Growth of the Soil - Knut Hamsun (children's ebooks free online TXT) 📗

put in, too⁠—and why not? ’Twas for Eleseus at Storborg. Never a horse went out from Sellanraa but there was something taken down to Eleseus.

When Isak came driving down over the moors, ’twas no little event, for he came but rarely, Sivert going most ways in his stead. At the two farms nearest down, folk stand at the door of the huts and tell one another: “ ’Tis Isak himself; and what’ll he be going down after today?” And, coming down as far as to Maaneland, there’s Barbro at the glass window with a child in her arms, and sees him, and says: “ ’Tis Isak himself!”

He comes to Storborg and pulls up. “Ptro! Is Eleseus at home?”

Eleseus comes out. Ay, he’s at home; not gone yet, but just going⁠—off on his spring tour of the towns down south.

“Here’s some things your mother sent down,” says his father. “Don’t know what it is, but nothing much, I doubt.”

Eleseus takes the things, and thanks him, and asks:

“There wasn’t a letter, I suppose, or anything that sort?”

“Ay,” says his father, feeling in pockets, “there was. ’Tis from little Rebecca I think they said.”

Eleseus takes the letter, ’tis that he has been waiting for. Feels it all nice and thick, and says to his father:

“Well, ’twas lucky you came in time⁠—though ’tis two days before I’m off yet. If you’d like to stay a bit, you might take my trunk down.”

Isak gets down and ties up his horse, and goes for a stroll over the ground. Little Andresen is no bad worker on the land in Eleseus’ service; true, he has had Sivert from Sellanraa with horses, but he has done a deal of work on his own account, draining bogs, and hiring a man himself to set the ditches with stone. No need of buying fodder at Storborg that year, and next, like as not, Eleseus would be keeping a horse of his own. Thanks to Andresen and the way he worked on the land.

After a bit of a while, Eleseus calls down that he’s ready with his trunk. Ready to go himself, too, by the look of it; in a fine blue suit, white collar, galoshes, and a walking-stick. True, he will have two days to wait for the boat, but no matter; he may just as well stay down in the village; ’tis all the same if he’s here or there.

And father and son drive off. Andresen watches them from the door of the shop and wishes a pleasant journey.

Isak is all thought for his boy, and would give him the seat to himself; but Eleseus will have none of that, and sits up by his side. They come to Breidablik, and suddenly Eleseus has forgotten something. “Ptro!⁠—What is it?” asks his father.

Oh, his umbrella! Eleseus has forgotten his umbrella; but he can’t explain all about it, and only says: “Never mind, drive on.”

“Don’t you want to turn back?”

“No; drive on.”

But a nuisance it was; how on earth had he come to leave it? ’Twas all in a hurry, through his father being there waiting. Well, now he had better buy a new umbrella at Trondhjem when he got there. ’Twas no importance either way if he had one umbrella or two. But for all that, Eleseus is out of humour with himself; so much so that he jumps down and walks behind.

They could hardly talk much on the way down after that, seeing Isak had to turn round every time and speak over his shoulder. Says Isak: “How long you’re going to be away?”

And Eleseus answers: “Oh, say three weeks, perhaps, or a month at the outside.”

His father marvels how folk don’t get lost in the big towns, and never find their way back. But Eleseus answers, as to that, he’s used to living in towns, and never got lost, never had done in his life.

Isak thinks it a shame to be sitting up there all alone, and calls out: “Here, you come and drive a bit; I’m getting tired.”

Eleseus won’t hear of his father getting down, and gets up beside him again. But first they must have something to eat⁠—out of Isak’s well-filled pack. Then they drive on again.

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 flagpole 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