Growth of the Soil Part 27

"Well, I had to let her go--his wife was so set on it, I couldn't say no."

It was well on towards morning now, and Brede rose to go.

"I've a bundle and a cap I left in your barn," he said. "That is if the men haven't run off with it," he added jestingly.

Chapter XIV

And time went on.

Yes, Eleseus was sent to town after all; Inger managed that. He was there for a year, then he was confirmed, and after that had a regular place in the engineer's office, and grew more and more clever at writing and things. To see the letters he sent home--sometimes with red and black ink, like pictures almost. And the talk of them, the words he used. Now and again he asked for money, something towards his expenses. A watch and chain, for instance, he must have, so as not to oversleep himself in the morning and be late at the office; money for a pipe and tobacco also, such as the other young clerks in the town always had. And for something he called pocket-money, and something he called evening cla.s.ses, where he learned drawing and gymnastics and other matters proper to his rank and position. Altogether, it was no light matter to keep Eleseus going in a berth in town.

"Pocket-money?" said Isak. "Is that money to keep in your pocket, maybe?"

"That must be it, no doubt," said Inger. "So as not to be altogether without. And it's not much; only a _Daler_ now and then."

"Ay, that's just it," said Isak harshly. "A _Daler_ now and a _Daler_ then...." But his harshness was all because he missed Eleseus himself, and wanted him home. "It makes too many _Dalers_ in the long run,"

said he. "I can't keep, on like this; you must write and tell him he can have no more."

"Ho, very well then!" said Inger in an offended tone.

"There's Sivert--what does he get by way of pocket-money?"

Inger answered: "You've never been in a town, and so you don't know these things. Sivert's no need of pocket-money. And talking of money, Sivert ought to be none so badly off when his Uncle Sivert dies."

"You don't know."

"Ay, but I do know."

And this was right enough in a way; Uncle Sivert had said something about making little Sivert his heir. Uncle Sivert had heard of Eleseus and his grand doings in town, and the story did not please him; he nodded and bit his lips, and muttered that a nephew called up as his namesake--named after Uncle Sivert--should not come to want. But what was this fortune Uncle Sivert was supposed to possess? Had he really, besides his neglected farm and his fishery, the heap of money and means folk generally thought? No one could say for certain. And apart from that, Uncle Sivert himself was an obstinate man; he insisted that little Sivert should come to stay with him. It was a point of honour with him, this last; he should take little Sivert and look after him, as the engineer had done with Eleseus.

But how could it be done? Send little Sivert away from home?--it was out of the question. He was all the help left to Isak now. Moreover, the lad himself had no great wish to go and stay with his famous uncle; he had tried it once, but had come home again. He was confirmed, shot up in stature, and grew; the down showed on his cheek, his hands were big, a pair of willing slaves. And he worked like a man.

Isak could hardly have managed to get the new barn built at all without Sivert's help--but there it stood now, with bridge-way and air-holes and all, as big as they had at the parsonage itself. True, it was only a half-timbered building covered with boarding, but extra stout built, with iron clinches at the corners, and covered with one-inch plank from Isak's own sawmill. And Sivert had hammered in more than one nail at the work, and lifted the heavy beams for the framework till he was near fainting. Sivert got on well with his father, and worked steadily at his side; he was made of the same stuff. And yet he was not above such simple ways as going up the hillside for tansy to rub with so as to smell nice in church. 'Twas Leopoldine was the one for getting fancies in her head, which was natural enough, she being a girl, and the only daughter. That summer, if you please, she had discovered that she could not eat her porridge at supper without treacle--simply couldn't. And she was no great use at any kind of work either.

Inger had not yet given up her idea of keeping a servant; she brought up the question every spring, and every time Isak opposed it stubbornly. All the cutting out and sewing and fine weaving she could do, not to speak of making embroidered slippers, if she had but the time to herself! And of late, Isak had been something less firm in his refusal, though he grumbled still. Ho, the first time! He had made a whole long speech about it; not as a matter of right and reason, nor yet from pride, but, alas! from weakness, from anger at the idea. But now, he seemed to be giving way, as if ashamed.

"If ever I'm to have help in the house, now's the time," said Inger.

"A few years more, and Leopoldine'll be big enough to do this and that."

"Help?" said Isak. "What do you want help with, anyway?"

"Want with it, indeed? Haven't you help yourself? Haven't you Sivert all the time?"

What could Isak say to a meaningless argument like that? He answered: "Ay, well; when you get a girl up here, I doubt you'll be able to plough and sow and reap and manage all by yourselves. And then Sivert and I can go our ways."

"That's as may be," said Inger. "But I'll just say this: that I could get Barbro to come now; she's written home about it."

"What Barbro?" said Isak. "Is it that Brede's girl you mean?"

"Yes. She's in Bergen now."

"I'll not have that Brede's girl Barbro up here," said he. "Whoever you get, I'll have none of her."

That was better than nothing; Isak refused to have Barbro; he no longer said they would have no servant at all.

Barbro from Breidablik was not the sort of girl Isak approved of; she was shallow and unsettled like her father--maybe like her mother too--a careless creature, no steady character at all. She had not stayed long at the Lensmand's; only a year. After her confirmation, she went to help at the storekeeper's, and was there another year.

Here she turned pious and got religion, and when the Salvation Army came to the village she joined it, and went about with a red band on her sleeve and carried a guitar. She went to Bergen in that costume, on the storekeeper's boat--that was last year. And she had just sent home a photograph of herself to her people at Breidablik. Isak had seen it; a strange young lady with her hair curled up and a long watch-chain hanging down over her breast. Her parents were proud of little Barbro, and showed the photograph about to all who came; 'twas grand to see how she had learned town ways and got on in the world. As for the red band and the guitar, she had given them up, it seemed.

"I took the picture along and showed it to the Lensmand's lady," said Brede. "She didn't know her again."

"Is she going to stay in Bergen?" said Isak suspiciously.

"Why, unless she goes on to Christiania, perhaps," said Brede. "What's there for her to do here? She's got a new place now, as housekeeper, for two young clerks. They've no wives nor womenfolk of their own, and they pay her well."

"How much?" said Isak.

"She doesn't say exactly in the letter. But it must be something altogether different from what folk pay down here, that's plain. Why, she gets Christmas presents, and presents other times as well, and not counted off her wages at all."

"Ho!" said Isak.

"You wouldn't like to have her up at your place?" asked Brede.

"I?" said Isak, all taken aback.

"No, of course, he he! It was only a way of speaking. Barbro's well enough where she is. What was I going to say? You didn't notice anything wrong with the line coming down--the telegraph, what?"

"With the telegraph? No."

"No, no ... There's not much wrong with it now since I took over.

And then I've my own machine here on the wall to give a warning if anything happens. I'll have to take a walk up along the line one of these days and see how things are. I've too much to manage and look after, 'tis more than one man's work. But as long as I'm Inspector here, and hold an official position, of course I can't neglect my duties. If I hadn't the telegraph, of course ... and it may not be for long...."

"Why?" said Isak. "You thinking of giving it up, maybe?"

"Well, I can't say exactly," said Brede. "I haven't quite decided.

They want me to move down into the village again."

"Who is it wants you?" asked Isak.

"Oh, all of them. The Lensmand wants me to go and be a.s.sistant there again, and the doctor wants me to drive for him, and the parson's wife said more than once she misses me to lend a hand, if it wasn't such a long way to go. How was it with that strip of hill, Isak--the bit you sold? Did you get as much for it as they say?"

"Ay, 'tis no lie," answered Isak.

"But what did Geissler want with it, anyway? It lies there still--curious thing! Year after year and nothing done."