has seen us coming a long way off, Solem and myself, and sat down to play
the piano. She has gray, pathetic, young girl's hands--hands which confirm
an old observation of mine that one's hands reveal one's sexual character,
showing chastity, indifference, or passion.

It is pleasant to watch Josephine crouch down to milk the goat. But she is
only doing this now to charm and please the stranger. Ordinarily she has
no time for such work, for she is too busy at her indoor tasks, waiting at
table and watering the flowers and chatting with me about who climbed the
Tore Peak last summer, and who did it the summer before that. These are
Josephine's tasks.

Refreshed and rejuvenated, I idle about, stand for a while watching Solem,
who has been put to carting manure, then drift on down through the wood to
the cotters' houses. Neat, compact houses, barns with room for two cows
and a couple of goats in each, half-naked children playing homemade games
outside the barns, quarrels and laughter and tears. The men at both places
cart manure on sleighs, seeking a path where the snow and ice still lie on
the ground, and doing very well with it. I do not descend to the houses,
but watch the work from my point of vantage. Well do I know the life of
labor, and well do I like it.

It was no small area these cotters had broken up; the homesteads were tiny
but the fences surrounding the land included a good section of forest.
When the ground was cleared all the way to the fence, this would be a farm
with five cows and a horse. Good luck!

The days pass, the windowpanes have thawed, the snow is melting away,
green things grow against south walls, and the leaves break out in the
woods. My original intention to make great irons hot within me is