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

to town after all; Inger managed that. He was there for a year, then he was confirmed, and after that had a regular place in the engineer’s office, and grew more and more clever at writing and things. To see the letters he sent home⁠—sometimes with red and black ink, like pictures almost. And the talk of them, the words he used. Now and again he asked for money, something towards his expenses. A watch and chain, for instance, he must have, so as not to oversleep himself in the morning and be late at the office; money for a pipe and tobacco also, such as the other young clerks in the town always had. And for something he called pocket-money, and something he called evening classes, where he learned drawing and gymnastics and other matters proper to his rank and position. Altogether, it was no light matter to keep Eleseus going in a berth in town.

“Pocket-money?” said Isak. “Is that money to keep in your pocket, maybe?”

“That must be it, no doubt,” said Inger. “So as not to be altogether without. And it’s not much; only a Daler now and then.”

“Ay, that’s just it,” said Isak harshly. “A Daler now and a Daler then.⁠ ⁠…” But his harshness was all because he missed Eleseus himself, and wanted him home. “It makes too many Dalers in the long run,” said he. “I can’t keep, on like this; you must write and tell him he can have no more.”

“Ho, very well then!” said Inger in an offended tone.

“There’s Sivert⁠—what does he get by way of pocket-money?”

Inger answered: “You’ve never been in a town, and so you don’t know these things. Sivert’s no need of pocket-money. And talking of money, Sivert ought to be none so badly off when his Uncle Sivert dies.”

“You don’t know.”

“Ay, but I do know.”

And this was right enough in a way; Uncle Sivert had said something about making little Sivert his heir. Uncle Sivert had heard of Eleseus and his grand doings in town, and the story did not please him; he nodded and bit his lips, and muttered that a nephew called up as his namesake⁠—named after Uncle Sivert⁠—should not come to want. But what was this fortune Uncle Sivert was supposed to possess? Had he really, besides his neglected farm and his fishery, the heap of money and means folk generally thought? No one could say for certain. And apart from that, Uncle Sivert himself was an obstinate man; he insisted that little Sivert should come to stay with him. It was a point of honour with him, this last; he should take little Sivert and look after him, as the engineer had done with Eleseus.

But how could it be done? Send little Sivert away from home?⁠—it was out of the question. He was all the help left to Isak now. Moreover, the lad himself had no great wish to go and stay with his famous uncle; he had tried it once, but had come home again. He was confirmed, shot up in stature, and grew; the down showed on his cheek, his hands were big, a pair of willing slaves. And he worked like a man.

Isak could hardly have managed to get the new barn built at all without Sivert’s help⁠—but there it stood now, with bridge-way and air-holes and all, as big as they had at the parsonage itself. True, it was only a half-timbered building covered with boarding, but extra stout built, with iron clinches at the corners, and covered with one-inch plank from Isak’s own sawmill. And Sivert had hammered in more than one nail at the work, and lifted the heavy beams for the framework till he was near fainting. Sivert got on well with his father, and worked steadily at his side; he was made of the same stuff. And yet he was not above such simple ways as going up the hillside for tansy to rub with so as to smell nice in church. ’Twas Leopoldine was the one for getting fancies in her head, which was natural enough, she being a girl, and the only daughter. That summer, if you please, she had discovered that she could not eat her porridge at supper without treacle⁠—simply couldn’t. And she was no great use at any kind of work either.

Inger had not yet given up her idea of keeping a servant; she brought up the question every spring, and every time Isak opposed it stubbornly. All the cutting out and sewing and fine weaving she could do, not to speak of making embroidered slippers, if she had but the time to herself! And of late, Isak had been something less firm in his refusal, though he grumbled still. Ho, the first time! He had made a whole long speech about it; not as a matter of right and reason, nor yet from pride, but, alas! from weakness, from anger at the idea. But now, he seemed to be giving way, as if ashamed.

“If ever I’m to have help in the house, now’s the time,” said Inger. “A few years more, and Leopoldine’ll be big enough to do this and that.”

“Help?” said Isak. “What do you want help with, anyway?”

“Want with it, indeed? Haven’t you help yourself? Haven’t you Sivert all the time?”

What could Isak say to a meaningless argument like that? He answered: “Ay, well; when you get a girl up here, I doubt you’ll be able to plough and sow and reap and manage all by yourselves. And then Sivert and I can go our ways.”

“That’s as may be,” said Inger. “But I’ll just say this: that I could get Barbro to come now; she’s written home about it.”

“What Barbro?” said Isak. “Is it that Brede’s girl you mean?”

“Yes. She’s in Bergen now.”

“I’ll not have that Brede’s girl Barbro up here,” said he. “Whoever you get, I’ll have none of her.”

That was better than nothing; Isak refused to have Barbro; he no longer said they would have no servant