Young Anders Krog was not really a good business man. But his extraordinary conscientiousness and considerateness soon gained him the custom of the whole town. Another man in his place might have made a fortune; he did not. When he entered on possession of Krogskogen he had not yet paid up the price of his business in town, and in taking over the property he incurred a still larger debt. For both he had been made to pay well. Travel he must, but he had to content himself with going off for a month each year—one year to England, another to France, and so on. His greatest desire was a visit to America, but on this he dared not venture yet. He contented himself with reading of the new wonderland. Reading was his chief pleasure; next to it came gardening, in which he possessed more skill than most trained gardeners.
This quiet man with the bright eyes was shyer than a girl of fourteen. Every week-day morning he chose, if possible, a seat by himself on the little steamer which took him to town as long as the bay was not frozen over. In going on shore he showed extreme consideration for others; then he hurried off, bowing respectfully to his acquaintances, to his house on the market-place, where he was to be found until evening, when he returned as he had come. At times he cycled. In winter he drove; and at this season he sometimes stayed over night in town, where he occupied two modest attic rooms in his own house.
The town knew of no other man possessing in such a degree all the qualities of a perfect husband. But his invincible modesty made all overtures impossible until ... the right woman came. But then he was already over forty. The same fate befell him as had befallen his uncle and namesake at Lake Michigan; a young girl of his own family came and took possession of him. And she was this very uncle's only child.
He was working one Sunday morning, in his shirt-sleeves, in the kitchen and flower garden on the northern side of the house, when a young girl, wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat, laid her ungloved hands on the white fence and looked in between its round tops.
Anders, bending over a flower-bed, heard a playful: "Good morning!" and started up. Speechless and motionless he stood, with earth-soiled hands, his eyes drinking her in like a revelation.
She laughed and said: "Who am I?" Then his thinking power returned. "You are—you must be——"; he got no further, but smiled a welcome.
"Who am I?"
"Marit Krog from Michigan."
He had heard from his sister, who lived on the farther side of the left ridge, that Marit Krog was on her way to Norway. But he had no idea that she had arrived.
"And you are my father's nephew," said she with an English accent. "How like him you are! How very like!"