eat and small. But in the little
time the haymaking lasted there came a stranger or so, folk wanting
to see the mowing-machine. Brede Olsen was first, of course, but Axel
Stroem came, too, and other neighbours from lower down--ay, from
right down in the village. And from across the hills came Oline, the
imperishable Oline.

This time, too, she brought news with her from her own village; 'twas
not Oline's way to come empty of gossip. Old Sivert's affairs had been
gone into, his accounts reckoned up, and the fortune remaining after
him come to nothing. Nothing!

Here Oline pressed her lips together and looked from one to another.
Well, was there not a sigh--would not the roof fall down? Eleseus was
the first to smile.

"Let's see--you're called after your Uncle Sivert, aren't you?" he
asked softly.

And little Sivert answered as softly again:

"That's so. But I made you a present of all that might come to me
after him."

"And how much was it?"

"Between five and ten thousand."

"_Daler_?" cried Eleseus suddenly, mimicking his brother.

Oline, no doubt, thought this ill-timed jesting. Oh, she had herself
been cheated of her due; for all that she had managed to squeeze out
something like real tears over old Sivert's grave. Eleseus should know
best what he himself had written--so-and-so much to Oline, to be
a comfort and support in her declining years. And where was that
support? Oh, a broken reed!

Poor Oline; they might have left her something--single golden gleam
in her life! Oline was not over-blessed with this world's goods.
Practised in evil--ay, well used to edging her way by tricks and
little meannesses from day to day; strong only as a scandalmonger, as
one whose tongue was to be feared; ay, so. But nothing could have made
her worse than before; least of all a pittance left her by the dead.
She had toiled all her life, had borne children, and taught them her
own few arts; begged for them, maybe stolen for them, but always
managing for them somehow--a mother in her poor way. Her powers were
not less than those of other politicians; she acted for herself and
those belonging to her, set her speech according to the moment, and
gained her end, earning a cheese or a handful of wool each time; she
also could live and die in commonplace insincerity and readiness of
wit. Oline--maybe old Sivert had for a moment thought of her as young,
pretty, and rosy-cheeked, but now she is old, deformed, a picture of
decay;