“Yes, I do believe that, for if you’re fond of them you take good care of them,” said the incorrigible Ellen.
“I’m not so sure of that,” said Pelle, looking at her teasingly. “You’re very fond of your balsam, but a gardener would be sure to tell you that you treat it like a cabbage. And look how industriously it flowers all the same. They answer kind thoughts with gratitude, and that’s a nice way of thinking. Intelligence isn’t perhaps worth as much as we human beings imagine it to be. You yourself think with your heart, little mother.” It was his pet name for her just now.
After a little interlude such as this, they went on with their work. Pelle had to tell Sister all about the animals in her alphabet-book—about the useful cow and the hare that licked the dew off the clover and leaped up under the very nose of the cowherd. In the winter it went into the garden, gnawed the bark off the young trees and ate the farmer’s wife’s cabbage. “Yes, I must acknowledge that,” Ellen interposed, and then they all laughed, for puss had just eaten her kale.
Then the child suddenly left the subject, and wanted to know whether there had always, always been a Copenhagen. Pelle came to a standstill for a moment, but by a happy inspiration dug Bishop Absalom out of his memory. He took the opportunity of telling them that the capital had a population of half a million.
“Have you counted them, father?” exclaimed Sister, in perplexity, taking hold of his sleeve.
“Why, of course father hasn’t, you little donkey!” said Lasse Frederik. “One might be born while he was counting!”
Then they were at the cock again, which both began and ended the book. He stood and crowed so proudly and never slept. He was a regular prig, but when Sister was diligent he put a one-öre piece among the leaves. But the hens laid eggs, and it was evident that they were the same as the flowers; for when you were kind to them and treated them as if they belonged to the family, they were industrious in laying, but if you built a model house for them and treated them according to all established rules, they did not even earn as much as would pay for their food. At Uncle Kalle’s there was a hen that came into the room among all the children and laid its egg under the bed every single day all through the winter, when no other hens were laying. Then the farmer of Stone Farm bought it to make something by it. He gave twenty kroner for it and thought he had got a gold mine; but no sooner did it come to Stone Farm than it left off laying winter eggs, for there it was not one of the family, but was only a hen that they wanted to make money out of.
“Mother’s balsam flowers all the winter,” said Sister, looking fondly at the plant.
“Yes, that’s because it sees how industrious we all are,” said Lasse Frederik mischievously.
“Will you be quiet!” said Pelle, hitting out at him.
Ellen sat knitting some tiny socks. Her glance moved lingeringly from one to another of them, and she smiled indulgently at their chatter. They were just a lot of children!
“Mother, may I have those for my doll?” asked Anna, taking up the finished sock.
“No, little sister’s to have them when she comes.”
“If it is a girl,” put in Lasse Frederik.
“When’s little sister coming?”
“In the spring when the stork comes back to the farm; he’ll bring her with him.”
“Pooh! The stork!” said Lasse Frederik contemptuously. “What a pack of nonsense!”
Sister too was wiser than that. When the weather was fine she fetched milk from the farm, and had learned a few things there.
“Now you must go to bed, my child,” said Ellen, rising. “I can see you’re tired.” When she had helped the child into bed she came back and sat down again with her knitting.
“Now I think you should leave off work for today,” said Pelle.
“Then I shouldn’t be ready in time,” answered Ellen, moving her knitting-needles more swiftly.
“Send it to a machine-knitter. You don’t even earn your bread anyhow with that handicraft; and there must be a time for work and a time for rest, or else you’d not be a human being.”
“Mother can make three öre an hour by knitting,” said Lasse Frederik, who had made a careful calculation.
What did it matter? Ellen did not think she neglected anything else in doing it.
“It is stupid though!” exclaimed Lasse Frederik suddenly. “Why doesn’t wool grow on one’s legs? Then you’d have none of the bother of shearing the wool off sheep, carding it, spinning it, and knitting stockings.”
“Oh, what nonsense you’re talking!” said Ellen, laughing.
“Well, men were hairy once,” Lasse Frederik continued. “It was a great pity that they didn’t go on being it!”
Pelle did not think it such a pity, for it meant that they had taken over the care of themselves. Animals were born fully equipped. Even water-haters like cats and hens were born with the power of swimming; but men had to acquire whatever they had a use for. Nature did not equip them, because they had become responsible for themselves; they were the lords of creation.
“But then the poor ought to be hairy all over their bodies,” Ellen objected. “Why doesn’t Nature take as much care of the poor as of the animals? They can’t do it themselves.”
“Yes, but that’s just what they can do!” said Pelle, “for it’s they who produce most things. Perhaps you think it’s money that cultivates the land, or weaves materials, or drags coal out of the earth? It had to leave that alone; all the capital in the world can’t so much as pick up a pin from the ground if there are no hands
