Growth of the Soil (7 page)

Geissler, the incomprehensible, had, it seemed, sent in a report which was not easily upset. Here was his successor going through the whole thing again, trying to find mistakes and blatant inaccuracies--but all in vain. It was noticeable that he consulted his assistant at every turn, and paid heed to what he said, which was not Geissler's way at all. That same assistant, moreover, must presumably have altered his own opinion, since he was now a would-be purchaser himself of lands from the common ground held by the State.

"What about the price?" asked the Lensmand.

"Fifty
Daler
is the most they can fairly ask of any buyer," answered
the expert.

Lensmand Heyerdahl drew up his report in elegant phrasing. Geissler had written: "The man will also have to pay land tax every year; he cannot afford to pay more for the place than fifty
Daler
, in annual instalments over ten years. The State can accept his offer, or take away his land and the fruits of his work." Heyerdahl wrote: "He now humbly begs to submit this application to the Department: that he be allowed to retain this land, upon which, albeit without right of possession, he has up to this present effected considerable improvements, for a purchase price of 50--fifty--
Speciedaler
, the amount to be paid in annual instalments as may seem fit to the Department to apportion the same."

Lensmand Heyerdahl promised Isak to do his best. "I hope to succeed in procuring you possession of the estate," he said.

The big bull is to be sent away. It has grown to an enormous beast, and costs too much to feed; Isak is taking it down to the village, to bring up a suitable yearling in exchange.

It was Inger's idea. And Inger had no doubt her own reasons for getting Isak out of the place on that particular day.

"If you are going at all, you'd better go today," she said. "The bull's in fine condition; 'twill fetch a good price at this time of year. You take him down to the village, and they'll send him to be sold in town--townsfolk pay anything for their meat."

"Ay," says Isak.

"If only the beast doesn't make trouble on the way down."

Isak made no answer.

"But he's been out and about now this last week, and getting used to
things."

Isak was silent. He took a big knife, hung it in a sheath at his
waist, and led out the bull.

A mighty beast it was, glossy-coated and terrible to look at, swaying at the buttocks as it walked. A trifle short in the leg; when it ran, it crushed down the undergrowth with its chest; it was like a railway engine. Its neck was huge almost to deformity; there was the strength of an elephant in that neck.

"If only he doesn't get mad with you," said Inger.

Isak thought for a moment. "Why, if as he takes it that way, I'll just have to slaughter him half-way and carry down the meat."

Inger sat down on the door-slab. She was in pain; her face was aflame. She had kept her feet till Isak was gone; now he and the bull were out of sight, and she could give way to a groan without fear. Little Eleseus can talk a little already; he asks: "Mama hurt? "--"Yes, hurt." He mimics her, pressing his hands to his sides and groaning. Little Sivert is asleep.

Inger takes Eleseus inside the house, gives him some things to play with on the floor, and gets into bed herself. Her time was come. She is perfectly conscious all the while, keeps an eye on Eleseus, glances at the clock on the wall to see the time. Never a cry, hardly a movement; the struggle is in her vitals--a burden is loosened and glides from her. Almost at the same moment she hears a strange cry in the bed, a blessed little voice; poor thing, poor little thing ... and now she cannot rest, but lifts herself up and looks down. What is it? Her face is grey and blank in a moment, without expression or intelligence; a groan is heard; unnatural, impossible--a choking gasp.

She slips back on the bed. A minute passes; she cannot rest, the little cry down there in the bed grows louder, she raises herself once more, and sees--O God, the direst of all! No mercy, no hope--and this a girl!

Isak could not have gone more than a couple of miles or so. It was hardly an hour since he had left. In less than ten minutes Inger had borne her child and killed it....

Isak came back on the third day, leading a half-starved yearling bull. The beast could hardly walk; it had been a long business getting up to the place at all.

"How did you get on?" asked Inger. She herself was ill and miserable
enough.

Isak had managed very well. True, the big bull had been mad the last two miles or so, and he had to tie it up and fetch help from the village. Then, when he got back, it had broken loose and took a deal of time to find. But he had managed somehow, and had sold for a good price to a trader in the village, buying up for butchers in the town. "And here's the new one," said Isak. "Let the children come and look."

Any addition to the live stock was a great event. Inger looked at the bull and felt it over, asked what it had cost; little Sivert was allowed to sit on its back. "I shall miss the big one, though," said Inger. "So glossy and fine he was. I do hope they'll kill him nicely."

It was the busy season now, and there was work enough. The animals were let loose; in the empty shed were cases and bins of potatoes left to grow. Isak sowed more corn this year than last, and did all he could to get it nicely down. He made beds for carrots and turnips, and Inger sowed the seeds. All went on as before.

Inger went about for some time with a bag of hay under her dress, to hide any change in her figure, taking out a little from time to time, and finally discarding the bag altogether. At last, one day, Isak noticed something, and asked in surprise:

"Why, how's this? Hasn't anything happened? I thought...."

"No. Not this time."

"Ho. Why, what was wrong?

"'Twas meant to be so, I suppose. Isak, how long d'you think it'll take you to work over all this land of ours?"

"Yes, but ... you mean you had your trouble--didn't go as it should?"

"Ay, that was it--yes."

"But yourself--you're not hurt anyway after it?"

"No. Isak, I've been thinking, we ought to have a pig."

Isak was not quick to change the subject that way. He was silent a little, then at last he said: "Ay, a pig. I've thought of that myself each spring. But we'll need to have more potatoes first, and more of the small, and a bit of corn beside; we've not enough to feed a pig. We'll see how this year turns out."

"But it would be nice to have a pig."

"Ay."

Days pass, rain comes, fields and meadows are looking well--oh, the year will turn out well, never fear! Little happenings and big, all in their turn: food, sleep, and work; Sundays, with washing of faces and combing of hair, and Isak sitting about in a new red shirt of Inger's weaving and sewing. Then an event, a happening of note in the ordinary round: a sheep, roaming with her lamb, gets caught in a cleft among the rocks. The others come home in the evening. Inger at once sees there are two missing, and out goes Isak in search. Isak's first thought is to be thankful it is Sunday, so he is not called away from his work and losing time. He tramps off--there is an endless range of ground to be searched; and, meanwhile, the house is all anxiety. Mother hushes the children with brief words; there are two sheep missing, and they must be good. All share the feeling; what has happened is a matter for the whole little community. Even the cows know that something unusual is going on, and give tongue in their own fashion, for Inger goes out every now and then, calling aloud towards the woods, though it is near night. It is an event in the wilderness, a general misfortune. Now and again she gives a long-drawn hail to Isak, but there is no answer; he must be out of hearing.

Where are the sheep--what can have come to them? Is there a bear abroad? Or have the wolves come down over the hills from Sweden and Finland? Neither, as it turns out. Isak finds the ewe stuck fast in a cleft of rock, with a broken leg and lacerated udder. It must have been there some time, for, despite its wounds, the poor thing has nibbled the grass down to the roots as far as it could reach. Isak lifts the sheep and sets it free; it falls to grazing at once. The lamb makes for its mother and sucks away--a blessed relief for the wounded udder to be emptied now.

Isak gathers stones and fills up the dangerous cleft; a wicked place; it shall break no more sheep's thighs! Isak wears leather braces; he takes them off now and fastens them round the sheep's middle, as a support for the udder. Then, lifting the animal on his shoulders, he sets off home, the lamb at his heels.

After that--splints and tar bandages. In a few days' time the patient begins twitching the foot of the wounded leg; it is the fracture aching as it grows together. Ay, all things getting well again--until next time something happens.

The daily round; little matters that are all important to the settler-folk themselves. Oh, they are not trifles after all, but things of fate, making for their happiness and comfort and well-being, or against them.

In the slack time between the seasons, Isak smooths down some new tree-trunks he has thrown; to be used for something or other, no doubt. Also he digs out a number of useful stones and gets them down to the house; as soon as there are stones enough, he builds a wall of them. A year or so back, Inger would have been curious, wondering what her man was after with all this--now, she seemed for the most part busied with her own work, and asked no questions. Inger is busy as ever, but she has taken to singing, which is something new, and she is teaching Eleseus an evening prayer; this also is something new. Isak misses her questioning; it was her curiosity and her praise of all he did that made him the contented man, the incomparable man he was. But now, she goes by, saying nothing, or at most with a word or so that he is working himself to death. "She's troubled after that last time, for all she says," thinks Isak to himself.

Oline comes over to visit them once more. If all had been as before she would have been welcome, but now it is different. Inger greets her from the first with some ill-will; be it what it may, there is something that makes Inger look on her as an enemy.

"I'd half a thought I'd be coming just at the right time again," says Oline, with delicate meaning.

"How d'you mean?"

"Why, for the third one to be christened. How is it with you now?"

"Nay," says Inger. "For that matter you might have saved yourself the
trouble."

"Ho."

Oline falls to praising the children, so fine and big they've grown; and Isak taking over more ground, and going to build again, by the look of things--there's no end to things with them; a wonderful place, and hard to find its like. "And what is he going to build this time?"

"Ask him yourself," says Inger. "I don't know."

"Nay," says Oline. "'Tis no business of mine. I just looked along to see how things were with you here; it's a pleasure and delight for me to see. As for Goldenhorns, I'll not ask nor speak of her--she's fallen into proper ways, as any one can see."

They talk for a while companionably; Inger is no longer harsh. The clock on the wall strikes with its sweet little note. Oline looks up with tears in her eyes; never in all her humble life did she hear such a thing--'tis like church and organ music, says Oline. Inger feels herself rich and generous-minded towards her poor relation, and says: "Come into the next room and see my loom."

Oline stays all day. She talks to Isak, and praises all his doings. "And I hear you've bought up the land for miles on every side. Couldn't you have got it for nothing, then? There's none as I can see would take it from you."

Isak had been feeling the need of praise, and is the better for it now. Feels a man again. "I'm buying from the Government," says Isak.

"Ay, Government. But they've no call to be grasping in a deal, surely? What are you building now?"

"Why, I don't know. Nothing much, anyway."

"Ay, you're getting on; building and getting on you are. Painted doors to the house, and a clock on the wall--'tis a new grand house you're building, I suspect."

"You, with your foolish talk ..." says Isak. But he is pleased all the same, and says to Inger: "Couldn't you make a bit of a dish of nice cream custard for one that comes a-visiting?"

"That I can't," says Inger, "for I've churned all there was."

"'Tis no foolish talk," puts in Oline hurriedly; "I'm but a simple woman asking to know. And if it's not a new grand house, why, 'twill be a new big barn, I dare say; and why not? With all these fields and meadow lands, fine and full of growth; ay, and full of milk and honey, as the Bible says."

Isak asks: "How's things looking your way--crops and the like?"

"Why, 'tis there as it is till now. If only the Lord don't set fire to it all again this year, and burn up the lot--Heaven forgive me I should say the word. 'Tis all in His hand and almighty power. But we've nothing our parts that's any way like this place of yours to compare, and that's the solemn truth."

Inger asks after other relatives, her Uncle Sivert in particular. He is the great man of the family, and owns rich fisheries; 'tis almost a wonder how he can find a way to spend all he has. The women talk of Uncle Sivert, and Isak and his doings somehow drop out of sight; no one asks any more about his building now, so at last he says:

"Well, if you want to know, 'tis a bit of a barn with a threshing-floor I'm trying to get set up."

"Just as I thought," says Oline. "Folk with real sound sense in their heads, they do that way. Fore-thought and back-thought and all as it should be. There's not a pot nor pitcher in the place you haven't thought of. A threshing-floor, you said?"

Isak is a child. Oline's flattering words go to his head, and he answers something foolishly with fine words: "As to that new house of mine, there must be a threshing-floor in the same, necessarily. 'Tis my intention so."

"A threshing-floor?" says Oline, wagging her head.

"And where's the sense of growing corn on the place if we've nowhere
to thresh it?"

"Ay, 'tis as I say, not a thing as could be but you have it all there
in your head."