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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.
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."
When he had got his parcel of food and had taken leave, he seemed to remember something all of a sudden: "Oh, by the way, I'm afraid I owe you something from last time I took out a note from my pocket-book on purpose, and then stuck it in my waistcoat pocket I found it there afterwards. Too many things to think about all at once...." He put something into Inger's hand and off he went.
One of the other lads played a concertina, but 'twas not like Gustaf's mouth-organ; another lad again, and a smart fellow he was too, tried to draw attention to himself by singing a song off by heart to the music, but that was nothing either, for all that he had a fine rolling voice. And a little while after, there was Gustaf, and if he hadn't got Inger's gold ring on his little finger!
Isak had felt ashamed of himself after all for the sake of a Daler, a trifle of money, that he would have had to give her after all, because he himself would gladly have let the boy have it. And then again was not the money as much Inger's as his own? There came a time when Isak found it his turn to be humble. There came many sorts of times.
"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.
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.
Oline is never at a loss, never to be silenced. "My mouth, eh? And what of your own, my dear?" She points to Inger's hare-lip, calling her a ghastly sight for God and man. Inger answers furiously, and Oline being fat, she calls her a lump of blubber "a lump of dog's blubber like you. You sent me a hare I'll pay you for that." "Hare again?" says Oline.
These words touched Inger's heart; they seemed almost to make her good. It was the first time any one had said "poor Inger," and had not dwelt upon her faults. An innocent child cried and prayed for her. She was so much affected by this that she felt inclined to weep herself; but she could not, and this was an additional pain.
Young girls came up in pairs from the coast, from the village, to ask Inger's advice; it was autumn now, and they had been saving up for a new dress, and wanted her to help them. Inger, of course, would know all about the latest fashions, after being out in the world, and now and again she would do a little cutting out.
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