er nap. There were bits of clover and hay in his tousled
hair. "Where do you come from?" he cried gaily as he crossed the
yard.

"From Spain," answered the man, showing his white teeth in a broad
grin.

"From Spain--that's what my father always said when any one asked
him," said Lars Peter thoughtfully. "Don't come from Odsherred by
any chance?"

The man nodded.

"Then maybe you can give me some news of an Amst Hansen--a big
fellow with nine sons?... The rag and bone man, he was called." The
last was added guiltily.

"I should think I could--that's my father."

"No!" said Lars Peter heartily, stretching out his big hand. "Then
welcome here, for you must be Johannes--my youngest brother." He
held the youth's hand, looking at him cordially. "Oh, so that's what
you look like now; last time I saw you, you were only a couple of
months old. You're just like mother!"

Johannes smiled rather shyly, and drew his hand away; he was not so
pleased over the meeting as was his brother.

"Leave the work and come inside," said Lars Peter, "and the girl
will make us a cup of coffee. Well, well! To think of meeting like
this. Ay, just like mother, you are." He blinked his eyes, touched
by the thought.

As they drank their coffee, Johannes told all the news from home.
The mother had died some years ago and the brothers were gone to
the four corners of the earth. The news of his mother's death was a
great blow to Lars Peter. "So she's gone?" said he quietly. "I've
not seen her since you were a baby. I'd looked forward to seeing her
again--she was always good, was mother."

"Well," Johannes drawled, "she was rather grumpy."

"Not when I was at home--maybe she was ill a long time."

"We didn't get on somehow. No, the old man for me, he was always in
a good temper."

"Does he still work at his old trade?" asked Lars Peter with
interest.

"No, that's done with long ago. He lives on his pension!" Johannes
laughed. "He breaks stones on the roadside now. He's as hard as ever
and will rule the roost. He fights with the peasants as they pass,
and swears at them because they drive on his heap of stones."

Johannes himself had quarreled with his master and had given him a
black eye; and as he was the only butcher who would engage him over
there, he had left, crossing over at Lynoes--with the machine which
he had borrowed from a sick old scissor-grinder.

"So you're a butcher," said Lars Peter. "I thought as much. You
don't loo