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Updated: November 14, 2025
"It's three years now since Mother Bengta died, and she's lying in the west corner of the churchyard." "Do you miss her very much?" "Oh, well, Father Lasse mends my clothes!" "I'm sure she can't have been very good to you." "Oh, yes!" said Pelle, nodding earnestly. "But she was so fretful, she was always ailing; and it's better they should go when they get like that.
It was something about Mother Bengta, but she was dead now and lay in the black earth; she no longer buttoned his under-vest down the back, or warmed his hands when they were cold. So they put raisins into roast pork in this country, did they? Money must be as common as dirt! There was none lying about in the road, and the houses and farms were not so very fine either.
"They've locked Anders up," she sobbed. "He got wild, so they put handcuffs on him and locked him up." She went back with Pelle. Lasse was with Karl Johan and Fair Maria; he looked defiantly at Pelle, and in his half-closed eyes there was a little mutinous gleam. "Then now there's only Mons and Lively Sara," said Karl Johan, as he ran his eye over them. "But what about Anders?" sobbed Bengta.
It was not altogether strange to Lasse, for he had been on the island once before, about ten years ago; but he had been younger then, in full vigor it might be said, and had no little boy by the hand, from whom he would not be separated for all the world; that was the difference. It was the year that the cow had been drowned in the marl-pit, and Bengta was preparing for her confinement.
"Run over to Karna with this and ask her to accept it. We're not so poor that we should let kindness itself go from us empty-handed. But you mustn't let any one see it, in case they didn't like it. Mother Bengta in her grave won't be offended; she'd have proposed it herself, if she could have spoken; but her mouth's full of earth, poor thing!" Lasse sighed deeply.
Kongstrup walked up and down and said nothing. Pelle expected he would strike her, for she called him bad names much worse than Mother Bengta when Lasse came home merry from Tommelilla. But he only laughed. "Now that'll do," he said, leading her away from the door, and letting the boy out. Lasse did not like it.
"You can go into her room and see for yourself; you know the way!" said Karna tartly. "And what's become of the pupil to-day, as he hasn't rung?" said Karl Johan. "Have any of you girls seen him?" "No, I expect he's overslept himself," cried Bengta from the wash-house. "And so he may! I don't want to run up and shake life into him every morning!"
Bengta was a good wife to me in every way, but she too was very fond of laying herself out for the landlord at home. The greatest take first; that's the way of the world! But Bodil's never of the same mind for long together. Now she's carrying on with the pupil, though he's not sixteen yet, and takes presents from him.
"They've locked Anders up," she sobbed. "He got wild, so they put handcuffs on him and locked him up." She went back with Pelle. Lasse was with Karl Johan and Fair Maria; he looked defiantly at Pelle, and in his half-closed eyes there was a little mutinous gleam. "Then now there's only Mons and Lively Sara," said Karl Johan, as he ran his eye over them. "But what about Anders?" sobbed Bengta.
With each article he laid down, he slowly repeated what Bengta had said it was for when she lay dying and was trying to arrange everything for him and the boy: "Wool for the boy's gray socks. Pieces to lengthen the sleeves of his Sunday jacket. Mind you don't wear your stockings too long before you mend them."
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