Margit stayed at home with little Arne. When she heard how Nils rushed from dancing-party to dancing-party, she looked at the child and wept, but then she looked at him once more and was happy. The first name she taught him to say was, father; but this she dared not do when the mother, or the grandmother, as she was now called, was near; and so it came to pass that the little one called the grandmother, "Father." Margit took great pains to break him of this, and thus she caused an early thoughtfulness in him. He was but a little fellow when he learned that Nils, the tailor, was his father; and just when he came to the age when children most love strange, romantic things, he also learned what sort of man Nils was. But the grandmother had strictly forbidden the very mention of his name; her mind was set only upon extending Kampen and making it their own property, so that Margit and the boy might be independent. Taking advantage of the landowner's poverty, she bought the place, paid off part of the purchase-money every year, and managed her farm like a man; for she had been a widow fourteen years. Under her care, Kampen had been extended till it could now feed four cows, sixteen sheep, and a horse of which she was joint owner. Meantime, Nils, the tailor, continued to go about working in the parish; but he had less to do than formerly, partly because he was less attentive to his trade, and partly because he was not so well liked. Then he took to going out oftener to play the fiddle at parties; this gave him more opportunities for drinking, and thus came more fighting and miserable days. One winter day, when Arne was about six years old, he was playing on the bed, where he had set up the coverlet for a boat-sail, while he sat steering with a ladle. The grandmother sat in the room spinning, busy with her own thoughts, and every now and then nodding, as though in affirmation of her own conclusions. Then the boy knew she was taking no notice of him; and so he sang, just as he had learned it, a wild, rough song about Nils, the tailor:-- "Unless 'twas only yesterday, hither first you came, You've surely heard already of Nils, the tailor's fame. Unless 'twas but this morning, you came among us first, You've heard how he knocked over tall Johan Knutson Kirst; How in his famous barn-fight with Ola Stor-Johann, He said, 'Bring down your porridge when we two fight again.' That fighting fellow, Bugge, a famous man was he: His name was known all over fiord and fell and sea. 'Now, choose the place, you tailor, where I shall knock you down; And then I'll spit upon it, and there I'll lay your crown.' 'Ah, only come so near, I may catch your scent, my man: Your bragging hurts nobody; don't dream it ever can.' The first round was a poor one, and neither man could beat; But both kept in their places, and steady on their feet.