Part 18 (1/2)
”Ah, so it was with me for a long time. I lived at variance with a good friend, and wanted _him_ to come to _me_, and all the while I was unhappy. At last I took it into my head to go to _him_, and since then all has been well with me.”
Ole looks up and says nothing.
The school-master: ”How do you think the gard is doing, Ole?”
”Failing, like myself.”
”Who shall have it when you are gone?”
”That is what I do not know, and it is that, too, which troubles me.”
”Your neighbors are doing well now, Ole.”
”Yes, they have that agriculturist to help them.”
The school-master turned unconcernedly toward the window: ”You should have help,--you, too, Ole. You cannot walk much, and you know very little of the new ways of management.”
Ole: ”I do not suppose there is any one who would help me.”
”Have you asked for it?”
Ole is silent.
The school-master: ”I myself dealt just so with the Lord for a long time. 'You are not kind to me,' I said to Him. 'Have you prayed me to be so?' asked He. No; I had not done so. Then I prayed, and since then all has been truly well with me.”
Ole is silent; but now the school-master, too, is silent.
Finally Ole says:--
”I have a grandchild; she knows what would please me before I am taken away, but she does not do it.”
The school-master smiles.
”Possibly it would not please her?”
Ole makes no reply.
The school-master: ”There are many things which trouble you; but as far as I can understand they all concern the gard.”
Ole says, quietly,--
”It has been handed down for many generations, and the soil is good.
All that father after father has toiled for lies in it; but now it does not thrive. Nor do I know who shall drive in when I am driven out. It will not be one of the family.”
”Your granddaughter will preserve the family.”
”But how can he who takes her take the gard? That is what I want to know before I die. You have no time to lose, Baard, either for me or for the gard.”
They were both silent; at last the school-master says,--
”Shall we walk out and take a look at the gard in this fine weather?”