he sang at the top of his voice.
Ditte stood in the doorway and laughed, with the children hanging on to her skirt. "I've got a bread-knife that won't cut," said she.
The man wheeled his machine up to the door. It was a big thing: water-tank, grindstone, a table for rivetting, a little anvil and a big wheel—all built upon a barrow. The children forgot their fear in their desire to see this funny machine. He handled the bread-knife with many flourishes, whistled over the edge to see how blunt it was, pretended the blade was loose, and put it on the anvil to rivet it. "It must have been used to cut paving-stories with," said he. But this was absurd; the blade was neither loose nor had it been misused. He was evidently a mountebank.
He was quite young; thin, and quick in his movements; he rambled on all the time. And such nonsense he talked! But how handsome he was! He had black eyes and black hair, which looked quite blue in the sunshine.
Lars Peter came out from the barn yawning; he had been having an after-dinner nap. There were bits of clover and hay in his tousled hair. "Where do you come from?" he cried gaily as he crossed the yard.
"From Spain," answered the man, showing his white teeth in a broad grin.
"From Spain—that's what my father always said when any one asked him," said Lars Peter thoughtfully. "Don't come from Odsherred by any chance?"
The man nodded.
"Then maybe you can give me some news of an Amst Hansen—a big fellow with nine sons?... The rag and bone man, he was called." The last was added guiltily.
"I should think I could—that's my father."