Part 15 (1/2)

”Ay, you're not to be feared,” said old Maren. ”But it seems like Sorine might be kinder to her.”

”I think it's better now--and the little ones are fond of her. She's quite a little mother to them.”

Yes, there were the children! Ditte's heart warmed at the thought of them. They had gained her affection in their own peculiar way; by adding burdens to her little life they had wound themselves round her heart.

”How's Povl?” asked she, when they had driven over the big hill, and Granny's hut was out of sight.

”Well, you know, he's always crying when you're not at home,” said the father quietly.

Ditte knew this. He was cutting his teeth just now, and needed nursing, his cheeks were red with fever, and his mouth hot and swollen. He would hang on to his mother's skirt, only to be brushed impatiently aside, and would fall and hurt himself. Who then was there to take him on their knee and comfort him? It was like an accusation to Ditte's big heart; she was sorry she had deserted him, and longed to have him in her arms again. It hurt her back to carry him--yes, and the schoolmaster scolded her for stooping. ”It's your own fault,” the mother would say; ”stop dragging that big child about! He can walk if he likes, he can.” But when he was in pain and cried, Ditte knew all too well from her own experience the child's need of being held against a beating heart. She still had that longing herself, though a mother's care had never been offered her.

Sorine was cross when Lars Peter returned with Ditte, and ignored her for several days. But at last curiosity got the upper hand.

”How's the old woman--is she worse?” asked she.

Ditte, who thought her mother asked out of sympathy, gave full details of the miserable condition that Granny was in. ”She's always in bed, and only gets food when any one takes it to her.”

”Then she can't last much longer,” thought the mother.

At this Ditte began to cry. Then her mother scolded her:

”Stupid girl, there's nothing to cry for. Old folks can't live on forever, being a burden to others. And when Granny dies we'll get a new dwelling-house.”

”No, 'cause Granny says, what comes from the house is to be divided equally. And the rest----” Ditte broke off suddenly.

”What rest?” Sorine bent forward with distended nostrils.

But Ditte closed her lips firmly. Granny had strictly forbidden her to mention the subject--and here she had almost let it out.

”Stupid girl! don't you suppose I know you're thinking of the two hundred crowns that was paid for you? What's to be done with it?”

Ditte looked with suspicion at her mother. ”I'm to have it,” she whispered.

”Then the old woman should let us keep it for you, instead of hanging on to it herself,” said Sorine.

Ditte was terrified. That was exactly what Granny was afraid of, that Sorine should get hold of it. ”Granny has hidden it safely,”

said she.

”Oh, has she, and where?--in the eiderdown of course!”

”No!” Ditte a.s.sured her, shaking her head vehemently. But any one could see that was where it was hidden.

”Oh, that's lucky, for that eiderdown I'm going to fetch some day.

That you can tell Granny, with my love, next time you see her. Each of my sisters when they married was given an eiderdown, and I claim mine too.”

”Granny only has one eiderdown!” Ditte protested--perhaps for the twentieth time.

”Then she'll just have to take one of her many under-quilts. She lies propped up nearly to the ceiling, with all those bedclothes.”