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"I didn't think you'd come back to us," said Ellen. "Ever since Lasse Frederik met you yesterday I've been expecting you to come." Pelle suddenly noticed how exhausted she looked. "Haven't you been to bed all night?" he asked. She smilingly shook her head. "I had to take care that the street-door wasn't locked. Whenever any one came home, I ran down and unlocked it again.
There was no room for him up in the small flat with Ellen doing her washing there, so he took a room in the high basement, and hung up a large placard in the window, on which he wrote with shoemaker's ink, "Come to me with your shoes, and we will help one another to stand on our feet." When Lasse Frederik was not at work or at school, he was generally to be found downstairs with his father.
He was vexed at his behavior of the day before, and perhaps expected a blowing-up. On a nail above his head hung his blouse and cap. "Is Lasse Frederik a milk-boy?" asked Pelle. "Yes," said Ellen, "and he's very good at it. The drivers praise him." "Isn't he going to get up then, and go? I've met several milk-carts." "No, for we're on strike just now," murmured the boy without turning round.
"There's a removing cart!" said Lasse Frederik, and as he spoke the vehicle pulled up in the gutter just in front of them. "What are you doing, Thorvald?" said one of the men; then, staring straight into Ellen's face, "Have you hurt your eye?" The woman had jumped down from the cart. "Oh, get out of the way, you ass!" she said, pushing him aside. "Can't you see they've been turned out?
Frederik Nutzhorn, who did not believe there would be a war, started on a visit to Rome; Jens Paludan-Mueller, who had been called out, was quartered at Rendsborg until the German troops marched in; Julius Lange, who, as he had just become engaged, did not wish to see his work interrupted and his future prospects delayed by the war, had gone to Islingen, where he had originally made the acquaintance of his fiancee.
He was very curious. "Yes, it's finished now," said Lasse Frederik, coming up with it. The picture represented a street in which stood a solitary milk-cart, and behind the cart lay a boy with bleeding head. "He fell asleep because he had to get up so early," Lasse Frederik explained; "and then when the cart started he tumbled backward."
Lasse Frederik continued to hold his arm in the same position, and lay gazing indifferently out into the front room, as if he had no idea to what his father was referring; but his face was scarlet. "Don't you even say good-morning to your father?" said Ellen, whereupon he sullenly extended his hand and then turned his face to the wall.
"That was in those days," said Pelle, nodding; "it wouldn't happen like that now." "What a lot you have seen!" said Ellen, who had come home while they were talking, and was sitting knitting. "I can hardly understand how you managed a little fellow like that! How I should like to have seen you!" "Father's big!" exclaimed Sister appreciatively. Lasse Frederik was a little more reserved.
Is it your husband that's chucked you out?" she asked, bending sympathetically over Ellen. "No, the landlord's turned us out!" said Lasse Frederik. "What a funny little figure! And you've got nowhere to sleep to-night? Here, Christian, take and load these things on the cart, and then they can stand under the gateway at home for the night. They'll be quite spoilt by the rain here."
"Take care the girls don't get running about under the scaffold in working hours, that doesn't look well; and always uphold the fellowship. There is nothing more despicable than the name of strikebreaker." "Hear, hear!" resounded about the table. "A true word!" Frederik sat listening with an embarrassed smile.
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