They still talked about it every day for the short time that was left.
Lasse, who had always had the thought of leaving in his mind, and had
only stayed on and on, year after year, because the boy’s welfare
demanded it—was slow to move now that there was nothing to hold him
back. He was unwilling to lose Pelle, and did all he could to keep him;
but nothing would induce him to go out into the world again.
“Stay here!” he said persuasively, “and we’ll talk to the mistress and
she’ll take you on for a proper wage. You’re both strong and handy, and
she’s always looked upon you with a friendly eye.”
But Pelle would not take service with the farmer; it gave no position
and no prospects. He wanted to be something great, but there was no
possibility of that in the country; he would be following cows all his
days. He would go to the town—perhaps still farther, across the sea to
Copenhagen.
“You’d better come too,” he said, “and then we shall get rich all the
quicker and be able to buy a big farm.”
“Yes, yes,” said Lasse, slowly nodding his head; “that’s one for me and
two for yourself! But what the parson preaches doesn’t always come to
pass. We might become penniless. Who knows what the future may bring?”
“Oh, I shall manage!” said Pelle, nodding confidently. “Do you mean to
say I can’t turn my hand to anything I like?”
“And I didn’t give notice in time either,” said Lasse to excuse
himself.
“Then run away!”
But Lasse would not do that. “No, I’ll stay and work toward getting
something for myself about here,” he said, a little evasively. “It
would be nice for you too, to have a home that you could visit now and
then; and if you didn’t get on out there, it wouldn’t be bad to have
something to fall back upon. You might fall ill, or something else
might happen; the world’s not to be relied upon. You have to have a
hard skin all over out there.”
Pelle did not answer. That about the home sounded nice enough, and he
understood quite well that it was Karna’s person that weighed down the
other end of the balance. Well, she’d put all his clothes in order for
his going away, and she’d always been a good soul; he had nothing
against that.
It would be hard to live apart from Father Lasse, but Pelle felt he
must go. Away! The spring seemed to shout the word in his ears. He knew
every rock in the landscape and every tree—yes, every twig on the trees
as well; there was nothing more here that could fill his blue eyes and
long ears, and satisfy his mind.
The day before May Day they packed Pelle’s things. Lasse knelt before
the green chest; every article was carefully folded and remarked upon,
before it was placed in the canvas bag that was to serve Pelle as a
traveling-trunk.
“Now remember not to wear your stockings too long before you mend
them!” said Lasse, putting mending wool on one side. “He who mends his
things in time, is spared half the work and all the disgrace.”
“I shan’t forget that,” said Pelle quietly.
Lasse was holding a folded shirt in his hand. “The one you’ve got on’s
just been washed,” he said reflectively. “But one can’t tell. Two
shirts’ll almost be too little if you’re away, won’t they? You must
take one of mine; I can always manage to get another by the time I want
a change. And remember, you must never go longer than a fortnight! You
who are young and healthy might easily get vermin, and be jeered at by
the whole town; such a thing would never be tolerated in any one who
wants to get on. At the worst you can do a little washing or yourself;
you could go down to the shore in the evening, if that was all!”
“Do they wear wooden shoes in the town?” asked Pelle.
“Not people who want to get on! I think you’d better let me keep the
wooden shoes and you take my boots instead; they always look nice even
if they’re old. You’d better wear them when you go to-morrow, and save
your good shoes.”
The new clothes were laid at the top of the bag, wrapped in an old
blouse to keep them clean.
“Now I think we’ve got everything in,” said Lasse, with a searching
glance into the green chest. There was not much left in it. “Very well,
then we’ll tie it up in God’s name, and pray that, you may arrive
safely—wherever you decide to go!” Lasse tied up the sack; he was
anything but happy.
“You must say good-bye nicely to every one on the farm, so that they
won’t have anything to scratch my eyes out for afterward,” said Lasse
after a little. “And I should like you to thank Karna nicely for having
put everything in such good order. It isn’t every one who’d have
bothered.”
“Yes, I’ll do that,” said Pelle in a low voice. He did not seem to be
able to speak out properly to-day.
Pelle was up and dressed at daybreak. Mist lay over the sea, and
prophesied well for the day. He went about well scrubbed and combed,
and looked at everything with wide-open eyes, and with his hands in his
pockets. The blue clothes which he had gone to his confirmation-
classes in, had been washed and newly mangled, and he still looked very
well in them; and the tabs of the old leather boots, which were a relic
of Lasse’s prosperous days, stuck out almost as much as his ears.
He had said his “Good-bye and thank-you for all your kindness!” to
everybody on the farm—even Erik; and he had had a good meal of bacon.
Now he was going about the stable, collecting himself, shaking the bull
by the horns, and letting the calves suck his fingers; it was a sort of
farewell too! The cows put their noses close up to him, and breathed a
long, comfortable breath when he passed, and the bull playfully tossed
its head at him. And close behind him went Lasse; he did not say very
much but he always kept near the boy.
It was so good to be here, and the feeling sank gently over Pelle every
time a cow licked herself, or the warm vapor rose from freshly- falling
dung. Every sound was like a mother’s caress, and every thing was a
familiar toy, with which a bright world could be built. Upon the posts
all round there were pictures that he had cut upon them; Lasse had
smeared them over with dirt again, in case the farmer should come and
say that they were spoiling everything.
Pelle was not thinking, but went about in a dreamy state; it all sank
so warmly and heavily into his child’s mind. He had taken out his
knife, and took hold of the bull’s horn, as if he were going to carve
something on it. “He won’t let you do that,” said Lasse, surprised.
“Try one of the bullocks instead.”
But Pelle returned his knife to his pocket; he had not intended to do
anything. He strolled along the foddering-passage without aim or
object. Lasse came up and took his hand.
“You’d better stay here a little longer,” he said. “We’re so
comfortable.”
But this put life into Pelle. He fixed his big, faithful eyes upon his
father, and then went down to their room.
Lasse followed him. “In God’s name then, if it has to be!” he said
huskily, and took hold of the sack to help Pelle get it onto his back.
Pelle held out his hand. “Good-bye and thank you, father—for all your
kindness!” he added gently.
“Yes, yes; yes, yes!” said Lasse, shaking his head. It was all he was
able to say.
He went out with Pelle past the out-houses, and there stopped, while
Pelle went on along the dikes with his sack on his back, up toward the
high-road. Two or three times he turned and nodded; Lasse, overcome,
stood gazing, with his hand shading his eyes. He had never looked so
old before.
Out in the fields they were driving the seed-harrow; Stone Farm was
early with it this year. Kongstrup and his wife were strolling along
arm-in-arm beside a ditch; every now and then they stopped and she
pointed: they must have been talking about the crop. She leaned against
him when they walked; she had really found rest in her affection now!
Now Lasse turned and went in. How forlorn he looked! Pelle felt a quick
desire to throw down the sack and run back and say something nice to
him; but before he could do so the impulse had disappeared upon the
fresh morning breeze. His feet carried him on upon the straight way,
away, away! Up on a ridge the bailiff was stepping out a field, and
close behind him walked Erik, imitating him with foolish gestures.
On a level with the edge of the rocks, Pelle came to the wide high-
road. Here, he knew, Stone Farm and its lands would be lost to sight,
and he put down his sack. _There_ were the sand-banks by the sea, with
every tree-top visible; _there_ was the fir-tree that the yellowhammer
always built in; the stream ran milk-white after the heavy thaw, and
the meadow was beginning to grow green. But the cairn was gone; good
people had removed it secretly when Niels Köller was drowned and the
girl was expected out of prison.
And the farm stood out clearly in the morning light, with its high
white dwelling-house, the long range of barns, and all the out-houses.
Every spot down there shone so familiarly toward him; the hardships he
had suffered were forgotten, or only showed up the comforts in stronger
relief.
Pelle’s childhood had been happy by virtue of everything; it had been a
song mingled with weeping. Weeping falls into tones as well as joy, and
heard from a distance it becomes a song. And as Pelle gazed down upon
his childhood’s world, they were only pleasant memories that gleamed
toward him through the bright air. Nothing else existed, or ever had
done so.
He had seen enough of hardship and misfortune, but had come well out of
everything; nothing had harmed him. With a child’s voracity he had
found nourishment in it all; and now he stood here, healthy and
strong—equipped with the Prophets, the Judges, the Apostles, the Ten
Commandments and one hundred and twenty hymns! and turned an open,
perspiring, victor’s brow toward the world.
Before him lay the land sloping richly toward the south, bounded by the
sea. Far below stood two tall black chimneys against the sea as
background, and still farther south lay the Town! Away from it ran the
paths of the sea to Sweden and Copenhagen! This was the world— the
great wide world itself!
Pelle became ravenously hungry at the sight of the great world, and the
first thing he did was to sit down upon the ridge of the hill with a
view both backward and forward, and eat all the food Karna had given
him for the whole day. So his stomach would have nothing more to
trouble about!
He rose refreshed, got the sack onto his back, and set off downward to
conquer the world, pouring forth a song at the top of his voice into
the bright air as he went:—
“A stranger I must wander
Among the Englishmen;
With African black negroes
My lot it may be thrown.
And then upon this earth there
Are Portuguese found too,
And every kind of nation
Under heaven’s sky so blue.”