hands for a moment; as it was too heavy to carry, he had to drag
it after him from place to place.

He discovered a little ship, only just big enough for a man to
lie down in, and full of holes bored in the bottom and sides. He
investigated the ship-builders' big grind-stone, which was nearly
as tall as a man. There were bent planks lying there, with nails
in them as big as the parish constable's new tether-peg at home.
And the thing that ship was tethered to--wasn't it a real cannon
that they had planted?

Pelle saw everything, and examined every single object in the
appropriate manner, now only spitting appraisingly upon it, now
kicking it or scratching it with his penknife. If he came across
some strange wonder or other, that he could not get into his little
brain in any other way, he set himself astride on it.

This was a new world altogether, and Pelle was engaged in making
it his own. Not a shred of it would he leave. If he had had his
playfellows from Tommelilla here, he would have explained it all
to them. My word, how they would stare! But when he went home to
Sweden again, he would tell them about it, and then he hoped they
would call him a liar.

He was sitting astride an enormous mast that lay along the timber-
yard upon some oak trestles. He kicked his feet together under the
mast, as he had heard of knights doing in olden days under their
horses, and imagined himself seizing hold of a ring and lifting
himself, horse and all. He sat on horseback in the midst of his
newly discovered world, glowing with the pride of conquest, struck