United States or Mauritius ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
But he did not throw the broken stick away; as soon as they got home, he set about looking for a bit of tube or something to mend it with. "We'll fix it all right," said Sivert, the incorrigible. "Look here, get a good stout splint of wood on either side, and lash all fast with waxed thread...." "I'll lash you with waxed thread," said Eleseus. "Ha ha ha!
And father and son drive off. Andresen watches them from the door of the shop and wishes a pleasant journey. Isak is all thought for his boy, and would give him the seat to himself; but Eleseus will have none of that, and 'sits up by his side. They come to Breidablik, and suddenly Eleseus has forgotten something. "Ptro! What is it?" asks his father. Oh, his umbrella!
"I wish I could write as nice a hand as that," she said. Eleseus was disappointed. What had he done what was the matter with her? And where was Axel? He was not there. Beginning to get tired of these foolish Sunday visits, perhaps, and preferred to stay away; or he might have had some business to keep him over, when he went down to the village the day before. Anyhow, he was not there.
And this was right enough in a way; Uncle Sivert had said something about making little Sivert his heir. Uncle Sivert had heard of Eleseus and his grand doings in town, and the story did not please him; he nodded and bit his lips, and muttered that a nephew called up as his namesake named after Uncle Sivert should not come to want. But what was this fortune Uncle Sivert was supposed to possess?
When their father called out so loudly and insistently, Eleseus whispered: "They've come back for the pencil!" All their joy was dashed in a moment, swept out of their minds at a touch, and their little hearts began beating and thumping terribly. The brothers crept forth. Eleseus held out the pencil at arm's length; here it was, they had not broken it; only wished they had never seen the thing.
One Saturday evening came the engineer in charge, to pay the men. At sight of the engineer, Eleseus felt his heart jump, and stole out of the house lest he should be asked about that coloured pencil. Oh, there would be trouble now and Sivert nowhere to be seen; he would have to face it alone.
"You can stay, yes," he said. "I shall be wanting an assistant to look after the place when I'm away on business opening up connections in Bergen and Trondhjem," said he. And Andresen was no bad man to have, as it soon proved; he was a good worker, and looked after things well when Eleseus was away.
Inger brought in some milk for the visitors; they drank it, and she brought in some more. The Lensmand a surly fellow? He stroked Eleseus' hair, and looked at something the child was playing with. "Playing with stones, what? Let me see. H'm, heavy. Looks like some kind of ore." "There's plenty such up in the hills," said Isak. The Lensmand came back to business.
And at that Eleseus must fall to whistling, and looking to his shoes, and finding a splinter in his finger, and searching after something in his pockets; some papers, he said, couldn't make out ... Oh, 'twould have gone ill with them if Sivert had not saved things at the last. "Touch!" he cried suddenly, and touched his brother on the shoulder and sprang away.
There would be plenty of time for him to assert his authority after they were married; until then he ought to have had sense enough to give way. But it was too bad, this business with Eleseus, this clerk, who came swaggering about with his walking-stick and all his fine talk. For a girl to carry on like that when she was promised to another man and in her condition! It was beyond understanding.
Word Of The Day