"It will be twenty-five Daler a year in your pocket."
"H'm," said Isak. "And what am I to do for that?"
"Keep the line in repair, mend the wires when necessary, clear away forest growth on the route as it comes up. They'll set up a little machine thing in the house here, to hang on the wall, that'll tell you when you're wanted. And when it does, you must leave whatever you're doing and go."
Isak thought it over. "I could do it all right in winter," he said.
"That's no good. It would have to be for the whole year, summer and winter alike."
"Can't be done," said Isak. "Spring and summer and autumn I've my work on the land, and no time for other things."
The engineer looked at him for quite a while, and then put an astonishing question, as follows: "Can you make more money that way?"
"Make more money?" said Isak.
"Can you earn more money in a day by working on the land than you could by working for us?"
"Why, as to that, I can't say," answered Isak. "It's just this way, you see—'tis the land I'm here for. I've many souls and more beasts to keep alive—and 'tis the land that keeps us. 'Tis our living."