besides--you've heard of him?" "No."

"Why, he's a rich man, and district treasurer besides."

Love makes a fool of the wise. Isak felt he must do something grand
himself, and overdid it. "What I was going to say; you've no need to
bother with hoeing potatoes. I'll do it myself the evening, when I
come home."

And he took his ax and went off to the woods.

She heard him felling in the woods, not so far off; she could hear
from the crash that he was felling big timber. She listened for a
while, and then went out to the potato field and set to work hoeing.
Love makes fools wise.

Isak came home in the evening, hauling a huge trunk by a rope. Oh,
that simple and innocent Isak, he made all the noise he could with his
tree-trunk, and coughed and hemmed, all for her to come out and wonder
at him. And sure enough:

"Why, you're out of your senses," said Inger when she came out. "Is
that work for a man single-handed?" He made no answer; wouldn't have
said a word for anything. To do a little more than was work for a man
single-handed was nothing to speak of--nothing at all. A stick of
timber--huh! "And what are you going to do with it?" she asked.

"Oh, we'll see," he answered carelessly, as if scarcely heeding she
was there.