Pelle the Conqueror, Martin Andersen Nexø [best fantasy books to read .TXT] 📗

her will she had defied fate until he came. She now placed it all at his feet and lay prostrate. How tired she must be! But now she and the children should have a good time; he would live for her now!

He had laid her on the sofa and sat bending over her and telling her quietly how he had repented and longed for her. She made no answer, but held his hand in a convulsive grasp, now and then opening her eyes and stealing a glance at him. Suddenly she discovered how worn and lined his face was, and as she passed her hand over it as if to soften the features, she broke into a storm of weeping.

“You have suffered so, Pelle!” she exclaimed vehemently, passing her trembling fingers through his iron-gray hair. “I can feel by your poor head how badly they’ve treated you. And I wasn’t even with you! If I could only do something really nice to make you look happy!”

She drew his head down onto her bosom and stroked it as a mother might her child’s, and Pelle’s face changed as would a child’s when taken to its mother’s breast. It was as though the well of life flowed through him, the hardness of his expression disappeared, and life and warmth took its place. “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 anyone came home, I ran down and unlocked it again. You mustn’t be angry with the boy for being afraid of you just at first. He was sorry for it afterward, and ran about the town all the evening trying to find you.”

A clear child’s voice was calling from the bedroom more and more persistently: “Man! Good morning, man!”

It was Sister, sitting up in Ellen’s bed and playing with a feather that she had pulled out of the corner of the down-quilt. She readily allowed herself to be kissed, and sat there with pouting mouth and the funniest little wrinkled nose. “You’re man!” she said insinuatingly.

“Yes, that’s true enough,” answered Pelle, laughing: “but what man?”

“Man!” she repeated, nodding gravely.

Sister shared Ellen’s bed now. At the foot of the big bed stood her own little cot, which had also been Lasse Frederik’s, and in it lay⁠—. Well, Pelle turned to the other side of the room, where Lasse Frederik lay snoring in a small bed, with one arm beneath his head. He had kicked off the quilt, and lay on his stomach in a deep sleep, with his limbs extended carelessly. The little fellow was well built, thought Pelle.

“Now, lazybones, you’d better be thinking of getting up!” cried Pelle, pulling him by the leg.

The boy turned slowly. When he saw his father, he instantly became wide awake, and raised his arm above his head as though to ward off a blow.

“There’s no box on the ears in the air, my boy,” said Pelle, laughing. “The game only begins today!”

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. 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.

Pelle became quite interested. “What fellows you are! So you’re on strike, are you? What’s it for⁠—is it wages?”

The boy had to explain, and gradually turned his face round, but did not look at his father.

Ellen stood in the doorway and listened to them smilingly. She looked frail. “Lasse Frederik’s the leader,” she said gently.

“And he’s lying here instead of being out on the watch for blacklegs?” exclaimed Pelle quite irritably. “You’re a nice leader!”

“Do you suppose any boy would be so mean as to be a blackleg?” said Lasse Frederik. “No, indeed! But people fetch their own milk from the carts.”

“Then you must get the drivers to join you.”

“No, we don’t belong to a real union, so they won’t support us.”

“Well then, make a union! Get up, boy, and don’t lie there snoring when there’s anything of this sort on! Do you imagine that anything in this world is to be got by sleeping?”

The boy did not move. He did not seem to think there was any reason for taking his father very seriously; but he met a reproachful look from Ellen, and he was out of bed and dressed in a trice. While they sat in the front room, drinking their coffee, Pelle gave him a few hints as to how he should proceed in the matter. He was greatly interested, and went thoroughly into the subject; it seemed to him as though it were only yesterday that he had occupied himself with the people. How many pleasant memories of the fight crowded into his mind! And now every child knew that the meanest thing on earth was to become a blackleg! How he had fought to make even intelligent fellow-workmen understand this! It was quite comical to think that the strike⁠—which filled the workmen with horror the first time he had employed it⁠—was now a thing that children made use of. Time passed with a fleet foot out here in the day; and if you wanted to keep pace you must look sharp!

When the boy had gone, Ellen came