Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun (chromebook ebook reader txt) 📕

one piece of work to take up another, all in a moment. Well, well, there were more things to be looked to now than before, and maybe she was not altogether so patient as she had been; a trifle of unrest had managed to creep in.

First of all there were the flowers she had brought with her⁠—bulbs and cuttings; little lives these too, that must be thought of. The glass window was too small, the ledge too narrow to set flowerpots on; and besides, she had no flowerpots. Isak must make some tiny boxes for begonias, fuchsias, and roses. Also, one window was not enough⁠—fancy a room with only one window!

And, “Oh, by the way,” said Inger, “I want an iron, you know. There isn’t one in the place. I could use a flat iron for pressing when I’m sewing dresses and things, but you can’t do proper work without an iron of some sort.”

Isak promised to get the blacksmith down at the village to make a first-rate pressing-iron. Oh, Isak was ready to do anything, do all that she asked in every way; for he could see well enough that Inger had learned a heap of things now, and matchless clever she was grown. She spoke, too, in a different way, a little finer, using elegant words. She never shouted out to him now as she used to: “Come and get your food!” but would say instead: “Dinner’s ready, if you please.” Everything was different now. In the old days he would answer simply “Ay,” or say nothing at all, and go on working for a bit before he came. Now, he said “Thanks,” and went in at once. Love makes the wise a fool: now and then Isak would say “Thanks, thanks.” Ay, all was different now⁠—maybe a trifle too fine in some ways. When Isak spoke of dung, and was rough in his speech, as peasants are, Inger would call it manure, “for the sake of the children, you know.”

She was careful with the children, and taught them everything, educated them. Let tiny Leopoldine go on quickly with her crochet work, and the boys with writing and schooling; they would not be altogether behindhand when the time came for them to go to school in the village. Eleseus in particular was grown a clever one, but little Sivert was nothing much, if the truth must be told⁠—a madcap, a jackanapes. He even ventured to screw a little at Mother’s sewing-machine, and had already hacked off splinters from table and chairs with his new pocketknife. Inger had threatened to take it away altogether.

The children, of course, had all the animals about the place, and Eleseus had still his coloured pencil besides. He used it very carefully, and rarely lent it to his brother, but for all that the walls were covered with blue and red drawings as time went on, and the pencil got smaller and smaller. At last Eleseus was simply forced to put Sivert on rations with it, lending him the pencil on Sunday only, for one drawing. Sivert was not pleased with the arrangement, but Eleseus was a fellow who would stand no nonsense. Not so much as being the stronger, but he had longer arms, and could manage better when it came to a quarrel.

But that Sivert! Now and again he would come across a bird’s nest in the woods; once he talked about a mouse-hole he had found, and made a lot of that; another time it was a great fish as big as a man, he had seen in the river. But it was all evidently his own invention; he was somewhat inclined to make black into white, was Sivert, but a good sort for all that. When the cat had kittens, it was he who brought her milk, because she hissed too much for Eleseus. Sivert was never tired of standing looking at the box full of movement, a nest of tumbling furry paws.

The chickens, too, he noticed every day: the cock with his lordly carriage and fine feathers, the hens tripping about chattering low, and pecking at the sand, or screaming out as if terribly hurt every time they had laid an egg.

And there was the big wether. Little Sivert had read a good deal to what he knew before, but he could not say of the wether that the beast had a fine Roman nose, begad! That he could not say. But he could do better than that. He knew the wether from the day when it had been a lamb, he understood it and was one with it⁠—a kinsman, a fellow-creature. Once, a strange primitive impression flickered through his senses: it was a moment he never forgot. The wether was grazing quietly in the field; suddenly it threw up its head, stopped munching, simply stood there looking out. Sivert looked involuntarily in the same direction. No⁠—nothing remarkable. But Sivert himself felt something strange within him: “ ’Tis most as if he stood looking into the garden of Eden,” he thought.

There were the cows⁠—the children had each a couple⁠—great sailing creatures, so friendly and tame that they let themselves be caught whenever you liked; let human children pat them. There was the pig, white and particular about its person when decently looked after, listening to every sound, a comical fellow, always eager for food, and ticklish and fidgety as a girl. And there was the billy-goat, there was always one old billy-goat at Sellanraa, for as soon as one died another was ready to take his place. And was there ever anything so solemnly ridiculous to look at? Just now he had a whole lot of goats to look after, but at times he would get sick and tired of them all, and lie down, a bearded, thoughtful spectacle, a veritable Father Abraham. And then in a moment, up again and off after the flock. He always left a trail of sourish air behind him.

The daily round of the farm