“I long for the sun!” retorted the child defiantly.
There was a creaking of timber out in the yard. The child ran out and opened the door leading to the gallery. It was only the people opposite, who were tearing a step away.
But then came mother, with a tin pail in her hand, and a bundle under her arm; and there was something in the pail—it looked heavy. Tra-la- la! And the bundle, the bundle! What was in that? “Mother, mother!” she cried shrilly, leaning far over the rickety rail.
Hanne came swiftly up the stairs, with open mouth and red cheeks; and a face peeped out of every little nest.
“Now Widow Hanne has taken the plunge,” they said. They knew what a point of honor it had been with her to look after her mother and her child unaided. She was a good girl.
And Widow Hanne nodded to them all, as much as to say, “Now it’s done, thank God!”
She stood leaning over the table, and lifted the cover off the pail. “Look!” she said, as she stirred the soup with a ladle: “there’s pearl barley and pot-herbs. If only we had something we could warm it up with!”
“We can tear away a bit of the woodwork like other people,” said the mother.
“Yes,” replied Hanne breathlessly, “yes, why not? If one can beg one can do that!”
She ran out onto the gallery and tore away a few bits of trellis, so that the sound re-echoed through the court. People watched her out of all the dark windows. Widow Hanne had knocked off the head of her pride!