e....

"What am I working out here all alone for?" said Olof. "Why, 'tis this
way...." And with the red-brown fir chips flying all around him, he
told them the story.

"So that's it? Well, good luck to you," answered the trees, and fell,
one after another, till the earth rang and the echoes answered far
through the forest.

Olof felt himself aglow with an inward fire that flamed the more as
he gave it way in ringing strokes of the axe. He counted it a point of
honour to strip each branch off clean at a single blow, be it never so
thick.... And the more he worked the happier he grew.

He was trying to win back the years in which he had never held an axe.

* * * * *

By noon, he stood in the middle of a clearing already.

"Well, how does it feel?" asked the trees, as he sat down, with
his jacket slung over his shoulders, hastily eating the meal he had
brought with him.

"None so bad--hope for the best," he answered.

Again the axe flashed, the branches shivered, and the earth rang. "Bit
crooked, that one," said Olof to himself; "but I can use it all the
same--do for a piece between the windows."

"Well, you know best," said the trees. "But how many windows are you
going to have--and how many rooms? You haven't told us that yet."

"Two rooms, no more--but two big ones." And Olof told them all
his plans for doors and windows and stoves, and an attic above the
entrance--he had thought it all out beforehand.

"Yes, yes.... But where are you going to build?"

"On the little hill beside Isosuo marsh--that's where I thought."

"Isosuo marsh?" cried the trees, looking in wonder first at one
another and then at Olof himself. Then they smiled triumphantly.

"Bravo!" they cried in chorus. "Bravo, and good luck go with your
building, and prosperity roof over all! 'Tis good to see there's some
that still dare begin life for themselves in the forest."

"'Tis that I'm hoping to do--that and no more."

"But what do folk say to it? Don't they think you're mad?"

"They call me nothing as yet, for I've not told any of what I'm
doing."

"Just as well, perhaps," said the trees.

And they fell to talking of Isosuo, of drains and ditching, the nature
of the soil, and all that Olof would have to do.

And the axe sang, and the chips flew, and the woods gave echo, and the
talk went on. And the day came so quickly to an end that Olof started
to find how it was already growing dark.

"Well,