In the garden at “Daybreak” the snow was disappearing from day to day.
First it went away nearest the house, and gave place to a little forest
of snowdrops and crocuses. The hyacinths in the grass began to break
through the earth, coming up like a row of knuckles that first knocked
at the door.
The children were always out watching the progress made. They could not
understand how the delicate crocus could push straight up out of the
frozen ground without freezing to death, but died when it came into the
warm room. Every day they wrapped some snowdrops in paper and laid them
on Brun’s table—they were “snowdrop-letters”—and then hovered about in
ungovernable excitement until he came in from the fields, when they met
him with an air of mystery, and did all they could to entice him
upstairs.
Out in the fields they were nearly finished with the excavations, and
were only waiting for the winter water to sink in order to cart up
gravel and stone and begin the foundations; the ground was too soft as
yet.
Old Brun was not so active now after his confinement to bed; although
there was not much the matter with him, it had weakened him. He allowed
Pelle a free hand with the works, and said Yea and Amen to everything
he proposed. “I can’t keep it all in my head,” he would say when Pelle
came to suggest some alteration; “but just do as you like, my son, and
it’s sure to be right.” There were not enough palpable happenings down
there to keep his mind aglow, and he was too old to hear it grow and
draw strength from that. His faith, however, merely shifted from the
Cause over to Pelle; he saw him alive before him, and could lean upon
his youthful vigor.
He had given up his work on the plans. He could not keep at it, and
contented himself with going the round of the fields two or three times
a day and watching the men. The sudden flame of energy that Pelle’s
youth had called to life within him had died down, leaving a pathetic
old man, who had been out in the cold all his life, and was now
luxuriating in a few late rays of evening sun. He no longer measured
himself by Pelle, and was not jealous of his taking the lead in
anything, but simply admired him and kept carefully within the circle
of those for whom Pelle acted providence. Ellen treated him like a big
child who needed a great deal of care, and the children of course
looked upon him as their equal.
When he went his round of the fields, he generally had Boy Comfort by
the hand; the two could both keep pace with one another and converse
together. There was one thing that interested them both and kept them
in great excitement. The stork was expected every day back at the Hill
Farm, and when it came it would bring a baby to Mother Ellen. The
expectation was not an unmixed pleasure. The stork always bit the
mother in the leg when he came with a baby for her. Boy Comfort’s own
mother died of the bite; he was wise enough to know that now. The
little fellow looked upon Ellen as his mother, and went about in a
serious, almost depressed, mood. He did not talk to the other children
of his anxiety, for fear they would make fun of him; but when he and
the old man walked together in the fields they discussed the matter,
and Brun, as the older and wiser, came to the conclusion that there was
no danger. All the same, they always kept near the house so as to be at
hand.
One day Pelle stayed at home from work, and Ellen did not get up as
usual. “I’m going to lie here and wait for the stork,” she said to Boy
Comfort. “Go out and watch for it.” The little boy took a stick, and he
and Brun tramped round the house; and when they heard Ellen cry out,
they squeezed one another’s hands. It was such a disturbed day, it was
impossible to keep anything going straight; now a carriage drove up to
the door with a fat woman in it, now it was Lasse Frederik who leaped
upon his bicycle and raced down the field-path, standing on the pedals.
Before Boy Comfort had any idea of it, the stork had been there, and
Ellen was lying with a baby boy on her arm. He and Brun went in
together to congratulate her, and they were both equally astonished.
The old man had to be allowed to touch the baby’s cheek.
“He’s still so ugly,” said Ellen, with a shy smile, as she lifted the
corner of the shawl from the baby’s head. Then she had to be left
quiet, and Brun took Boy Comfort upstairs with him.
Pelle sat on the edge of the bed, holding Ellen’s hand, which in a few
hours had become white and thin. “Now we must send for ‘Queen
Theresa,’” she said.
“Shan’t we send for your mother too?” asked Pelle, who had often
proposed that they should take the matter into their own hands, and go
and see the old people. He did not like keeping up old quarrels.
Ellen shook her head. “They must come of their own accord,” she said
decidedly. She did not mind for herself, but they had looked down upon
Pelle, so it was not more than fair that they should come and make it
up.
“But I _have_ sent for them,” said Pelle. “That was what Lasse Frederik
went about. You mustn’t have a baby without help from your mother.”
In less than a couple of hours Madam Stolpe had arrived. She was much
moved, and to hide it she began turning the house inside out for clean
cloths and binders, scolding all the time. A nice time, indeed, to send
for anybody, when it was all over!
Father Stolpe was harder. He was not one to come directly he was
whistled for! But two or three evenings after the baby had arrived,
Pelle ran up against him hanging about a little below the house. Well,
he was waiting for mother, to take her home, and it didn’t concern
anybody else, he supposed. He pretended to be very determined, but it
was comparatively easy to persuade him to come in; and once in, it was
not long before Ellen had thawed him. She had, as usual, her own manner
of procedure.
“Let me tell you, father, that it’s not me that sent for you, but
Pelle; and if you don’t give him your hand and say you’ve done him an
injustice, we shall never be good friends again!”
“Upon my word, she’s the same confounded way of taking the bull by the
horns that she always had!” said Stolpe, without looking at her. “Well,
I suppose I may as well give in at once, and own that I’ve played the
fool. Shall we agree to let bygones be bygones, son-in-law?” extending
his hand to Pelle.
When once the reconciliation was effected, Stolpe became quite
cheerful. “I never dreamt I should see you so soon, least of all with a
baby!” he said contentedly, stroking Ellen’s face with his rough hand.
“No, she’s always been his darling, and father’s often been tired of
it,” said Madam Stolpe. “But men make themselves so hard!”
“Rubbish, mother!” growled Stolpe. “Women will always talk nonsense!”
Time had left its mark upon them both. There had been a certain amount
of unemployment in his trade, and Stolpe was getting on in years and
had a difficulty in keeping up with the young men on the scaffolding.
Their clothes showed that they were not so prosperous as formerly; but
Stolpe was still chairman of his trade union and a highly respected man
within the Movement.
“And now, my boy,” he said suddenly, placing his hands on Pelle’s
shoulders, “you must explain to me what it is you’re doing this time. I
hear you’ve begun to stir up men’s feelings again.”
Pelle told him about his great plan for coöperative works. The old man
knew indeed a good deal about it; it appeared that he had followed
Pelle’s movements from a distance.
“That’s perhaps not so out of the way,” he said. “We might squeeze
capital out of existence just as quietly, if we all bestirred
ourselves. But you must get the Movement to join you; and it must be
made clear that every one who doesn’t support his own set is a
black-leg.”
“_I have_ got a connection, but it goes rather slowly,” said Pelle.
“Then we must stir them up a little. I say, that queer fellow—Brun, I
think you call him—doesn’t he live with you?”
“He isn’t a queer fellow,” said Pelle, laughing. “We can go up and see
him.”
Brun and Stolpe very soon found something to talk about. They were of
the same age, and had witnessed the first days of the Movement, each
from his own side. Madam Stolpe came several times and pulled her
husband by the coat: they ought to be going home.
“Well, it’s not worth while to quarrel with your own wife,” said Stolpe
at last; “but I shall come again. I hear you’re building out here, and
I should like to see what our own houses’ll be like.”
“We’ve not begun yet,” answered Pelle. “But come out on Sunday, and
Brun and I will show it all to you.”
“I suppose it’s masters who’ll get it?” asked Stolpe.
“No, we thought of letting the unemployed have the work if they could
undertake it, and have a man to put at the head,” said Brun. “Perhaps
you could undertake it?”
“Why, of course I can!” answered Stolpe, with a feeling of his own
importance. “I’m the man to build houses for workmen! I was member of
the party when it numbered only one man.”
“Yes, Stolpe’s the veteran of the Movement,” said Pelle.
“Upon my word, it’d be awfully nice if it was me!” exclaimed Stolpe
when Pelle accompanied the old couple down to the tram. “I’ll get
together a set of workmen that have never been equalled. And what
houses we shall put up! There won’t be much papier-mâché there!”