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But Pelle already found his world immense, and was quite willing to make it infinite. For a good arm’s-length on all sides of him, there was more or less terra firma but beyond that floated raw matter, chaos. His world was small he had only just begun to create it. Even distant trees, houses and rocks in the landscape, that he had never been up to, assumed an attitude toward him, either friendly or hostile and the relation had to be carefully decided in the case of each new thing that appeared upon his horizon. Everything grouped itself about him, everything existed for him⁠—for him to play with, to shudder at, or to put on one side for a great future. Then there was one natural centre in the world⁠—Pelle himself. He was the real Providence, the last great refuge in good and ill he could do whatever he liked⁠â€≏ather Lasse was almighty. He was there, simply, he stood like a safe wall behind everything that one did. There was one subject about which, as a matter of course, there could be no question, nor any thought at all in that sense, because it was the very foundation of all existence⁠â€≏ather Lasse. God⁠ ⁠… well, He had a long white beard like the farmer at Kaase Farm but who kept house for Him now He was old? Saint Peter was His bailiff, of course!⁠ ⁠… How could the old, dry cows have just as young calves as the young ones? And so on, and so on. And when he wanted to pull up the rope again, there was someone deep down who caught hold of the drag and tried to pull him down, so he had to let the whole thing go. In the middle of the pond there was no bottom, so there you’d go on sinking forever! The old thatcher, when he was young, had had more than a hundred fathoms of rope down there with a drag, to fish up a bucket, but he never reached the bottom. They had learnt quite by chance that Lasse had a brother who owned a house over there so of course they knew the place comparatively well.ĭown there lay the sea he had sailed upon it himself! Ships both of iron and wood sailed upon it, though how iron could float when it was so heavy he did not know! The sea must be strong, for in the pond, iron went to the bottom at once. He had not been there yet, but was going with his father as soon as an opportunity presented itself. What did the word “practical” mean, which the bailiff used when he talked to the farmer? And why did the men call one another “Swede” as a term of abuse? Why, they were all Swedes! What was there away beyond the cliffs where the stone-quarry lay? The farmlands extended as far as that on the one side.

But one day he gave Gustav a beautifully carved stick for permission to perform the trick of turning the crown inside out himself and that set his mind at rest at last, and the cap had to take its place in his everyday world like everything else.īut what did it look like in Farmer Kongstrup’s big rooms? Money lay upon the floor there, of course, the gold in one place and the silver in another and in the middle of each heap stood a half-bushel measure. It was an absorbingly interesting study that threw everything else into the background, and exercised Pelle’s mind for many days and he used this miraculous cap as a standard by which to measure everything great and desirable. Moreover, Gustav had got a cap which could turn out three different crowns⁠—one of blue duffle, one of waterproof American cloth, and one of white canvas for use in sunny weather. Rud went to his Sunday-school, and he was poor so he was nothing out of the ordinary. He proved to be nothing but a little shoemaker down in the village, who spoke at the meetinghouse on Sundays and it was also said that his wife drank. Pelle was not long in finding out all about the man who had been sent by God, and had the grave, reproachful eyes.