“Then we can set up as stone-masons.”
Lasse stood still in the middle of the foddering-passage, and pondered with bent head. He was exceedingly dissatisfied with their position; there were two of them toiling to earn a hundred krones, and they could not make ends meet. There was never any liberty either; they were simply slaves. By himself he never got any farther than being discontented and disappointed with everything; he was too old. The mere search for ways to something new was insuperable labor, and everything looked so hopeless. But Pelle was restless, and whenever he was dissatisfied with anything, made plans by the score, some of the wildest, and some fairly sensible; and the old man was carried away by them.
“We might go to the town and work too,” said Lasse meditatively. “They earn one bright krone after another in there. But what’s to be done with you? You’re too little to use a tool.”
This stubborn fact put a stop for the moment to Pelle’s plans; but then his courage rose again. “I can quite well go with you to the town,” he said. “For I shall——” He nodded significantly.
“What?” asked Lasse, with interest.
“Well, perhaps I’ll go down to the harbor and be doing nothing, and a little girl’ll fall into the water and I shall save her. But the little girl will be a gentleman’s daughter, and so——” Pelle left the rest to Lasse’s imagination.
“Then you’d have to learn to swim first,” said Lasse gravely. “Or you’d only be drowned.”
Screams were heard from the men’s bedroom. It was Long Ole. The doctor had come and was busy with his maimed hand. “Just run across and find out what’ll happen to it!” said Lasse. “Nobody’ll pay any attention to you at such a time, if you make yourself small.”
In a little while Pelle came back and reported that three fingers were quite crushed and hanging in rags, and the doctor had cut them off.
“Was it these three?” asked Lasse, anxiously, holding up his thumb, forefinger, and middle finger. Truth to tell, Pelle had seen nothing, but his imagination ran away with him.