CHAPTER VI

THE KNIFE-GRINDER

One afternoon, when the children were playing outside in the sunshine, Ditte stood just inside the open kitchen door, washing up after dinner. Suddenly soft music was heard a short distance away--a run of notes; even the sunshine seemed to join in. The little ones lifted their heads and gazed out into s.p.a.ce; Ditte came out with a plate and a dishcloth in her hands.

Up on the road just where the track to the Crow's Nest turned off stood a man with a wonderful-looking machine; he blew, to draw attention--on a flute or clarionet, whatever it might be--and looked towards the house. When no-one appeared in answer to his call, he began moving towards the house, pushing the machine in front of him.

The little ones rushed indoors. The man left his machine beside the pump and came up to the kitchen door. Ditte stood barring the way.

"Anything want grinding, rivetting or soldering, anything to mend?"

he gabbled off, lifting his cap an inch from his forehead. "I sharpen knives, scissors, razors, pitchforks or plowshares! Cut your corns, stick pigs, flirt with the mistress, kiss the maids--and never say no to a gla.s.s and a crust of bread!" Then he screwed up his mouth and finished off with a song.

"Knives to grind, knives to grind!

Any scissors and knives to grind?

Knives and scissors to gri-i-ind!"

he sang at the top of his voice.

Ditte stood in the doorway and laughed, with the children hanging on to her skirt. "I've got a bread-knife that won't cut," said she.

The man wheeled his machine up to the door. It was a big thing: water-tank, grindstone, a table for rivetting, a little anvil and a big wheel--all built upon a barrow. The children forgot their fear in their desire to see this funny machine. He handled the bread-knife with many flourishes, whistled over the edge to see how blunt it was, pretended the blade was loose, and put it on the anvil to rivet it. "It must have been used to cut paving-stories with,"

said he. But this was absurd; the blade was neither loose nor had it been misused. He was evidently a mountebank.

He was quite young; thin, and quick in his movements; he rambled on all the time. And such nonsense he talked! But how handsome he was!

He had black eyes and black hair, which looked quite blue in the sunshine.

Lars Peter came out from the barn yawning; he had been having an after-dinner nap. There were bits of clover and hay in his tousled hair. "Where do you come from?" he cried gaily as he crossed the yard.

"From Spain," answered the man, showing his white teeth in a broad grin.

"From Spain--that's what my father always said when any one asked him," said Lars Peter thoughtfully. "Don't come from Odsherred by any chance?"

The man nodded.

"Then maybe you can give me some news of an Amst Hansen--a big fellow with nine sons?... The rag and bone man, he was called." The last was added guiltily.

"I should think I could--that's my father."

"No!" said Lars Peter heartily, stretching out his big hand. "Then welcome here, for you must be Johannes--my youngest brother." He held the youth's hand, looking at him cordially. "Oh, so that's what you look like now; last time I saw you, you were only a couple of months old. You're just like mother!"

Johannes smiled rather shyly, and drew his hand away; he was not so pleased over the meeting as was his brother.

"Leave the work and come inside," said Lars Peter, "and the girl will make us a cup of coffee. Well, well! To think of meeting like this. Ay, just like mother, you are." He blinked his eyes, touched by the thought.

As they drank their coffee, Johannes told all the news from home.

The mother had died some years ago and the brothers were gone to the four corners of the earth. The news of his mother's death was a great blow to Lars Peter. "So she's gone?" said he quietly. "I've not seen her since you were a baby. I'd looked forward to seeing her again--she was always good, was mother."

"Well," Johannes drawled, "she was rather grumpy."

"Not when I was at home--maybe she was ill a long time."

"We didn't get on somehow. No, the old man for me, he was always in a good temper."

"Does he still work at his old trade?" asked Lars Peter with interest.

"No, that's done with long ago. He lives on his pension!" Johannes laughed. "He breaks stones on the roadside now. He's as hard as ever and will rule the roost. He fights with the peasants as they pa.s.s, and swears at them because they drive on his heap of stones."

Johannes himself had quarreled with his master and had given him a black eye; and as he was the only butcher who would engage him over there, he had left, crossing over at Lynoes--with the machine which he had borrowed from a sick old scissor-grinder.

"So you're a butcher," said Lars Peter. "I thought as much. You don't look like a professional grinder. You're young and strong; couldn't you work for the old man and keep him out of the workhouse?"

"Oh, he's difficult to get on with--and he's all right where he is.

If a fellow wants to keep up with the rest--and get a little fun out of life--there's only enough for one."

"I dare say. And what do you think of doing now? Going on again?"

Yes, he wanted to see something of life--with the help of the machine outside.

"And can you do all you say?"

Johannes made a grimace. "I learned a bit from the old man when I was a youngster, but it's more by way of patter than anything else.

A fellow's only to ramble on, get the money, and make off before they've time to look at the things. It's none so bad, and the police can't touch you so long as you're working."

"Is that how it is?" said Lars Peter. "I see you've got the roving blood in you too. 'Tis a sad thing to suffer from, brother!"

"But why? There's always something new to be seen! 'Tis sickening to hang about in the same place, forever."

"Ay, that's what I used to think; but one day a man finds out that it's no good thinking that way! Nothing thrives when you knock about the road to earn your bread. No home and no family, nothing worth having, however much you try to settle down."

"But you've got both," said Johannes.

"Ay, but it's difficult to keep things together. Living from hand to mouth and nothing at your back--'tis a poor life. And the worst of it is, we poor folk _have_ to turn that way; it seems better not to know where your bread's to come from day by day and go hunting it here, there and everywhere. It's that that makes us go a-roving. But now you must amuse yourself for a couple of hours; I've promised to cart some dung for a neighbor!"

During Lars Peter's absence Ditte and the children showed their uncle round the farm. He was a funny fellow and they very soon made friends. He couldn't be used to anything fine, for he admired everything he saw, and won Ditte's confidence entirely. She had never heard the Crow's Nest and its belongings admired before.

He helped her with her evening work, and when Lars Peter returned the place was livelier than it had been for many a day. After supper Ditte made coffee and put the brandy bottle on the table, and the brothers had a long chat. Johannes told about home; he had a keen sense of humor and spared neither home nor brothers in the telling, and Lars Peter laughed till he nearly fell off his chair.

"Ay, that's right enough!" he cried, "just as it would have been in the old days." There was a great deal to ask about and many old memories to be refreshed; the children had not seen their father so genial and happy for goodness knows how long. It was easy to see that his brother's coming had done him good.

And they too had a certain feeling of well-being--they had got a relation! Since Granny's death they had seemed so alone, and when other children spoke of their relations they had nothing to say.

They had got an uncle--next after a granny this was the greatest of all relations. And he had come to the Crow's Nest in the most wonderful manner, taking them unawares--and himself too! Their little bodies tingled with excitement; every other minute they crept out, meddling with the wonderful machine, which was outside sleeping in the moonlight. But Ditte soon put a stop to this and ordered them to bed.

The two brothers sat chatting until after midnight, and the children struggled against sleep as long as they possibly could, so as not to lose anything. But sleep overcame them at last, and Ditte too had to give in. She would not go to bed before the men, and fell asleep over the back of a chair.

Morning came, and with it a sense of joy; the children opened their eyes with the feeling that something had been waiting for them by the bedside the whole night to meet them with gladness when they woke--what was it? Yes, over there on the hook by the door hung a cap--Uncle Johannes was here! He and Lars Peter were already up and doing.

Johannes was taken with everything he saw and was full of ideas.

"This might be made a nice little property," he said time after time. "'Tis neglected, that's all."