“When’s little sister coming?”
“In the spring when the stork comes back to the farm; he’ll bring her with him.”
“Pooh! The stork!” said Lasse Frederik contemptuously. “What a pack of nonsense!”
Sister too was wiser than that. When the weather was fine she fetched milk from the farm, and had learned a few things there.
“Now you must go to bed, my child,” said Ellen, rising. “I can see you’re tired.” When she had helped the child into bed she came back and sat down again with her knitting.
“Now I think you should leave off work for to-day,” said Pelle.
“Then I shouldn’t be ready in time,” answered Ellen, moving her knitting-needles more swiftly.
“Send it to a machine-knitter. You don’t even earn your bread anyhow with that handicraft; and there must be a time for work and a time for rest, or else you’d not be a human being.”
“Mother can make three öre (nearly a halfpenny) an hour by knitting,” said Lasse Frederik, who had made a careful calculation.
What did it matter? Ellen did not think she neglected anything else in doing it.