Ditte shot up like a young plant, day by day putting forth new leaves. She was no sooner in the midst of one difficult situation, and her troubled grandparents, putting their heads together, had decided to take strong measures, than she was out of it again and into something else. It was just like sailing over a flat bottom—thought Sören—passing away under one and making room for something new. The old ones could not help wondering if they themselves and their children had ever been like this. They had never thought of it before, having had little time to spend on their offspring beyond what was strictly necessary; the one had quite enough to do in procuring food and the other in keeping the home together. But now they could not help thinking; however much they had to do, and they marveled much over many things.
"'Tis strange how a bit of a child can open a body's eyes, for all one's old. Ay, there's a lot to learn," said Maren.
"Stupid," said Sören. From his tone it could be gathered that he himself had been thinking the same.
Ditte was indeed full of character. Little as she had had to inherit, she nevertheless was richly endowed; her first smile brought joy; her feeble tears, sorrow. A gift she was, born out of emptiness, thrown up on the beach for the wornout old couple. No one had done anything to deserve her,—on the contrary, all had done their utmost to put her out of existence. Notwithstanding, there she lay one day with blinking eyes, blue and innocent as the skies of heaven. Anxiety she brought from the very beginning, many footsteps had trodden round her cradle, and questioning thoughts surrounded her sleep. It was even more exciting when she began to take notice; when only a week old she knew their faces, and at three she laughed to Sören. He was quite foolish that day and in the evening had to go down to the [tap-room] to tell them all about it. Had any one ever known such a child? She could laugh already! And when she first began to understand play, it was difficult to tear oneself away—particularly for Sören. Every other moment he had to go in and caress her with his crooked fingers. Nothing was so delightful as to have the room filled with her gurgling, and Maren had to chase him away from the cradle, at least twenty times a day. And when she took her first toddling steps!—that little helpless, illegitimate child who had come defiantly into existence, and who, in return for life brightened the days of the two old wornout people. It had become pleasant once more to wake in the morning to a new day: life was worth living again.
Her stumbling, slow walk was in itself a pleasure; and the contemplative gravity with which she crossed the doorstep, both hands full, trotted down the road—straight on as if there was nothing behind her, and with drooping head—was altogether irresistible. Then Maren would slink out round the corner and beckon to Sören to make haste and come, and Sören would throw down his ax and come racing over the grass of the downs with his tongue between his lips. "Heaven only knows what she is up to now," said he, and the two crept after her down the road. When she had wandered a little distance, in deep thought, she would suddenly realize her loneliness, and begin to howl, a picture of misery, left alone and forsaken. Then the two old people would appear on the scene, and she would throw herself into their arms overjoyed at finding them again.
Then quite suddenly she got over it—the idea that things were gone forever if she lost sight of them for a moment. She began to look out and up into people's faces: hitherto, she had only seen the feet of those who came within her horizon. One day she actually went off by herself, having caught sight of the houses down in the hamlet. They had to look after her more seriously now that the outside world had tempted her.
"We're not enough for her, seems like," said Sören despondently, "got a fancy for the unknown already."
It was the first time she had turned away from them, and Sören recognized in that something of what he had experienced before, and for a moment a feeling of loneliness came over him. But Maren, wise as she had grown since the coming of the little one, again found a way. She threw her kerchief over her head and went down to the hamlet with Ditte, to let her play with other children.