"You'll get on in the world one of these days. Now give me the
bottle and I'll take it out to your mistress without letting any
one see." He laughed heartily.

Pelle handed him the bottle--_there_ stood money in piles on
the writing-table, thick round two-krone pieces one upon another!
Then why didn't Father Lasse get the money in advance that he had
begged for?

The mistress now came in, and the farmer at once went and shut the
window. Pelle wanted to go, but she stopped him. "You've got some
things for me, haven't you?" she said.

"I've received the _things,_" said Kongstrup. "You shall have
them--when the boy's gone."

But she remained at the door. She would keep the boy there to be
a witness that her husband withheld from her things that were to
be used in the kitchen; every one should know it.

Kongstrup walked up and down and said nothing. Pelle expected he
would strike her, for she called him bad names--much worse than
Mother Bengta when Lasse came home merry from Tommelilla. But he
only laughed. "Now that'll do," he said, leading her away from the
door, and letting the boy out.

Lasse did not like it. He had thought the farmer was interfering to
prevent them all from making use of the boy, when he so much needed
his help with the cattle; and now it had taken this unfortunate
turn!