mysteries, with trap-doors that led down to pitch-dark, underground
beet and potato cellars, from which, of course, you could get by
secret passages to the strangest places underground, and other
trap-doors that led up to dark lofts, where the most wonderful
treasures were preserved in the form of old lumber.

But Pelle unfortunately had little time to go into all this. Every
day he had to help his father to look after the cattle, and with so
large a herd, the work was almost beyond their power. If he had a
moment's breathing-space, some one was sure to be after him. He had
to fetch water for the laundry girls, to grease the pupil's boots
and run to the village shop for spirits or chewing-tobacco for the
men. There was plenty to play with, but no one could bear to see him
playing; they were always whistling for him as if he were a dog.

He tried to make up for it by turning his work into a game, and in
many instances this was possible. Watering the cattle, for instance,
was more fun than any real game, when his father stood out in the
yard and pumped, and the boy only had to guide the water from manger
to manger. When thus occupied, he always felt something like a great
engineer. But on the other hand, much of the other work was too hard
to be amusing.

At this moment the boy was wandering about among the outbuildings,
where there was no one to hunt him about. The door to the cow-stable
stood open, and he could hear the continual munching of the cows,
now and then interrupted by a snuff of contentment or the regular
rattle of a chain up and down when a cow rubbed its neck upon the
post. There was a sense of security in the sound of his father's
wooden shoes up and down the foddering-passage.