“You may be a monthly nurse for all I care, but you’ve got to answer when you’re called, or else I’ll get the bailiff to give you a talking-to. Do you understand?”
“Yes, oh yes!—Mr. Pupil must excuse me, but I didn’t hear.”
“Well, will you please remember that Aspasia’s not to go out to pasture to-morrow.”
“Is she going to calve?”
“Yes, of course! Did you think she was going to foal?”
Lasse laughed, as in duty bound, and followed the pupil back through the stable. Now it would come, thought Pelle, and sat listening intently; but he only heard his father make another excuse, close the half-door, and come back with slow, tottering steps. Then he burst into tears, and crept far in under the quilt.
Lasse went about for some time, grumbling to himself, and at last came and gently drew the quilt down from the boy’s head. But Pelle buried his face in the clothes, and when his father turned it up toward him, he met a despairing, uncomprehending gaze that made his own wander restlessly round the room.
“Yes,” he said, with an attempt at being cross. “It’s all very well for you to cry! But when you don’t know where Aspasia stands, you’ve got to be civil, I’m thinking.”
“I know Aspasia quite well,” sobbed the boy. “She’s the third from the door here.”
Lasse was going to give a cross answer, but broke down, touched and disarmed by the boy’s grief. He surrendered unconditionally, stooped down until his forehead touched the boy’s, and said helplessly, “Yes, Lasse’s a poor thing—old and poor! Any one can make a fool of him. He can’t be angry any more, and there’s no strength in his fist, so what’s the good of clenching it! He has to put up with everything, and let himself be hustled about—and say thank you into the bargain—that’s how it is with old Lasse. But you must remember that it’s for your sake he lets himself be put upon. If it wasn’t for you, he’d shoulder his pack and go—old though he is. But you can grow on where your father rusts. And now you must leave off crying!” And he dried the boy’s wet eyes with the quilt.