"Ay, that's where she goes," said his father. "'Twas there I had it
before." And, by way of regaining lost prestige, he ordered Sivert
to set about looking for more bolts in the grass. "There ought to be
another," he said, looking very important, as if he carried the whole
thing in his head. "Can't you find another? Well, well, it'll be in
its hole then, all right."
Father starts off again.
"Wait a minute--this is wrong," cried Eleseus. Ho, Eleseus standing
there with the drawing in his hand, with the Law in his hand; no
getting away from him! "That spring there goes outside," he says to
his father.
"Ay, what then?"
"Why, you've got it in under, you've set it wrong. It's a steel
spring, and you have to fix it outside, else the bolt jars out again
and stops the knives. You can see in the picture here."
"I've left my spectacles behind, and can't see it quite," says his
father, something meekly. "You can see better--you set it as it should
go. I don't want to go up to the house for my spectacles now."
All in order now, and Isak gets up. Eleseus calls after him: "You must
drive pretty fast, it cuts better that way--it says so here."
Isak drives and drives, and everything goes well, and Brrr! says the
machine. There is a broad track of cut grass in his wake, neatly in
line, ready to take up. Now they can see him from the house, and all
the womenfolk come out; Inger carries little Rebecca on her arm,
though little Rebecca has learned to walk by herself long since.
But there they come--four womenfolk, big and small--hurrying with
straining eyes down towards the miracle, flocking down to see. Oh, but
now is Isak's hour. Now he is truly proud, a mighty man, sitting high
aloft dressed in holiday clothes, in all his finery; in jacket and
hat, though the sweat is pouring off him. He swings round in four big
angles, goes over a good bit of ground, swings round, drives, cuts
grass, passes along by where the women are standing; they are
dumbfounded, it is all beyond them, and Brrr! says the machine.
Then Isak stops and gets down. Longing, no doubt, to hear what these
folk on earth down there will say; what they will find to say about it
all. He hears smothered cries; they fear to disturb him, these beings
on earth, in his lordly work, but they turn to one another with awed
questionings, and he hears what they say. And now, that he may be a
kind and fatherly lord and ruler to them all, to encourage them, he
says: "There, I'll just do this bit, and you can spread it tomorrow."
"Haven't you time to come in and have a bite of food?" says Inger, all
overwhelmed.
"Nay, I've other things to do," he answers.
Then he oils the machine again; gives them to understand that he is
occupied with scientific work. Drives off again, cutting more grass.
And, at long last, the womenfolk go back home.
Happy Isak--happy folk at Sellanraa!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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