"Ho!" said the other. "Ay, mine'll be going to school again soon.
They'll stay with the Lensmand."
"Ho!" said Inger.
"Ay, or at the doctor's, maybe, or at the parsonage. Brede he's in
with the great folks there, of course."
Inger fumbled with her cloak, and managed to turn it so that a bit of
black silk fringe appeared to advantage.
"Where did you get the cloak?" asked, the woman. "One you had with
you, maybe?"
"I made it myself."
"Ay, ay, 'tis as I said: wealth and riches full and running over...."
Inger drove on, feeling all set up and pleased with herself, and,
coming into the village, she may have been a trifle overproud in her
bearing. Lensmand Heyerdahl's lady was not pleased at the sight of
that cloak; the Sellanraa woman was forgetting her place--forgetting
where it was she had come from after five years' absence. But Inger
had at least a chance of showing off her cloak, and the storekeeper's
wife and the blacksmith's wife and the schoolmaster's wife all thought
of getting one like it for themselves--but it could wait a bit.
And now it was not long before Inger began to have visitors. One
or two women came across from the other side of the hills, out of
curiosity. Oline had perhaps chanced to say something against her
will, to this one or that. Those who came now brought news from
Inger's own birthplace; what more natural than that Inger should give
them a cup of coffee, and let them look at her sewing-machine! Young
girls came up in pairs from the coast, from the village, to ask
Inger's advice; it was autumn now, and they had been saving up for a
new dress, and wanted her to help them. Inger, of course, would know
all about the latest fashions, after being out in the world, and now
and again she would do a little cutting out. Inger herself brightened
up at these visits, and was glad; kindly and helpful she was too, and
clever at the work, besides; she could cut out material without a
pattern. Sometimes she would even hem a whole length on her machine,
and all for nothing, and give the stuff back to the girls with a
delightful jest: "There--now you can sew the buttons on yourself!"
Later in the year Inger was sent for down to the village, to do
dressmaking for some of the great folks there. Inger could not go; she
had a household to look after, and animals besides, all the work of
the home, and she had no servant.
Had no what? Servant!
She spoke to Isak one day.
"If only I had some one to help me, I could put in more time sewing."
Isak did not understand. "Help?"
"Yes, help in the house--a servant-girl."
Isak must have been taken aback at this; he laughed a little in
his iron beard, and took it as a jest. "Ay, we should have a
servant-girl," said he.
"Housewives in the towns always have a servant," said Inger.
"Ho!" said Isak.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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