“No visitors here now,” says Nils. “And no high goings-on at nights. Have you heard anything of that sort at night now, since the Captain first came back?”
“No.”
“And that's full ten weeks ago now. What d'you say if I tore off this thing now?” And he pointed to his temperance badge. “Captain's given up drinking, here's Fruen home again, and no call to be unfriendly anyway to either of them.”
He handed me a knife, and I cut the badge away.
We talked for a bit about the farm-work—Nils thought of nothing else. “We'll have most of the corn under shelter by tomorrow night,” he says. “And thank goodness for that! Then we'll sow the winter rye. Queer thing, isn't it? Here's Lars went on year after year sowing by machine, and thought it good enough. Not if I know it! We'll sow ours by hand.”
“But why?”
“On land like ours! Now just take the man over there, for instance; he sowed by machine three weeks ago and some's come up and some not. No. The machine goes too deep in the soil.”
“H'm! Don't the jasmines smell fine tonight?”
“Yes. There's been a big difference with the barley and oats these last few days. Getting on time for bed, though, now!”
He got up, but I did not move. “Looks like being fine again tomorrow,” says Nils, glancing at the sky. And then he went on about the grass in the garden; worth cutting, he said it was.