on any mournful things, such as the strange way father had said
good-bye, or how mother had cried. They went a long way round to avoid
being stopped at Breidablik, and made a jest of that little ruse.
But when they came down in sight of the village, and it was time for
Sivert to turn homeward again, they both behaved in somewhat unmanly
fashion. Sivert, for instance, was weak enough to say: "I doubt it'll
be a bit lonely, maybe, when you're gone."

And at that Eleseus must fall to whistling, and looking to his shoes,
and finding a splinter in his finger, and searching after something in
his pockets; some papers, he said, couldn't make out ... Oh, 'twould
have gone ill with them if Sivert had not saved things at the last.
"Touch!" he cried suddenly, and touched his brother on the shoulder
and sprang away. It was better after that; they shouted a word of
farewell or so from a distance, and went each on his own way.

Fate or chance--whatever it might be. Eleseus went back, after all,
to the town, to a post that was no longer open for him, but that same
occasion led to Axel Ström's getting a man to work for him.

They began work on the house the 21st of August, and ten days later
the place was roofed in. Oh, 'twas no great house to see, and nothing
much in the way of height; the best that could be said of it was that
it was a wooden house and no turf hut. But, at least, it meant that
the animals would have a splendid shelter for the winter in what had
been a house for human beings up to then.