Pelle was rather frightened at having to go up to the office, and besides the mistress had told him to keep the bottle well hidden under his smock. The room was very high, and on the walls hung splendid guns; and up upon a shelf stood cigar-boxes, one upon another, right up to the ceiling, just as if it were a tobacco-shop. But the strangest thing of all was that there was a fire in the stove, now, in the middle of May, and with the window open! It must be that they didn’t know how to get rid of all their money. But wherever were the money-chests?
All this and much more Pelle observed while he stood just inside the door upon his bare feet, not daring from sheer nervousness to raise his eyes. Then the farmer turned round in his chair, and drew him toward him by the collar. “Now let’s see what you’ve got there under your smock, my little man!” he said kindly.
“It’s brandy,” said Pelle, drawing forth the bottle. “The mistress said I wasn’t to let any one see it.”
“You’re a clever boy,” said Kongstrup, patting him on the cheek. “You’ll get on in the world one of these days. Now give me the bottle and I’ll take it out to your mistress without letting any one see.” He laughed heartily.
Pelle handed him the bottle—there stood money in piles on the writing-table, thick round two-krone pieces one upon another! Then why didn’t Father Lasse get the money in advance that he had begged for?
The mistress now came in, and the farmer at once went and shut the window. Pelle wanted to go, but she stopped him. “You’ve got some things for me, haven’t you?” she said.
“I’ve received the things,” said Kongstrup. “You shall have them—when the boy’s gone.”
But she remained at the door. She would keep the boy there to be a witness that her husband withheld from her things that were to be used in the kitchen; every one should know it.
Kongstrup walked up and down and said nothing. Pelle expected he would strike her, for she called him bad names—much worse than Mother Bengta when Lasse came home merry from Tommelilla. But he only laughed. “Now that’ll do,” he said, leading her away from the door, and letting the boy out.
Lasse did not like it. He had thought the farmer was interfering to prevent them all from making use of the boy, when he so much needed his help with the cattle; and now it had taken this unfortunate turn!