getting away from him! "That spring there goes outside," he says to
his father.

"Ay, what then?"

"Why, you've got it in under, you've set it wrong. It's a steel
spring, and you have to fix it outside, else the bolt jars out again
and stops the knives. You can see in the picture here."

"I've left my spectacles behind, and can't see it quite," says his
father, something meekly. "You can see better--you set it as it should
go. I don't want to go up to the house for my spectacles now."

All in order now, and Isak gets up. Eleseus calls after him: "You must
drive pretty fast, it cuts better that way--it says so here."

Isak drives and drives, and everything goes well, and Brrr! says the
machine. There is a broad track of cut grass in his wake, neatly in
line, ready to take up. Now they can see him from the house, and all
the womenfolk come out; Inger carries little Rebecca on her arm,
though little Rebecca has learned to walk by herself long since.
But there they come--four womenfolk, big and small--hurrying with
straining eyes down towards the miracle, flocking down to see. Oh, but
now is Isak's hour. Now he is truly proud, a mighty man, sitting high
aloft dressed in holiday clothes, in all his finery; in jacket and
hat, though the sweat is pouring off him. He swings round in four big
angles, goes over a good bit of ground, swings round, drives, cuts
grass, passes along by where the women are standing; they are
dumbfounded, it is all beyond them, and Brrr! says the machine.