Growth of the Soil - Knut Hamsun
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No, Isak must use his brains to find a way. The whole thing had come
about somehow without their knowing; maybe the wedding business was
just as important as the christening--how should he know? The weather
looked like drought--a thoroughly wicked drought; if the rain did not
come before long, their crops would be burnt up. But all was in the
hand of God. Isak made ready to go down to the village and find some
one to come up. All those miles again!
And all that fuss just to be wed and christened. Ay, outlying folks
had many troubles, great and small.
At last Oline did come....
And now they were wedded and christened, everything decently in order;
they had remembered to have the wedding first, so the child could be
christened as of a wedded pair. But the drought kept on, and the tiny
cornfields were parched, those velvet carpets parched--and why? 'Twas
all in the hand of God. Isak mowed his bits of meadow; there was
little grass on them for all he had manured them well that spring. He
mowed and mowed on the hillsides, farther and farther out; mowing and
turning and carting home loads of hay, as if he would never tire,--for
he had a horse already, and a well-stocked farm. But by mid-July he
had to cut the corn for green fodder, there was no help for it. And
now all depended on the potato crop.
What was that about potatoes? Were they just a thing from foreign
parts, like coffee; a luxury, an extra? Oh, the potato is a lordly
fruit; drought or downpour, it grows and grows all the same. It laughs
at the weather, and will stand anything; only deal kindly with it, and
it yields fifteen-fold again. Not the blood of a grape, but the flesh
of a chestnut, to be boiled or roasted, used in every way. A man may
lack corn to make bread, but give him potatoes and he will not starve.
Roast them in the embers, and there is supper; boil them in water, and
there's a breakfast ready. As for meat, it's little is needed beside.
Potatoes can be served with what you please; a dish of milk, a
herring, is enough. The rich eat them with butter; poor folk manage
with a tiny pinch of salt. Isak could make a feast of them on Sundays,
with a mess of cream from Goldenhorns' milk. Poor despised potato--a
blessed thing!
But now--things look black even for the potato crop.
Isak looked at the sky unnumbered times in the day. And the sky was
blue. Many an evening it looked as if a shower were coming. Isak would
go in and say, "Like as not we'll be getting that rain after all." And
a couple of hours later all would be as hopeless as before.
The drought had lasted seven weeks now, and the heat was serious;
the potatoes stood all the time in flower; flowering marvellously,
unnaturally. The cornfields looked from a distance as if under snow.
Where was it all to end? The almanac said nothing--almanacs nowadays
were not what they used to be; an almanac now was no good at all. Now
it looked like rain again, and Isak went in to Inger: "We'll have rain
this night, God willing."
"Is it looking that way?"
"Ay. And the horse is shivering a bit, like they will."
Inger glanced towards the door and said, "Ay, you see, 'twill come
right enough."
A few drops fell. Hours passed, they had their supper, and when Isak
went out in the night to look, the sky was blue.
"Well, well," said Inger; "anyway, 'twill give the last bit of lichen
another day to dry," said she to comfort him all she could.
Isak had been getting lichen, as much as he could, and had a fine lot,
all of the best. It was good fodder, and he treated it as he would
hay, covering it over with bark in the woods. There was only a
little still left out, and now, when Inger spoke of it, he answered
despairingly, as if it were all one, "I'll not take it in if it is
dry."
"Isak, you don't mean it!" said Inger.
And next day, sure enough, he did not take it in. He left it out and
never touched it, just as he had said. Let it stay where it was,
there'd be no rain anyway; let it stay where it was in God's name!
He could take it in some time before Christmas, if so be as the sun
hadn't burnt it all up to nothing.
Isak was deeply and thoroughly offended. It was no longer a pleasure
and a delight to sit outside on the door-slab and look out over his
lands and be the owner of it all. There was the potato field flowering
madly, and drying up; let the lichen stay where it was--what did he
care? That Isak! Who could say; perhaps he had a bit of a sly little
thought in his mind for all his stolid simpleness; maybe he knew what
he was doing after all, trying to tempt the blue sky now, at the
change of the moon.
That evening it looked like rain once more. "You ought to have got
that lichen in," said Inger.
"What for?" said Isak, looking all surprised.
"Ay, you with your nonsense--but it might be rain after all."
"There'll be no rain this year, you can see for yourself."
But for all that, it grew curiously dark in the night. They could see
through the glass window that it was darker--ay, and as if something
beat against the panes, something wet, whatever it might be. Inger
woke up. "'Tis rain! look at the window-panes."
But Isak only sniffed. "Rain?--not a bit of it. Don't know what you're
talking about."
"Ah, it's no good pretending," said Inger.
Isak was pretending--ay, that was it. Rain it was, sure enough, and a
good heavy shower--but as soon as it had rained enough to spoil Isak's
lichen, it stopped. The sky was blue. "What did I say," said Isak,
stiff-necked and hard.
The shower made no difference to the potato crop, and days came and
went; the sky was blue. Isak set to work on his timber sledge, worked
hard at it, and bowed his heart, and planed away humbly at runners and
shafts. Eyah, _Herregud_! Ay, the days came and went, and the child
grew. Inger churned and made cheeses; there was no serious danger;
folk that had their wits about them and could work need not die for
the sake of one bad year. Moreover, after nine weeks, there came a
regular blessing of rain, rain all one day and night, and sixteen
hours of it pouring as hard as it could. If it had come but two weeks
back, Isak would have said, "It's too late now!" As it was, he said to
Inger, "You see, that'll save some of the potatoes."
"Ay," said Inger hopefully. "It'll save the lot, you'll see."
And now things were looking better. Rain every day; good, thorough
showers. Everything looking green again, as by a miracle. The potatoes
were flowering still, worse than before, and with big berries growing
out at the tops, which was not as it should be; but none could say
what might be at the roots--Isak had not ventured to look. Then one
day Inger went out and found over a score of little potatoes under one
plant. "And they've five weeks more to grow in," said Inger. Oh,
that Inger, always trying to comfort and speak hopefully through her
hare-lip. It was not pretty to hear when she spoke, for a sort of
hissing, like steam from a leaky valve, but a comfort all the same out
in the wilds. And a happy and cheerful soul she was at all times.
"I wish you could manage to make another bed," she said to Isak one
day.
"Ho!" said he.
"Why, there's no hurry, but still...."
They started getting in the potatoes, and finished by Michaelmas, as
the custom is. It was a middling year--a good year; once again it was
seen that potatoes didn't care so much about the weather, but grew up
all the same, and could stand a deal. A middling year--a good year
... well, not perhaps, if they worked it out exactly, but that they
couldn't do this year. A Lapp had passed that way one day and said how
fine their potatoes were up there; it was much worse, he said, down in
the village.
And now Isak had a few weeks more to work the ground before the frost
set in. The cattle were out, grazing where they pleased; it was good
to work with them about, and hear the bells, though it did take some
of his time now and again. There was the bull, mischievous beast,
would take to butting at the lichen stacks; and as for the goats, they
were high and low and everywhere, even to the roof of the hut.
Troubles great and small.
One day Isak heard a sudden shout; Inger stood on the door-slab with
the child in her arms, pointing over to the bull and the pretty little
cow Silverhorns--they were making love. Isak threw down his pick and
raced over to the pair, but it was too late, by the look of it. The
mischief was done. "Oh, the little rascal, she's all too young--half
a year too soon, a child!" Isak got her into the hut, but it was too
late.
"Well, well," says Inger, "'tis none so bad after all, in a way; if
she'd waited, we'd have had both of them bearing at the same time."
Oh, that Inger; not so bright as some, maybe, yet, for all that, she
may well have known what she was about when she let the pair loose
together that morning.
Winter came, Inger carding and spinning, Isak driving down with loads
of wood; fine dry wood and good going; all his debts paid off and
settled; horse and cart, plough and harrow his very own. He drove down
with Inger's goats' milk cheeses, and brought back woollen thread, a
loom, shuttles and beam and all; brought back flour and provisions,
more planks, and boards and nails; one day he brought home a lamp.
"As true as I'm here I won't believe it," says Inger. But she had
long had in her mind about a lamp for all that. They lit it the same
evening, and were in paradise; little Eleseus he thought, no doubt, it
was the sun. "Look how he stares all wondering like," said Isak. And
now Inger could spin of an evening by lamplight.
He brought up linen for shirts, and new hide shoes for Inger. She had
asked for some dye-stuffs, too, for the wool, and he brought them.
Then one day he came back with a clock. With what?--A clock. This was
too much for Inger; she was overwhelmed and could not say a word. Isak
hung it up on the wall, and set it at a guess, wound it up, and let it
strike. The child turned its eyes at the sound and then looked at its
mother. "Ay, you may wonder," said Inger, and took the child to her,
not a little touched herself. Of all good things, here in a lonely
place, there was nothing could be better than a clock to go all the
dark winter through, and strike so prettily at the hours.
When the last load was carted down, Isak turned woodman once more,
felling and stacking, building his streets, his town of wood-piles for
next winter. He was getting farther and farther from the homestead
now, there was a great broad stretch of hillside all ready for
tillage. He would not cut close any more, but simply throw the biggest
trees with dry tops.
He knew well enough, of course, what Inger had been thinking of when
she asked for another bed; best to hurry up and get it ready. One dark
evening he came home from the woods, and sure enough, Inger had got
it over--another boy--and was lying down. That Inger! Only that very
morning she had tried to get him to go down to the village again:
"'Tis time the horse had something to do," says she. "Eating his head
off all day."
"I've no time for such-like nonsense," said Isak shortly, and went
out. Now he understood; she had wanted to get him out of the way. And
why? Surely 'twas as well to have him about the house.
"Why can't you ever tell a man what's coming?" said he.
"You make a bed for yourself and sleep in the little room," said
Inger.
As for that, it was not only a bedstead to make; there must be
bedclothes to spread. They had but one skin rug, and there would be no
getting another till next autumn, when there were wethers to kill--and
even then two skins would not make a blanket. Isak had a hard time,
with cold at nights, for a while; he tried burying himself in the hay
under the rock-shelter, tried to bed down for himself with the cows.
Isak was homeless. Well for him that it was May; soon June would be
in; July....
A wonderful deal they had managed, out there in the wilderness; house
for themselves and housing for the cattle, and ground cleared and
cultivated, all in three years. Isak was building again--what was he
building now? A new shed, a lean-to, jutting out from the house. The
whole place rang with the noise as he hammered in his eight-inch
nails. Inger came out now and again and said it was trying for the
little ones.
"Ay, the little ones--go in and talk to them then, sing a bit.
Eleseus, he can have a bucket lid to hammer on himself. And it's only
while I'm doing these big nails just here, at the cross-beams, that's
got to bear the whole. Only planks after that, two-and-a-half-inch
nails, as gentle as building dolls' houses."
Small wonder if Isak hammered and thumped. There stood a barrel of
herrings, and the flour, and all kinds of food-stuffs in the stable;
better than lying out in the open, maybe, but the pork tasted of it
already; a shed they must have, and that was clear. As for the little
ones, they'd get used to the noise in no time. Eleseus was inclined to
be ailing somehow, but the other took nourishment sturdily, like a fat
cherub, and when he wasn't crying, he slept. A wonder of a child! Isak
made no objection to his being called Sivert, though he himself would
rather have preferred Jacob. Inger could hit on the right thing at
times. Eleseus was named after the priest of her parish, and that
was a fine name to be sure; but Sivert was called after his mother's
uncle, the district treasurer, who was a well-to-do man, with neither
wife nor child to come after him. They couldn't do better than name
the boy after him.
Then came spring, and the new season's work; all was down in the earth
before Whitsun. When there had been only Eleseus to look after,
Inger could never find time to help her husband, being tied to her
first-born; now, with two children in the house, it was different; she
helped in the fields and managed a deal of odd work here and there;
planting potatoes, sowing carrots and turnips. A wife like that is
none so easy to find. And she had her loom besides; at all odd minutes
she would slip into the little room and weave a couple of spools,
making half-wool stuff for underclothes for the winter. Then when she
had dyed her wools, it was red and blue dress material for herself
and the little ones; at last she put in several colours, and made a
bedspread for Isak all by herself. No fancy work from Inger's loom;
useful and necessary things, and sound all through.
Oh, they were doing famously, these settlers in the wilds; they had
got on so far, and if this year's crops turned out well they would
be enviable folk, no less. What was lacking on the place at all? A
hayloft, perhaps; a big barn with a threshing-floor inside--but that
might come in time. Ay, it would come, never fear, only give then
time. And now pretty Silverhorns had calved, the sheep had lambs, the
goats had kids, the young stock fairly swarmed about the place. And
what of the little household itself? Eleseus could walk already, walk
by himself wherever he pleased, and little Sivert was christened.
Inger? By all signs and tokens, making ready for another turn; she was
not what you'd call niggardly at bearing. Another child--oh, a mere
nothing to Inger! Though, to be sure, she was proud enough of them
when they came. Fine little creatures, as any one could see. 'Twas
not all, by a long way, that the Lord had blessed with such fine big
children. Inger was young, and making the most of it. She was no
beauty, and had suffered all her girlhood by reason of the same, being
set aside and looked down on. The young men never noticed her, though
she could dance and work as well. They found nothing sweet in her, and
turned elsewhere. But now her time had come; she was in full flower
and constantly with child. Isak himself, her lord and master, was
earnest and stolid as ever, but he had got on well, and was content.
How he had managed to live till Inger came was a mystery; feeding,
no doubt, on potatoes and goats' milk, or maybe venturesome dishes
without a name; now, he had all that a man could think of in his place
in the world.
There came another drought, a new bad year. Os-Anders the Lapp, coming
by with his dog, brought news that folk in the village had cut their
corn already, for fodder.
"'Tis a poor look out," said Inger, "when it comes to that."
"Ay. But they've the herring. A fine haul, 'tis said. Your Uncle
Sivert, he's going to build a country house."
"Why, he was none so badly off before."
"That's true. And like to be the same with you, for all it seems."
"Why, as to that, thank God, we've enough for our little needs. What
do they say at home about me up here?"
Os-Anders wags his head helplessly; there's no end to the great things
they say; more than he can tell. A pleasant-spoken fellow, like all
the Lapps.
"If as you'd care for a dish of milk now, you've only to say so," says
Inger.
"'Tis more than's worth your while. But if you've a sup for the dog
here...."
Milk for Os-Anders, and food for the dog. Os-Anders lifts his head
suddenly, at a kind of music inside the house.
"What's that?"
"'Tis only our clock," says Inger. "It strikes the hours that way."
Inger bursting with pride.
The Lapp wags his head again: "House and cattle and all manner of
things. There's nothing a man could think of but you've that thing."
"Ay, we've much to be thankful for, 'tis true."
"I forgot to say, there's Oline was asking after you."
"Oline? How is it with her?"
"She's none so poorly. Where will your husband be now?"
"He'll be at work in the fields somewhere."
"They say he's not bought yet," says the Lapp carelessly.
"Bought? Who says so?"
"Why, 'tis what they say."
"But who's he to buy from? 'Tis common land."
"Ay, 'tis so."
"And sweat of his brow to every spade of it."
"Why, they say 'tis the State owns all the land."
Inger could make nothing of this. "Ay, maybe so. Was it Oline said
so?"
"I don't well remember," says the Lapp, and his shifty eyes looked all
ways around.
Inger wondered why he did not beg for anything; Os-Anders always
begged, as do all the Lapps. Os-Anders sits scraping at the bowl of
his clay pipe, and and lights up. What a pipe! He puffs and draws at
it till his wrinkled old face looks like a wizard's runes.
"No need to ask if the little ones there are yours," says he,
flattering again. "They're as like you as could be. The living image
of yourself when you were small."
Now Inger was a monster and a deformity to look at; 'twas all wrong,
of course, but she swelled with pride for all that. Even a Lapp can
gladden a mother's heart.
"If it wasn't that your sack there's so full, I'd find you something
to put in it," says Inger.
"Nay, 'tis more than's worth your while."
Inger goes inside with the child on her arm; Eleseus stays outside
with the Lapp. The two make friends at once; the child sees something
curious in the sack, something soft and fluffy, and wants to pat it.
The dog stands alert, barking and whining. Inger comes out with a
parcel of food; she gives a cry, and drops down on the door-slab.
"What's that you've got there? What is it?"
"Tis nothing. Only a hare."
"I saw it."
"'Twas the boy wanted to look. Dog ran it down this morning and killed
it, and I brought it along...."
"Here's your food," said Inger.
Chapter V
One bad year never comes alone. Isak had grown patient, and took what
fell to his lot. The corn was parched, and the hay was poor, but the
potatoes looked like pulling through once more--bad enough, all things
together, but not the worst. Isak had still a season's yield of
cordwood and timber to sell in the village, and the herring fishery
had been rich all round the coast, so there was plenty of money to buy
wood. Indeed, it almost looked like a providence that the corn harvest
had failed--for how could he have threshed it without a barn and
threshing-floor? Call it providence; there's no harm in that
sometimes.
There were other things not so easily put out of mind. What was it a
certain Lapp had said to Inger that summer--something about not having
bought? Buy, what should he buy for? The ground was there, the forest
was there; he had cleared and tilled, built up a homestead in the
midst of a natural wilderness, winning bread for himself and his,
asking nothing of any man, but working, and working alone. He had
often thought himself of asking the Lensmand [Footnote: Sheriff's
officer, in charge of a small district.] about the matter when he went
down to the village, but had always put it off; the Lensmand was not
a pleasant man to deal with, so people said, and Isak was not one to
talk much. What could he say if he went--what had he come for?
One day that winter the Lensmand himself came driving up to the place.
There was a man with him, and a lot of papers in a bag. Geissler
himself, the Lensmand, no less. He looked at the broad open hillside,
cleared of timber, smooth and unbroken under the snow; he thought
perhaps that it was all tilled land already, for he said:
"Why, this is a whole big farm you've got. You don't expect to get all
this for nothing?"
There it was! Isak was terror-stricken and said not a word.
"You ought to have come to me at first, and bought the land," said
Geissler.
"Ay."
The Lensmand talked of valuations, of boundaries, taxes, taxes to the
State, and, when he had explained the matter a little, Isak began to
see that there was something reasonable in it after all. The Lensmand
turned to his companion teasingly. "Now then, you call yourself a
surveyor, what's the extent of cultivated ground here?" He did not
wait for the other to reply, but noted down himself, at a guess. Then
he asked Isak about the crops, how much hay, how many bushels of
potatoes. And then about boundaries. They could not go round the place
marking out waist-deep in snow; and in summer no one could get up
there at all. What did Isak think himself about the extent of woodland
and pasturage?--Isak had no idea at all; he had always thought of the
place as being his own as far as he could see. The Lensmand said that
the State required definite boundaries. "And the greater the extent,
the more you will have to pay."
"Ay."
"And they won't give you all you think you can swallow; they'll let
you have what's reasonable for your needs."
"Ay."
Inger brought in some milk for the visitors; they drank it, and she
brought in some more. The Lensmand a surly fellow? He stroked Eleseus'
hair, and looked at something the child was playing with. "Playing
with stones, what? Let me see. H'm, heavy. Looks like some kind of
ore."
"There's plenty such up in the hills," said Isak.
The Lensmand came back to business. "South and west from here's what
you want most, I suppose? Shall we say a couple of furlongs to the
southward?"
"Two furlongs!" exclaimed his assistant.
"_You_ couldn't till two hundred yards," said his chief shortly.
"What will that cost?" asked Isak.
"Can't say. It all depends. But I'll put it as low as I can on my
report; it's miles away from anywhere, and difficult to get at."
"But two furlongs!" said the assistant again.
The Lensmand entered duly, two furlongs to the southward, and asked:
"What about the hills? How much do you want that way?"
"I'll need all up as far as the water. There's a big water up there,"
said Isak.
The Lensmand noted that. "And how far north?"
"Why, it's no great matter that way. 'Tis but moorland most, and
little timber."
The Lensmand fixed the northward boundary at one furlong. "East?"
"That's no great matter either. 'Tis bare field all from here into
Sweden."
The Lensmand noted down again. He made a rapid calculation, and said:
"It'll make a good-sized place, even at that. Anywhere near the
village, of course, it'd be worth a lot of money; nobody could have
bought it. I'll send in a report, and say a hundred _Daler_ would be
fair. What do you think?" he asked his assistant.
"It's giving it away," said the other.
"A hundred _Daler_?" said Inger. "Isak, you've no call to take so big
a place."
"No--o," said Isak.
The assistant put in hurriedly: "That's just what I say. It's miles
too big for you as it is. What will you do with it?"
"Cultivate it," said the Lensmand.
He had been sitting there writing and working in his head, with the
children crying every now and then; he did not want to have the whole
thing to do again. As it was, he would not be home till late that
night, perhaps not before morning. He thrust the papers into the bag;
the matter was settled.
"Put the horse in," he said to his companion. And turning to Isak: "As
a matter of fact, they ought to give you the place for nothing, and
pay you into the bargain, the way you've worked. I'll say as much when
I send in the report. Then we'll see how much the State will ask for
the title-deeds."
Isak--it was hard to say how he felt about it. Half as if he were not
ill-pleased after all to find his land valued at a big price, after
the work he had done. As for the hundred _Daler_, he could manage to
pay that off, no doubt, in course of time. He made no further business
about it; he could go on working as he had done hitherto, clearing and
cultivating, fetching loads of timber from the untended woodlands.
Isak was not a man to look about anxiously for what might come; he
worked.