olen a day and a night or thereabouts from the haymaking, and had
built a boat up on the lake. Oh, a rough and poor-looking vessel
enough, but strong and sound as their work had always been; they had a
boat now, and could go fishing with nets.

When they came home the hay was dry as ever. They had cheated
providence by trusting it, and suffered no loss; they had gained by
it. And then Sivert flung out an arm, and said: "Ho! Mother's been
haymaking!" Isak looked down over the fields and said "H'm." Isak had
noticed already that some of the hay had been shifted; Inger ought to
be home now for her midday meal. It was well done indeed of her to get
in the hay, after he had scolded her the day before and said "Huttch!"
And it was no light hay to move; she must have worked hard, and all
the cows and goats to milk besides.... "Go in and get something to
eat," he said to Sivert.

"Aren't you coming, then?"

"No."

A little while after, Inger came out and stood humbly on the door-slab
and said:

"If you'd think of yourself a little--and come in and have a bite to
eat."

Isak grumbled at that and said "H'm." But it was so strange a thing
of late for Inger to be humble in any way, that his stubbornness was
shaken.

"If you could manage to set a couple of teeth in my rake, I could get
on again with the hay," said she. Ay, she came to her husband, the
master of the place, to ask for something, and was grateful that he
did not turn scornfully away.

"You've worked enough," said he, "raking and carting and all."

"No, 'tis not enough."

"I've no time, anyway, to mend rakes now. You can see there's rain
coming soon."

And Isak went off to his work.

It was all meant to save her, no doubt; for the couple of minutes it
would have taken to mend the rake would have been more than tenfold
repaid by letting Inger work on. Anyhow, Inger came out with her rake
as it was, and fell to haymaking with a will; Sivert came up with the
horse and haycart, and all went at it, sweating at the work, and
the hay was got in. It was a good stroke of work, and Isak fell to
thinking once more of the powers above that guide all our ways--from
stealing a _Daler_ to getting a crop of hay. Moreover, there lay
the boat; after half a generation of thinking it over, the boat was
finished; it was there, up on the lake.

"Eyah, _Herregud_!" said Isak.

Chapter XV

It was a strange evening altogether: a turning-point. Inger had been
runni