As he lay there, woe-begone, playing with a couple of bits of
firewood, the elder-boughs behind the well parted, and a pair of
big eyes stared at him wonderingly. It was only Manna.

"Did they beat you--or why are you crying?" she asked earnestly.

Pelle turned his face away.

Manna shook her hair back and looked at him fixedly. "Did they beat
you? What? If they did, I shall go in and scold them hard!"

"What is it to you?"

"People who don't answer aren't well-behaved."

"Oh, hold your row!"

Then he was left in peace; over at the back of the garden Manna and
her two younger sisters were scrambling about the trellis, hanging
on it and gazing steadfastly across the yard at him. But that was
nothing to him; he wanted to know nothing about them; he didn't want
petticoats to pity him or intercede for him. They were saucy jades,
even if their father had sailed on the wide ocean and earned a lot
of money. If he had them here they would get the stick from him!
Now he must content himself with putting out his tongue at them.

He heard their horrified outcry--but what then? He didn't want to
go scrambling about with them any more, or to play with the great
conch-shells and lumps of coral in their garden! He would go back