When the workshop was tidy, he would hurry downstairs and run out
for Madame, to fetch morning rolls "for themselves." He himself was
given a wheaten biscuit with his coffee, which he drank out in the
kitchen, while the old woman went grumbling to and fro. She was dry
as a mummy and moved about bent double, and when she was not using
her hands she carried one forearm pressed against her midriff. She
was discontented with everything, and was always talking of the
grave. "My two eldest are overseas, in America and Australia;
I shall never see them again. And here at home two menfolk go
strutting about doing nothing and expecting to be waited on. Andres,
poor fellow, isn't strong, and Jeppe's no use any longer; he can't
even keep himself warm in bed nowadays. But they know how to ask for
things, that they do, and they let me go running all over the place
without any help; I have to do everything myself. I shall truly
thank God when at last I lie in my grave. What are you standing
there for with your mouth and your eyes wide open? Get away with
you!" Thereupon Pelle would finish his coffee--it was sweetened
with brown sugar--out of doors, by the workshop window.

In the mornings, before the master appeared, there was no great
eagerness to work; they were all sleepy still, looking forward to
a long, dreary day. The journeyman did not encourage them to work;
he had a difficulty in finding enough for himself. So they sat there
wool-gathering, striking a few blows with the hammer now and then
for appearance's sake, and one or another would fall asleep again
over the table. They all started when three blows were struck on
the wall as a signal for Pelle.

"What are you doing? It seems to me you are very idle in there!"
the master would say, staring suspiciously at Pelle. But Pelle had