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Updated: June 23, 2025
But the tramps, who had not come merely to punish Halfvorson, but also to let their wrath break loose, hardly knew how to begin. There was nothing for an angry man to do here. There was not a dog to chase, not a street-sweeper to pick a quarrel with, nor a fine gentleman at whom to throw an insult. It was early in the year; the spring was just turning into summer.
But directly before his eyes fluttered the fifty-crown note, surrounded by wide rings, luring him like the most beautiful eyes. "Who can know," smiled the eyes, "perhaps the fifty crowns up on the shelf is just such a foundation?" "Mark my words," said Halfvorson, "that, after the foundation, two things are necessary for those who wish to reach the heights.
Then he fell asleep with the note under his pillow. An hour later he awoke. A light shone sharply in his eyes; a hand was fumbling under his pillow and a rumbling voice was scolding and swearing. Before the boy was really awake, Halfvorson had the note in his hand and showed it to the two women, who stood in the doorway to his room. "You see that I was right," said Halfvorson.
"I let them loose in the shop," she said. "They have thriven well." "No, really! Are there any of them left?" "Halfvorson says that he will never be rid of Petter Nord's mice. They have revenged you, you understand," she said with meaning. "It was a very good race," answered Petter Nord, proudly. The conversation lagged for a while.
As Petter Nord came out of the garden, he met Halfvorson. He was walking forward and back in despair, and his only consolation was the thought that Edith was laying the burden of remorse on the wrong-doer. To see him overpowered by pangs of conscience, for that alone had he sought him out. But when he met the young workman, he saw that Edith had not told him everything.
Petter Nord felt a stab in his heart. Of course the man was good. He had remained in paradise. Of course any one was good who lived there. Edith Halfvorson was still with her uncle, but she had been ill for a while. Her lungs were weak, ever since an attack of pneumonia in the winter. While Petter Nord was listening to all this, and more too, the three men stood outside and waited.
Oh, what fun he had had in those days, how happy and glad he had been, how open his heart, how beautiful the world! Lord God, if he had only been allowed always to live here! And he thought of what he was now silent and stupid, serious and industrious quite like a prodigal. He grew passionately angry with Halfvorson, and instead of, as before, following his companions, he dashed past them.
He lived through the sufferings of those young people; he followed them in their successes; he rejoiced in their victories. Petter Nord listened quite fascinated. Halfvorson was stone deaf, but that was no obstacle to conversation, for he read by the lips everything that was said. On the other hand, he could not hear his own voice.
I wanted to pay you back for the mice. I am not a thief. Will no one listen to me. I am not a thief." "Uncle," said Edith, "if you have tortured him enough now, perhaps we may go back to bed?" "I know, of course, that it sounds terrible," said Halfvorson, "but it cannot be helped." He was gay, in very high spirits. "I have had my eye on you for a long time," he said to the boy.
We all felt obliged to trade with Halfvorson, after Petter Nord came there. Even the old Mayor himself was proud when Petter Nord took him apart into a dark corner and showed him the cages of the white mice. It was nervous work to show the mice, for Halfvorson had forbidden him to have them in the shop. But then in the brightening February there came a few days of warm, misty weather.
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