Inger was easily pleased; she thought a great deal of everything.  There was Goldenhorns, for instance, no fear of her running away now, with the calf and bull to play with; she ran about in the woods all day long.  The goats too were thriving, their heavy udders almost dragging on the ground.  Inger made a long robe of blue cotton print, and a little cap of the same stuff, as pretty as could be—­and that was for the christening.  The boy himself watched her at work many a time; a blessed wonder of a boy he was, and if she was so bent on calling him Eleseus, why, Isak supposed she must have her way.  When the robe was finished, it had a long train to it, nigh on a yard and a half of cotton print, and every inch of it money spent; but what of that—­the child was their first-born.

“What about those beads of yours?” said Isak.  “If as they’re ever to be used at all....”

Oh, but Inger had thought of them already, those beads of hers.  Trust a mother for that.  Inger said nothing, and was very proud.  The beads were none so many; they would not make a necklace for the boy, but they would look pretty stitched on the front of his cap, and there they should be.

But Oline did not come.

If it had not been for the cattle, they could have gone off all three of them, and come back a few days later with the child properly christened.  And if it had not been for that matter of getting wedded, Inger might have gone by herself.

“If we put off the wedding business for a bit?” said Isak.  But Inger was loth to put it off; it would be ten or twelve years at least before Eleseus was old enough to stay behind and look to the milking while they went.

No, Isak must use his brains to find a way.  The whole thing had come about somehow without their knowing; maybe the wedding business was just as important as the christening—­how should he know?  The weather looked like drought—­a thoroughly wicked drought; if the rain did not come before long, their crops would be burnt up.  But all was in the hand of God.  Isak made ready to go down to the village and find some one to come up.  All those miles again!

And all that fuss just to be wed and christened.  Ay, outlying folks had many troubles, great and small.

At last Oline did come....

And now they were wedded and christened, everything decently in order; they had remembered to have the wedding first, so the child could be christened as of a wedded pair.  But the drought kept on, and the tiny cornfields were parched, those velvet carpets parched—­and why?  ’Twas all in the hand of God.  Isak mowed his bits of meadow; there was little grass on them for all he had manured them well that spring.  He mowed and mowed on the hillsides, farther and farther out; mowing and turning and carting home loads of hay, as if he would never tire,—­for he had a horse already, and a well-stocked farm.  But by mid-July he had to cut the corn for green fodder, there was no help for it.  And now all depended on the potato crop.