Next time Joel came back from the building site, her first question was whether Sven was still getting on, and if he had had no trouble with any of the people there. "I'll not tell you what I think myself," answered Joel, "for you might not believe me. But I'll tell you word for word what Gunnar Markusson, that lives close by, said to me yesterday when I met him on the round: "'I'll admit, Joel,' he says, 'that we were a bit uneasy in the parish about letting Sven Elversson take charge and build the new schoolhouse. But I will say now that, to my mind, the ratepayers would do well not to let their feelings run away with them, when it's a case of a public benefactor like Sven. He's putting in smoothed boards now, where we'd agreed we'd have to be content with unplanned wood. And he's using better paint than we'd reckoned on. He's roofing with tiles, instead of the tarred felt that was all we thought we could run to. And instead of cement steps at the entrance, he's making stone. It's this way with that boy of yours, that he'll have nothing but first-class work, and for all that it seems he's asking no more for the building than if he'd followed the plans from the first.'" Mor Thala was overjoyed to hear that her boy was doing so well, but she felt nevertheless that the dreadful thing which haunted him was not to be so easily overcome. Joel did not go over to the mainland again until September. He was away for several days, and when he returned, he brought Sven with him, and the news that the place was finished. The schoolhouse was built, and the inspection had taken place; the inspector could hardly find words to say how pleased he was with the result. Mor Thala agreed that so far all was well. And, looking at her son, she felt that he looked like one released, from prison; she understood that he felt he had regained some little of the honour and respect he had lost. And she was loth to spoil his pleasure, but as soon as she was alone with Joel, she asked if there really had been no one in all Applum who had made Sven feel he was not good enough for the work. "There's none can say what folk think in their own minds," said Joel; "but I'll just tell you what the schoolmaster himself said to me yesterday, when I spoke to him after the opening. "'There's no trusting to folk's gratitude,' he said, 'but if I was one of those whose children are to get their schooling in this new place, I'd show no unkindness to the man that built it. When you look at the hall there, the way he's chosen the best colours, and the neat and sound benches he's put up, the fine glass in the windows, well, it's a wonder how he could do it. And then all the fixtures in the _slöid_ room, and the kitchen, and heating pipes, and gymnasium fittings and all--it's plain 'twas a lover of children that settled it all. There's many might well wish to be children again just to go to school in the place Sven Elversson's built.'"