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The curtain shook, she looked forth, and fancied she saw a gnome or some other kind of little spectre. 'In Heaven's name! she cried, and aroused her husband in a frightened way. He opened his eyes, rubbed them with his hands, and looked at the brisk little lad. 'Why, that is Bertel, said he. And my eye quitted the poor room, for I have so much to see.
Two years afterward, Bertel, or Albert, as we shall in future call him, was of great assistance to his father; nay, he even improved his work. See the hovering ships on the wharves!
"He called me 'Herr'!" said Bertel to his mother that night "He called me 'Herr'!" About this time we find the painter Abildgaard taking a special interest in young Bertel, giving him lessons in drawing and painting, and encouraging him in his modeling. In fact, Thorwaldsen has himself explained that all of his "original" designs about this time were supplied by Abildgaard.
Gottschalk was paid by the piece for his carving; he was getting better pay now, because he did better work, his employer thought. Bertel was helping him. The family was getting quite prosperous.
Little Bertel used to remember when, like the Peggottys, they lived in an abandoned canal-boat that had been tossed up on the beach. Bertel carried chips and shavings from the shipyard for fuel, and piled them against the "house."
Bertel spends all his spare time on the other bits of grass, but the side lawn is the boys' plunder, where, by patiently working each day at grubbing out the roots at twenty-five cents a hundred, they expect, before the dandelion season is over, to amass wealth enough to buy an alluring red goat harness trimmed with bells that is on exhibition at the harness shop in town, for Corney Delaney.
But the captain of the craft left him a recommendation to the effect that "The young fellow Thorwaldsen is the laziest man I ever saw." The ship was on a trading tour, and lingered along various coasts and put into many harbors; so nine months went by before Bertel Thorwaldsen found himself in the Eternal City. "I was born March Eighth, Seventeen Hundred Ninety-seven," Thorwaldsen used to say.
There was a moment's consternation and Bertel left the digging over of my hardy beds to speed down to the village on his bicycle, and when the stanhope finally came up, father was as nearly irritable as I have ever seen him, while Tim Saunders's eyes looked extra small and pointed. Evidently Bertel had said things on his own account.
'Have mercy on us! said she, and in her fear she struck her husband in the side; he opened his eyes, rubbed them with his hands, and looked at the busy little fellow. 'It is Bertel, woman, said he." What the moon relates we see here as the first picture in Thorwaldsen's life's gallery; for it is a reflection of the reality.
His father carved wooden figure-heads for ships, and intended his son to follow the same calling. Bertel, however, soon showed talent and inclination for something better, and was sent to the Free School of the Art Academy, there making great progress. He received very little education beyond what the Art School gave him, and his youthful days were hard and poverty-stricken.
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