townsman-lodger of theirs never came near them that he didn't crack
jokes.

"By the way, Else, I dreamed last night that we were going to be
married."

Both the girls shrieked with delight at this.

"And Mari, you were married to the bailiff."

"Oh my! That old creature down at Moen?"

"He was much older. Ninety years old he was."

"Uf!--you're always at your nonsense," said the red-haired girl,
stirring away at her huge, steaming cauldron.

Peer went out again. The girls were hardly out of their teens, and yet
their faces seemed set already and stiff with earnestness. And whenever
Peer had managed to set them laughing unawares, they seemed frightened
the next minute at having been betrayed into doing something there was
no profit in.

Peer strode about in the crackling snow with his fur cap drawn down over
his ears. Jotunheim itself lay there up north, breathing an icy-blue
cold out over the world.

And he? Was he to go on like this, growing hunchbacked under a burden
that weighed and bowed him down continually? Why the devil could he not
shake it off, break away from it, and kick out bravely at his evil fate?

"Peer," asked Merle, standing in the kitchen, "what did you think of
giving the children for a Christmas present?"

"Oh, a palace each, and a horse to ride, of course. When you've more
money than you know what to do with, the devil take economy. And what
about you, my girl? Any objection to a couple of thousand crowns' worth
of furs?"

"No, but seriously. The children haven't any ski--nor a hand-sleigh."

"Well, have you the money to buy them? I haven't."

"Suppose you tried making them yourself?"

"Ski?" Peer turned over the notion, whistling. "Well, why not? And a
sleigh? We might manage that. But what about little Asta?--she's too
little for that sort of thing."

"She hasn't any bed for her doll."

Peer whistled again. "There's something in that. That's an idea. I'm not
so handless yet that I couldn't--"

He was soon hard at it. There were tools and a joiner's bench in an
outhouse, and there he worked. He grew easily tired; his feet tried
constantly to take him to the door, but he forced himself to go on. Is
there anything in the notion that a man can get well by simply willing
it? I will, will, will. The thought of others besides himself began to
get the upper hand of those birds of prey ravening in his head. Presents
for the children, presents that father had made himself--the picture