Part 15 (2/2)

OLEANA'S CLOCK

At Goodfields, the houses for the farm laborers are up in the forest.

Towards Goodfields itself, the forest is thick and dark, but up where it has been cleared, willows and alders grow in clumps, and there are tiny little fields and still smaller potato patches, belonging to each sun-scorched hut with its turf roof and windows of greenish gla.s.s. From the clearing you can look upward to the mountains, or downward, over the thick pines and through the leafy trees, to the smooth, s.h.i.+ning fjord.

All the huts for the farm-hands were full to running over with children.

In Henrik-hut there were nine, in Steen-hut eight, and in North-hut eleven; and they were all tow-headed and bare-footed and all had mouths stained with blueberries.

Henrik-hut was the place we summer-boarder-children liked best because there was a dear old grandmother there with such soft, kind eyes. She could not go out any more, but sat always in an armchair beside the window; on the window-sill lay her much-worn brown prayer-book.

Oleana was Grandmother Henrik-hut's daughter. She was big, very much freckled, always good-natured, and talked a steady stream, often about her husband. She didn't seem highly delighted with him.

”Poor Kaspar!” said Oleana. ”He hasn't brains enough for anything. No, I can truly say he hasn't much sense under his hat. Things would be pretty bad at Henrik-hut if there were no Oleana here.” And Kaspar agreed with her perfectly.

”I haven't much sense, or learning either,” said Kaspar. ”But that's the way it goes in the world,--one clever one and one stupid one come together; and so Oleana manages everything, you see.”

Even with Oleana to manage, however, things had often been bad enough at Henrik-hut. They had almost starved at times, Grandmother, Kaspar, Oleana and all the nine children.

”It isn't worth speaking of now,” said Oleana, ”the hard scratching we have had many a time. But when the summer boarders,--fine city folk,--came to Goodfields, luck came to Henrik-hut.”

Oleana did the was.h.i.+ng for these summer guests and earned money that way, you see.

”It's just as if all this money were given to me!” said Oleana. ”For our Lord fills the brooks with water and the work I put on the clothes is nothing to count.”

There were beds everywhere in the one room of the hut, and what with shelves and clothes, wooden bowls and buckets and even s.h.i.+ny sc.r.a.p-pictures on the walls, there wasn't a vacant spot anywhere. The floor was s.h.i.+ningly clean, however, and strewn with juniper boughs, and the sun shone cheerily through the greenish window-panes, on Grandmother and the nine tow-headed children, and all.

Oleana had been married twenty-one years and in all that time had never owned a clock. Through the long darkness of the winter afternoons and evenings, when the snow lay thick and heavy on the pine-trees round about, and the roads were blocked in every direction with high drifts, there they would be in the hut;--Oleana and Grandmother and the nine tow-heads and the husband without much sense under his hat,--and not even the clever Oleana would have the remotest idea what o'clock it was.

In summer she looked at the sun to tell the time, and on clear winter nights at the stars; though to see these, she had to get up in the cold and breathe on the thickly frosted window-pane to make a s.p.a.ce to peep through.

One day while I was at Henrik-hut talking with Oleana, it occurred to me that we summer-boarder-children might put our money together and buy a clock for Oleana. The grown-up people wanted to help, and so we got a lot of money; and a big clock with a white dial and red roses was bought in the city.

Then it was such fun surprising Oleana with it! We had an awfully jolly time. A message was sent to her asking her to come to Goodfields; and down she came with her hair wet and smooth, and a clean stiff working-dress on, but having no notion what we wanted of her.

The clock had been hung up in the hall at Goodfields and its s.h.i.+ning bra.s.s pendulum was swinging with a slow and sure tick-tock. All the ladies stood around and I was to present the clock.

”Oleana,” said I, ”we wanted to give you a clock;--and that's it.”

Oleana looked as if the sky had fallen.

”Oh no, no, no!” she cried. ”It isn't possible--of course not! Why should I have that clock?”

”Because you have so many children,” said I.

Just then the clock struck six clear strokes, and Oleana began to cry.

”I never knew there were such kind people in the world,” said Oleana, as she stood with folded hands, looking up at the clock through her tears.

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