Growth of the Soil - Knut Hamsun
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"Yes.... Yes, of course."
"Building--why, there's no help for it as I can see.. Here's you come
bringing a whole cow to the farm--that means a cowshed, I suppose?"
Poor Inger, not so eternally wise as he, as Isak, that lord of
creation. And this was before she learned to know him, and reckon with
his way of putting things. Says Inger:
"Why, it's never a cowshed you're building, surely?"
"Ho," says he.
"But you don't mean it? I--I thought you'd be building a house first."
"Think so?" says Isak, putting up a face as if he'd never in life have
thought of that himself.
"Why yes. And put the beasts in the hut."
Isak thought for a bit. "Ay, maybe 'twould be best so."
"There," says Inger, all glad and triumphant. "You see I'm some good
after all."
"Ay, that's true. And what'd you say to a house with two rooms in?"
"_Two_ rooms? Oh ...! Why, 'twould be just like other folks. Do you
think we could?"
They did. Isak he went about building, notching his baulks and fitting
up his framework; also he managed a hearth and fireplace of picked
stones, though this last was troublesome, and Isak himself was not
always pleased with his work. Haytime came, and he was forced to
climb down from his building and go about the hillsides far and near,
cutting grass and bearing home the hay in mighty loads. Then one rainy
day he must go down to the village.
"What you want in the village?"
"Well, I can't say exactly as yet...."
He set off, and stayed away two days, and came Back with a
cooking-stove--a barge of a man surging up through the forest with
a whole iron stove on his back. "'Tis more than a man can do," said
Inger. "You'll kill yourself that gait." But Isak pulled down the
stone hearth, that didn't look so well in the new house, and set
up the cooking-stove in its place. "'Tisn't every one has a
cooking-stove," said Inger. "Of all the wonders, how we're getting
on!..."
Haymaking still; Isak bringing in loads and masses of hay, for
woodland grass is not the same as meadow grass, more's the pity, but
poorer by far. It was only on rainy days now that he could spare time
for his building; 'twas a lengthy business, and even by August, when
all the hay was in, safely stored under the shelter of the rock, the
new house was still but half-way done. Then by September: "This won't
do," said Isak. "You'd better run down to the village and get a man to
help." Inger had been something poorly of late, and didn't run much
now, but all the same she got herself ready to go.
But Isak had changed his mind again; had put on his lordly manner
again, and said he would manage by himself. "No call to bother with
other folk," says he; "I can manage it alone."
"'Tis more than one man's work," says Inger. "You'll wear yourself
out."
"Just help me to hoist these up," says Isak, and that was all.
October came, and Inger had to give up. This was a hard blow, for the
roof-beams must be got up at any cost, and the place covered in before
the autumn rains; there was not a day to be lost. What could be wrong
with Inger? Not going to be ill? She would make cheese now and then
from the goats' milk, but beyond that she did little save shifting
Goldenhorns a dozen times a day where she grazed.
"Bring up a good-sized basket, or a box," she had said, "next time
you're down to the village."
"What d'you want that for?" asked Isak.
"I'll just be wanting it," said Inger.
Isak hauled up the roof-beams on a rope, Inger guiding them with one
hand; it seemed a help just to have her about. Bit by bit the work
went on; there was no great height to the roof, but the timber was
huge and heavy for a little house.
The weather kept fine, more or less. Inger got the potatoes in by
herself, and Isak had the roofing done before the rain came on in
earnest. The goats were brought in of a night into the hut and all
slept there together; they managed somehow, they managed everyway, and
did not grumble.
Isak was getting ready for another journey down to the village. Said
Inger very humbly:
"Do you think perhaps you could bring up a good-sized basket, or a
box?"
"I've ordered some glass windows," said Isak. "and a couple of painted
doors. I'll have to fetch them up," said he in his lordly way.
"Ay well, then. It's no great matter about the basket."
"What did you want with a basket? What's it for?"
"What's it for?... Oh, haven't you eyes in your head!"
Isak went off deep in thought. Two days later he came back, with a
window and a door for the parlour, and a door for the bedroom; also he
had hung round his neck in front a good-sized packing-case, and full
of provisions to boot.
"You'll carry yourself to death one day," said Inger.
"Ho, indeed!" Isak was very far indeed from being dead; he took out
a bottle of medicine from his pocket--naphtha it was--and gave it to
Inger with orders to take it regularly and get well again. And there
were the windows and the painted doors that he could fairly boast of;
he set to work at once fitting them in. Oh, such little doors, and
secondhand at that, but painted up all neat and fine again in red and
white; 'twas almost as good as having pictures on the walls.
And now they moved into the new building, and the animals had the turf
hut to themselves, only a lambing ewe was left with Cow, lest she
should feel lonely.
They had done well, these builders in the waste: ay, 'twas a wonder
and a marvel to themselves.
Chapter II
Isak worked on the land until the frost act in; there were stones and
roots to be dug up and cleared away, and the meadow to be levelled
ready for next year. When the ground hardened, he left his field work
and became a woodman, felling and cutting up great quantities of logs.
"What do you want with all these logs?" Inger would say.
"Oh, they'll be useful some way," said Isak off-handedly, as though he
had no plan. But Isak had a plan, never fear. Here was virgin forest,
a dense growth, right close up to the house, a barrier hedging in
his fields where he wanted room. Moreover, there must be some way of
getting the logs down to the village that winter; there were folk
enough would be glad of wood for firing. It was sound enough, and Isak
was in no doubt; he stuck to his work in the forest, felling trees and
cutting them up into logs.
Inger came out often, to watch him at work. He took no notice, but
made as if her coming were no matter, and not at all a thing he wished
for her to do; but she understood all the same that it pleased him to
have her there. They had a strange way, too, of speaking to each other
at times.
"Couldn't you find things to do but come out here and get stark
frozen?" says Isak.
"I'm well enough for me," says Inger. "But I can't see there's any
living sense in you working yourself to death like you do."
"Ho! You just pick up that coat of mine there and put it on you."
"Put on your coat? Likely, indeed. I've no time to sit here now, with
Goldenhorns ready to calve and all."
"H'm, Calving, you say?"
"As if you didn't know! But what do you think now about that same
calf. Let it stay and be weaned, maybe?"
"Do as you think; 'tis none of my business with calves and things."
"Well, 'twould be a pity to eat up calf, seems to me. And leave us
with but one cow on the place."
"Don't seem to me like you'd do that anyway," says Isak.
That was their way. Lonely folk, ugly to look at and overfull of
growth, but a blessing for each other, for the beasts, and for the
earth.
And Goldenhorns calved. A great day in the wilderness, a joy and a
delight. They gave her flour-wash, and Isak himself saw to it there
was no stint of flour, though he had carried it all the way himself,
on his back. And there lay a pretty calf, a beauty, red-flanked like
her mother, and comically bewildered at the miracle of coming into the
world. In a couple of years she would be having calves of her own.
"'Twill be a grand fine cow when she grows up," said Inger. "And what
are we to call her, now? I can't think."
Inger was childish in her ways, and no clever wit for anything.
"Call her?" said Isak. "Why, Silverhorns, of course; what else?"
The first snow came. As soon as there was a passable road, Isak set
out for the village, full of concealment and mystery as ever, when
Inger asked his errand. And sure enough, he came back this time with a
new and unthinkable surprise. A horse and sledge, nothing less.
"Here's foolishness," says Inger. "And you've not stolen it, I
suppose?"
"Stolen it?"
"Well, found it, then?"
Now if only he could have said: "'Tis my horse--our horse...." But
to tell the truth, he had only hired it, after all. Hired horse and
sledge to cart his logs.
Isak drove down with his loads of firewood, and brought back food,
herrings and flour. And one day he came up with a young bull on the
sledge; bought it for next to nothing, by reason they were getting
short of fodder down in the village. Shaggy and thin, no ways a
beauty, but decently built for all that, and wanted no more than
proper feed to set it right. And with a cow they had already....
"What'll you be bringing up next?" said Inger.
Isak brought up a host of things. Brought up planks and a saw he had
got in exchange for timber; a grindstone, a wafer iron, tools--all
in exchange for his logs. Inger was bursting with riches, and said
each time: "What, more things! When we've cattle and all a body could
think of!"
They had enough to meet their needs for no little time to come, and
were well-to-do folk. What was Isak to start on again next spring? He
had thought it all out, tramping down beside his loads of wood that
winter; he would clear more ground over the hillside and level it off,
cut up more logs to dry through the summer, and take down double loads
when the snow came fit for sledging. It worked out beautifully.
But there was another matter Isak had thought of times out of number:
that Goldenhorns, where had she come from, whose had she been? There
was never a wife on earth like Inger. Ho! a wild thing she was, that
let him do as he pleased with her, and was glad of it. But--suppose
one day they were to come for the cow, and take it away--and worse,
maybe, to come after? What was it Inger herself had said about the
horse: "You haven't stolen it, I suppose, or found it?" That was her
first thought, yes. That was what she had said; who could say if she
were to be trusted--what should he do? He had thought of it all many
a time. And here he had brought up a mate himself for the cow--for a
stolen cow, maybe!
And there was the horse he would have to return again. A pity--for
'twas a little friendly beast, and grown fond of them already.
"Never mind," said Inger comfortingly. "Why, you've done wonders
already."
"Ay, but just now with the spring coming on--and I've need of a
horse...."
Next morning he drove off quietly with the last load, and was away two
days. Coming back on foot the third day, he stopped as he neared the
house, and stood listening. There was a curious noise inside.... A
child crying--Eyah, _Herregud_!... Well, there it was; but a terrible
strange thing. And Inger had never said a word.
He stepped inside, and there first thing of all was the
packing-case--the famous packing-case that he had carried home slung
round his neck in front; there it was, hung up by a string at each end
from the ceiling, a cradle and a bedplace for the child. Inger was up,
pottering about half-dressed--she had milked the cow and the goats, as
it might have been just an ordinary day.
The child stopped crying. "You're through with it already?" said Isak.
"Ay, I'm through with it now."
"H'm."
"It came the first evening you were gone."
"H'm."
"I'd only to get my things off and hang up the cradle there, but it
was too much for me, like, and I had to lie down."
"Why didn't you tell me before?"
"Why, I couldn't say to a minute when it'd be. 'Tis a boy."
"Ho, a boy."
"And I can't for the life of me think what we're to call him," said
Inger.
Isak peeped at the little red face; well shaped it was, and no
hare-lip, and a growth of hair all thick on the head. A fine little
fellow for his rank and station in a packing-case; Isak felt himself
curiously weak. The rugged man stood there with a miracle before him;
a thing created first of all in a sacred mist, showing forth now in
life with a little face like an allegory. Days and years, and the
miracle would be a human being.
"Come and have your food," said Inger....
* * * * *
Isak is a woodman, felling trees and sawing logs. He is better off now
than before, having a saw. He works away, and mighty piles of wood
grow up; he makes a street of them, a town, built up of stacks and
piles of wood. Inger is more about the house now, and does not come
out as before to watch him at his work; Isak must find a pretext now
and then to slip off home for a moment instead. Queer to have a little
fellow like that about the place! Isak, of course, would never dream
of taking any notice--'twas but a bit of a thing in a packing-case.
And as for being fond of it ... But when it cried, well, it was only
human nature to feel just a little something for a cry like that; a
little tiny cry like that.
"Don't touch him!" says Inger. "With your hands all messed up with
resin and all!"
"Resin, indeed!" says Isak. "Why, I haven't had resin on my hands
since I built this house. Give me the boy, let me take him--there,
he's as right as can be!"
* * * * *
Early in May came a visitor. A woman came over the hills to that
lonely place where none ever came; she was of Inger's kinsfolk, though
not near, and they made her welcome.
"I thought I'd just look in," she says, "and see how Goldenhorns gets
on since she left us."
Inger looks at the child, and talks to it in a little pitying voice:
"Ah, there's none asks how he's getting on, that's but a little tiny
thing."
"Why, as for that, any one can see how he's getting on. A fine little
lad and all. And who'd have thought it a year gone, Inger, to find you
here with house and husband and child and all manner of things."
"'Tis no doing of mine to praise. But there's one sitting there that
took me as I was and no more."
"And wedded?--Not wedded yet, no, I see."
"We'll see about it, the time this little man's to be christened,"
says Inger. "We'd have been wedded before, but couldn't come by it,
getting down to a church and all. What do you say, Isak?"
"Wedded?" says Isak. "Why, yes, of course."
"But if as you'd help us, Oline," says Inger. "Just to come up for a
few days in the off time once, and look to the creatures here while
we're away?"
Ay, Oline would do that.
"We'll see it's no loss to you after."
Why, as to that, she'd leave it to them.... "And you're building
again, I see. Now what'll that be for? Isn't there built enough?"
Inger sees her chance and puts in here: "Why, you must ask him about
that. I'm not to know."
"Building?" says Isak. "Oh, 'tis nothing to speak of. A bit of a
shed, maybe, if we should need it. What's that you were saying about
Goldenhorns? You'd like to see her?"
They go across to the cowshed, and there's cow and calf to show, and
an ox to boot. The visitor nods her head, looking at the beasts, and
at the shed; all fine as could be, and clean as couldn't be cleaner.
"Trust Inger for looking after creatures every way," says Oline.
Isak puts a question: "Goldenhorns was at your place before?"
"Ay, from a calf. Not my place, though; at my son's. But 'tis all the
same. And we've her mother still."
Isak had not heard better news a long while; it was a burden lighter.
Goldenhorns was his and Inger's by honest right. To tell the truth, he
had half thought of getting rid of his trouble in a sorry way; to kill
off the cow that autumn, scrape the hide, bury the horns, and thus
make away with all trace of Cow Goldenhorns in this life. No need for
that now. And he grew mightily proud of Inger all at once.
"Ay, Inger," says he. "She's one to manage things, that's true.
There's not her like nor equal to be found. 'Twas a poor place here
till I got a woman of my own, as you might say."
"Why, 'tis but natural so," says Oline.
And so this woman from across the hills, a soft-spoken creature with
her wits about her, and by name Oline, she stayed with them a couple
of days, and had the little room to sleep in. And, when she set out
for home, she had a bundle of wool that Inger had given her, from the
sheep. There was no call to hide that bundle of wool, but Oline took
care that Isak should not see it.
Then the child and Isak and his wife again; the same world again, and
the work of the day, with many little joys and big. Goldenhorns was
yielding well, the goats had dropped their kids and were yielding
well; Inger had a row of red and white cheeses already, stored away to
get ripe. It was her plan to save up cheeses till there were enough to
buy a loom. Oh, that Inger; she knew how to weave.
And Isak built a shed--he too had a plan of his own, no doubt. He set
up a new wing built out from the side of the turf hut, with double
panelling boards, made a doorway in it, and a neat little window with
four panes; laid on a roof of outer boards, and made do with that
till the ground thawed and he could get turf. All that was useful and
necessary; no flooring, no smooth-planed walls, but Isak had fixed up
a box partition, as for a horse, and a manger.
It was nearing the end of May. The sun had thawed the high ground;
Isak roofed in his shed with turf and it was finished. Then one
morning he ate a meal to last for the day, took some more food with
him, shouldered pick and spade, and went down to the village.
"Bring up three yards of cotton print, if you can," Inger called after
him.
"What do you want with that?" said Isak.
Isak was long away; it almost seemed as if he had gone for good. Inger
looked at the weather every day, noting the way of the wind, as if she
were expecting a sailing-ship; she went out at nighttime to listen;
even thought of taking the child on her arm and going after him. Then
at last he came back, with a horse and cart. "_Piro_!" shouted Isak as
he drew up; shouted so as to be heard. And the horse was well behaved,
and stood as quiet as could be, nodding at the turf hut as if it knew
the place again. Nevertheless, Isak must call out, "Hi, come and hold
the horse a bit, can't you?"
Out goes Inger. "Where is it now? Oh, Isak, have you hired him again?
Where have you been all this time? 'Tis six days gone."
"Where d'you think I'd be? Had to go all sorts of ways round to find a
road for this cart of mine. Hold the horse a bit, can't you?"
"Cart of yours! You don't mean to say you've bought that cart?"
Isak dumb; Isak swelling with things unspoken. He lifts out a plough
and a harrow he has brought; nails, provisions, a grindstone, a sack
of corn. "And how's the child?" he asks.
"Child's all right. Have you bought that cart, that's what I want to
know? For here have I been longing and longing for a loom," says she
jestingly, in her gladness at having him back again.
Isak dumb once more, for a long space, busied with his own affairs,
pondering, looking round for a place to put all his goods and
implements; it was hard to find room for them all. But when Inger gave
up asking, and began talking to the horse instead, he came out of his
lofty silence at last.
"Ever see a farm _without_ a horse and cart, and plough and harrows,
and all the rest of it? And since you want to know, why, I've bought
that horse and cart, and all that's in it," says he.
And Inger could only shake her head and murmur: "Well, I never did see
such a man!"
Isak was no longer littleness and humility; he had paid, as it were,
like a gentleman, for Goldenhorns. "Here you are," he could say. "I've
brought along a horse; we can call it quits."
He stood there, upright and agile, against his wont; shifted the
plough once more, picked it up and carried it with one hand and stood
it up against the wall. Oh, he could manage an estate! He took up the
other things: the harrow, the grindstone, a new fork he had bought,
all the costly agricultural implements, treasures of the new home, a
grand array. All requisite appliances--nothing was lacking.
"H'm. As for that loom, why, we'll manage that too, I dare say, as
long as I've my health. And there's your cotton print; they'd none but
blue, so I took that."
There was no end to the things he brought. A bottomless well, rich in
all manner of things, like a city store.
Says Inger: "I wish Oline could have seen all this when she was here."
Just like a woman! Sheer senseless vanity--as if that mattered! Isak
sniffed contemptuously. Though perhaps he himself would not have been
displeased if Oline had been there to see.
The child was crying.
"Go in and look after the boy," said Isak. "I'll look to the horse."
He takes out the horse and leads it into the stable: ay, here is Isak
putting his horse into the stable. Feeds it and strokes it and
treats it tenderly. And how much was owing now, on that horse and
cart?--Everything, the whole sum, a mighty debt; but it should all be
paid that summer, never fear. He had stacks of cordwood to pay with,
and some building bark from last year's cut, not to speak of heavy
timber. There was time enough. But later on, when the pride and glory
had cooled off a little, there were bitter hours of fear and anxiety;
all depended on the summer and the crops; how the year turned out.
The days now were occupied in field work and more field work; he
cleared new bits of ground, getting out roots and stones; ploughing,
manuring, harrowing, working with pick and spade, breaking lumps of
soil and crumbling them with hand and heel; a tiller of the ground
always, laying out fields like velvet carpets. He waited a couple of
days longer--there was a look of rain about--and then he sowed his
corn.
For generations back, into forgotten time, his fathers before him had
sowed corn; solemnly, on a still, calm evening, best with a gentle
fall of warm and misty rain, soon after the grey goose flight.
Potatoes were a new thing, nothing mystic, nothing religious; women
and children could plant them--earth-apples that came from foreign
parts, like coffee; fine rich food, but much like swedes and mangolds.
Corn was nothing less than bread; corn or no corn meant life or death.
Isak walked bareheaded, in Jesu name, a sower. Like a tree-stump with
hands to look at, but in his heart like a child. Every cast was made
with care, in a spirit of kindly resignation. Look! the tiny grains
that are to take life and grow, shoot up into ears, and give more
corn again; so it is throughout all the earth where corn is sown.
Palestine, America, the valleys of Norway itself--a great wide world,
and here is Isak, a tiny speck in the midst of it all, a sower. Little
showers of corn flung out fanwise from his hand; a kindly clouded sky,
with a promise of the faintest little misty rain.
Chapter IV
It was the slack time between the seasons, but the woman Oline did not
come.
Isak was free of the soil now; he had two scythes and two rakes ready
for the haymaking; he made long bottom boards for the cart for getting
in the hay, and procured a couple of runners and some suitable wood
to make a sledge for the winter. Many useful things he did. Even to
shelves. He set up a pair of shelves inside the house, as an excellent
place to keep various things, such as an almanac--he had bought one at
last--and ladles and vessels not in use. Inger thought a deal of those
two shelves.
Inger was easily pleased; she thought a great deal of everything.
There was Goldenhorns, for instance, no fear of her running away now,
with the calf and bull to play with; she ran about in the woods all
day long. The goats too were thriving, their heavy udders almost
dragging on the ground. Inger made a long robe of blue cotton print,
and a little cap of the same stuff, as pretty as could be--and that
was for the christening. The boy himself watched her at work many a
time; a blessed wonder of a boy he was, and if she was so bent on
calling him Eleseus, why, Isak supposed she must have her way. When
the robe was finished, it had a long train to it, nigh on a yard and
a half of cotton print, and every inch of it money spent; but what of
that--the child was their first-born.
"What about those beads of yours?" said Isak. "If as they're ever to
be used at all...."
Oh, but Inger had thought of them already, those beads of hers. Trust
a mother for that. Inger said nothing, and was very proud. The beads
were none so many; they would not make a necklace for the boy, but
they would look pretty stitched on the front of his cap, and there
they should be.
But Oline did not come.
If it had not been for the cattle, they could have gone off all three
of them, and come back a few days later with the child properly
christened. And if it had not been for that matter of getting wedded,
Inger might have gone by herself.
"If we put off the wedding business for a bit?" said Isak. But Inger
was loth to put it off; it would be ten or twelve years at least
before Eleseus was old enough to stay behind and look to the milking
while they went.