The sun held out well that year. Remnants of summer continued to hang
in the air right into December. Every time they had bad weather Ellen
said, “Now it’ll be winter, I’m sure!” But the sun put it aside once
more; it went far down in the south and looked straight into the whole
sitting- room, as if it were going to count the pictures.
The large yellow Gloire de Dijon went on flowering, and every day Ellen
brought in a large, heavy bunch of roses and red leaves. She was heavy
herself, and the fresh cold nipped her nose—which was growing sharper—
and reddened her cheeks. One day she brought a large bunch to Pelle,
and asked him: “How much money am I going to get to keep Christmas
with?”
It was true! The year was almost ended!
After the new year winter began in earnest. It began with much snow and
frost, and made it a difficult matter to keep in communication with the
outside world, while indoors people drew all the closer to one another.
Anna should really have been going to school now, but she suffered a
good deal from the cold and was altogether not very strong, so Pelle
and Ellen dared not expose her to the long wading through the snow, and
taught her themselves.
Ellen had become a little lazy about walking, and seldom went into
town; the two men made the purchases for her in the evening on their
way home. It was a dull time, and no work was done by artificial light,
so they were home early. Ellen had changed the dinner-hour to five, so
that they could all have it together. After dinner Brun generally went
upstairs to work for another couple of hours. He was busy working out
projects for the building on the Hill Farm land, and gave himself no
rest. Pelle’s wealth of ideas and energy infected him, and his plans
grew and assumed ever-increasing dimensions. He gave no consideration
to his weak frame, but rose early and worked all day at the affairs of
the coöperative works. He seemed to be vying with Pelle’s youth, and to
be in constant fear that something would come up behind him and
interrupt his work.
The other members of the family gathered round the lamp, each with some
occupation. Boy Comfort had his toy-table put up and was hammering
indefatigably with his little wooden mallet upon a piece of stuff that
Ellen had put between to prevent his marking the table. He was a sturdy
little fellow, and the fat lay in creases round his wrists. The
wrinkles on his forehead gave him a funny look when one did not recall
the fact that he had cost his mother her life. He looked as if he knew
it himself, he was so serious. He had leave to sit up for a little
while with the others, but he went to bed at six.
Lasse Frederik generally drew when he was finished with his lessons. He
had a turn for it, and Pelle, wondering, saw his own gift, out of which
nothing had ever come but the prison, repeated in the boy in an
improved form. He showed him the way to proceed, and held the pencil
once more in his own hand. His chief occupation, however, was teaching
little Anna, and telling her anything that might occur to him. She was
especially fond of hearing about animals, and Pelle had plenty of
reminiscences of his herding-time from which to draw.
“Have animals really intelligence?” asked Ellen, in surprise. “You
really believe that they think about things just as we do?”
It was nothing new to Sister; she talked every day to the fowls and
rabbits, and knew how wise they were.
“I wonder if flowers can think too,” said Lasse Frederik. He was busy
drawing a flower from memory, and it _would_ look like a face: hence
the remark.
Pelle thought they could.
“No, no, Pelle!” said Ellen. “You’re going too far now! It’s only us
people who can think.”
“They can feel at any rate, and that’s thinking in a way, I suppose,
only with the heart. They notice at once if you’re fond of them; if you
aren’t they don’t thrive.”
“Yes, I do believe that, for if you’re fond of them you take good care
of them,” said the incorrigible Ellen.
“I’m not so sure of that,” said Pelle, looking at her teasingly.
“You’re very fond of your balsam, but a gardener would be sure to tell
you that you treat it like a cabbage. And look how industriously it
flowers all the same. They answer kind thoughts with gratitude, and
that’s a nice way of thinking. Intelligence isn’t perhaps worth as much
as we human beings imagine it to be. You yourself think with your
heart, little mother.” It was his pet name for her just now.
After a little interlude such as this, they went on with their work.
Pelle had to tell Sister all about the animals in her alphabet-book—
about the useful cow and the hare that licked the dew off the clover
and leaped up under the very nose of the cowherd. In the winter it went
into the garden, gnawed the bark off the young trees and ate the
farmer’s wife’s cabbage. “Yes, I must acknowledge that,” Ellen
interposed, and then they all laughed, for puss had just eaten her
kail.
Then the child suddenly left the subject, and wanted to know whether
there had always, always been a Copenhagen. Pelle came to a standstill
for a moment, but by a happy inspiration dug Bishop Absalom out of his
memory. He took the opportunity of telling them that the capital had a
population of half a million.
“Have you counted them, father?” exclaimed Sister, in perplexity,
taking hold of his sleeve.
“Why, of course father hasn’t, you little donkey!” said Lasse Frederik.
“One might be born while he was counting!”
Then they were at the cock again, which both began and ended the book.
He stood and crowed so proudly and never slept. He was a regular prig,
but when Sister was diligent he put a one-öre piece among the leaves.
But the hens laid eggs, and it was evident that they were the same as
the flowers; for when you were kind to them and treated them as if they
belonged to the family, they were industrious in laying, but if you
built a model house for them and treated them according to all
established rules, they did not even earn as much as would pay for
their food. At Uncle Kalle’s there was a hen that came into the room
among all the children and laid its egg under the bed every single day
all through the winter, when no other hens were laying. Then the farmer
of Stone Farm bought it to make something by it. He gave twenty kroner
(a guinea) for it and thought he had got a gold mine; but no sooner did
it come to Stone Farm than it left off laying winter eggs, for there it
was not one of the family, but was only a hen that they wanted to make
money out of.
“Mother’s balsam flowers all the winter,” said Sister, looking fondly
at the plant.
“Yes, that’s because it sees how industrious we all are,” said Lasse
Frederik mischievously.
“Will you be quiet!” said Pelle, hitting out at him.
Ellen sat knitting some tiny socks. Her glance moved lingeringly from
one to another of them, and she smiled indulgently at their chatter.
They were just a lot of children!
“Mother, may I have those for my doll?” asked Anna, taking up the
finished sock.
“No, little sister’s to have them when she comes.”
“If it _is_ a girl,” put in Lasse Frederik.
“When’s little sister coming?”
“In the spring when the stork comes back to the farm; he’ll bring her
with him.”
“Pooh! The stork!” said Lasse Frederik contemptuously. “What a pack of
nonsense!”
Sister too was wiser than that. When the weather was fine she fetched
milk from the farm, and had learned a few things there.
“Now you must go to bed, my child,” said Ellen, rising. “I can see
you’re tired.” When she had helped the child into bed she came back and
sat down again with her knitting.
“Now I think you should leave off work for to-day,” said Pelle.
“Then I shouldn’t be ready in time,” answered Ellen, moving her
knitting-needles more swiftly.
“Send it to a machine-knitter. You don’t even earn your bread anyhow
with that handicraft; and there must be a time for work and a time for
rest, or else you’d not be a human being.”
“Mother can make three öre (nearly a halfpenny) an hour by knitting,”
said Lasse Frederik, who had made a careful calculation.
What did it matter? Ellen did not think she neglected anything else in
doing it.
“It is stupid though!” exclaimed Lasse Frederik suddenly. “Why doesn’t
wool grow on one’s legs? Then you’d have none of the bother of shearing
the wool off sheep, carding it, spinning it, and knitting stockings.”
“Oh, what nonsense you’re talking!” said Ellen, laughing.
“Well, men were hairy once,” Lasse Frederik continued. “It was a great
pity that they didn’t go on being it!”
Pelle did not think it such a pity, for it meant that they had taken
over the care of themselves. Animals were born fully equipped. Even
water-haters like cats and hens were born with the power of swimming;
but men had to acquire whatever they had a use for. Nature did not
equip them, because they had become responsible for themselves; they
were the lords of creation.
“But then the poor ought to be hairy all over their bodies,” Ellen
objected. “Why doesn’t Nature take as much care of the poor as of the
animals? They can’t do it themselves.”
“Yes, but that’s just what they _can_ do!” said Pelle, “for it’s they
who produce most things. Perhaps you think it’s money that cultivates
the land, or weaves materials, or drags coal out of the earth? It had
to leave that alone; all the capital in the world can’t so much as pick
up a pin from the ground if there are no hands that it can pay to do
it. If the poor were born hairy, it would simply stamp him as an
inferior being. Isn’t it a wonder that Nature obstinately lets the poor
men’s children be born just as naked as the king’s, in spite of all
that we’ve gone through of want and hardship? If you exchange the
prince’s and the beggar’s new-born babies, no one can say which is
which. It’s as if Providence was never tired of holding our stamp of
nobility up before us.”
“Do you really think then that the world can be transformed?” said
Ellen, looking affectionately at him. It seemed so wonderful that this
Pelle, whom she could take in her arms, occupied himself with such
great matters. And Pelle looked back at her affectionately and
wonderingly. She was the same to-day as on the day he first got to know
her, perhaps as the day the world was created! She put nothing out on
usury, but had been born with all she had. The world could indeed be
transformed, but she would always remain as she was.
The post brought a letter from Morten. He was staying at present in
Sicily, and thought of travelling along the north coast of Africa to
the south of Spain. “And I may make an excursion in to the borders of
the Desert, and try what riding on a camel is like,” he wrote. He was
well and in good spirits. It was strange to think that he was writing
with open doors, while here they were struggling with the cold. He
drank wine at every meal just as you drank pale ale here at home; and
he wrote that the olive and orange harvests were just over.
“It must be lovely to be in such a place just for once!” said Ellen,
with a sigh.
“When the new conditions gain a footing, it’ll no longer be among
unattainable things for the working-man,” Pelle answered.
Brun now came down, having at last finished his work. “Ah, it’s good to
be at home!” he said, shaking himself; “it’s a stormy night.”
“Here’s a letter from Morten,” said Pelle, handing it to him.
The old man put on his spectacles.