“It’s Brother Lasse and his son down from Stone Farm,” Kalle informed her at last.
“Aye, is it really? Well, I never! And you’ve come over the sea too! Well, here am I, an old body, going about here quite alone; and I’ve lost my sight too.”
“But you’re not quite alone, grandmother,” said Kalle, laughing. “There are two grown-ups and half a score of children about you all day long.”
“Ah yes, you can say what you like, but all those I was young with are dead now, and many others that I’ve seen grow up. Every week some one that I know dies, and here am I still living, only to be a burden to others.”
Kalle brought in the old lady’s arm-chair from her room, and made her sit down. “What’s all that nonsense about?” he said reproachfully. “Why, you pay for yourself!”
“Pay! Oh dear! They get twenty krones a year for keeping me,” said the old woman to the company in general.
The coffee came in, and Kalle poured brandy into the cups of all the elder people. “Now, grandmother, you must cheer up!” he said, touching her cup with his. “Where the pot boils for twelve, it boils for the thirteenth as well. Your health, grandmother, and may you still live many years to be a burden to us, as you call it!”
“Yes, I know it so well, I know it so well,” said the old woman, rocking backward and forward. “You mean so well by it all. But with so little wish to live, it’s hard that I should take the food out of the others’ mouths. The cow eats, and the cat eats, the children eat, we all eat; and where are you, poor things, to get it all from!”
“Say ‘poor thing’ to him who has no head, and pity him who has two,” said Kalle gaily.
“How much land have you?” asked Lasse.