“Well, now they’d like to thresh the corn while it’s still standing, and they sell the calves before they’re born,” said Kalle. “But I say, grandmother, you’re Black Peter!”
“That comes of letting one’s tongue run on and forgetting to look after one’s self!” said the old lady.
“Grandmother’s got to have her face blacked!” cried the children. She begged to be let off, as she was just washed for the night; but the children blacked a cork in the stove and surrounded her, and she was given a black streak down her nose. Every one laughed, both old and young, and grandmother laughed with them, saying it was a good thing she could not see it herself. “It’s an ill wind,” she said, “that blows nobody any good. But I should like to have my sight again,” she went on, “if it’s only for five minutes, before I die. It would be nice to see it all once more, now that the trees and everything have grown so, as Kalle says they have. The whole country must have changed. And I’ve never seen the youngest children at all.”
“They say that they can take blindness away over in Copenhagen,” said Kalle to his brother.
“It would cost a lot of money, wouldn’t it?” asked Lasse.
“It would cost a hundred krones at the very least,” the grandmother remarked.
Kalle looked thoughtful. “If we were to sell the whole blooming thing, it would be funny if there wasn’t a hundred krones over. And then grandmother could have her sight again.”
“Goodness gracious me!” exclaimed the old woman. “Sell your house and home! You must be out of your mind! Throw away a large capital upon an old, worn-out thing like me, that has one foot in the grave! I couldn’t wish for anything better than what I have!” She had tears in her eyes. “Pray God I mayn’t bring about such a misfortune in my old age!”
“Oh, rubbish! We’re still young,” said Kalle. “We could very well begin something new, Maria and me.”
“Have none of you heard how Jacob Kristian’s widow is?” asked the old lady by way of changing the subject. “I’ve got it into my head that she’ll go first, and then me. I heard the crow calling over there last night.”