"All right—begin now and here! Sharpen these knives, and mind you make them sharp as razors!"
After Markus and Johannes had eaten their bread, the old cart was dragged out of the shed and dusted off, the axles oiled, the rope moistened, and the knives were sharpened. Johannes watched attentively, and saw how swiftly and skilfully Markus turned and directed the steel until it was sharp and bright, and how the golden fountain of sparks flew over the whizzing wheel.
Afterward they went together up the street, for it was necessary to earn some money.
Markus stepped slowly wheeling his cart through the sunny streets—alive with people. From time to time his "Scissors to Gri-i-i-nd!" rang out above the tramp of feet and the rattle of wagons, while he looked searchingly right and left to see if there was not some one who had something to be sharpened. Johannes ran ahead, to ring the bells of all the houses, and to bring the knives and scissors out to the cart.
Johannes did his very best. He felt that only now had life begun in real earnest. For one's bread one must work, and earn money. He had never yet thought about money and money-making; but the reality was stern and sobering. Every one around him talked about money and money-getting. Yet his noble Guide, he saw, was poor and shabby—forced to hard and constant labor to keep from starving. Life grew serious indeed.
They said but little to each other. They were too busy. Johannes enjoyed the work. He felt there was something heroic and important in the fact that he, the young gentleman who had been to a superior school here, was now going around as a scissors-grinder's boy. And when the housemaids, somewhat surprised, looked at his neat little suit, he carried it more jauntily. But the meeting with an old schoolmate was full of pain.
Toward twelve o'clock he grew tired and hungry. In passing by the bakeries he had a feeling now that he had never known before—almost peevishness—as if something had been taken away from him—as if that bread were his by very right.
Then they came to the circus, where Marjon was. And there she sat, with her dark-eyed sister. Her flaxen hair was now braided and wound around her head.
Johannes heard the sound of an iron kettle being shaken, and he knew that that meant potatoes. And there was bacon, also, and some boiled vegetables. At first, these things were of prime importance to him. He could think of nothing else until he had eaten—ravenously. Then, rather ashamed, he glanced up.