Growth of the Soil Part 24

Some of the workmen chuckled a little at this.

Ay, Isak had reason enough just then to put his neighbour down; that very day he had seen three sheep in the fields at Breidablik, and one of them he knew--the one with the flat ears that Oline had bartered away. He may keep it, thought Isak, as he went on his way; Brede and his woman may get all the sheep they want, for me!

That business of the saw was always in his thoughts; it was as he had said. Last winter, when the roads were hard, he had carted up the big circular blade and the fittings, ordered from Trondhjem through the village store. The parts were lying in one of the sheds now, well smeared with oil to keep off the rust. He had brought up some of the beams too, for the framework; he could begin building when he pleased, but he put it off. What could it be? was he beginning to grow slack, was he wearing out? He could not understand it himself. It would have been no surprise to others, perhaps, but Isak could not believe it.

Was his head going? He had never been afraid of taking up a piece of work before; he must have changed somehow, since the time when he had built his mill across a river just as big. He could get in help from the village, but he would try again alone; he would start in a day or so--and Inger could lend him a hand.

He spoke to Inger about it.

"Hm. I don't know if you could find time one of these days to lend a hand with that sawmill?"

Inger thought for a moment. "Ye--s, if I can manage it. So you're going to set up a sawmill?"

"Ay, 'tis my intention so. I've worked it all out in my head."

"Will that be harder than the mill was?"

"Much harder, ten times as hard. Why, it's all got to be as close and exact--down to the tiniest line, and the saw itself exactly midways."

"If only you can manage it," said Inger thoughtlessly.

Isak was offended, and answered, "As to that, we shall see."

"Couldn't you get a man to help you, some one that knows the work?"

"No."

"Well, then, you won't be able to manage it," said she again.

Isak put up his hand to his hair--it was like a bear lifting his paw.

"'Twas just that I've been fearing," said he. "That I might not manage it. And that's why I wanted you that's learned so much to help me."

That was one to the bear. But nothing gained after all. Inger tossed her head and turned aside unkindly, and would have nothing to do with his saw.

"Well, then--" said Isak.

"Why, do you want me to stand getting drenched in the river and have me laid up? And who's to do all the sewing, and look to the animals and keep house, and all the rest?"

"No, that's true," said Isak.

Oh, but it was only the four corner posts and the middle ones for the two long sides he wanted help with, that was all. Inger--was she really grown so different in her heart through living among folk from the towns?

The fact was that Inger had changed a good deal; she thought now less of their common good than of herself. She had taken loom and wheel into use again, but the sewing machine was more to her taste; and when the pressing-iron came up from the blacksmith's, she was ready to set up as a fully-trained dressmaker. She had a profession now. She began by making a couple of little frocks for Leopoldine. Isak thought them pretty, and praised them, maybe, a thought too much; Inger hinted that it was nothing to what she could do when she tried.

"But they're too short," said Isak.

"They're worn that way in town," said Inger. "You know nothing about it."

Isak saw he had gone too far, and, to make up for it, said something about getting some material for Inger herself, for something or other.

"For a cloak?" said Inger.

"Ay, or what you'd like."

Inger agreed to have something for a cloak, and described the sort of stuff she wanted.

But when she had made the cloak, she had to find some one to show it to; accordingly, when the boys went down to the village to be put to school, Inger herself went with them. And that journey might have seemed a little thing, but it left its mark.

They came first of all to Breidablik, and the Breidablik woman and her children came out to see who it was going by. There sat Inger and the two boys, driving down lordly-wise--the boys on their way to school, nothing less, and Inger wearing a cloak. The Breidablik woman felt a sting at the sight; the cloak she could have done without--thank heaven, _she_ set no store by such foolishness!--but ... she had children of her own--Barbro, a great girl already, Helge, the next, and Kathrine, all of an age for school. The two eldest had been to school before, when they lived down in the village, but after moving up to Breidablik, to an out-of-the-way place up on the moors, they had been forced to give it up, and let the children run heathen again.

"You'll be wanting a bite for the boys, maybe," said the woman.

"Food? Do you see this chest here? It's my travelling trunk, that I brought home with me--I've that full of food."

"And what'll be in it of sorts?"

"What sorts? I've meat and pork in plenty, and bread and b.u.t.ter and cheese besides."

"Ay, you've no lack up at Sellanraa," said the other; and her poor, sallow-faced children listened with eyes and ears to this talk of rich things to eat. "And where will they be staying?" asked the mother.

"At the blacksmith's," said Inger.

"Ho!" said the other. "Ay, mine'll be going to school again soon.

They'll stay with the Lensmand."

"Ho!" said Inger.

"Ay, or at the doctor's, maybe, or at the parsonage. Brede he's in with the great folks there, of course."

Inger fumbled with her cloak, and managed to turn it so that a bit of black silk fringe appeared to advantage.

"Where did you get the cloak?" asked, the woman. "One you had with you, maybe?"

"I made it myself."

"Ay, ay, 'tis as I said: wealth and riches full and running over...."

Inger drove on, feeling all set up and pleased with herself, and, coming into the village, she may have been a trifle overproud in her bearing. Lensmand Heyerdahl's lady was not pleased at the sight of that cloak; the Sellanraa woman was forgetting her place--forgetting where it was she had come from after five years' absence. But Inger had at least a chance of showing off her cloak, and the storekeeper's wife and the blacksmith's wife and the schoolmaster's wife all thought of getting one like it for themselves--but it could wait a bit.

And now it was not long before Inger began to have visitors. One or two women came across from the other side of the hills, out of curiosity. Oline had perhaps chanced to say something against her will, to this one or that. Those who came now brought news from Inger's own birthplace; what more natural than that Inger should give them a cup of coffee, and let them look at her sewing-machine! Young girls came up in pairs from the coast, from the village, to ask Inger's advice; it was autumn now, and they had been saving up for a new dress, and wanted her to help them. Inger, of course, would know all about the latest fashions, after being out in the world, and now and again she would do a little cutting out. Inger herself brightened up at these visits, and was glad; kindly and helpful she was too, and clever at the work, besides; she could cut out material without a pattern. Sometimes she would even hem a whole length on her machine, and all for nothing, and give the stuff back to the girls with a delightful jest: "There--now you can sew the b.u.t.tons on yourself!"

Later in the year Inger was sent for down to the village, to do dressmaking for some of the great folks there. Inger could not go; she had a household to look after, and animals besides, all the work of the home, and she had no servant.

Had no what? Servant!

She spoke to Isak one day.

"If only I had some one to help me, I could put in more time sewing."