It is not well to be young and have a great deal of life that can suffer. I tell you, it is as with your teeth; there is no peace until you have them all in your table drawer.
No, all this was not anything for father, Ma thought.
* * * * *
Great-Ola was standing with a crowbar. There was a stone which was to be placed in the wall. But the frozen crust of earth was hard, up there on the meadow, although the sun was so roasting hot that he was obliged to wipe his forehead with his pointed cap every time he rested.
The non-commissioned officers had returned to the office during the forenoon with their pay in their pockets, one after the other; and that it was pretty bad going with holes in the highway was evident from their splashed carts, which were as if they had been dipped in the mud.
He had just got ready to put the crowbar under again, when he suddenly stopped. There was something which attracted his attention—a cariole with a post-boy walking by the side and a little yellow horse covered with mud up to its belly.
With pieces of rope for reins and wound around the cariole thills, the horse toiled up along the Gilje hills in zigzag, incessantly stopping to get breath. The sun was burning hot down there on the frozen earth.
The post down from Drevstad—he knew both the horse and the lumbering vehicle.
It was not that which would have taken his attention so seriously; but some one was sitting in it—a lady with hat and veil. He did not understand—that way of carrying the head—wasn't it—
He took two or three slow, thoughtful steps, then started on the jump, and over the wall with a leap which would have touched the roof-beam in a high room.