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

use. The saw could work, and cut as a sawmill should; Isak had kept his eyes about him down in the village, and used them well. It was hearty and small, this sawmill he had built, but he was pleased with it; he carved the date above the doorway, and put his mark.

And that summer, something more than usual did come about after all at Sellanraa.

The telegraph workers had now reached so far up over the moors that the foremost gang came to the farm one evening and asked to be lodged for the night. They were given shelter in the big barn. As the days went on, the other gangs came along, and all were housed at Sellanraa. The work went on ahead, passing the farm, but the men still came back to sleep in the barn. One Saturday evening came the engineer in charge, to pay the men.

At sight of the engineer, Eleseus felt his heart jump, and stole out of the house lest he should be asked about that coloured pencil. Oh, there would be trouble now⁠—and Sivert nowhere to be seen; he would have to face it alone. Eleseus slipped round the corner of the house, like a pale ghost, found his mother, and begged her to tell Sivert to come. There was no help for it now.

Sivert took the matter less to heart⁠—but then, he was not the chief culprit. The two brothers went a little way off and sat down, and Eleseus said: “If you’d say it was you, now!”

“Me?” said Sivert.

“You’re younger, he wouldn’t do anything to you.”

Sivert thought over it, and saw that his brother was in distress; also it flattered him to feel that the other needed his help.

“Why, I might help you out of it, perhaps,” said he in a grown-up voice.

“Ay, if you would!” said Eleseus, and quite simply gave his brother the bit of pencil that was left. “You can have it for keeps,” he said.

They were going in again together, but Eleseus recollected he had something he must do over at the sawmill, or rather, at the cornmill; something he must look to, and it would take some time⁠—he wouldn’t be finished just yet. Sivert went in alone.

There sat the engineer, paying out notes and silver, and when he had finished, Inger gave him milk to drink, a jug and a glass, and he thanked her. Then he talked to little Leopoldine, and then, noticing the drawings on the walls, asked straight out who had done that. “Was it you?” he asked, turning to Sivert. The man felt, perhaps, he owed something for Inger’s hospitality, and praised the drawings just to please her. Inger, on her part, explained the matter as it was: it was her boys had made the drawings⁠—both of them. They had no paper till she came home and looked to things, so they had marked all about the walls. But she hadn’t the heart to wash it off again.

“Why, leave it as it is,” said the engineer. “Paper, did you say?” And he took out a heap of big sheets. “There, draw away on that till I come round again. And how are you off for pencils?”

Sivert stepped forward simply with the stump he had, and showed how small it was. And behold, the man gave him a new coloured pencil, not even sharpened. “There, now you can start afresh. But I’d make the horses red if I were you, and do the goats with blue. Never seen a blue horse, have you?”

And the engineer went on his way.

That same evening, a man came up from the village with a basket⁠—he handed out some bottles to the workmen, and went off again. But after he had gone, it was no longer so quiet about the place; someone played an accordion, the men talked loudly, and there was singing, and even dancing, at Sellanraa. One of the men asked Inger out to dance, and Inger⁠—who would have thought it of her?⁠—she laughed a little laugh and actually danced a few turns round. After that, some of the others asked her, and she danced not a little in the end.

Inger⁠—who could say what was in her mind? Here she was dancing gaily, maybe for the first time in her life; sought after, riotously pursued by thirty men, and she alone, the only one to choose from, no one to cut her out. And those burly telegraph men⁠—how they lifted her! Why not dance? Eleseus and Sivert were fast asleep in the little chamber, undisturbed by all the noise outside; little Leopoldine was up, looking on wonderingly at her mother as she danced.

Isak was out in the fields all the time; he had gone off directly after supper, and when he came home to go to bed, someone offered him a bottle. He drank a little, and sat watching the dancing, with Leopoldine on his lap.

“ ’Tis a gay time you’re having,” said he kindly to Inger⁠—“footing it properly tonight!”

After a while, the music stopped, and the dance was over. The workmen got ready to leave⁠—they were going down to the village for the rest of the evening, and would be there all next day, coming back on Monday morning. Soon all was quiet again at Sellanraa; a couple of the older men stayed behind, and turned in to sleep in the barn.

Isak woke up in the night⁠—Inger was not there. Could she be gone to see to the cows? He got up and went across to the cowshed. “Inger!” he called. No answer. The cows turned their heads and looked at him; all was still. Unthinkingly, from ancient habit, he counted heads, counted the sheep also; there was one of the ewes had a bad habit of staying out at night⁠—and out it was now, “Inger!” he called again. Still no answer. Surely she couldn’t have gone with them down to the village?

The summer night was light and warm. Isak stayed a while sitting on the