blessed thing!

But now--things look black even for the potato crop.

Isak looked at the sky unnumbered times in the day. And the sky was
blue. Many an evening it looked as if a shower were coming. Isak would
go in and say, "Like as not we'll be getting that rain after all." And
a couple of hours later all would be as hopeless as before.

The drought had lasted seven weeks now, and the heat was serious;
the potatoes stood all the time in flower; flowering marvellously,
unnaturally. The cornfields looked from a distance as if under snow.
Where was it all to end? The almanac said nothing--almanacs nowadays
were not what they used to be; an almanac now was no good at all. Now
it looked like rain again, and Isak went in to Inger: "We'll have rain
this night, God willing."

"Is it looking that way?"

"Ay. And the horse is shivering a bit, like they will."

Inger glanced towards the door and said, "Ay, you see, 'twill come
right enough."

A few drops fell. Hours passed, they had their supper, and when Isak
went out in the night to look, the sky was blue.

"Well, well," said Inger; "anyway, 'twill give the last bit of lichen
another day to dry," said she to comfort him all she could.