Part 34 (1/2)
PEER DALESMAN.
Chapter IV
Christmas was near, the days were all grey twilight, and there was a frost that set the wall-timbers cracking. The children went about blue with cold. When Merle scrubbed the floors, they turned into small skating-rinks, though there might be a big fire in the stove. Peer waded and waded through deep snow to the well for water, and his beard hung like a wreath of icicles about his face.
Aye, this was a winter.
Old Raastad's two daughters were in the dairy making whey-cheese. The door was flung open, there was a rush of frosty air, and Peer stood there blinking his eyes.
”Huh! what smokers you two are!”
”Are we now?” And the red-haired one and the fair-haired one both giggled, and they looked at each other and nodded. This queer townsman-lodger of theirs never came near them that he didn't crack jokes.
”By the way, Else, I dreamed last night that we were going to be married.”
Both the girls shrieked with delight at this.
”And Mari, you were married to the bailiff.”
”Oh my! That old creature down at Moen?”
”He was much older. Ninety years old he was.”
”Uf!--you're always at your nonsense,” said the red-haired girl, stirring away at her huge, steaming cauldron.
Peer went out again. The girls were hardly out of their teens, and yet their faces seemed set already and stiff with earnestness. And whenever Peer had managed to set them laughing unawares, they seemed frightened the next minute at having been betrayed into doing something there was no profit in.
Peer strode about in the crackling snow with his fur cap drawn down over his ears. Jotunheim itself lay there up north, breathing an icy-blue cold out over the world.
And he? Was he to go on like this, growing hunchbacked under a burden that weighed and bowed him down continually? Why the devil could he not shake it off, break away from it, and kick out bravely at his evil fate?
”Peer,” asked Merle, standing in the kitchen, ”what did you think of giving the children for a Christmas present?”
”Oh, a palace each, and a horse to ride, of course. When you've more money than you know what to do with, the devil take economy. And what about you, my girl? Any objection to a couple of thousand crowns' worth of furs?”
”No, but seriously. The children haven't any ski--nor a hand-sleigh.”
”Well, have you the money to buy them? I haven't.”
”Suppose you tried making them yourself?”
”Ski?” Peer turned over the notion, whistling. ”Well, why not? And a sleigh? We might manage that. But what about little Asta?--she's too little for that sort of thing.”
”She hasn't any bed for her doll.”
Peer whistled again. ”There's something in that. That's an idea. I'm not so handless yet that I couldn't--”
He was soon hard at it. There were tools and a joiner's bench in an outhouse, and there he worked. He grew easily tired; his feet tried constantly to take him to the door, but he forced himself to go on. Is there anything in the notion that a man can get well by simply willing it? I will, will, will. The thought of others besides himself began to get the upper hand of those birds of prey ravening in his head. Presents for the children, presents that father had made himself--the picture made light and warmth in his mind. Drive ahead then.
When it came to making the iron ribbons for the sleigh runners he had to go across to the smithy; and there stood a cottar at work roughing horseshoes. Red glowing iron once more, and steel. The clang of hammer on anvil seemed to tear his ears; yet it drew him on too. It was long since last he heard that sound. And there were memories.