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"Then I suppose he's to be foreman?" he said, flicking at Pelle with his whip. "Yes, he certainly will be some day," said Lasse, with conviction. "He'll probably eat a few bushels of salt first. Well, I'm in want of a herdsman, and will give you a hundred krones for a year although it'll be confounded hard for you to earn them from what I can see.
"Why, if that isn't Brother Kalle sitting there!" said Lasse, in a voice of surprise as great as if the meeting were a miracle from heaven. "Good evening, Kalle Karlsson! How are you?" The stone-breaker looked up. "Oh, there you are, brother!" he said, rising with difficulty; and the two greeted one another as if they had met only the day before.
"Yes, I've no doubt you will," said Lasse, laughing. Not that he also did not expect something great of the boy, if not exactly a large farmer. There was no saying, however. Perhaps some farmer's daughter might fall in love with him; the men of his family generally had an attraction for women.
Pelle clasped the bottle to his body with his arms, for he dared not trust his hands, and pushed out his stomach as far as possible to support it. Lasse stood with his hands extended beneath the bottle, ready to catch it if it fell. "There! That'll do!" he said anxiously, and took the bottle. "It is heavy!" said Pelle, admiringly, and went on contentedly, holding his father's hand.
"He's our father!" they said; and Pelle and Ellen were like two young people that are kept cruelly apart by a remorseless fate, and they looked at one another with eyes that were heavy with expression. When the little ones had gone to bed they stole away from it all, leaving Lasse Frederik in charge of the house.
"Will you please put it down?" they would say, when they came for their boots; and "it's to be entered," he himself would say, when he made a purchase for his employers. All spoke the same magical formula, and Pelle was reminded of Father Lasse, who had counted his shillings over a score of times before he ventured to buy anything.
And that was lucky for him, as it would have been a case of all or nothing, for he had only Father Lasse. For Pelle the cruel hands of death hardly existed, and he could not understand how people could lay themselves down with their noses in the air; there was so much to observe here below the town alone kept one busy.
I've always liked to have some connection and meaning in everything; and it's not a bad idea to have something that those who look deeper can find out. Now, have you noticed anything special about two of these names?" "No," answered Lasse hesitatingly, "I don't know that I have. But I haven't got a head for that sort of thing either." "Well, look here!
Pelle came down with the gentlest of faces. "Mayn't I wheel the barrow out?" he said. "Your wooden shoes aren't so firm on the stones." Lasse growled some reply, and let him take it. For a very short time he was cross, but it was no good; the boy could be irresistible when he liked.
Long Ole was at the next group, and now he came on to them and was going to hold out his tracts, when a glance at Lasse made him drop both hand and eyes; and with a deep sigh he passed on with bowed head to the next group. "Did you see how he turned his eyes up?" said Lasse derisively. "When beggars come to court, they don't know how to behave!
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