They had a cheerful meal, and Pelle wanted to embrace her in his gratitude, but she pushed his hands away. “You can keep that for another time!” she said, laughing. “I’m a poor old widow, and you are nothing but a child. If you want to give me pleasure, why, just settle down and come to yourself again. It isn’t right that you should be just loafing about and idling, and you so young and such a nice boy. And now go home, for I must get up early to-morrow and go to my work.”
Pelle visited her almost every evening. She had a disagreeable habit of shaking him out of his slumber, but her simple and unchanging manner of accepting and enduring everything was invigorating. Now and again she found a little work for him, and was always delighted when she could share her poor meal with him. “Any one like myself feels a need of seeing a man-body at the table-end once in a while,” she said. “But hands off—you don’t owe me anything!”
She criticized his clothes. “They’ll all fall off your body soon— why don’t you put on something else and let me see to them?”
“I have nothing but these,” said Pelle, ashamed.
On Saturday evening he had to take off his rags, and creep, mother- naked, into her bed. She would take no refusal, and she took shirt and all, and put them into a bucket of water. It took her half the night to clean everything. Pelle lay in bed watching her, the coverlet up to his chin. He felt very strange. As for her, she hung the whole wash to dry over the stove, and made herself a bed on a couple of chairs. When he woke up in the middle of the morning she was sitting by the window mending his clothes.
“But what sort of a night did you have?” asked Pelle, a trifle concerned.
“Excellent! Do you know what I’ve thought of this morning? You ought to give up your room and stay here until you are on your feet again —you’ve had a good rest—for once,” she smiled teasingly. “That room is an unnecessary expense. As you see, there’s room here for two.”
But Pelle would not agree. He would not hear of being supported by a woman. “Then people will believe that there’s something wrong between us—and make a scandal of it,” he said.
“Let them then!” she answered, with her gay laugh. “If I’ve a good conscience it’s indifferent to me what others think.” While she was talking she was working diligently at his linen, and she threw one article after another at his head. Then she ironed his suit. “Now you’re quite a swell again!” she said, when he stood up dressed once more, and she looked at him affectionately. “It’s as though you had become a new creature. If I were only ten or fifteen years younger I’d be glad to go down the street on your arm. But you shall give me a kiss—I’ve put you to rights again, as if you were my own child.” She kissed him heartily and turned about to the stove.
“And now I’ve got no better advice than that we have some cold dinner together and then go our ways,” she said, with her back still turned. “All my firing has been used overnight to dry your things, and you can’t stay here in the cold. I think I can pay a visit somewhere or other, and so the day will pass; and you can find some corner to put yourself in.’