Chapter XVIII

Uncle Sivert died after all.  Eleseus spent three weeks looking after him, and then the old man died.  Eleseus arranged the funeral, and managed things very well; got hold of a fuchsia or so from the cottages round, and borrowed a flag to hoist at half-mast, and bought some black stuff from the store for lowered blinds.  Isak and Inger were sent for, and came to the burial.  Eleseus acted as host, and served out refreshments to the guests; ay, and when the body was carried out, and they had sung a hymn, Eleseus actually said a few suitable words over the coffin, and his mother was so proud and touched that she had to use her handkerchief.  Everything went off splendidly.

Then on the way home with his father, Eleseus had to carry that spring coat of his openly, though he managed to hide the stick in one of the sleeves.  All went well till they had to cross the water in a boat; then his father sat down unexpectedly on the coat, and there was a crack.  “What was that?” asked Isak.

“Oh, nothing,” said Eleseus.

But he did not throw the broken stick away; as soon as they got home, he set about looking for a bit of tube or something to mend it with.  “We’ll fix it all right,” said Sivert, the incorrigible.  “Look here, get a good stout splint of wood on either side, and lash all fast with waxed thread....”

“I’ll lash you with waxed thread,” said Eleseus.

“Ha ha ha!  Well, perhaps you’d rather tie it up neatly with a red garter?”

“Ha ha ha,” said Eleseus himself at that; but he went in to his mother, and got her to give him an old thimble, filed off the end, and made quite a fine ferrule.  Oh, Eleseus was not so helpless after all, with his long, white hands.

The brothers teased each other as much as ever.  “Am I to have what Uncle Sivert’s left?” asked Eleseus.

“You have it?  How much is it?” asked Sivert.

“Ha ha ha, you want to know how much it is first, you old miser!”

“Well, you can have it, anyway,” said Sivert.

“It’s between five and ten thousand.”

“Daler?” cried Sivert; he couldn’t help it.

Now Eleseus never reckoned in Daler, but he didn’t like to say no at the time, so he just nodded, and left it at that till next day.

Then he took up the matter again.  “Aren’t you sorry you gave me all that yesterday?” he said.

“Woodenhead!  Of course not,” said Sivert.  That was what he said, but—­well, five thousand Daler was five thousand Daler, and no little sum; if his brother were anything but a lousy Indian savage, he ought to give back half.

“Well, to tell the truth,” explained Eleseus, “I don’t reckon to get fat on that legacy, after all.”

Sivert looked at him in astonishment.  “Ho, don’t you?”

“No, nothing special, that is to say.  Not what you might call par excellence.”