Once he was sitting in the servants' hall, when there was dancing there. Mathilde and Eli both came in to look on. They were disputing about something in the corner where they stood. Eli would not, but Mathilde would, and she won. Then they both crossed the floor to him, courtesied, and asked whether he could dance. He answered "No," and then they both turned, laughed, and ran away. "They keep up a perpetual laughter," thought Arne, and became sober. But the priest had a little adopted son, about ten or twelve years old, of whom Arne thought a good deal; from this boy Arne learned to dance when no one else was present.
Eli had a little brother about the same age as the priest's adopted son. These two were playmates, and Arne made sleds, skees,[22] and snares for them; and he often talked with them about their sisters, especially about Eli. One day Eli's brother brought word that Arne should not be so careless with his hair.
"Who said so?"
"Eli said so; but I was not to tell that she said so."
Some days after, Arne sent a message to Eli that she should laugh a little less. The boy came back with the reply that Arne should laugh a little more.
Once the boy asked for something he had written. Arne let him have it, and thought no more of it. After a while the boy thought he would please Arne with the tidings that both the girls liked his writing very much.
"Why, have they seen it?"
"Yes, it was for them I wanted it."
Arne asked the boys to bring him something their sisters had written; they did so. Arne corrected the mistakes with a carpenter's pencil. He asked the boys to place the paper where it could easily be found. Afterwards he found it again in his jacket pocket, but at the bottom was written, "Corrected by a conceited fellow!"
The next day Arne finished his work at the parsonage, and set out for home. So gentle as he was this winter, his mother had never seen him since those sorrowful days after his father's death. He read the sermon for her, went with her to church, and was very kind to her. But she well knew it was all to get her consent to journey away from her when spring came. Then one day he had a message from Böen to know if he would come there and do some carpentering.