Since the departure of the great caravan, there have been no other
visitors. Some of us cannot understand it; others have in a manner of
speaking got a whiff of what is wrong; but all of us still believe there
will be more visitors, because after all we're the only ones that have the
Tore peaks!
But no one appears.
The women of the house do their daily work for the inmates and do not
complain, but they are not happy. Paul still takes things quietly; he
sleeps a great deal in his room behind the kitchen, but once or twice I
have seen him walking away from the house at night, walking in deep
thought toward the woods.
From the neighboring valley comes the rumor that the motor traffic has
started there now. So this is the explanation of the quiet in our valley!
Then one day a Dane came down to us from the fjeld. He had climbed the
Tore peaks from the other side, something that had been thought impossible
till now. He had simply driven in a car to the foot of the mountains and
walked across!
So we no longer had the Tore peaks to ourselves, either.
I wonder whether, after all, Paul is not going to try to sow green-fodder
in the long strip of land down by the river. That, at any rate, had been
his original intention, but then came the great caravan, and he neglected
it. Now, of course, the season is too far advanced for sowing, and there
will be nothing but docks and chickweed. Could not the field be turfed, at
least, and sown? Why didn't Paul think of such things instead of walking
the woods at night?
But Paul has many thoughts. At an early age, his interest in farming was
diverted to the tourist traffic, and there it has remained. He hears that
our lawyer is also an architect and asks him to draw a plan for the big
new house with the six rooms, the hall and the bathroom. Paul has already
ordered the log chairs and the reindeer horns for the hall.
"If you weren't alone up here, you might have got some of the cars coming
here too," said the lawyer.
"I've thought of that," Paul replied. "It's not impossible I can do
something about it. But I must have the house first. And I must have a
road."
The lawyer promised to draw a plan of the house, and went round to look at
the site. The house was to cost such and such a sum. Paul was already
quite convinced that three or four good tourist summers would pay it off.
Paul was not worrying. As we looked over the site together, I discovered
that he smelled of brandy.
Finally a small party of Norwegians and foreigners arrived, travelers who
were out to walk, and not to drive in cars. Everyone's spirits rose; the
strangers stayed a few days and nights, and were guided across the fjeld
by Solem, who earned a fair penny. Paul, too, was visibly cheered, and
strolled about the farm in his Sunday clothes. He had a few things to
discuss with the lawyer about the house.
"If there's anything to consult about, we had better do it now," he said.
"I shall be away for a couple of days."
So they attended to a few minor matters.
"Are you going to town?" asked the lawyer.
"No," Paul replied; "only down to the village. I want to see if I can get
the people there to co-operate on a few ideas of mine: a telephone and
automobile service and so on."
"Good luck!" said the lawyer.
So the lawyer sat drafting plans while the rest of us went about our own
affairs. Josephine went to Solem and said:
"Will you go and sow the field by the river?"
"Has Paul said so?" he asked.
"Yes," she replied.
Solem went very unwillingly. While he was drawing the harrow, Josephine
went down to him and said:
"Harrow it once more."
What a brisk little thing she was, with far more forethought than the men!
She looked bewitching, for all her hard work. I have seen her many times
with her hair tumbled, but it didn't matter. And when she pretended that
none but the maids milked the goats and did outside work, it was for the
good name of the house. She had learned to play the piano for the same
reason. The mistress of the house helped her nobly, for both women were
thoughtful and industrious, but Josephine was everywhere, for she was
light as a feather. And the chaste little hands she had!
"Josephine, Joséfriendly!" I called her wittily.