Then she laughed aloud for sheer delight, and Hans, smiling, held out his hand to Pelle. “I ought to thank you for it,” he said.
“Yes, it was that dance,” she said. “If my dancing-shoes hadn’t been mended Hans would have run off with somebody else!” She seized Pelle’s arm. And then they went on, very much pleased with one another, and Pelle’s old merriment returned for a time. He too could perform all sorts of feats of strength.
On the following day Pelle was hired by Baker Jörgensen to knead some dough; the baker had received, at short notice, a large order for ship’s biscuit for the Three Sisters.
“Keep moving properly!” he would cry every moment to the two boys, who had pulled off their stockings and were now standing up in the great kneading-trough, stamping away, with their hands gripping the battens which were firmly nailed to the rafters. The wooden ceiling between the rafters was black and greasy; a slimy paste of dust and dough and condensed vapor was running down the walls. When the boys hung too heavily on the battens the baker would cry: “Use your whole weight! Down into the dough with you—then you’ll get a foot like a fine young lady!”
Sören was pottering about alone, with hanging head as always; now and again he sighed. Then old Jörgen would nudge Marie in the side, and they would both laugh. They stood close together, and as they were rolling out the dough their hands kept on meeting; they laughed and jested together. But the young man saw nothing of this.
“Don’t you see?” whispered his mother, striking him sharply in the ribs; her angry eyes were constantly fixed on the pair.
“Oh, leave me alone!” the son would say, moving a little away from her. But she moved after him. “Go and put your arm round her waist— that’s what she wants! Let her feel your hands on her hips! Why do you suppose she sticks out her bosom like that? Let her feel your hands on her hips! Push the old man aside!”
“Oh, leave me alone!” replied Sören, and he moved further away from her again.
“You are tempting your father to sin—you know what he is! And she can’t properly control herself any longer, now that she claims to have a word in the matter. Are you going to put up with that? Go and take her round the waist—strike her if you can’t put up with her, but make her feel that you’re a man!”
“Well, are you working up there?” old Jörgen cried to the boys, turning his laughing countenance from Marie. “Tread away! The dough will draw all the rottenness out of your bodies! And you, Sören—get a move on you!”