Nothing unless to go north and fish in the lake. It's said that those who go there often do well for themselves.
I was thinking that if you went somewhere, I might just as well go somewhere too for the winter. Sigridur of New Farm says there's lots of work for washerwomen in Winnipeg in the winter. Some of the women from this district are going south the beginning of next week. I could pack up my old clothes on a sled like them and go too. I'd just leave little Tota here with the youngsters. She's going on fourteen now, Tota is.
I could perhaps manage to send home a mess of fish once in a while, said Torfi Torfason.
This was an evening early in November, snow had fallen on the woods, the swamps were frozen over. They spoke no more of their parting. Jon Sigurdsson grinned out into the room, and the calendar girl with the wide-brimmed hat laid her blessing upon the sleeping children.
The tiny kerosene lamp burned in the window, but the frost flowers bloomed on the window-panes.
It seems to me it can get cold here, no less than at home, said
Torfi Torfason presently.
Do you remember what fun it often was when guests came in the evening? There would be sure to be talk about the sheep at this time of the autumn on our farm.
Oh, it's not much of a sheep country here in the west, said Torfi Torfason. But there's fishing in the lake … And if you have decided to go south and get yourself a 'job', as they say here, then …
If you write to Iceland, be sure to ask about our old cow Skjalda, how she is getting along. Our old Skjalda. Good old cow.
Silence.