It was not improbable that Barbara, after the fashion of country people, forgot to take into account the articles that went towards the nourishment of her own weighty person.  On the other hand her ever ready hospitality with the coffee-pot was not without its savour of trade-policy—­what she gave away was only to be looked upon as seed which would bring forth a hundredfold in the shape of customers.

Barbara’s room was thus becoming the meetingplace for all the gossiping forces of the neighbourhood.

* * * * *

The posts in the fences had snow hats on, and snow-drifts lay by the roadside and on the fields.

One afternoon, when the sledges were creaking outside in the cold, and the door too, whenever anybody came in, Mother Taraldsen, who cupped people and applied leeches, and tall Mother Baekken were sitting and enjoying a cup of steaming hot coffee with loaf-sugar.

Mother Taraldsen was holding forth on the subject of bad liquids and ruined times, and how every trade was going down-hill, while Mother Baekken, getting more and more full of objections, put her head on one side, and stirred up her cup.

“I can remember a little of the old times too, and I don’t know if they were any better, though every one is welcome to have his opinion, of course,” here the long, yellow face with the eyes blinking with their own meaning, was laid almost across the cup; “but the day has grown longer for workmen now.  Just think how they sat in the dark in the farms and cottages with pine-torches in the fireplace to cut and spin by; and there lay the lads the whole long winter through, and idled and yawned in their beds from three or four in the afternoon until they had to go out with a lantern and see to the horses for the night.  But paraffine has got them out of their beds.  It’s as if we had the sun the whole winter now, and people can see to earn a few pence.”

“Yes, but everything hasn’t got right in that way either, when they sit and play cards and gamble and drink at the public-houses.”

“That’s not oil, that’s gas!  But that’s good for something, too, both in the street lamps and up in the factory.”

“And for drunkenness and dancing and wickedness.”

Mother Baekken made a bend down to her cup with the side of her cheek and her chin, and up again in order to contradict in her most ingenious manner.  But just then Anne Graves came in to the counter—­it was she who kept the churchyard in order—­and then one must be careful what one says.

Thank you kindly!  She had no objection to a warm cup of coffee in this cold.  She had had a busy day to-day with the big funeral; they must have heard all the ringing at dinner-time.  He was an excellent man.  She enlarged, by the plundering of diverse fragments of the funeral sermon, upon his worth and importance as a man and a citizen of the town.  There had been speeches and such countless black hats and flowers, that the coffin was quite hidden.  Yes, that was the third they had taken in since the New Year, she uttered with a sigh.