Kalle squeezed himself in and sat down upon the edge of the turn-up bedstead. “Yes, we’ve managed to scrape together a few,” he repeated. “You must provide for your old age while you have the strength. We’ve made up the dozen, and started on the next. It wasn’t exactly our intention, but mother’s gone and taken us in.” He scratched the back of his head, and looked the picture of despair.
His wife was standing in the middle of the room. “Let’s hope it won’t be twins this time too,” she said, laughing.
“Why, that would be a great saving, as we shall have to send for the midwife anyhow. People say of mother,” he went on, “that when she’s put the children to bed she has to count them to make sure they’re all there; but that’s not true, because she can’t count farther than ten.”
Here a baby in the alcove began to cry, and the mother took it up and seated herself on the edge of the turn-up bedstead to nurse it. “And this is the smallest,” he said, holding it out toward Lasse, who put a crooked finger down its neck.
“What a little fatty!” he said softly; he was fond of children. “And what’s its name?”
“She’s called Dozena Endina, because when she came we thought that was to be the last; and she was the twelfth too.”
“Dozena Endina! That’s a mighty fine name!” exclaimed Lasse. “It sounds exactly as if she might be a princess.”
“Yes, and the one before’s called Ellen—from eleven, of course. That’s her in the kneading-trough,” said Kalle. “The one before that again is Tentius, and then Nina, and Otto. The ones before that weren’t named in that way, for we hadn’t thought then that there’d be so many. But that’s all mother’s fault; if she only puts a patch on my working-trousers, things go wrong at once.”
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, trying to get out of it like that,” said his wife, shaking her finger at him. “But as for that,” she went on, turning to Lasse, “I’m sure the others have nothing to complain of either, as far as their names are concerned. Albert, Anna, Alfred, Albinus, Anton, Alma and Alvilda—let me see, yes, that’s the lot. None of them can say they’ve not been treated fairly. Father was all for A at that time; they were all to rhyme with A. Poetry’s always come so easy to him.” She looked admiringly at her husband.
Kalle blinked his eyes in bashfulness. “No, but it’s the first letter, you see, and it sounds pretty,” he said modestly.