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Fjeld and forest, moors and meadow, and sky and stars oh, 'tis not poor and sparingly counted out, but without measure. Listen to me, Sivert: you be content! You've everything to live on, everything to live for, everything to believe in; being born and bringing forth, you are the needful on earth. 'Tis not all that are so, but you are so; needful on earth. 'Tis you that maintain life.
'Tis a fine spring night, and the black grouse at play on the hilltops; the homely sound makes the emigrant lose courage for a moment. "'Tis a fine night," says he. "You better turn back now, Sivert," says he. "H'm," says Sivert, and goes on with him.
When Sivert had been there half an hour and seen how things were, he was for going back home again. "Home?" said the old man. "We're building a house, and father's none to help him properly." "Ho!" said his uncle. "Isn't Eleseus come home, then?" "Ay, but he's not used to the work." "Then why did you come at all?"
Sivert especially had a genius for knocking in nails, but Eleseus was better at handling a plumb-line. By the end of a week, Isak and the boys had actually got the foundation posts in, and soundly fixed with stretcher pieces as thick as the beams themselves. It worked out all right everything worked out all right somehow.
And even if Sivert could shoot, he has no gun, but anyway, he cannot shoot; a good-tempered fellow, nothing warlike; a born jester: "And, anyway, I doubt but there's a law against shooting Lapps," says he. Ay, Sellanraa can bear the loss of a head or so of cattle here and there; it stands there, great and strong. But not without its troubles for all that.
And his father agrees at once: "Ay, the very thing." They work at their stones again in silence. Then asks Isak: "Eleseus, he's not come home, I suppose?" And Sivert answers evasively: "He'll be coming home soon." 'Twas that way with Eleseus: he was all for staying away, living away on journeys. Couldn't he have written for the goods? But he must go round and buy them on the spot.
And Sivert had his own affairs to think of ay, folk in the wilds can blush and pale as well as other. He had seen Jensine as she left the church with little Rebecca; she had seen him too, but went by. He waited a bit, and then drove over to the smith's to fetch them. They were sitting at table, all the family at dinner. Sivert is asked to join them, but has had his dinner, thanks.
Eleseus and Sivert were fast asleep in the little chamber, undisturbed by all the noise outside; little Leopoldine was up, looking on wonderingly at her mother as she danced. Isak was out in the fields all the time; he had gone off directly after supper, and when he came home to go to bed, some one offered him a bottle. He drank a little, and sat watching the dancing, with Leopoldine on his lap.
"Here's that Oline coming along," Sivert the jester would say. "Now you'll have to go in and sell her a paper of coffee." And Eleseus was glad enough to go. Selling Oline some trifle or other meant so many minutes' rest from throwing heavy clods.
And I'll have a better sort of trunk that journey." As they say good-bye, Sivert thrusts something into his brother's hand, a bit of something wrapped in paper. "What is it?" asks Eleseus. "Don't forget to write often," says Sivert. And so he goes. Eleseus opens the paper and looks; 'tis the gold piece, twenty-five Kroner in gold. "Here, don't!" he calls out. "You mustn't do that!"
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