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

would pay her over and above what other folk did⁠—and so she’d come. No, ’twas no need for Brede to trouble himself that gait⁠—when her Heavenly Father had watched over her all those years, and opened this door and that before her feet, and bidden her in. Ay, and it seemed like God Himself had known what He was doing, sending her up to Maaneland that day, to save the life of one of His creatures on earth.⁠ ⁠…

Axel was getting wearied again by now; his legs could hardly bear him, and seemed like giving up. Strange, he had been getting better by degrees, able to walk, as the life and warmth came back into his body. But now⁠—he must lean on Brede for support! It seemed to begin when Oline started talking about her wages; and then, when she was saving his life again, it was worse than ever. Was he trying to lessen her triumph once more? Heaven knows⁠—but his mind seemed to be working again. As they neared the house, he stopped, and said: “Looks like I’ll never get there, after all.”

Brede hoists him up without a word, and carries him. So they go on like that, Oline all venom, Axel up full length on Brede’s back.

“What I was going to say,” gets out Oline⁠—“about Barbro⁠—wasn’t she far gone with child?”

“Child?” groans Brede, under the weight. Oh, ’tis a strange procession; but Axel lets himself be carried all the way till he’s set down at his own door.

Brede puffs and blows, mightily out of breath.

“Ay, or how⁠—was it ever born, after all?” asks Oline.

Axel cuts in quickly with a word to Brede: “I don’t know how I’d ever have got home this night but for you.” And he does not forget Oline: “And you, Oline, that was the first to find me. I’ve to thank you both for it all.”

That was how Axel was saved.⁠ ⁠…

The next few days Oline would talk of nothing but the great event; Axel was hard put to it to keep her within bounds. Oline can point out the very spot where she was standing in the room when an angel of the Lord called her out to the door to hear a cry for help⁠—Axel goes back to his work in the woods, and when he has felled enough, begins carting it up to the sawmill at Sellanraa.

Good, regular winter work, as long as it lasts; carting up rough timber and bringing back sawn planks. The great thing is to hurry and get through with it before the new year, when the frost sets in in earnest, and the saw cannot work. Things are going on nicely, everything as well as could be wished. If Sivert happens to come up from the village with an empty sledge, he stops and takes a stick of timber on the way, to help his neighbour. And the pair of them talk over things together, and each is glad of a talk with the other.

“What’s the news down village?” asks Axel.

“Why, nothing much,” says Sivert. “There’s a new man coming to take up land, so they say.”

A new man⁠—nothing in that; ’twas only Sivert’s way of putting it. New men came now every year or so, to take up land; there were five new holdings now below Breidablik. Higher up, things went more slowly, for all that the soil was richer that way. The one who had ventured farthest was Isak, when he settled down at Sellanraa; he was the boldest and the wisest of them all. Later, Axel Ström had come⁠—and now there was a new man besides. The new man was to have a big patch of arable land and forest down below Maaneland⁠—there was land enough.

“Heard what sort of a man it is?” asked Axel.

“Nay,” said Sivert. “But he’s bringing up houses all ready made, to fix up in no time.”

“Ho! A rich man, then?”

“Ay, seems like. And a wife and three children with him; and horse and cattle.”

“Why, then, ’twill be a rich man enough. Any more about him?”

“No. He’s three-and-thirty.”

“And what’s his name?”

“Aron, they say. Calls his place Storborg.”

“Storborg? H’m. ’Tis no little place, then.”4

“He’s come up from the coast. Had a fishery there, so they say.”

“H’m⁠—fishery. Wonder if he knows much about farming?” says Axel. “That all you heard? Nothing more?”

“No. He paid all down in cash for the title-deeds. That’s all I heard. Must have made a heap of money with his fishery, they say. And now he’s going to start here with a store.”

“Ho! A store?”

“Ay, so they say.”

“H’m. So he’s going to start a store?”

This was the one really important piece of news, and the two neighbours talked it over every way as they drove up. It was a big piece of news⁠—the greatest event, perhaps, in all the history of the place; ay, there was much to say of that. Who was he going to trade with, this new man? The eight of them that had settled on the common lands? Or did he reckon on getting custom from the village as well? Anyway, the store would mean a lot to them; like as not, it would bring up more settlers again. The holdings might rise in value⁠—who could say?

They talked it over as if they would never tire. Ay, here were two men with their own interests and aims, as great to them as other men’s. The settlement was their world; work, seasons, crops were the adventures of their life. Was not that interest and excitement enough? Ho, enough indeed! Many a time they had need to sleep but lightly, to work on long past mealtimes; but they stood it, they endured it and were none the worse; a matter of seven hours lying pinned down beneath a tree was not a thing to spoil them for life as long as their limbs were whole. A narrow world, a life with no great prospects? Ho, indeed! What of this new Storborg, a shop