was the best equipped in one way or another—in other

words, had the largest. Pelle, for instance, envied Rud his

disproportionately large head.

Pelle was a well-built little fellow, and had put on flesh since he had

come to Stone Farm. His glossy skin was stretched smoothly over his

body, and was of a warm, sunburnt color. Rud had a thin neck in

proportion to his head, and his forehead was angular and covered with

scars, the results of innumerable falls. He had not full command of all

his limbs, and was always knocking and bruising himself; there were

blue, livid patches all over him that were slow to disappear, for he

had flesh that did not heal easily. But he was not so open in his envy

as Pelle. He asserted himself by boasting of his defects until he made

them out to be sheer achievements; so that Pelle ended by envying him

everything from the bottom of his heart.

Rud had not Pelle’s quick perception of things, but he had more

instinct, and on certain points possessed quite a talent in

anticipating what Pelle only learned by experience. He was already

avaricious to a certain extent, and suspicious without connecting any

definite thoughts with it. He ate the lion’s share of the food, and had

a variety of ways of getting out of doing the work.

Behind their play there lay, clothed in the most childish forms, a

struggle for the supremacy, and for the present Pelle was the one who

came off second best. In an emergency, Rud always knew how to appeal to

his good qualities and turn them to his own advantage.

And through all this they were the best friends in the world, and were

quite inseparable. Pelle was always looking toward “the Sow’s” cottage

when he was alone, and Rud ran off from home as soon as he saw his

opportunity.

It had rained hard in the course of the morning, in spite of Lasse, and

Pelle was wet through. Now the blue-black cloud was drawing away over

the sea, and the boats lay in the middle of it with all their red sails

set, and yet motionless. The sunlight flashed and glittered on wet

surfaces, making everything look bright; and Pelle hung his clothes on

a dwarf fir to dry.

He was cold, and crept close up to Peter, the biggest of the bullocks,

as he lay chewing the cud. The animal was steaming, but Pelle could not

bring warmth into his extremities, where the cold had taken hold. His

teeth chattered, too, and he was shivering.

And even now there was one of the cows that would not let him have any

peace. Every time he had snuggled right in under the bullock and was

beginning to get a little warmer, the cow strayed away over the

northern boundary. There was nothing but sand there, but when it was a

calf there had been a patch of mixed crops, and it still remembered

that.

It was one of two cows that had been turned out of the dairy-herd on

account of their dryness. They were ill-tempered creatures, always

discontented and doing some mischief or other; and Pelle detested them

heartily. They were two regular termagants, upon which even thrashing

made no impression. The one was a savage beast, that would suddenly

begin stamping and bellowing like a mad bull in the middle of grazing,

and, if Pelle went toward it, wanted to toss him; and when it saw its

opportunity, it would eat up the cloth in which Pelle’s dinner was

wrapped. The other was old and had crumpled horns that pointed in

toward its eyes, one of which had a white pupil.

It was the noisy one that was now at its tricks. Every other minute

Pelle had to get up and shout: “Hi, Blakka, you villainous beast! Just

you come back!” He was hoarse with anger, and at last his patience gave

way, and he caught up a big stick and began to chase the cow. As soon

as it saw his intention, it set off at a run up toward the farm, and

Pelle had to make a wide circle to turn it down to the herd again. Then

it ran at full gallop in and out among the other animals, the herd

became confused and ran hither and thither, and Pelle had to relinquish

his pursuit for a time while he gathered them together. But then he

began again at once. He was boiling with rage, and leaped about like an

indiarubber ball, his naked body flashing in loops and curves upon the

green grass. He was only a few yards from the cow, but the distance

remained the same; he could not catch her up to-day.

He stopped up by the rye-field, and the cow stood still almost at the

same moment. It snapped at a few ears, and moved its head slowly to

choose its direction. In a couple of leaps Pelle was up to it and had

hold of its tail. He hit it over the nose with his cudgel, it turned

quickly away from the rye, and set off at a flying pace down toward the

others, while blows rained down upon its bony prominences. Every stroke

echoed back from the dunes like blows upon the trunk of a tree, and

made Pelle swell with pride. The cow tried to shake Pelle off as it

ran, but he was not to be got rid of; it crossed the brook in long

bounds, backward and forward, with Pelle almost floating through the

air; but the blows continued to rain down upon it. Then it grew tired

and began to slacken its pace; and at last it came to a standstill,

coughed, and resigned itself to the thrashing.

Pelle threw himself flat upon his face, and panted. Ha, ha! _That_ had

made him warm! Now that beast should—He rolled suddenly over on to his

side with a start. The bailiff! But it was a strange man with a beard

who stood over him, looking at him with serious eyes. The stranger went

on gazing at him for a long time without saying anything, and Pelle

grew more and more uneasy under his scrutiny; he had the sun right in

his eyes too, if he tried to return the man’s gaze, and the cow still

stood there coughing.

“What do you think the bailiff will say?” asked the man at last,

quietly.

“I don’t think he’s seen it,” whispered Pelle, looking timidly round.

“But God has seen it, for He sees everything. And He has led me here to

stop the evil in you while there’s still time. Wouldn’t you like to be

God’s child?” The man sat down beside him and took his hand.

Pelle sat tugging at the grass and wishing he had had his clothes on.

“And you must never forget that God sees everything you do; even in the

darkest night He sees. We are always walking in God’s sight. But come

now, it’s unseemly to run about naked!” And the man took him by the

hand and led him to his clothes, and then, going across to the north

side, he gathered the herd together while Pelle dressed himself. The

wicked cow was over there again already, and had drawn a few of the

others after it. Pelle watched the man in surprise; he drove the

animals back quite quietly, neither using stones nor shouting. Before

he got back, Blakka had once more crossed the boundary; but he turned

and brought her back again just as gently as before.

“That’s not an easy cow to manage,” he said kindly, when he returned;

“but you’ve got young legs. Shan’t we agree to burn that?” he asked,

picking up the thick cudgel, “and do what we have to do with just our

hands? God will always help you when you’re in difficulties. And if you

want to be a true child of God, you must tell the bailiff this evening

what you did—and take your punishment.” He placed his hand upon Pelle’s

head, and looked at him with that unendurable gaze; and then he left

him, taking the stick with him.

For a long time Pelle followed him with his eyes. So that was what a

man looked like, who was sent by God to warn you! Now he knew, and it

would be some time before he chased a cow like that again. But go to

the bailiff, and tell of himself, and get the whip-lash on his bare

legs? Not if he knew it! Rather than that, God would have to be

angry—if it was really true that He could see everything? It couldn’t

be worse than the bailiff, anyhow.

All that morning he was very quiet. He felt the man’s eyes upon him in

everything he did, and it robbed him of his confidence. He silently

tested things, and saw everything in a new light; it was best not to

make a noise, if you were always walking in the sight of God. He did

not go on cracking his cattle-whip, but meditated a little on whether

he should burn that too.

But a little before midday Rud appeared, and the whole incident was

forgotten. Rud was smoking a bit of cane that he had cut off the piece

his mother used for cleaning the stove-pipes, and Pelle bartered some

of his dinner for a few pulls at it. First they seated themselves

astride the bullock Cupid, which was lying chewing the cud. It went on

calmly chewing with closed eyes, until Rud put the glowing cane to the

root of its tail, when it rose hastily, both boys rolling over its

head. They laughed and boasted to one another of the somersault they

had turned, as they went up on to the high ground to look for

blackberries. Thence they went to some birds’ nests in the small firs,

and last of all they set about their best game—digging up mice-nests.

Pelle knew every mouse-hole in the meadow, and they lay down and

examined them carefully. “Here’s one that has mice in it,” said Rud.

“Look, here’s their dunghill!”

“Yes, that smells of mouse,” said Pelle, putting his nose to the hole.

“And the blades of grass turn outward, so the old ones must be out.”

With Pelle’s knife they cut away the turf, and set to work eagerly to

dig with two pieces of pot. The soil flew about their heads as they

talked and laughed.

“My word, how fast we’re getting on!”

“Yes; Ström couldn’t work as fast!” Ström was a famous worker who got

twenty-five öres a day more than other autumn farm-hands, and his

example was used as an incentive to coax work out of the laborers.

“We shall soon get right into the inside of the earth.”

“Well, but it’s burning hot in there.”

“Oh, nonsense: is it?” Pelle paused doubtfully in his digging.

“Yes, the schoolmaster says so.”

The boys hesitated and put their hands down into the hole. Yes, it was

warm at the bottom—so warm that Pelle found it necessary to pull out

his hand and say: “Oh, my word!” They considered a little, and then

went on scraping out the hole as carefully as if their lives depended

on it. In a little while straw appeared in the passage, and in a moment

the internal heat of the earth was forgotten. In less than a minute

they had uncovered the nest, and laid the little pink, new-born mice

out on the grass. They looked like half-hatched birds.

“They _are_ ugly,” said Pelle, who did not quite like taking hold of

them, but was ashamed not to do so. “They’re much nastier to touch than

toads. I believe they’re poisonous.”

Rud lay pinching them between his fingers.

“Poisonous! Don’t be silly! Why, they haven’t any teeth! There are no

bones in them at all; I’m sure you could eat them quite well.”

“Pah! Beastly!” Pelle spat on the ground.

“I shouldn’t be at all afraid of biting one; would you?” Rud lifted a

little mouse up toward his mouth.

“Afraid? Of course I’m not afraid—but—” Pelle hesitated.

“No, you’re afraid, because you’re a blue-bag!”

Now this nickname really only applied to boys who were afraid of water,

but Pelle quickly seized one of the little mice, and held it up to his

mouth, at exactly the same distance from his lips that Rud was from

his. “You can see for yourself!” he cried, in an offended tone.

Rud went on talking, with many gestures.

“You’re afraid,” he said, “and it’s because you’re Swedish. But when

you’re afraid, you should just shut your eyes—so—and open your mouth.

Then you pretend to put the mouse right into your mouth, and then—” Rud

had his mouth wide open, and held his hand close to his mouth; Pelle

was under his influence, and imitated his movements—“and then—” Pelle

received a blow that sent the little mouse halfway down his throat. He

retched and spat; and then his hands fumbled in the grass and got hold

of a stone. But by the time he was on his feet and was going to throw

it, Rud was far away up the fields. “I must go home now!” he shouted

innocently. “There’s something I’ve got to help mother with.”

Pelle did not love solitude, and the prospect of a blockade determined

him at once for negotiations. He dropped the stone to show his serious

wish for a reconciliation, and had to swear solemnly that he would not

bear malice. Then at last Rud came back, tittering.

“I was going to show you something funny with the mouse,” he said by

way of diversion; “but you held on to it like an idiot.” He did not

venture to come quite close up to Pelle, but stood watching his

movements.

Pelle was acquainted with the little white lie when the danger of a

thrashing was imminent, but the lie as an attack was still unknown to

him. If Rud, now that the whole thing was over, said that he only

wanted to have shown him something funny, it must be true. But then why

was he mistrustful? Pelle tried, as he had so often done before, to

bend his little brain round the possible tricks of his playmate, but

failed.

“You may just as well come up close,” he said stoutly. “For if I wanted

to, I could easily catch you up.”

Rud came. “Now we’ll catch big mice.” he said. “That’s better fun.”

They emptied Pelle’s milk-bottle, and hunted up a mouse’s nest that

appeared to have only two exits, one up in the meadow, the other

halfway down the bank of the stream. Here they pushed in the mouth of

the bottle, and widened the hole in the meadow into a funnel; and they

took it in turns to keep an eye on the bottle, and to carry water up to

the other hole in their caps. It was not long before a mouse popped out

into the bottle, which they then corked.

What should they do with it? Pelle proposed that they should tame it

and train it to draw their little agricultural implements; but Rud, as

usual, got his way—it was to go out sailing.

Where the stream turned, and had hollowed out its bed into a hole as

big as a cauldron, they made an inclined plane and let the bottle slide

down into the water head foremost, like a ship being launched. They

could follow it as it curved under the water until it came up

slantingly, and stood bobbing up and down on the water like a buoy,

with its neck up. The mouse made the funniest leaps up toward the cork

to get out; and the boys jumped up and down on the grass with delight.

“It knows the way it got in quite well!” They imitated its unsuccessful

leaps, lay down again and rolled about in exuberant mirth. At last,

however, the joke became stale.

“Let’s take out the cork!” suggested Rud.

“Yes—oh, yes!” Pelle waded quickly in, and was going to set the mouse

at liberty.

“Wait a minute, you donkey!” Rud snatched the bottle from him, and

holding his hand over the mouth, put it back, into the water. “Now

we’ll see some fun!” he cried, hastening up the bank.

It was a little while before the mouse discovered that the way was

open, but then it leaped. The leap was unsuccessful, and made the

bottle rock, so that the second leap was slanting and rebounded

sideways. But then followed with lightning rapidity a number of leaps—a

perfect bombardment; and suddenly the mouse flew right out of the

bottle, head foremost into the water.

“That was a leap and a half!” cried Pelle, jumping straight up and down

in the grass, with his arms at his sides. “It could just squeeze its

body through, just exactly!” And he jumped again, squeezing himself

together.

The mouse swam to land, but Rud was there, and pushed it out again with

his foot. “It swam well,” he said, laughing. It made for the opposite

bank. “Look out for the fellow!” Rud roared, and Pelle sprang forward

and turned it away from the shore with a good kick. It swam helplessly

backward and forward in the middle of the pool, seeing one of the two

dancing figures every time it approached a bank, and turning and

turning endlessly. It sank deeper and deeper, its fur becoming wet and

dragging it down, until at last it swam right under water. Suddenly it

stretched out its body convulsively, and sank to the bottom, with all

four legs outspread like a wide embrace.

Pelle had all at once comprehended the perplexity and helplessness

—perhaps was familiar with it. At the animal’s final struggle, he burst

into tears with a little scream, and ran, crying loudly, up the meadow

toward the fir-plantation. In a little while he came back again. “I

really thought Cupid had run away,” he said repeatedly, and carefully

avoided looking Rud in the face. Quietly he waded into the water, and

fished up the dead mouse with his foot.

They laid it upon a stone in the sun, so that it might come to life

again. When that failed, Pelle remembered a story about some people who

were drowned in a lake at home, and who came to themselves again when

cannons were fired over them. They clapped their hollowed hands over

the mouse, and when that too brought about no result, they decided to

bury it.

Rud happened to remember that his grandmother in Sweden was being

buried just now, and this made them go about the matter with a certain

amount of solemnity. They made a coffin out of a matchbox, and

ornamented it with moss; and then they lay on their faces and lowered

the coffin into the grave with twine, taking every possible care that

it should not land upon its head. A rope might give way; such things

did sometimes happen, and the illusion did not permit of their

correcting the position of the coffin afterward with their hands. When

this was done, Pelle looked down into his cap, while Rud prayed over

the deceased and cast earth upon the coffin; and then they made up the

grave.

“I only hope it’s not in a trance and going to wake up again!”

exclaimed Pelle suddenly. They had both heard many unpleasant stories

of such cases, and went over all the possibilities—how they woke up and

couldn’t get any air, and knocked upon the lid, and began to eat their

own hands—until Pelle could distinctly hear a knocking on the lid

below. They had the coffin up in a trice, and examined the mouse. It

had not eaten its forepaws, at any rate, but it had most decidedly

turned over on its side. They buried it again, putting a dead beetle

beside it in the coffin for safety’s sake, and sticking a straw down

into the grave to supply it with air. Then they ornamented the mound,

and set up a memorial stone.

“It’s dead now!” said Pelle, gravely and with conviction.

“Yes, I should just think so—dead as a herring.” Rud had put his ear to

the straw and listened.

“And now it must be up with God in all His glory—right high, high up.”

Rud sniffed contemptuously. “Oh, you silly! Do you think it can crawl

up there?”

“Well, can’t mice crawl, I should like to know?” Pelle was cross.

“Yes; but not through the air. Only birds can do that.”

Pelle felt himself beaten off the field and wanted to be revenged.

“Then your grandmother isn’t in heaven, either!” he declared

emphatically. There was still a little rancor in his heart from the

young mouse episode.

But this was more than Rud could stand. It had touched his family

pride, and he gave Pelle a dig in the side with his elbow. The next

moment they were rolling in the grass, holding one another by the hair,

and making awkward attempts to hit one another on the nose with their

clenched fists. They turned over and over like one lump, now one

uppermost, now the other; they hissed hoarsely, groaned and made

tremendous exertions. “I’ll make you sneeze red,” said Pelle angrily,

as he rose above his adversary; but the next moment he was down again,

with Rud hanging over him and uttering the most fearful threats about

black eyes and seeing stars. Their voices were thick with passion.

And suddenly they were sitting opposite one another on the grass

wondering whether they should set up a howl. Rud put out his tongue,

Pelle went a step further and began to laugh, and they were once more

the best of friends. They set up the memorial stone, which had been

overturned in the heat of battle, and then sat down hand in hand, to

rest after the storm, a little quieter than usual.

It was not because there was more evil in Pelle, but because the

question had acquired for him an importance of its own, and he must

understand it, that a meditative expression came into his eyes, and he

said thoughtfully:

“Well, but you’ve told me yourself that she was paralyzed in her legs!”

“Well, what if she was?”

“Why, then she couldn’t crawl up into heaven.”

“Oh, you booby! It’s her spirit, of course!”

“Then the mouse’s spirit can very well be up there too.”

“No, it can’t, for mice haven’t got any spirit.”

“Haven’t they? Then how is it they can breathe?”[1]

[1] In Danish, spirit = aand, and to breathe = aande.

That was one for Rud! And the tiresome part of it was that he attended

Sunday-school. His fists would have come in handy again now, but his

instinct told him that sooner or later Pelle would get the better of

him in fighting. And anyhow his grandmother was saved.

“Yes,” he said, yielding; “and it certainly could breathe. Well, then,

it was its spirit flying up that overturned the stone—that’s what it

was!”

A distant sound reached them, and far off near the cottage they could

see the figure of a fat woman, beckoning threateningly.

“The Sow’s calling you,” said Pelle. The two boys never called her

anything but “the Sow” between themselves.

So Rud had to go. He was allowed to take the greater part of the

contents of the dinner-basket with him, and ate as he ran. They had

been too busy to eat.

Pelle sat down among the dunes and ate his dinner. As usual when Rud

had been with him, he could not imagine what had become of the day. The

birds had ceased singing, and not one of the cattle was still lying

down, so it must be at least five o’clock.

Up at the farm they were busy driving in. It went at full gallop— out

and in, out and in. The men stood up in the carts and thrashed away at

the horses with the end of the reins, and the swaying loads were

hurried along the field-roads, looking like little bristling, crawling

things, that have been startled and are darting to their holes.

A one-horsed vehicle drove out from the farm, and took the high-road to

the town at a quick trot. It was the farmer; he was driving so fast

that he was evidently off to the town on the spree. So there was

something gone wrong at home, and there would be crying at the farm

that night.

Yes, there was Father Lasse driving out with the water-cart, so it was

half-past five. He could tell that too by the birds beginning their

pleasant evening twittering, that was soft and sparkling like the rays

of the sun.

Far inland above the stone-quarry, where the cranes stood out against

the sky, a cloud of smoke rose every now and then into the air, and

burst in a fountain of pieces of rock. Long after came the explosion,

bit by bit in a series of rattling reverberations. It sounded as if

some one were running along and slapping his thigh with fingerless

gloves.

The last few hours were always long—the sun was so slow about it. And

there was nothing to fill up the time either. Pelle himself was tired,

and the tranquillity of evening had the effect of subduing his voice.

But now they were driving out for milking up there, and the cattle were

beginning to graze along the edge of the meadow that turned toward the

farm; so the time was drawing near.

At last the herd-boys began to jodel over at the neighboring farms,

first one, and then several joining in:

“Oh, drive home, o-ho, o-o-ho!

O-ho, o-ho!

O-ho, o-ho!

Oh, drive home, o-o-ho!

O-ho!”

From all sides the soft tones vibrated over the sloping land, running

out, like the sound of happy weeping, into the first glow of evening;

and Pelle’s animals began to move farther after each pause to graze.

But he did not dare to drive them home yet, for it only meant a

thrashing from the bailiff or the pupil if he arrived too early.

He stood at the upper end of the meadow, and called his homeward-

drifting flock together; and when the last tones of the call had died

away, he began it himself, and stepped on one side. The animals ran

with a peculiar little trot and heads extended. The shadow of the grass

lay in long thin stripes across the ground, and the shadows of the

animals were endless. Now and then a calf lowed slowly and broke into a

gallop. They were yearning for home, and Pelle was yearning too.

From behind a hollow the sun darted long rays out into space, as if it

had called all its powers home for the night, and now poured them forth

in one great longing, from west to east. Everything pointed in long

thin lines, and the eager longing of the cattle seemed visible in the

air.

To the mind of the child there was nothing left out of doors now;

everything was being taken in, and he longed for his father with a

longing that was almost a pain. And when at last he turned the corner

with the herd, and saw old Lasse standing there, smiling happily with

his red-rimmed eyes, and opening the gate to the fold, the boy gave way

and threw himself weeping into his father’s arms.

“What’s the matter, laddie? What’s the matter?” asked the old man, with

concern in his voice, stroking the child’s face with a trembling hand.

“Has any one been unkind to you? No? Well, that’s a good thing! They’d

better take care, for happy children are in God’s own keeping. And

Lasse would be an awkward customer if it came to that. So you were

longing for me, were you? Then it’s good to be in your little heart,

and it only makes Lasse happy. But go in now and get your supper, and

don’t cry any more.” And he wiped the boy’s nose with his hard, crooked

fingers, and pushed him gently away.

V

Pelle was not long in finding out all about the man who had been sent

by God, and had the grave, reproachful eyes. He proved to be nothing

but a little shoemaker down in the village, who spoke at the

meeting-house on Sundays; and it was also said that his wife drank. Rud

went to his Sunday-school, and he was poor; so he was nothing out of

the ordinary.

Moreover, Gustav had got a cap which could turn out three different

crowns—one of blue duffle, one of water-proof American cloth, and one

of white canvas for use in sunny weather. It was an absorbingly

interesting study that threw everything else into the background, and

exercised Pelle’s mind for many days; and he used this miraculous cap

as a standard by which to measure everything great and desirable. But

one day he gave Gustav a beautifully carved stick for permission to

perform the trick of turning the crown inside out himself; and that set

his mind at rest at last, and the cap had to take its place in his

everyday world like everything else.

But what did it look like in Farmer Kongstrup’s big rooms? Money lay

upon the floor there, of course, the gold in one place and the silver

in another; and in the middle of each heap stood a half-bushel measure.

What did the word _“practical”_ mean, which the bailiff used when he

talked to the farmer? And why did the men call one another _“Swede”_ as

a term of abuse? Why, they were all Swedes! What was there away beyond

the cliffs where the stone-quarry lay? The farm-lands extended as far

as that on the one side. He had not been there yet, but was going with

his father as soon as an opportunity presented itself. They had learnt

quite by chance that Lasse had a brother who owned a house over there;

so of course they knew the place comparatively well.

Down there lay the sea; he had sailed upon it himself! Ships both of

iron and wood sailed upon it, though how iron could float when it was

so heavy he did not know! The sea must be strong, for in the pond, iron

went to the bottom at once. In the middle of the pond there was no

bottom, so there you’d go on sinking forever! The old thatcher, when he

was young, had had more than a hundred fathoms of rope down there with

a drag, to fish up a bucket, but he never reached the bottom. And when

he wanted to pull up the rope again, there was some one deep down who

caught hold of the drag and tried to pull him down, so he had to let

the whole thing go.

God … well, He had a long white beard like the farmer at Kaase Farm;

but who kept house for Him now He was old? Saint Peter was His bailiff,

of course!… How could the old, dry cows have just as young calves as

the young ones? And so on, and so on.

There was one subject about which, as a matter of course, there could

be no question, nor any thought at all in that sense, because it was

the very foundation of all existence—Father Lasse. He was there,

simply, he stood like a safe wall behind everything that one did. He

was the real Providence, the last great refuge in good and ill; he

could do whatever he liked—Father Lasse was almighty.

Then there was one natural centre in the world—Pelle himself.

Everything grouped itself about him, everything existed for him—for him

to play with, to shudder at, or to put on one side for a great future.

Even distant trees, houses and rocks in the landscape, that he had

never been up to, assumed an attitude toward him, either friendly or

hostile; and the relation had to be carefully decided in the case of

each new thing that appeared upon his horizon.

His world was small; he had only just begun to create it. For a good

arm’s-length on all sides of him, there was more or less _terra firma_;

but beyond that floated raw matter, chaos. But Pelle already found his

world immense, and was quite willing to make it infinite. He attacked

everything with insatiable appetite; his ready perceptions laid hold of

all that came within their reach; they were like the mouth of a

machine, into which matter was incessantly rushing in small, whirling

particles. And in the draught they raised, came others and again

others; the entire universe was on its way toward him.

Pelle shaped and set aside twenty new things in the course of a second.

The earth grew out under him into a world that was rich in excitement

and grotesque forms, discomfort and the most everyday things. He went

about in it uncertainly, for there was always something that became

displaced and had to be revalued or made over again; the most

matter-of-fact things would change and all at once become terrifying

marvels, or _vice versa_. He went about in a state of continual

wonderment, and assumed an expectant attitude even with regard to the

most familiar things; for who could tell what surprises they might give

one?

As an instance; he had all his life had opportunities of verifying the

fact that trouser-buttons were made of bone and had five holes, one

large one in the middle and four smaller ones round it. And then one

day, one of the men comes home from the town with a pair of new

trousers, the buttons of which are made of bright metal and are no

larger than a sixpenny-piece! They have only four holes, and the thread

is to lie across them, not from the middle outward, as in the old ones.

Or take the great eclipse of the sun, that he had wondered so much

about all the summer, and that all the old people said would bring

about the destruction of the world. He had looked forward to it,

especially the destruction part of it; it would be something of an

adventure, and somewhere within him there was a little bit of confident

assurance that it would all come right as far as he was concerned. The

eclipse did come too, as it was meant to; it grew dark too, as if it

were the Last Day, and the birds became so quiet, and the cattle

bellowed and wanted to run home. But then it grew light again and it

all came to nothing.

Then there were fearful terrors that all at once revealed themselves as

tiny, tiny things—thank goodness! But there were also anticipated

pleasures that made your heart beat, and when you got up to them they

were dullness itself.

Far out in the misty mass, invisible worlds floated by that had nothing

to do with his own. A sound coming out of the unknown created them in a

twinkling. They came into existence in the same way that the land had

done that morning he had stood upon the deck of the steamer, and heard

voices and noise through the fog, thick and big, with forms that looked

like huge gloves without fingers.

And inside one there was blood and a heart and a soul. The heart Pelle

had found out about himself; it was a little bird shut up in there. But

the soul bored its way like a serpent to whatever part of the body

desire occupied. Old thatcher Holm had once drawn the soul like a thin

thread out of the thumb of a man who couldn’t help stealing. Pelle’s

own soul was good; it lay in the pupils of his eyes, and reflected

Father Lasse’s image whenever he looked into them.

The blood was the worst, and so Father Lasse always let himself be bled

when there was anything the matter with him; the bad humors had to be

let out. Gustav thought a great deal about blood, and could tell the

strangest things about it; and he cut his fingers only to see whether

it was ripe. One evening he came over to the cow-stable and exhibited a

bleeding finger. The blood was quite black. “Now I’m a man!” he said,

and swore a great oath; but the maids only made fun of him, and said

that he had not carried his four bushels of peas up into the loft yet.

Then there was hell and heaven, and the stone-quarry where they struck

one another with heavy hammers when they were drunk. The men in the

stone-quarry were the strongest men in the world. One of them had eaten

ten poached eggs at one time without being ill; and there is nothing so

strengthening as eggs.

Down in the meadow, will-o’-the-wisps hopped about looking for

something in the deep summer nights. There was always one of them near

the stream, and it stood and danced on the top of a little heap of

stones that lay in the middle of the meadow. A couple of years ago a

girl had one night given birth to a child out there among the dunes and

as she did not know what to do about a father for it, she drowned it in

one of the pools that the brook makes where it turns. Good people

raised the little cairn, so that the place should not be forgotten; and

over it the child’s soul used to burn at dead of night at the time of

year at which it was born. Pelle believed that the child itself was

buried beneath the stones, and now and then ornamented the mound with a

branch of fir; but he never played at that part of the stream. The girl

was sent across the sea, sentenced to penal servitude for many years,

and people wondered at the father. She had not named any one, but every

one knew who it was all the same. He was a young, well-to-do fisherman

down in the village, and the girl was one of the poorest, so there

could never have been any question of their marrying. The girl must

have preferred this to begging help of him for the child, and living in

the village with an illegitimate child, an object of universal

derision. And he had certainly put a bold face on the matter, where

many another would have been ashamed and gone away on a long voyage.

This summer, two years after the girl went to prison, the fisherman was

going home one night along the shore toward the village with some nets

on his back. He was of a callous nature, and did not hesitate to take

the shortest way across the meadow; but when he got in among the dunes,

he saw a will-o’-the-wisp following in his steps, grew frightened, and

began to run. It began to gain upon him, and when he leaped across the

brook to put water between himself and the spirit, it seized hold of

the nets. At this he shouted the name of God, and fled like one bereft

of his senses. The next morning at sunrise he and his father went to

fetch the nets. They had caught on the cairn, and lay right across the

stream.

Then the young man joined the Revivalists, and his father abandoned his

riotous life and followed him. Early and late the young fisherman was

to be found at their meetings, and at other times he went about like a

malefactor with his head hanging down, only waiting for the girl to

come out of prison, so that he could marry her.

Pelle was up in it all. The girls talked shudderingly about it as they

sat upon the men’s knees in the long summer evenings, and a lovesick

fellow from inland had made up a ballad about it, which Gustav sang to

his concertina. Then all the girls on the farm wept, and even Lively

Sara’s eyes filled with tears, and she began to talk to Mons about

engagement rings.

One day when Pelle was lying on his face in the grass, singing and

clapping his naked feet together in the clear air, he saw a young man

standing by the cairn and putting on it stones which he took out of his

pocket; after which he knelt down. Pelle went up to him.

“What are you doing?” he asked boldly, feeling that he was in his own

domain. “Are you saying your prayers?”

The man did not answer, but remained in a kneeling posture. At last he

rose, and spat out tobacco-juice.

“I’m praying to Him Who is to judge us all,” he said, looking steadily

at Pelle.

Pelle recognized that look. It was the same in expression as that of

the man the other day—the one that had been sent by God. Only there was

no reproach in it.

“Haven’t you any bed to sleep in then?” asked Pelle. “I always say my

prayers under the clothes. He hears them just as well! God knows

everything.”

The young man nodded, and began moving about the stones on the cairn.

“You mustn’t hurt that,” said Pelle firmly, “for there’s a little baby

buried there.”

The young man turned upon him a strange look.

“That’s not true!” he said thickly; “for the child lies up in the

churchyard in consecrated earth.”

“O—oh, inde—ed?” said Pelle, imitating his father’s slow tones. “But I

know it was the parents that drowned it—and buried it here.” He was too

proud of his knowledge to relinquish it without a word.

The man looked as if he were about to strike him, and Pelle retreated a

little, and then, having confidence in his legs, he laughed openly. But

the other seemed no longer aware of his presence, and stood looking

dully past the cairn. Pelle drew nearer again.

The man started at Pelle’s shadow, and heaved a deep sigh. “Is that

you?” he said apathetically, without looking at Pelle. “Why can’t you

leave me alone?”

“It’s _my_ field,” said Pelle, “because I herd here; but you may stay

here if you won’t hit me. And you mustn’t touch the cairn, because

there’s a little baby buried there.”

The young man looked gravely at Pelle. “It’s not true what you say! How

dare you tell such a lie? God hates a lie. But you’re a simple-hearted

child, and I’ll tell you all about it without hiding anything, as truly

as I only want to walk wholly in God’s sight.”

Pelle looked at him uncomprehendingly. “I should think I ought to know

all about it,” he said, “considering I know the whole song by heart. I

can sing it to you, if you like. It goes like this.” Pelle began to

sing in a voice that was a little tremulous with shyness—

“So happy are we in our childhood’s first years,

Neither sorrow nor sin is our mead;

We play, and there’s nought in our path to raise fears

That it straight into prison doth lead.

Right many there are that with voice sorrowful

Must oft for lost happiness long.

To make the time pass in this prison so dull,

I now will write down all my song.

I played with my father, with mother I played,

And childhood’s days came to an end;

And when I had grown up into a young maid,

I played still, but now with my friend.

I gave him my day and I gave him my night,

And never once thought of deceit;

But when I him told of my sorrowful plight,

My trust I had cause to regret.

‘I never have loved you,’ he quickly did say;

‘Begone! I’ll ne’er see you again!’

He turned on his heel and went angry away.

’Twas then I a murd’ress became.”

Here Pelle paused in astonishment, for the grown-up man had sunk

forward as he sat, and he was sobbing. “Yes, it was wicked,” he said.

“For then she killed her child and had to go to prison.” He spoke with

a certain amount of contempt; he did not like men that cried. “But it’s

nothing that you need cry about,” he added carelessly, after a little.

“Yes, it is; for she’d done nothing. It was the child’s father that

killed it; it was me that did the dreadful thing; yes, I confess that

I’m a murderer! Haven’t I openly enough acknowledged by wrongdoing?” He

turned his face upward, as though he were speaking to God.

“Oh, was it you?” said Pelle, moving a little away from him. “Did you

kill your own child? Father Lasse could never have done that! But then

why aren’t you in prison? Did you tell a lie, and say _she’d_ done it?”

These words had a peculiar effect upon the fisherman. Pelle stood

watching him for a little, and then exclaimed: “You do talk so

queerly—‘blop-blop-blop,’ just as if you were from another country. And

what do you scrabble in the air with your fingers for, and cry? Will

you get a thrashing when you get home?”

At the word “cry,” the man burst into a flood of tears. Pelle had never

seen any one cry so unrestrainedly. His face seemed all blurred.

“Will you have a piece of my bread-and-butter?” he asked, by way of

offering comfort. “I’ve got some with sausage on.”

The fisherman shook his head.

Pelle looked at the cairn. He was obstinate, and determined not to give

in.

“It _is_ buried there,” he said. “I’ve seen its soul myself, burning up

on the top of the heap at night. That’s because it can’t get into

heaven.”

A horrible sound came from the fisherman’s lips, a hollow groan that

brought Pelle’s little heart into his mouth. He began to jump up and

down in fear, and when he recovered his senses and stopped, he saw the

fisherman running with head bent low across the meadow, until he

disappeared among the dunes.

Pelle gazed after him in astonishment, and then moved slowly toward his

dinner-basket. The result of the encounter was, as far as it had gone,

a disappointment. He had sung to a perfect stranger, and there was no

denying that that was an achievement, considering how difficult it

often was only to answer “yes” or “no” to somebody you’d never seen

before. But he had hardly more than begun the verses, and what made the

performance remarkable was that he knew the entire ballad by heart. He

sang it now for his own benefit from beginning to end, keeping count of

the verses on his fingers; and he found the most intense satisfaction

in shouting it out at the top of his voice.

In the evening he as usual discussed the events of the day with his

father, and he then understood one or two things that filled his mind

with uncomfortable thoughts. Father Lasse’s was as yet the only human

voice that the boy wholly understood; a mere sigh or shake of the head

from the old man had a more convincing power than words from any one

else.

“Alas!” he said again and again. “Evil, evil everywhere; sorrow and

trouble wherever you turn! He’d willingly give his life to go to prison

in her stead, now it’s too late! So he ran away when you said that to

him? Well, well, it’s not easy to resist the Word of God even from the

lips of a child, when the conscience is sore; and trading in the

happiness of others is a bad way of earning a living. But now see about

getting your feet washed, laddie.”

Life furnished enough to work at and struggle with, and a good deal to

dread; but worse almost than all that would harm Pelle himself, were

the glimpses he now and then had of the depths of humanity: in the face

of these his child’s brain was powerless. Why did the mistress cry so

much and drink secretly? What went on behind the windows in the big

house? He could not comprehend it, and every time he puzzled his little

brain over it, the uncomfortable feeling only seemed to stare out at

him from all the window-panes, and sometimes enveloped him in all the

horror of the incomprehensible.

But the sun rode high in the heavens, and the nights were light. The

darkness lay crouching under the earth and had no power. And he

possessed the child’s happy gift of forgetting instantly and

completely.