unhesitatingly deliver a lecture on the whole big tree - the root, the trunk,
and the crown - the great tree comprised of God, the world, and immortality
- and of all this we know only a little leaf!
As I was sitting there, I received a visit from Aunty Mille. I showed her
the leaf with the insect and told her of my thoughts in connection with
these. And her eyes lit up.
“You are a poet!” she said. “Perhaps the greatest we have. If I should live
to see this, I would go to my grave gladly. Ever since the brewer
Rasmussen's funeral you have amazed me with your powerful imagination.”
So said Aunty Mille, and she then kissed me.
Who was Aunty Mille, and who was Rasmussen the brewer?
II
We children always called our mother's aunt “Aunty”; we had no other
name for her.
She gave us jam and sweets, although they were very injurious to our
teeth; but the dear children were her weakness, she said. It was cruel to
deny them a few sweets, when they were so fond of them. And that's why
we loved Aunty so much.
She was an old maid; as far back as I can remember, she was always old.
Her age never seemed to change.
In earlier years she had suffered a great deal from toothache, and she
always spoke about it; and so it happened that her friend, the brewer
Rasmussen, who was a great wit, called her Aunty Toothache.
He had retired from the brewing business some years before and was then
living on the interest of his money. He frequently visited Aunty; he was
older than she. He had no teeth at all - only a few black stumps. When a
child, he had eaten too much sugar, he told us children, and that's how he
came to look as he did.
