Growth of the Soil, Knut Hamsun [best self help books to read txt] 📗

all had got from their mother; ay, they were their mother’s children, and well that they were so! Isak was something shy of his little girl, shy of her tiny shoes and long, thin, woollen stockings and short frock; when she had come to meet her strange papa she had curtseyed and offered him a tiny hand.

They got up into the woods and halted for a rest and a meal all round. The horse had his fodder; Leopoldine ran about in the heather, eating as she went.

“You’ve not changed much,” said Inger, looking at her husband.

Isak glanced aside, and said, “No, you think not? But you’ve grown so grand and all.”

“Ha ha! Nay, I’m an old woman now,” said she jestingly.

It was no use trying to hide the fact: Isak was not a bit sure of himself now. He could find no self-possession, but still kept aloof, shy, as if ashamed of himself. How old could his wife be now? She couldn’t be less than thirty⁠—that is to say, she couldn’t be more, of course. And Isak, for all that he was eating already, must pull up a twig of heather and fall to biting that.

“What⁠—are you eating heather?” cried Inger laughingly.

Isak threw down the twig, took a mouthful of food, and going over to the road, took the horse by its forelegs and heaved up its forepart till the animal stood on its hind legs. Inger looked on with astonishment.

“What are you doing that for?” she asked.

“Oh, he’s so playful,” said Isak, and set the horse down again.

Now what had he done that for? A sudden impulse to do just that thing; perhaps he had done it to hide his embarrassment.

They started off again, and all three of them walked a bit of the way. They came to a new farm.

“What’s that there?” asked Inger.

“ ’Tis Brede’s place, that he’s bought.”

“Brede?”

“Breidablik, he calls it. There’s wide moorland, but the timber’s poor.”

They talked of the new place as they passed on. Isak noticed that Brede’s cart was still left out in the open.

The child was growing sleepy now, and Isak took her gently in his arms and carried her. They walked and walked. Leopoldine was soon fast asleep, and Inger said:

“We’ll wrap her up in the rug, and she can lie down in the cart and sleep as long as she likes.”

“ ’Twill shake her all to pieces,” said Isak, and carries her on. They cross the moors and get into the woods again.

“Ptro!” says Inger, and the horse stops. She takes the child from Isak, gets him to shift the chest and the sewing-machine, making a place for Leopoldine in the bottom of the cart. “Shaken? not a bit of it!”

Isak fixes things to rights, tucks his little daughter up in the rug, and lays his jacket folded under her head. Then off again.

Man and wife gossiping of this and that. The sun is up till late in the evening, and the weather warm.

“Oline,” says Inger⁠—“where does she sleep?”

“In the little room.”

“Ho! And the boys?”

“They’ve their own bed in the big room. There’s two beds there, just as when you went away.”

“Looking at you now,” said Inger, “I can see you’re just as you were before. And those shoulders of yours, they’ve carried some burdens up along this way, but they’ve not grown the weaker by it, seems.”

“H’m. Maybe. What I was going to say: How it was like with you all the years there? Bearable like?” Oh, Isak was soft at heart now; he asked her that, and wondered in his mind.

And Inger said: “Ay, ’twas nothing to complain of.”

They talked more feelingly together, and Isak asked if she wasn’t tired of walking, and would get up in the cart a bit of way. “No, thanks all the same,” said she. “But I don’t know what’s the matter with me today; after being ill on the boat, I feel hungry all the time.”

“Why, did you want something, then?”

“Yes, if you don’t mind stopping so long.”

Oh, that Inger, maybe ’twas not for herself at all, but for Isak’s sake. She would have him eat again; he had spoiled his last meal chewing twigs of heather.

And the evening was light and warm, and they had but a few miles more to go; they sat down to eat again.

Inger took a parcel from her box, and said:

“I’ve a few things I brought along for the boys. Let’s go over there in the bushes, it’s warmer there.”

They went across to the bushes, and she showed him the things; neat braces with buckles for the boys to wear, copybooks with copies at the top of the page, a pencil for each, a pocketknife for each. And there was an excellent book for herself, she had. “Look, with my name in and all. A prayerbook.” It was a present from the Governor, by way of remembrance.

Isak admired each thing in silence. She took out a bundle of little collars⁠—Leopoldine’s, they were. And gave Isak a black neckerchief for himself, shiny as silk.

“Is that for me?” said he.

“Yes, it’s for you.”

He took it carefully in his hands, and stroked it.

“Do you think it’s nice?”

“Nice⁠—why I could go round the world in such.”

But Isak’s fingers were rough; they stuck in the curious silky stuff.

Now Inger had no more things to show. But when she had packed them all up again, she sat there still; and the way she sat, he could see her legs, could see her red-bordered stockings.

“H’m,” said he. “Those’ll be town-made things, I doubt?”

“ ’Tis wool was bought in the town, but I knitted them myself. They’re ever so long⁠—right up above the knee⁠—look.⁠ ⁠…”

A little while after she heard herself whispering: “Oh, you⁠ ⁠… you’re just the same⁠—the same as ever!”

And after that halt they drove on again, and Inger sat up, holding the reins. “I’ve brought a paper of coffee too,” she said. “But you can’t have any this evening, for it’s not roasted yet.”

“ ’Tis more than’s needed this evening and all,” said he.

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