take the master's stick away, so that he could not move, and would
even get her fingers among the journeyman's American tools.

She was on good terms with Pelle the very first day.

"Whose new boy are you?" she asked him, smacking him on the back.
And Pelle laughed, and returned her look frankly, with that
immediate comprehension which is the secret of our early years.
There was no trace of embarrassment between them; they had always
known one another, and could at any time resume their play just
where they had left off. In the evening Pelle used to station
himself by the garden wall and wait for her; then in a moment he
was over and in the middle of some game.

Manna was no ordinary cry-baby; not one who seeks to escape the
consequences of her action by a display of tears. If she let herself
in for a scuffle, she never sued for mercy, however hardly it went
with her. But Pelle was to a certain extent restrained by the fact
of her petticoats. And she, on one occasion, did not deny that she
wished she could only be a little stronger!

But she had courage, and Pelle, like a good comrade, gave as good
as he got, except in the workshop, where she bullied him. If she
assailed him from behind, dropping something down his neck or
pushing him off his wooden stool, he restrained himself, and was
merely thankful that his bones were still unbroken.

All his best hours were spent in the skipper's garden, and this
garden was a wonderful place, which might well hold his senses
captive. The girls had strange outlandish names, which their father