the
roadside and on the fields.

One afternoon, when the sledges were creaking outside in the cold, and
the door too, whenever anybody came in, Mother Taraldsen, who cupped
people and applied leeches, and tall Mother Baekken were sitting and
enjoying a cup of steaming hot coffee with loaf-sugar.

Mother Taraldsen was holding forth on the subject of bad liquids and
ruined times, and how every trade was going down-hill, while Mother
Baekken, getting more and more full of objections, put her head on one
side, and stirred up her cup.

"I can remember a little of the old times too, and I don't know if they
were any better, though every one is welcome to have his opinion, of
course," here the long, yellow face with the eyes blinking with their
own meaning, was laid almost across the cup; "but the day has grown
longer for workmen now. Just think how they sat in the dark in the farms
and cottages with pine-torches in the fireplace to cut and spin by; and
there lay the lads the whole long winter through, and idled and yawned
in their beds from three or four in the afternoon until they had to go
out with a lantern and see to the horses for the night. But paraffine
has got them out of their beds. It's as if we had the sun the whole
winter now, and people can see to earn a few pence."

"Yes, but everything hasn't got right in that way either, when they sit
and play cards and gamble and drink at the public-houses."

"That's not oil, that's gas! But that's good for something, too, both in
the street lamps and up in the factory."

"And for drunkenness and dancing and wickedness."

Mother Baekken made a bend down to her cup with the side of her cheek and
her chin, and up again in order to contradict in her most ingenious
manner. But just then Anne Graves came in to the counter--it was she who
kept the churchyard in order--and then one must be careful what one
says.

Thank you kindly! She had no objection to a warm cup of coffee in this
cold. She had had a busy day to-day with the big funeral; they must have
heard all the ringing at dinner-time. He was an excellent man. She
enlarged, by the plundering of diverse fragments of the funeral sermon,
upon his worth and importance as a man and a citizen of the town. There
had been speeches and such countless black hats and flowers, that the
coffin was quite hidden. Yes, that was the third they had taken in since
the New Year, she uttered with a sigh.

"You never know what sort of pe