Part 35 (1/2)

What life and cheer it brings with it!

”Mother--here's the sun,” cries Louise joyfully from the doorway.

”Yes, child, I see it.”

But Louise has only looked in for a moment to beg some cake for Lorentz and herself, and be off again on her ski to the hill-slopes. ”Thank you, mother--you're a darling!” And with a slice in each hand she dashes out, glowing with health and the cold air.

If only Peer could glow with health again! But though one day they might persuade themselves that now--now at last he had turned the corner--the next he would be lying tossing about in misery, and it all seemed more hopeless than ever. He had taken to the doctors' medicines again--a.r.s.enic and iron and so forth--and the quiet and fresh air they had prescribed were here in plenty; would nothing do him any good? There were not so many months of their year left now.

And then? Another winter here? And living on charity--ah me! Merle shook her head and sighed.

The time had come, too, when Louise should go to school.

”Send the children over to me--all three of them, if you like,” wrote Aunt Marit from Bruseth. No, thanks; Merle knew what that meant. Aunt Marit wanted to keep them for good.

Lose her children--give away her children to others? Was the day to come when that burden, too, would be laid upon them?

But schooling they must have; they must learn enough at least to fit them to make a living when they grew up. And if their own parents could not afford them schooling, why--why then perhaps they had no right to keep them?

Merle sewed and sewed on, lifting her head now and again, so that the sunlight fell on her face.

How the snow shone--like purple under the red flood of sunlight. After all, their troubles seemed a little easier to bear to-day. It was as if something frozen in her heart were beginning to thaw.

Louise was getting on well with her violin. Perhaps one day the child might go out into the world, and win the triumphs that her mother had dreamed of in vain.

There was a sound of hurried steps in the pa.s.sage, and she started and sat in suspense. Would he come in raging, or in despair, or had the pains in his head come back? The door opened.

”Merle! I have it now. By all the G.o.ds, little woman, something's happened at last!”

Merle half rose from her seat, but sank back again, gazing at his face.

”I've got it this time, Merle,” he said again. ”And how on earth I never hit on it before--when it's as simple as sh.e.l.ling peas!”

He was stalking about the room now, with his hands in his pockets, whistling.

”But what is it, Peer?”

”Why, you see, I was standing there chopping wood. And all the time swarms of mowing machines--nine million of them--were going in my head, all with the gra.s.s sticking fast to the shears and clogging them up. I was in a cold sweat--I felt myself going straight to h.e.l.l--and then, in a flash--a flash of steel--it came to me. It means salvation for us, Merle, salvation.”

”Oh, do talk so that I can understand a little of what you're saying.”

”Why, don't you see--all that's wanted is a small movable steel brush above the shears, to flick away the gra.s.s and keep them clear. Hang it all, a child could see it. By Jove, little woman, it'll soon be changed times with us now.”

Merle laid her work down in her lap and let her hands fall. If this were true!

”I'll have the machine up here, Merle. Making the brushes and fixing them on will be no trouble at all--I can do it in a day in the smithy here.”

”What--you had better try! You're just beginning to get a little better, and you want to spoil it all again!”

”I shall never get well, Merle, as long as I have that infernal machine in my head balancing between world-success and fiasco. It presses on my brain like a leaden weight, I shall never have a decent night's sleep till I get rid of it. Oh, my great G.o.d--if times were to change some day--even for us! Well! Do you think I wouldn't get well when that day came!”