And in the midst of this luxuriant growth the rocky subsoil
protruded its grim features, or came so near the surface that
the sun had scorched the roots of the herbage.

"That's a proper little Paradise," said Lasse; "you can scarcely
set foot in it without treading on the berries. But it's got to be
turned into arable if one is to live here.

"Isn't the soil rather middling?" said Pelle.

"Middling--when all that can grow and flourish there?" Lasse pointed
to where birch and aspen stood waving their shining foliage to and
fro in the breeze. "No, but it'll be a damned rough bit of work to
get it ready for ploughing; I'm sorry now that you aren't at home."

Lasse had several times made this allusion, but Pelle was deaf to it.
All this was not what he had imagined; he felt no desire to play the
landowner's son at home in the way Lasse had in mind.

"It'll be trouble enough here to manage about your daily bread,"
he said, with remarkable precocity.

"Oh, it won't be so difficult to earn our daily bread, even if we
can't hold a feast every day," said Lasse, affronted. "And here at
any rate a man can straighten his back without having a bailiff come
yapping round him. Even if I were to work myself to death here, at
least I've done with slavery. And you must not forget the pleasure
of seeing the soil coming under one's hands, day after day, and
yielding something instead of lying there useless. That is indeed
the finest task a man can perform--to till the earth and make it