"But they said they didn't want you!" she broke out, her face quivering.

"Yes, but now they want me--you see, I've to help with the little ones," answered Ditte proudly, gathering her possessions together and putting them on the table. Each time she put a thing down was like a stab to the old woman; then she would comfort and stroke Granny's shaking hand, which was nothing but blue veins. Maren sat dumbly knitting; her face was strangely set and dead-looking.

"Of course I'll come home and see you; but then you must take it sensibly. Can't you understand that I couldn't stay with you always?

I'll bring some coffee when I come, and we'll have a lovely time.

But you must promise not to cry, 'cause your eyes can't stand it."

Ditte stood talking in a would-be wise voice, as she tied up her things.

"And now I must go, or I shan't get there till night, and then mother will be angry." She said the word "mother" with a certain reverence as if it swept away all objections. "Good-by, dear, _dear_ Granny!" She kissed the old woman's cheek and hurried off with her bundle.

As soon as the door had closed on her Maren began crying, and calling for her; in a monotonous undertone she poured out all her troubles, sorrow and want and longing for death. She had had so many heavy burdens and had barely finished with one when another appeared. Her hardships had cut deeply--most of them; and it did her good to live through them again and again. She went on for some time, and would have gone on still longer had she not suddenly felt two arms round her neck and a wet cheek against her own. It was the mischievous child, who had returned, saying that after all she was not leaving her.

Ditte had gone some distance, as far as the baker's, who wondered where she was going with the big parcel and stopped her. Her explanation, that she was going home to her parents, they refused to believe; her father had said nothing about it when the baker had met him at the market the day before, indeed he had sent his love to them. Ditte stood perplexed on hearing all this. A sudden doubt flashed through her mind; she turned round with a jerk--quick as she was in all her movements--and set off home for the hut on the Naze.

How it had all happened she did not bother to think, such was her relief at being allowed to return to Granny.

Granny laughed and cried at the same time, asked questions and could make no sense of it.

"Aren't you going at all, then?" she broke out, thanking G.o.d, and hardly able to believe it.

"Of course I'm not going. Haven't I just told you, the baker said I wasn't to."

"Ay, the baker, the baker--what's he got to do with it? You'd got the message to go."

Ditte was busily poking her nose into Granny's cheek.

Maren lifted her head: "Hadn't you, child? Answer me!"

"I don't know, Granny," said Ditte, hiding her face against her.

Granny held her at an arm's length: "Then you've been playing tricks, you bad girl! Shame on you, to treat my poor old heart like this." Maren began sobbing again and could not stop; it had all come so unexpectedly. If only one could get to the bottom of it; but the child had declared that she had not told a lie. She was quite certain of having had the message, and was grieved at Granny not believing her. She never told an untruth when it came to the point, so after all must have had the message. On the other side the child herself said that she was not going--although the baker's counter orders carried no authority. They had simply stopped her, because her expedition seemed so extraordinary. It was beyond Maren--unless the child had imagined it all.

Ditte kept close to the old woman, constantly taking hold of her chin. "Now I know how sorry you'll be to lose me altogether," she said quietly.

Maren raised her face: "Do you think you'll soon be called away?"

Ditte shook her head so vehemently that Granny felt it.

Old Maren was deep in thought; she had known before that the child understood, that it was bound to come.

"Whatever it may be," said she after a few moments, "you've behaved like the great man I once read about, who rehea.r.s.ed his own funeral--with four black horses, hea.r.s.e and everything. All his servants had to pretend they were the procession, dressed in black, they had even to cry. He himself was watching from an attic window, and when he saw the servants laughing behind their handkerchiefs instead of crying, he took it so to heart that he died. 'Tis dangerous for folks to make fun of their own pa.s.sing away--wherever they may be going!"

"I wasn't making fun, Granny," Ditte a.s.sured her again.

From that day Maren went in daily dread of the child being claimed by her parents. "My ears are burning," she often said, "maybe 'tis your mother talking of us."

Sorine certainly did talk of them in those days. Ditte was now old enough to make herself useful; her mother would not mind having her home to look after the little ones. "She's nearly nine years old now and we'll have to take her sooner or later," she explained.

Lars Peter demurred; he thought it was a shame to take her from Granny. "Let's take them both then," said he.

Sorine refused to listen, and nagged for so long that she overcame his opposition.

"We've been expecting you," said Maren when at last he came to fetch the child. "We've known for long that you'd come on this errand."

"'Tisn't exactly with my good will. But in a way a mother has a right to her own child, and Sorine thinks she'd like to have her,"

answered Lars Peter. He wanted to smooth it down for both sides.

"I know you've done your best. Well, it can't be helped. And how's every one at home? There's another mouth to feed, I've heard."

"Ay, he's nearly six months old now." Lars Peter brightened up, as he always did when speaking of his children.

They got into the cart. "We shan't forget you, either of us," said Lars Peter huskily, while trying to get the old nag off.

Then the old woman stumbled in, they saw her feeling her way over the doorstep with her foot and closing the door behind her.

"'Tis lonely to be old and blind," said Lars Peter, lashing his whip as usual.

Ditte heard nothing; she was sitting with her face in one big smile.

She was driving towards something new; she had no thought for Granny just then.

CHAPTER XIV

AT HOME WITH MOTHER

The rag and bone man's property--the Crow's Nest--stood a little way back from the road, and the piece up towards the road he had planted with willows, partly to hide the half-ruined abode, and partly to have material for making baskets during the winter, when there was little business to be done. The willows grew quickly, and already made a beautiful place for playing hide and seek. He made the house look as well as it could, with tar and whitewash, but miserable looking it ever would be, leaking and falling to pieces; it was the dream of Sorine's life, that they should build a new dwelling-house up by the road, using this as outhouse. The surroundings were desolate and barren, and a long way from neighbors. The view towards the northwest was shut off by a big forest, and on the opposite side was the big lake, which reflected all kinds of weather. On the dark nights could be heard the quacking of the ducks in the rushes on its banks, and on rainy days, boats would glide like shadows over it, with a dark motionless figure in the bow, the eel-fisher. He held his eel-fork slantingly in front of him, prodded the water sleepily now and then, and slid past. It was like a dream picture, and the whole lake was in keeping. When Ditte felt dull she would pretend that she ran down to the banks, hid herself in the rushes, and dream herself home to Granny. Or perhaps away to something still better; something unknown, which was in store for her somewhere or other.

Ditte never doubted but that there was something special in reserve for her, so glorious that it was impossible even to imagine it.

In her play too, her thoughts would go seawards, and when her longing for Granny was too strong, she would run round the corner of the house and gaze over the wide expanse of water. Now she knew Granny's true worth.

She had not yet been down to the sea; as a matter of fact there was no time to play. At six o'clock in the morning, the youngest babe made himself heard, as regularly as clockwork, and she had to get up in a hurry, take him from his mother and dress him. Lars Peter would be at his morning jobs, if he had not already gone to the beach for fish. When he was at home, Sorine would get up with the children; but otherwise she would take a longer nap, letting Ditte do the heaviest part of the work for the day. Then her morning duties would be left undone, the two animals bellowed from the barn, the pigs squealed over their empty trough, and the hens flocked together at the hen-house door waiting to be let out. Ditte soon found out that her mother was more industrious when the father was at home than when he was out; then she would trail about the whole morning, her hair undone and an old skirt over her nightdress, and a pair of down-trodden shoes on her bare feet, while everything was allowed to slide.

Ditte thought this was a topsy-turvy world. She herself took her duties seriously, and had not yet been sufficiently with grown-up people to learn to shirk work. She washed and dressed the little ones. They were full of life, mischievous and unmanageable, and she had as much as she could do in looking after the three of them. As soon as they saw an opportunity, the two eldest would slip away from her, naked as they were; then she had to tie up the youngest while she went after them.

The days she went to school she felt as a relief. She had just time to get the children ready, and eat her porridge, before leaving. At the last moment her mother would find something or other, which had to be done, and she had to run the whole way.

She was often late, and was scolded for it, yet she loved going to school. She enjoyed sitting quietly in the warm schoolroom for hours at a stretch, resting body and mind; the lessons were easy, and the schoolmaster kind. He often let them run out for hours, when he would work in his field, and it constantly happened that the whole school helped him to gather in his corn or dig up his potatoes.

This was a treat indeed. The children were like a flock of screaming birds, chattering, making fun and racing each other at the work. And when they returned, the schoolmaster's wife would give them coffee.

More than anything else Ditte loved the singing-cla.s.s. She had never heard any one but Granny sing, and she only did it when she was spinning--to prevent the thread from being uneven, and the wheel from swinging, said she. It was always the same monotonous, gliding melody; Ditte thought she had composed it herself, because it was short or long according to her mood.

The schoolmaster always closed the school with a song, and the first time Ditte heard the full chorus, she burst into tears with emotion.

She put her head on the desk, and howled. The schoolmaster stopped the singing and came down to her.

"She must have been frightened," said the girls nearest to her.