“Hedvig!” She routed out a pocket-handkerchief, and untied a twenty-five øre from one corner. “Run out and get a quarter of butter, there’s a dear.”
“Well, and what then?” she said sullenly to herself. “It’s got to be used, and I’m not sorry I did it. Egholm always likes his things a little on the rich side, and now after he’s been so angry....”
It was hard to please him anyway when he was in that mood. Who would have thought he could have turned so furious just for a little remark like that?... What was it now she had happened to say?
Her brain was puzzling to remember it as she bustled about the final preparations. She talked to herself in an undertone, weeping silently the while.
“Anna, what do you think you’re doing out there?” cried Egholm.
Hedvig answered with a brief, sharp word, which her mother tried to cover with a “Sh!”
“Yes, dear—yes,” she called.
At the last moment she had hit upon a new and ingenious plan for saving her housewifely credit. The soup could be served up in the plates outside, and brought to table thus; the nasty dish thing could be used for the fowl itself. Fortunately, Vang might not know it was a developing tank at all.
Hedvig carried Vang’s plate in, walking stiffly as a wooden doll, and biting her lips till they showed white. But Vang, with a single friendly tug at her pigtails, made her open her mouth at once.
She laughed, showing her fresh white teeth. That was Hedvig’s way.