Growth of the Soil (20 page)

Geissler himself had no troubles that could be seen; he grew talkative at once, looked out over the fields and nodded. He carried himself upright as ever, and looked as if he had several hundreds of
Daler
in his pockets. It livened them up and brightened everything to have him there; not that he made any boisterous fun, but a lively talker, that he was.

"Fine place, Sellanraa, splendid place," he said. "And now there's others coming up one after another, since you've started, Isak. I counted five myself. Are there any more?"

"Seven in all. There's two that can't be seen from the road."

"Seven holdings; say fifty souls. Why, it'll be a densely populated neighbourhood before long. And you've a school already, so I hear?"

"Ay, we have."

"There--what did I say? A school all to yourselves, down by Brede's place, being more in the middle. Fancy Brede as a farmer in the wilds!" and Geissler laughed at the thought. "Ay, I've heard all about you, Isak; you're the best man here. And I'm glad of it. Sawmill, too, you've got?"

"Ay, such as it is. But it serves me well enough. And I've sawed a bit now and again for them down below."

"Bravo! That's the way!"

"I'd be glad to hear what you think of it, Lensmand, if so be you'd care to look at that sawmill for yourself."

Geissler nodded, with the air of an expert; yes, he would look at it, examine it thoroughly. Then he asked: "You had two boys, hadn't you--what's become of the other? In town? Clerk in an office? H'm," said Geissler. "But this one here looks a sturdy sort--what was your name, now?"

"Sivert."

"And the other one?"

"Eleseus."

"And he's in an engineer's office--what's he reckon to learn there? A starvation-business. Much better have come to me," said Geissler.

"Ay," said Isak, for politeness' sake. He felt a sort of pity for Geissler at the moment. Oh, that good man did not look as if he could afford to keep clerks; had to work hard enough by himself, belike. That jacket--it was worn to fringes at the wrists.

"Won't you have some dry hose to put on?" said Inger, and brought out a pair of her own. They were from her best days; fine and thin, with a border.

"No, thanks," said Geissler shortly, though he must have been wet through.--"Much better have come to me," he said again, speaking of Eleseus. "I want him badly." He took a small silver tobacco box from his pocket and sat playing with it in his fingers. It was perhaps the only thing of value left him now.

But Geissler was restless, changing from one thing to another. He slipped the thing back into his pocket again and started a new theme. "But--what's that? Why, the meadow that's all grey. I thought it was the shadow. The ground is simply parched. Come along with me, Sivert."

He rose from the table suddenly, thinking no more of food, turned in the doorway to say "Thank you" to Inger for the meal, and disappeared, Sivert following.

They went across to the river, Geissler peering keenly about all the time. "Here!" he cried, and stopped. And then he explained: "Where's the sense of letting your land dry up to nothing when you've a river there big enough to drown it in a minute? We'll have, that meadow green by tomorrow!"

Sivert, all astonishment, said "Yes."

"Dig down obliquely from here, see?--on a slope. The ground's level; have to make some sort of a channel. You've a sawmill there--I suppose you can find some long planks from somewhere? Good! Run and fetch a pick and spade, and start here; I'll go back and mark out a proper line."

He ran up to the house again, his boots squelching, for they were wet through. He set Isak to work making pipes, a whole lot of them, to be laid down where the ground could not well be cut with ditches. Isak tried to object that the water might not get so far; the dry ground would soak it up before it reached the parched fields. Geissler explained that it would take some time; the earth must drink a little first, but then gradually the water would go on--"field and meadow green by this time tomorrow."

"Ho!" said Isak, and fell to boxing up long planks as hard as he
could.

Off hurries Geissler to Sivert once more: "That's right--keep at it--didn't I say he was a sturdy sort? Follow these stakes, you understand, where I've marked out. If you come up against heavy boulders, or rock, then turn aside and go round, but keep the level--the same depth; you see what I mean?"

Then back to Isak again: "That's one finished--good! But we shall want more--half a dozen, perhaps. Keep at it, Isak; you see, we'll have it all green by tomorrow--we've saved your crops!" And Geissler sat down on the ground, slapped his knees with both hands and was delighted, chattered away, thought in flashes of lightning. "Any pitch, any oakum, or anything about the place? That's splendid--got everything. These things'll leak at the edges you see, to begin with, but the wood'll swell after a while, and they'll be as taut as a bottle. Oakum and pitch--fancy you having it too!--What? Built a boat, you say? Where is the boat? Up in the lake? Good! I must have a look at that too."

Oh, Geissler was all promises. Light come, light go--and he seemed more giving to fussing about than before. He worked at things by fits and starts, but at a furious rate when he did work. There was a certain superiority about him after all. True, he exaggerated a bit--it was impossible, of course, to get all green by this time tomorrow, as he had said, but for all that, Geissler was a sharp fellow, quick to see and take a decision; ay, a strange man was Geissler. And it was he and no other that saved the crops that year at Sellanraa.

"How many have you got done? Not enough. The more wood you can lay, the quicker it'll flow. Make them twenty feet long or twenty-five, if you can. Any planks that length on the place? Good; fetch them along--you'll find it'll pay you at harvest-time!"

Restless again--up and off to Sivert once more. "That's the way, Sivert man; getting on finely. Your father's turning out culverts like a poet, there'll be more than I ever thought. Run across and get some now, and we'll make a start."

All that afternoon was one hurrying spell; Sivert had never seen such a furious piece of work; he was not accustomed to see things done at that pace. They hardly gave themselves time to eat. But the water was flowing already! Here and there they had to dig deeper, a culvert had to be raised or lowered, but it flowed. The three men were at it till late that night, touching up their work, and keenly on the look out for any fault. But when the water began to trickle out over the driest spots, there was joy and delight at Sellanraa. "I forgot to bring my watch," said Geissler. "What's the time, I wonder? Ay, she'll be green by this time tomorrow!" said he.

Sivert got up in the middle of the night to see how things were going, and found his father out already on the same errand. Oh, but it was a thrilling time--a day of great events!

But next day, Geissler stayed in bed till nearly noon, worn out now that the fit had passed. He did not trouble to go up and look at the boat on the lake; and but for what he had said the day before, he would never have bothered to look at the sawmill. Even the irrigation works interested him less than at first--and when he saw that neither field nor meadow had turned green in the course of the night, he lost heart, never thinking of how the water flowed, and flowed all the time, and spread out farther and farther over the ground. He backed down a little, and said now: "It may take time--you won't see any change perhaps before tomorrow again. But it'll be all right, never fear."

Later in the day Brede Olsen came lounging in; he had brought some samples of rock he wanted Geissler to see. "And something out of the common, this time, to my mind," said Brede.

Geissler would not look at the things. "That the way you manage a farm," he asked scornfully, "pottering about up in the hills looking for a fortune?"

Brede apparently did not fancy being taken to task now by his former chief; he answered sharply, without any form of respect, treating the ex-Lensmand as an equal: "If you think I care what you say ..."

"You've no more sense than you had before," said Geissler. "Fooling
away your time."

"What about yourself?" said Brede. "What about you, I'd like to know? You've got a mine of your own up here, and what have you done with it? Huh! Lies there doing nothing. Ay, you're the sort to have a mine, aren't you? He he!"

"Get out of this," said Geissler. And Brede did not stay long, but shouldered his load of samples and went down to his own
menage
, without saying good-bye.

Geissler sat down and began to look over some papers with a thoughtful air. He seemed to have caught a touch of the fever himself, and wanted now to look over that business of the copper mine, the contract, the analyses. It was fine ore, almost pure copper; he must do something with it, and not let everything slide.

"What I really came up for was to get the whole thing settled," he said to Isak. "I've been thinking of making a start here, and that very soon. Get a lot of men to work, and run the thing properly. What do you think?"

Isak felt sorry for the man, and would not say anything against it.

"It's a matter that concerns you as well, you know. There'll be a lot of bother, of course; a lot of men about the place, and a bit rowdy at times, perhaps. And blasting up in the hills--I don't know how you'll like that. On the other hand, there'll be more life in the district where we begin, and you'll have a good market close at hand for farm produce and that sort of thing. Fix your own price, too."

"Ay," said Isak.

"Besides your share in the mine--you'll get a high percentage of earnings, you know. Big money, Isak."

Said Isak: "You've paid me fairly already, and more than enough...."

Next morning Geissler left, hurrying off eastward, over toward Sweden. "No, thanks," he said shortly, when Isak offered to go with him. It was almost painful to see him start off in that poor fashion, on foot and all alone. Inger had put up a fine parcel of food for him to take, all as nice as she could make it, and made some wafers specially to put in. Even that was not enough; she would have given him a can of cream and a whole lot of eggs, but he wouldn't carry them, and Inger was disappointed.

Geissler himself must have found it hard to leave Sellanraa without paying as he generally did for his keep; so he pretended that he had paid; made as if he had laid down a big note in payment, and said to little Leopoldine: "Here, child, here's something for you as well." And with that he gave her the silver box, his tobacco box. "You can rinse it out and use it to keep pins and things in," he said. "It's not the sort of thing for a present really. If I were at home I could have found her something else; I've a heap of things...."

But Geissler's waterwork remained after Geissler had gone; there it was, working wonders day and night, week after week; the fields turned green, the potatoes ceased to flower, the corn shot up....

The settlers from the holdings farther down began to come up, all anxious to see the marvel for themselves. Axel Ström,--the neighbour from Maaneland, the man who had no wife, and no woman to help him, but managed for himself,--he came too. He was in a good humour that day; he told them how he had just got a promise of a girl to help through the summer--and that was a weight off his mind. He did not say who the girl was, and Isak did not ask, but it was Brede's girl Barbro who was to come. It would cost the price of a telegram to Bergen to fetch her; but Axel paid the money, though he was not one of your extravagant sort, but rather something of a miser.

It was the waterwork business that had enticed him up today; he had looked it over from one end to the other, and was highly interested. There was no big river on his land, but he had a bit of a stream; he had no planks, either, to make culverts with, but he would dig his channels in the earth; it could be done. Up to now, things were not absolutely at their worst on his land, which lay lower down the slopes; but if the drought continued, he, too, would have to irrigate. When he had seen what he wanted, he took his leave and went back at once. No, he would not come in, hadn't the time; he was going to start ditching that same evening. And off he went.

This was something different from Brede's way.

Oh, Brede, he could run about the moorland farms now telling news: miraculous waterworks at Sellanraa! "It doesn't pay to work your soil overmuch," he had said. "Look at Isak up there; he's dug and dug about so long that at last he's had to water the whole ground."

Isak was patient, but he wished many a time that he could get rid of the fellow, hanging about Sellanraa with his boastful ways. Brede put it all down to the telegraph; as long as he was a public official, it was his duty to keep the line in order. But the telegraph company had already had occasion several times to reprimand him for neglect, and had again offered the post to Isak. No, it was not the telegraph that was in Brede's mind all the time, but the ore up in the hills; it was his one idea now, a mania.

He took to dropping in often now at Sellanraa, confident that he had found the treasure; he would nod his head and say: "I can't tell you all about it yet, but I don't mind saying I've struck something remarkable this time." Wasting hours and energy all for nothing. And when he came back in the evening to his little house, he would fling down a little sack of samples on the floor, and puff and blow after his day's work, as if no man could have toiled harder for his daily bread. He grew a few potatoes on sour, peaty soil, and cut the tufts of grass that grew by themselves on the ground about the house--that was Brede's farming. He was never made for a farmer, and there could be but one end to it all. His turf roof was falling to pieces already, and the steps to the kitchen were rotten with damp; a grindstone lay on the ground, and the cart was still left uncovered in the open.

Brede was fortunate perhaps in that such little matters never troubled him. When the children rolled his grindstone about for play, he was kind and indulgent, and would even help them to roll it himself. An easy-going, idle nature, never serious, but also never down-hearted, a weak, irresponsible character; but he managed to find food, such as it was, and kept himself and his alive from day to day; managed to keep them somehow. But it was not to be expected that the storekeeper could go on feeding Brede and his family for ever; he had said so more than once to Brede himself, and he said it now in earnest. Brede admitted he was right, and promised to turn over a new leaf--he would sell his place, and very likely make a good thing out of it--and pay what he owed at the store!