Growth of the Soil

A notable procession coming up to Sellanraa; Something laughable to look at, maybe, but more than that. Three men with enormous burdens, with sacks hanging down from their shoul...

A man walks up the way through the hills. Wind and rain; the autumn downpour has begun, but the man cares little for that, he looks glad at heart, and glad he is. 'Tis Axel Strö...

Teams of horses driving up over the moors, carting up houses for the new man come to settle in the wilds; load after load, for days on end. Dump the things down on a spot that i...

Her journey to town would not take long, she said; 'twas not like going to Bergen; but she wasn't going to stay on here losing one tooth after another, till she'd a mouth like a...

Isak has to go down to the village one day--and why not? What for? "Nay, I don't know," says he. But he gets the cart cleaned up all fine, puts in the seat, and drives off, and...

The building at Sellanraa, too, is finished now. There is a makeshift roof of turf put on for the winter; the great space beneath is divided into rooms, bright apartments, a gre...

There were other things that might have given Isak matter for surprise, but he was no great hand at thinking of more than one thing at a time. "Where's Inger?" was all he said a...

That spring something unexpected happened--something of importance indeed; work at the mine was started again; Geissler had sold his land. Inconceivable! Oh, but Geissler was an...

A woman tramping up along the road. A steady summer rain falls, wetting her, but she does not heed it; other things are in her mind--anxiety. Barbro it is, and no other--Brede's...

Uncle Sivert died after all. Eleseus spent three weeks looking after him, and then the old man died. Eleseus arranged the funeral, and managed things very well; got hold of a fu...

Yes, Eleseus was sent to town after all; Inger managed that. He was there for a year, then he was confirmed, and after that had a regular place in the engineer's office, and gre...

Axel was doing carpenter's work the best he could; he was trying hard to get a glass window and a door set in the new house, and it was taking all his time to do it. But being l...

He had been away now for some years, and had grown taller than his father, with long white hands and a little dark growth on his upper lip. He did not give himself airs, but see...

Sellanraa is no longer a desolate spot in in the waste; human beings live here--seven of them, counting great and small. But in the little time the haymaking lasted there came a...

There was no knowing the place again, after what it had been at first: sawmill, cornmill, buildings of all sorts and kinds--the wilderness was peopled country now. And there was...

Isak came back from the village with a horse. Ay, it had come to that; he had bought the horse from the Lensmand's assistant; the animal was for sale, as Geissler had said, but...

The big bull is to be sent away. It has grown to an enormous beast, and costs too much to feed; Isak is taking it down to the village, to bring up a suitable yearling in exchange.

It was a strange evening altogether: a turning-point. Inger had been running off the line for a long time now; and one lift up from the floor had set her in her place again. Nei...

Axel had no long time to rest at home, as it turned out; the autumn gales led to fresh trouble and bothersome work that he had brought upon himself: the telegraph apparatus on h...

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...

Isak sows his oats, harrows, and rolls it in. Little Leopoldine comes and wants to sit on the roller. Sit on a roller?--nay, she's all too little and unknowing for that yet. Her...

Once more there came visitors to Sellanraa; an engineer, with a foreman and a couple of workmen, marking out telegraph lines again over the hills. By the route they were taking...

A blessed time for the soil, with sun and showers of rain; the crops are looking well. The haymaking is nearly over now, and they have got in a grand lot of hay; almost more tha...

Next day was fated to bring a great event. There came a visitor to the farm--Geissler came. It was not yet summer on the moors, but Geissler paid no heed to the state of the gro...

The winter round of work was as before; carting wood, mending tools and implements. Inger kept house, and did sewing in her spare time. The boys were down in the village again f...

Time flies? Ay, when a man is growing old. Isak was not old, he had not lost his vigour; the years seemed long to him. He worked on his land, and let his iron beard grow as it w...

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 har...

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 o...

The long, long road over the moors and up into the forest--who trod it into being first of all? Man, a human being, the first that came here. There was no path before he came. A...

Isak did not go out at once to see her off, but waited quite a while. And when at last he shambled out, looking never the least bit anxious, never the least bit miserable and fu...

Isak drives on till he comes to a tarn, a bit of a pool on the moor, and there he pulls up. A pool on the moors, black, deep down, and the little surface of the water perfectly...