“Come here!” she said, in a low voice. “You aren’t afraid of me, are you?”
Pelle had to go up to her and sit on the chair beside her. He did not know what to do with his eyes; and his nose began to run with the excitement, and he had no pocket-handkerchief.
“Are you afraid of me?” she asked again, and a bitter smile crossed her lips.
He had to look at her to show that he was not afraid, and to tell the truth, she was not like a witch at all, but only like a human being who cried and was unhappy.
“Come here!” she said, and she wiped his nose with her own fine handkerchief, and stroked his hair. “You haven’t even a mother, poor little thing!” And she smoothed down his clumsily mended blouse.
“It’s three years now since Mother Bengta died, and she’s lying in the west corner of the churchyard.”
“Do you miss her very much?”
“Oh, well, Father Lasse mends my clothes!”
“I’m sure she can’t have been very good to you.”
“Oh, yes!” said Pelle, nodding earnestly. “But she was so fretful, she was always ailing; and it’s better they should go when they get like that. But now we’re soon going to get married again—when Father Lasse’s found somebody that’ll do.”