“Pull, then!” ordered the journeyman, who was directing the solemn business. “Pull them along till they’re right under your feet!”
Pelle pulled, and the heavy lasts joggled over the pavement, but he paused with a sigh; the waxed-end was slipping over his warm neck. He stood there stamping, like an animal which stamps its feet on the ground, without knowing why; he lifted them cautiously and looked at them in torment.
“Pull, pull!” ordered Jeppe. “You must keep the thing moving or it sticks!” But it was too late; the wax had hardened in the hairs of his nape—Father Lasse used to call them his “luck curls,” and prophesied a great future for him on their account—and there he stood, and could not remove the waxed-end, however hard he tried. He made droll grimaces, the pain was so bad, and the saliva ran out of his mouth.
“Huh! He can’t even manage a pair of lasts!” said Jeppe jeeringly. “He’d better go back to the land again and wash down the cows’ behinds!”
Then Pelle, boiling with rage, gave a jerk, closing his eyes and writhing as he loosed himself. Something sticky and slippery slipped through his fingers with the waxed-end; it was bloody hair, and across his neck the thread had bitten its way in a gutter of lymph and molten wax. But Pelle no longer felt the pain, his head was boiling so, and he felt a vague but tremendous longing to pick up a hammer and strike them all to the ground, and then to run through the street, banging at the skulls of all he met. But then the journeyman took the lasts off him, and the pain came back to him, and his whole miserable plight. He heard Jeppe’s squeaky voice, and looked at the young master, who sat there submissively, without having the courage to express his opinion, and all at once he felt terribly sorry for himself.
“That was right,” buzzed old Jeppe, “a shoemaker mustn’t be afraid to wax his hide a little. What? I believe it has actually brought the water to his eyes! No, when I was apprentice we had a real ordeal; we had to pass the waxed-end twice round our necks before we were allowed to pull. Our heads used to hang by a thread and dangle when we were done. Yes, those were times!”
Pelle stood there shuffling, in order to fight down his tears; but he had to snigger with mischievous delight at the idea of Jeppe’s dangling head.
“Then we must see whether he can stand a buzzing head,” said the journeyman, getting ready to strike him.
“No, you can wait until he deserves it,” said Master Andres hastily. “You will soon find an occasion.”
“Well, he’s done with the wax,” said Jeppe, “but the question is, can he sit? Because there are some who never learn the art of sitting.”