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Updated: June 19, 2025
When little Snjolfur got to the factor's house, he went straight into the store and asked if he might speak to the master. The storeman stared and lingered before finally shuffling to the door of the office and knocking.
Snjolfur's wife worked at fish-drying for the factor in the summer months, but good drying-days could not be counted on and the money was not much. She lived just long enough to bring little Snjolfur into the world, and the last thing she did was to decide his name. From then on, father and son lived alone in the cabin. Little Snjolfur had vague memories of times of desperate misery.
You can carry things too far. It was perhaps because of this that no one paid any further attention to little Snjolfur. When the rescue-party and the people who had come out of mere curiosity made their way back for a bite of breakfast and a sledge for the body, the boy was left alone on the Point.
Snjolfur never cried, he said, and went on: I haven't cried either since I was little I nearly did when I knew Snjolfur was dead. But I was afraid he wouldn't like it, and I stopped myself. A moment later and tears overwhelmed little Snjolfur. It is a consolation, albeit a poor one, to lean for a while on the bosom of a companion.
He went over to the dogged youngster, patted his head and, with a nod to the cook, led little Snjolfur into the dining-room. Have you never seen your father give his visitors a drink or offer them a cup of coffee when they came to see him? he asked, and he gave his words a resentful tone. Little Snjolfur had to confess that his father had sometimes offered hospitality to a visitor.
Most of their neighbours were in debt to some extent; some of them only repaid the factor at odd times, and they never repaid the whole amount. But as far as little Snjolfur knew, he and his father had never owed a penny to anyone.
The snow-slip had shifted the cabin and it was all twisted and smashed; posts missing their laths stuck up out of the snow, tools and household gear were visible here and there when he laid hold of them, they were as if bonded the snow. Snjolfur wandered down to the shore with the idea of seeing what had become of the boat.
It's a poor look-out, he thought; he might have sold the boat if it hadn't been smashed somewhere he had to get enough to pay for the funeral. Snjolfur had always said it was essential to have enough to cover your own funeral there was no greater or more irredeemable disgrace than to be slipped into the ground at the expense of the parish. Fortunately his prospects weren't so bad, he had said.
Before his time, his father had been on the factor's books like everyone else, but that was not a thing he spoke much about and little Snjolfur knew nothing of those dealings. It was essential for the two of them to see they had supplies to last them through the winter, when for many days gales or heavy seas made fishing impossible.
The factor replied that it would hardly come tomorrow, perhaps the day after. It was a puzzle to know why the boy had asked the pair of them, father and son, did not usually ask about his stores until they brought the cash to buy them. Little Snjolfur did not take his eyes from the factor's face.
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