"No."
"Well, then, you won't be able to manage it," said she again.
Isak put up his hand to his hair—it was like a bear lifting his paw.
"'Twas just that I've been fearing," said he. "That I might not manage it. And that's why I wanted you that's learned so much to help me."
That was one to the bear. But nothing gained after all. Inger tossed her head and turned aside unkindly, and would have nothing to do with his saw.
"Well, then—" said Isak.
"Why, do you want me to stand getting drenched in the river and have me laid up? And who's to do all the sewing, and look to the animals and keep house, and all the rest?"
"No, that's true," said Isak.
Oh, but it was only the four corner posts and the middle ones for the two long sides he wanted help with, that was all. Inger—was she really grown so different in her heart through living among folk from the towns?
The fact was that Inger had changed a good deal; she thought now less of their common good than of herself. She had taken loom and wheel into use again, but the sewing machine was more to her taste; and when the pressing-iron came up from the blacksmith's, she was ready to set up as a fully-trained dressmaker. She had a profession now. She began by making a couple of little frocks for Leopoldine. Isak thought them pretty, and praised them, maybe, a thought too much; Inger hinted that it was nothing to what she could do when she tried.