“I am making pins for a rake.”
“Now, for the winter?”
“Summer will come again. And it’s not good for poor people to be idle....”
That was one for Tord. He struck at the nettles outside the door with his stick. The calm in Mattson’s eyes irritated him. Both sea and sky became commonplace beside that miserable plodding. What was the use of the autumn coming and the leaves falling and the darkness and loneliness when Mattson sat carving rake pins all the same?
“I will pay you back for that, old fellow,” thought Tord. And he longed for an autumn storm, a real three-day autumn gale. Especially when he had his nets out.
Then came the autumn ploughing. Nobody possessed beasts of burden out here by the sea, but Mattson’s neighbours came sailing in with their wives. And then they yoked themselves to the plough. Mattson’s wife also took part and pulled, though she was so old, but Mattson drove. Furrow after furrow they ploughed in the drizzling rain with tough sustained persistence.
Tord ran into the forest to escape seeing it. But he found no peace, he had to go back to the ploughing. For a moment he stood behind a juniper bush and stamped with anger, then he suddenly rushed out into the clay:
“Stop!” he cried. “This is my soil and I won’t look on at this miserable business.”
They stopped and stared at him:
“What is one to do when the island will not feed a beast?” suggested Mattson.