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Updated: June 1, 2025
The fourth day after Christmas there was a party at the upper Heidegards, at Marit's grandparents', by whom she had been brought up, and who had been promising her this party for three years, and now at last had to give it during the holidays. Oyvind was invited to it. It was a somewhat cloudy evening but not cold; no stars could be seen; the next day must surely bring rain.
"What are you going to make of yourself when you are grown up, Oyvind?" said she, suddenly. "For a houseman's son, there are not many openings," he replied. "The school-master says you must go to the seminary," said she. "Can people go there free?" inquired Oyvind. "The school-fund pays," answered the father, who was eating. "Would you like to go?" asked the mother.
Many dark hours fell upon Oyvind before he learned to choose the goal of his future from something better than ambition and defiance.
His father, as usual, did not have much to say to him; they chopped away together and both dragged the wood into heaps. Now and then they chanced to meet, and on one such occasion Oyvind remarked, in a melancholy tone, "A houseman has to work very hard." "He as well as others," said the father, as he spit in the palm of his hand and took up the axe again.
Thore's lips parted, he coughed a little, and made an effort to speak; but Ole and Oyvind both kept on talking in an uninterrupted stream, laughed and kept up such a clatter that no one else could be heard. "You must be quiet for a little while, Thore has something he wants to say," puts in the school-master. They pause and look at Thore, who finally begins, in a low tone:
"Here are singular strangers coming up to the house; oh dear! look out!" Both men turned to the window, and Oyvind was the first to exclaim: "It is the school-master, and yes, I almost believe why, certainly it is he!" "Yes, it is old Ole Nordistuen," said Thore, moving away from the window that he might not be seen; for the two were already near the door.
"Ah, indeed." "But people say he is to blame; he who is standing there." "Is that so?" "He is said to have turned her head yes; he there, your son Oyvind." "The deuce he has!" "See you, I do not like to have any one take my horses when I let them loose on the mountains, neither do I choose to have any one take my daughters when I allow them to go to a dance. I will not have it."
Oyvind was still sobbing, but not so violently as before; his tears flowed more calmly, but he neither dared look at him who questioned nor answer. "This, Oyvind, has been a well-merited recompense. You have not studied from love of your religion, or of your parents; you have studied from vanity." There was silence in the room after every sentence the school-master uttered.
"I should like to go to the seminary." "And then become a school-master?" "No." "You do not think that is great enough?" Oyvind made no reply. Again they walked on for some distance. "When you have been through the seminary, what will you do?" "I have not fairly considered that." "If you had money, I dare say you would like to buy yourself a gard?" "Yes, but keep the mills."
"So they say." "Oyvind is his name, is it not?" "Yes; they call him Oyvind." "He has been at one of those agricultural schools down south, I believe?" "There was something of the kind; yes." "Well, my girl she my granddaughter Marit, you know she has gone mad of late." "That is too bad." "She refuses to marry." "Well, really?" "She will not have any of the gard boys who offer themselves."
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