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

Eleseus was far from stupid, but on the contrary, a sly fellow in his way. He had seen his father come home, and knew well enough he was sitting there in the window at that moment, looking out. No harm in putting his back into it then for a bit, working a little harder for the moment⁠—it would hurt no one, and might do himself good.

Eleseus was somehow changed; whatever it might be, something in him had been warped, and quietly spoiled; he was not bad, but something blemished. Had he lacked a guiding hand those last few years? What could his mother do to help him now? Only stand by him and agree. She could let herself be dazzled by her son’s bright prospects for the future, and stand between him and his father, to take his part⁠—she could do that.

But Isak grew impatient at last over her opposition; to his mind, the idea about Breidablik was by no means a bad one. Only that very day, coming up, he had stopped the horse almost without thinking, to look out with a critical eye over the ill-tended land; ay, it could be made a fine place in proper hands.

“Why not worth while?” he asked Inger now. “I’ve that much feeling for Eleseus, anyway, that I’d help him to it.”

“If you’ve any feeling for him, then say never a word of Breidablik again,” she answered.

“Ho!”

“Ay, for he’s greater thoughts in his head than the like of us.”

Isak, too, is hardly sure of himself here, and it weakens him; but he is by no means pleased at having shown his hand, and spoken straight out about his plan. He is unwilling to give it up now.

“He shall do as I say,” declares Isak suddenly. And he raises his voice threateningly, in case Inger by any chance should be hard of hearing. “Ay, you may look; I’ll say no mere. It’s midway up, with a schoolhouse by, and everything; what’s the greater thoughts he’s got beyond that, I’d like to know? With a son like that I might starve to death⁠—is that any better, d’you think? And can you tell me why my own flesh and blood should turn and go contrary to⁠—to my own flesh and blood?”

Isak stopped; he realized that the more he talked the worse it would be. He was on the point of changing his clothes, getting out of his best things he had put on to go down to the village in; but no, he altered his mind, he would stay as he was⁠—whatever he meant by that. “You’d better say a word of it to Eleseus,” he says then.

And Inger answers: “Best if you’d say it yourself. He won’t do as I say.”

Very well, then, Isak is head of the house, so he should think; now see if Eleseus dares to murmur! But, whether it were because he feared defeat, Isak draws back now, and says: “Ay, ’tis true, I might say a word of it myself. But by reason of having so many things to do, and busy with this and that, I’ve something else to think of.”

“Well⁠ ⁠… ?” said Inger in surprise.

And Isak goes off again⁠—not very far, only to the farther fields, but still, he goes off. He is full of mysteries, and must hide himself out of the way. The fact is this: he had brought back a third piece of news from the village today, and that was something more than the rest, something enormous; and he had hidden it at the edge of the wood. There it stands, wrapped up in sacking and paper; he uncovers it, and lo, a huge machine. Look! red and blue, wonderful to see, with a heap of teeth and a heap of knives, with joints and arms and screws and wheels⁠—a mowing-machine. No, Isak would not have gone down today for the new horse if it hadn’t been for that machine.

He stands with a marvellously keen expression, going over in his mind from beginning to end the instructions for use that the storekeeper had read out; he sets a spring here, and shifts a bolt there, then he oils every hole and every crevice, then he looks over the whole thing once more. Isak had never known such an hour in his life. To pick up a pen and write one’s mark on a paper, a document⁠—ay, ’twas a perilous great thing that, no doubt. Likewise in the matter of a new harrow he had once brought up⁠—there were many curiously twisted parts in that to be considered. Not to speak of the great circular saw that had to be set in its course to the nicety of a pencil line, never swaying east nor west, lest it should fly asunder. But this⁠—this mowing-machine of his⁠—’twas a crawling nest of steel springs and hooks and apparatus, and hundreds of screws⁠—Inger’s sewing-machine was a bookmarker compared with this!

Isak harnessed himself to the shafts and tried the thing. Here was the wonderful moment. And that was why he kept out of sight and was his own horse.

For⁠—what if the machine had been wrongly put together and did not do its work, but went to pieces with a crash! No such calamity happened, however; the machine could cut grass. And so indeed it ought, after Isak had stood there, deep in study, for hours. The sun had gone down. Again he harnesses himself and tries it; ay, the thing cuts grass. And so indeed it ought!

When the dew began to fall close after the heat of the day, and the boys came out, each with his scythe to mow in readiness for next day, Isak came in sight close to the house and said:

“Put away scythes for tonight. Get out the new horse, you can, and bring him down to the edge of the wood.”

And on that, instead of going indoors to his supper as the others had done already, he turned where he stood