* * * * *

The daily round of the farm goes on.  Now and again a traveller comes by, on his way up to the hills, and asks:  “And how’s all with ye here?”

And Isak answers:  “Ay, thank ye kindly.”

Isak works and works, consulting the almanac for all that he does, notes the changes of the moon, pays heed to the signs of the weather, and works on.  He has beaten out so much of a track down to the village that he can drive in now with horse and cart, but for the most part, he carries his load himself; carries loads of cheese or hides, and bark and resin, and butter and eggs; all things he can sell, to bring back other wares instead.  No, in the summer he does not often drive down—­for one thing, because the road down from Breidablik, the last part of the way, is so badly kept.  He has asked Brede Olsen to help with the upkeep of the road, and do his share.  Brede Olsen promises, but does not hold to his word.  And Isak will not ask him again.  Rather carry a load on his back himself.  And Inger says:  “I can’t understand how you ever manage it all.”  Oh, but he could manage anything.  He had a pair of boots, so unimaginably heavy and thick, with great slabs of iron on the soles, even the straps were fastened with copper nails—­it was a marvel that one man could walk in such boots at all.

On one of his journeys down, he came upon several gangs of men at work on the moors; putting down stone sockets and fixing telegraph poles.  Some of them are from the village, Brede Olsen is there too, for all that he has taken up land of his own and ought to be working on that.  Isak wonders that Brede can find time.

The foreman asks if Isak can sell them telegraph poles.  Isak says no.  Not if he’s well paid for them?—­No.—­Oh, Isak was grown a thought quicker in his dealings now, he could say no.  If he sold them a few poles, to be sure it would be money in his pockets, so many Daler more; but he had no timber to spare, there was nothing gained by that.  The engineer in charge comes up himself to ask, but Isak refuses.

“We’ve poles enough,” says the engineer, “but it would be easier to take them from your ground up there, and save transport.”

“I’ve no timber to spare myself,” says Isak.  “I want to get up a bit of a saw and do some cutting; there’s some more buildings I’ll need to have ready soon.”

Here Brede Olsen put in a word, and says:  “If I was you, Isak, I’d sell them poles.”

For all his patience, Isak gave Brede a look and said:  “Ay, I dare say you would.”

“Well—­what?” asks Brede.

“Only that I’m not you,” said Isak.

Some of the workmen chuckled a little at this.

Ay, Isak had reason enough just then to put his neighbour down; that very day he had seen three sheep in the fields at Breidablik, and one of them he knew—­the one with the flat ears that Oline had bartered away.  He may keep it, thought Isak, as he went on his way; Brede and his woman may get all the sheep they want, for me!