yard and pumped, and the boy only had to guide the water from manger
to manger. When thus occupied, he always felt something like a great
engineer. But on the other hand, much of the other work was too hard
to be amusing.

At this moment the boy was wandering about among the outbuildings,
where there was no one to hunt him about. The door to the cow-stable
stood open, and he could hear the continual munching of the cows,
now and then interrupted by a snuff of contentment or the regular
rattle of a chain up and down when a cow rubbed its neck upon the
post. There was a sense of security in the sound of his father's
wooden shoes up and down the foddering-passage.

Out of the open half-doors of the smaller outbuildings there came
a steamy warmth that smelt pleasantly of calves and pigs. The pigs
were hard at work. All through the long sty there was munching and
smacking. One old sow supped up the liquid through the corners of
her mouth, another snuffed and bubbled with her snout along the
bottom of the trough to find the rotten potatoes under the liquid.
Here and there two pigs were fighting over the trough, and emitting
piercing squeals. The calves put their slobbering noses out at the
doors, gazing into the sunny air and lowing feelingly. One little
fellow, after snuffing up air from the cow-stable in a peculiarly
thorough way, turned up his lip in a foolish grin: it was a bull-
calf. He laid his chin upon the half-door, and tried to jump over,
but Pelle drove him down again. Then he kicked up his hind legs,
looked at Pelle out of the corner of his eye, and stood with arched
back, lifting his fore and hindquarters alternately with the action
of a rocking-horse. He was light-headed with the sun.