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Updated: May 15, 2025
"But you're not quite alone, grandmother," said Kalle, laughing. "There are two grown-ups and half a score of children about you all day long." "Ah yes, you can say what you like, but all those I was young with are dead now, and many others that I've seen grow up. Every week some one that I know dies, and here am I still living, only to be a burden to others."
"If you're ever in a difficulty, you've always Alfred and Albinus to help you out," Uncle Kalle had said, when Pelle was bidding him good-bye; and he did not fail to look them up. But the twins were to-day the same slippery, evasive customers as they were among the pastures; they ventured their skins neither for themselves nor for anybody else. In other respects they had considerably improved.
Kalle pretended to discover the bottle for the first time. "What! Why, we've got gin on the table, too, and not one of us has smelt it!" he exclaimed, and filled their glasses for the third time. Then Maria corked the bottle. "Do you even grudge us our food?" he said, making great eyes at her what a rogue he was!
He put them into a vessel to soak, and poured water on them, all the while talking softly to himself. There was a knock at the outside stable-door, and Lasse went to open it. It was Brother Kalle. "Good-day, brother!" he said, with his cheerful smile. "Here comes his Majesty from the quarries!" He waddled in upon his bow legs, and the two exchanged hearty greetings.
Kalle collected his tools and laid the screen down upon them while they talked. "So you break stones too? Does that bring in anything?" asked Lasse. "Oh, not very much. We get twelve krones a 'fathom' and when I work with a lantern morning and evening, I can break half a fathom in a week. It doesn't pay for beer, but we live anyhow.
Lasse looked at him with disapproval. Kalle caught himself up, apparently very much horrified. "Eh, what nonsense I'm talking! She lost the blindness of that eye, I ought to have said. Isn't that all wrong, too? You put somebody's eye out, and she begins to see! Upon my word, I think I'll set up as an eye-doctor after this, for there's not much difficulty in it." "What do you say?
Maria was smiling, and as soon as they looked at her, she looked away. "Yes, you may grin!" said Lasse; "but I think it's sad!" Upon which Maria had to go out into the kitchen to have her laugh out. "That's what all the women do at the mere mention of his name," said Kalle. "It's a sad change. To-day red, to-morrow dead.
"If you aren't kind to little Marie, I shall tell Uncle Kalle," said Pelle warningly. She spat contemptuously. "Then you can tell him. Yes, I wish to God you'd do it! Then he'd come and take her away, and delighted I should be!" But now Due was heard stamping on the flags outside the door, and they could hear him too consoling the child.
Pelle knew quite well that what had happened to Anna was looked upon as a great disgrace, and could not understand how Uncle Kalle could seem so happy. "Ah, yes," said Lasse, as they stumbled along among the stones. "Kalle's just like what he always was! He laughs where others would cry." It was too dark to go across the fields, so they took the quarry road south to get down to the high-road.
But it might just as easily have taken the other direction. Yes, we had the doctor to her three times; it was no use being niggardly." Kalle stood and tried to look important; he had stuck his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets. "It cost a lot of money, I suppose?" "That's what I thought, too, and I wasn't very happy when I asked the doctor how much it would be.
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