Part 38 (1/2)
Pelle went through them slowly, and La.s.se repeated them one by one.
”What confounded names they did think of in those days!” he exclaimed, quite out of breath. ”You can hardly get your tongue round them! But I shall manage them in time.”
”What do you want to know them for, father?” asked Pelle suddenly.
”What do I want to know them for?” La.s.se scratched one ear. ”Why, of course I--er--what a terrible stupid question! What do _you_ want to know them for? Learning's as good for the one to have as for the other, and in my youth they wouldn't let me get at anything fine like that. Do you want to keep it all to yourself?”
”No, for I wouldn't care a hang about all this prophet business if I didn't _have_ to.”
La.s.se almost fainted with horror.
”Then you're the most wicked little cub I ever knew, and deserve never to have been born into the world! Is that all the respect you have for learning? You ought to be glad you were born in an age when the poor man's child shares in it all as well as the rich. It wasn't so in my time, or else--who knows--perhaps I shouldn't be going about here cleaning stables if I'd learned something when I was young. Take care you don't take pride in your own shame!”
Pelle half regretted his words now, and said, to clear himself: ”I'm in the top form now!”
”Yes, I know that well enough, but that's no reason for your putting your hands in your trouser-pockets; while you're taking breath, the others eat the porridge. I hope you've not forgotten anything in the long Christmas holidays?”
”Oh, no, I'm sure I haven't!” said Pelle, with a.s.surance.
La.s.se did not doubt it either, but only made believe he did to take the boy in. He knew nothing more splendid than to listen to a rus.h.i.+ng torrent of learning, but it was becoming more and more difficult to get the laddie to contribute it. ”How can you be sure?” he went on. ”Hadn't you better see? It would be such a comfort to know that you hadn't forgotten anything--so much as you must have in your head.”
Pelle felt flattered and yielded. He stretched out his legs, closed his eyes, and began to rock backward and forward. And the Ten Commandments, the Patriarchs, the Judges, Joseph and his brethren, the four major and the twelve minor prophets--the whole learning of the world poured from his lips in one long breath. To La.s.se it seemed as if the universe itself were whizzing round the white-bearded countenance of the Almighty. He had to bend his head and cross himself in awe at the amount that the boy's little head could contain.
”I wonder what it costs to be a student?” said La.s.se, when he once more felt earth beneath his feet.
”It must be expensive--a thousand krones, I suppose, at least,” Pelle thought. Neither of them connected any definite idea with the number; it merely meant the insurmountably great.
”I wonder if it would be so terrible dear,” said La.s.se. ”I've been thinking that when we have something of our own--I suppose it'll come to something some day--you might go to Fris and learn the trade of him fairly cheap, and have your meals at home. We ought to be able to manage it that way.”
Pelle did not answer; he felt no desire to be apprenticed to the clerk.
He had taken out his knife, and was cutting something on a post of one of the stalls. It represented the big bull with his head down to the ground, and its tongue hanging out of one corner of its mouth. One hoof right forward at its mouth indicated that the animal was pawing up the ground in anger. La.s.se could not help stopping, for now it was beginning to be like something. ”That's meant to be a cow, isn't it?” he said. He had been wondering every day, as it gradually grew.
”It's Volmer that time he took you on his horns,” said Pelle.
La.s.se could see at once that it was that, now that he had been told.
”It's really very like,” he said; ”but he wasn't so angry as you've made him! Well, well, you'd better get to work again; that there fooling can't make a living for a man.”
La.s.se did not like this defect in the boy--making drawings with chalk or his penknife all over; there would soon not be a beam or a wall in the place that did not bear marks of one or the other. It was useless nonsense, and the farmer would probably be angry if he came into the stable and happened to see them. La.s.se had every now and then to throw cow-dung over the most conspicuous drawings, so that they should not catch the eye of people for whom they were not intended.
Up at the house, Kongstrup was just going in, leaning on his wife's arm. He looked pale but by no means thin. ”He's still rather lame,” said La.s.se, peeping out; ”but it won't be long before we have him down here, so you'd better not quite destroy the post.”
Pelle went on cutting.
”If you don't leave off that silly nonsense, I'll throw dirt over it!”
said La.s.se angrily.
”Then I'll draw you and Madam Olsen on the big gate!” answered Pelle roguishly.
”You--you'd better! I should curse you before my face, and get the parson to send you away--if not something worse!” La.s.se was quite upset, and went off down to the other end of the cow-stable and began the afternoon's cleaning, knocking and pulling his implements about. In his anger he loaded the wheelbarrow too full, and then could neither go one way nor the other, as his feet slipped.