Growth of the Soil (48 page)

They come to the two holdings farthest down; easy to see they are nearing the village now; both the houses have white curtains in the little window facing toward the road, and a flag-pole stuck up on top of the hayloft for Constitution Day. "'Tis Isak himself," said folk on the two new farms as the cart went by.

At last Eleseus gives over thinking of his own affairs and his own precious self enough to ask: "What you driving down for today?"

"H'm," says his father. "'Twas nothing much today." But then, after all, Eleseus was going away; no harm, perhaps, in telling him. "'Tis blacksmith's girl, Jensine, I'm going down for," says his father; ay, he admits so much.

"And you're going down yourself for that? Couldn't Sivert have gone?" says Eleseus. Ay, Eleseus knew no better, nothing better than to think Sivert would go down to the smith's to fetch Jensine, after she had thought so much of herself as to leave Sellanraa!

No, 'twas all awry with the haymaking the year before. Inger had put in all she could, as she had promised. Leopoldine did her share too, not to speak of having a machine for a horse to rake. But the hay was much of it heavy stuff, and the fields were big. Sellanraa was a sizeable place now, and the women had other things to look to besides making hay; all the cattle to look to, and meals to be got, and all in proper time; butter and cheese to make, and clothes to wash, and baking of bread; mother and daughter working all they could. Isak was not going to have another summer like that; he decided without any fuss that Jensine should come back again if she could be got. Inger, too, had no longer a word against it; she had come to her senses again, and said: "Ay, do as you think best." Ay, Inger was grown reasonable now; 'tis no little thing to come to one's senses again after a spell. Inger was no longer full of heat that must out, no longer full of wild blood to be kept in check, the winter had cooled her; nothing beyond the needful warmth in her now. She was getting stouter, growing fine and stately. A wonderful woman to keep from fading, keep from dying off by degrees; like enough because she had bloomed so late in life. Who can say how things come about? Nothing comes from a single cause, but from many. Was Inger not in the best repute with the smith's wife? What could any smith's wife say against her? With her disfigurement, she had been cheated of her spring, and later, had been set in artificial air to lose six years of her summer; with life still in her, what wonder her autumn gave an errant growth? Inger was better than blacksmiths' wives--a little damaged, a little warped, but good by nature, clever by nature ... ay....

Father and son drive down, they come to Brede Olsen's lodging-house and set the horse in a shed. It is evening now. They go in themselves.

Brede Olsen has rented the house; an outbuilding it had been, belonging to the storekeeper, but done up now with two sitting-rooms and two bedrooms; none so bad, and in a good situation. The place is well frequented by coffee-drinkers and folk from round about the village going by the boat.

Brede seems to have been in luck for once, found something suited to him, and he may thank his wife for that. 'Twas Brede's wife had hit on the idea of a coffee-shop and lodging-house, the day she sat selling coffee at the auction at Breidablik; 'twas a pleasant enough thing to be selling something, to feel money in her fingers, ready cash. Since they had come down here they had managed nicely, selling coffee in earnest now, and housing a deal of folk with nowhere else to lay their heads. A blessing to travellers, is Brede's wife. She has a good helper, of course, in Katrine, her daughter, a big girl now and clever at waiting--though that is only for the time, of course; not long before little Katrine must have something better than waiting on folk in her parents' house. But for the present, they are making money fairly well, and that is the main thing. The start had been decidedly favourable, and might have been better if the storekeeper had not run short of cakes and sweet biscuits to serve with the coffee; here were all the feast-day folk calling for cakes with their coffee, biscuits and cakes! 'Twas a lesson to the storekeeper to lay in a good supply another time.

The family, and Brede himself, live as best they can on their takings. A good many meals are nothing but coffee and stale cakes left over, but it keeps them alive, and gives the children a delicate, sort of refined appearance. 'Tis not every one has cakes with their coffee, say the village folk. Ay, Bredes are doing well, it seems; they even manage to keep a dog, that goes round begging among the customers and gets bits here and there and grows fat on it. A good fat dog about the place is a mighty fine advertisement for a lodging-house; it speaks for good feeding anywhere.

Brede, then, is husband and father in the house, and apart from that position, has got on variously beside. He had been once more installed as Lensmand's assistant and deputy, and had a good deal to do that way for a time. Unfortunately, his daughter Barbro had fallen out with the Lensmand's wife last autumn, about a trifling matter, a mere nothing--indeed, to tell the truth, a flea; and Brede himself is somewhat in disfavour there since. But Brede counts it no great loss, after all; there are other families that find work for him now on purpose to annoy the Lensmand's; he is frequently called upon, for instance, to drive for the doctor, and as for the parsonage, they'd gladly send for Brede every time there's a pig to be killed, and more--Brede says so himself.

But for all that there are hard times now and again in Brede's house; 'tis not all the family are as fat and flourishing as the dog. Still, Heaven be praised, Brede is not a man to take things much to heart. "Here's the children growing up day by day," says he, though, for that matter, there's always new little ones coming to take their place. The ones that are grown up and out in the world can keep themselves, and send home a bit now and again. There's Barbro married at Maaneland, and Helge out at the herring fishery; they send home something in money or money's worth as often as they can; ay, even Katrine, doing waiting at home, managed, strangely enough, to slip a five-
Krone
note into her father's hand last winter, when things were looking extra bad. "There's a girl for you," said Brede, and never asked her where she'd got the money, or what for. Ay, that was the way! Children with a heart to think of their parents and help them in time of need!

Brede is not altogether pleased with his boy Helge in that respect; he can be heard at times standing in the store with a little group about him, developing his theories as to children and their duty toward their parents. "Look you, now, my boy, Helge; if he smokes tobacco a bit, or takes a dram now and then, I've nothing against that, we've all been young in our time. But 'tis not right of him to go sending one letter home after another and nothing but words and wishes in. 'Tis not right to set his mother crying. 'Tis the wrong road for a lad. In days gone by, things were different. Children were no sooner grown than they went into service and started sending home a little to help. And quite right, too. Isn't it their father and mother had borne them under their breast first of all, and sweating blood to keep the life in them all their tender years? And then to forget it all!"

It almost seemed as if Helge had heard that speech of his father's, for there came a letter from him after with money in--fifty
Kroner
, no less. And then Bredes had a great time; ay, in their endless extravagance they bought both meat and fish for dinner, and a lamp all hung about with lustres to hang from the ceiling in the best room.

They managed somehow, and what more could they ask? Bredes, they kept alive, lived from hand to mouth, but without great fear. What more could they wish for?

"Here's visitors indeed!" says Brede, showing Isak and Eleseus into the room with the new lamp. "And I'd never thought to see. Isak, you're never going away yourself, and all?"

"Nay, only to the smith's for something, 'tis no more."

"Ho! 'Tis Eleseus, then, going off south again?"

Eleseus is used to hotels; he makes himself at hojne, hangs up his coat and stick on the wall, and calls for coffee; as for something to eat, his father has things in a basket. Katrine brings the coffee.

"Pay? I'll not hear of it," says Brede. "I've had many a bite and sup at Sellanraa; and as for Eleseus, I'm in his books already. Don't take it, Katrine." But Eleseus pays all the same, takes out his purse and pays out the money, and twenty
Ore
over; no nonsense about him.

Isak goes across to the smith's, and Eleseus stays where he is.

He says a few words, as in duty bound, to Katrine, but no more than is needed; he would rather talk to her father. No, Eleseus cares nothing for women; has been frightened off by them once, as it were, and takes no interest in them now. Like as not he'd never much inclination that way to speak of, seeing he's so completely out of it all now. A strange man to live in the wilds; a gentleman with thin writer's hands, and the sense of a woman for finery; for sticks and umbrellas and galoshes. Frightened off, and changed, incomprehensibly not a marrying man. Even his upper lip declines to put forth any brutal degree of growth. Yet it might be the lad had started well enough, come of good stock, but been turned thereafter into an artificial atmosphere, and warped, transformed? Had he worked so hard in an office, in a shop, that his whole originality was lost thereby? Ay, maybe 'twas so. Anyway, here he is now, easy and passionless, a little weak, a little heedless, wandering farther and farther off the road. He might envy every soul among his fellows in the wilds, but has not even strength for that.

Katrine is used to jesting with her customers, and asks him teasingly if he is off to see his sweetheart in the south again.

"I've other things to think of," says Eleseus. "I'm out on
business--opening up connections."

"No call to be so free with your betters, Katrine," says her father reprovingly. Oh, Brede Olsen is all respect towards Eleseus, mighty respectful for him to be. And well he may, 'tis but wise of him, seeing he owes money up at Storborg, and here's his creditor before him. And Eleseus? Ho, all this deference pleases him, and he is kind and gracious in return; calls Brede "My dear sir," in jest, and goes on that way. He mentions that he has forgotten his umbrella: "Just as we were passing Breidablik, I thought of it; left my umbrella behind."

Brede asks: "You'll be going over to our little store this evening,
belike, for a drink?"

Says Eleseus: "Ay, maybe, if 'twas only myself. But I've my father
here."

Brede makes himself pleasant, and goes on gossiping: "There's a fellow coming in day after tomorrow that's on his way to America."

"Been home, d'you mean?"

"Ay. He's from up in the village a bit. Been away for ever so many years, and home for the winter. His trunk's come down already by cart--and a mighty fine trunk."

"I've thought of going to America myself once or twice," says Eleseus
frankly.

"You?" cries Brede. "Why, there's little need for the likes of you
going that way surely!"

"Well, 'twas not going over to stay for ever I was thinking. But I've been travelling about so many places now, I might just as well make the trip over there."

"Ay, of course, and why not? And a heap of money and means and all, so they say, in America. Here's this fellow I spoke of before; he's paid for more feasting and parties than's easy to count this winter past, and comes in here and says to me, 'Let's have some coffee, a potful, and all the cakes you've got.' Like to see his trunk?"

They went out in the passage to look at the trunk. A wonder to look at on earth, flaming all sides and corners with metal and clasps and binding, and three flaps to hold it down, not to speak of a lock. "Burglar-proof," says Brede, as if he had tried it himself.

They went back into the room, but Eleseus was grown thoughtful. This American from up in the village had outdone him; he was nothing beside such a man. Going out on journeys like any high official; ay, natural enough that Brede should make a fuss of him. Eleseus ordered more coffee, and tried to play the rich man too; ordered cakes with his coffee and gave them to the dog--and all the time feeling worthless and dejected. What was his trunk beside that wonder out there? There it stood, black canvas with the corners all rubbed and worn; a handbag, nothing more--ho, but wait! He would buy a trunk when he got to the towns, a splendid one it should be, only wait!

"'Tis a pity to feed the dog so," says Brede.

And Eleseus feels better at that, and ready to show off again. "'Tis a marvel how a beast can get so fat," says he.

One thought leading to another: Eleseus breaks off his talk with Brede and goes out into the shed to look at the horse. And there he takes out a letter from his pocket and opens it. He had put it away at once, never troubling to look what money was in it; he had had letters of that sort from home before, and always a deal of notes inside--something to help him on the way. What was this? A big sheet of grey paper scrawled all over; little Rebecca to her brother Eleseus, and a few words from his mother. What else? Nothing else. No money at all.

His mother wrote that she could not ask his father for more money again now, for there was none too much left of all they had got for the copper mine that time; the money had gone to buy Storborg, and pay for all the goods after, and Eleseus' travelling about. He must try and manage by himself this time, for the money that was left would have to be kept for his brother and sisters, not to leave them all without. And a pleasant journey and your loving mother.

No money.

Eleseus himself had not enough for his fare; he had cleaned out the cash box at Storborg, and that was not much. Oh, but he had been a fool to send that money to the dealers in Bergen on account; no hurry for that; he might have let it stand over. He ought, of course, to have opened the letter before starting out at all; he might have saved himself that journey down to the village with his miserable trunk and all. And here he was....

His father comes back from the smith's after settling his business there; Jensine was to go back with him next morning. And Jensine, look you, had been nowise contrary and hard to persuade, but saw at once they wanted help at Sellanraa for the summer, and was ready to come. A proper way to do, again.