it amused her--going into
business, as it were, and seeing all the many folk coming and going.
Isak tramped about with his lumbering tread, and worked on his land;
nothing disturbed him. Sivert and the two stoneworkers got the new
cowshed up. It was a fine building, but took a deal of time before it
was finished, with only three men to the work, and Sivert, moreover,
often called away to help in the fields. The mowing-machine was useful
now; and a good thing, too, to have three active women that could take
a turn at the haymaking.

All going well; there was life in the wilds now, and money growing,
blossoming everywhere.

And look at Storborg, the new trader's place--there was a business on
a proper scale! This Aron must be a wizard, a devil of a fellow; he
had learned somehow beforehand of the mining operations to come, and
was on the spot all ready, with his shop and store, to make the most
of it. Business? He did business enough for a whole State--ay, enough
for a king! To begin with, he sold all kinds of household utensils and
workmen's clothes; but miners earning good money are not afraid to
spend it; not content with buying necessaries only; they would buy
anything and everything. And most of all on Saturday evenings, the
trading station at Storborg was crowded with folk, and Aron raking
money in; his clerk and his wife were both called in to help behind
the counter, and Aron himself serving and selling as hard as he could
go at it--and even then the place would not be empty till late at
night. And the owners of horse-flesh in the village, they were right;
'twas a mighty carting and hauling of wares up to Storborg; more than
once they had to cut off corners of the old road and make new short
cuts--a fine new road it was at last, very different from Isak's
first narrow path up through the wilds. Aron was a blessing and a
benefactor, nothing less, with his store and his new road. His name
was not Aron really, that being only his Christian name; properly, he
was Aronsen, and so he called himself, and his wife called him the
same. They were a family not to be looked down upon, and kept two
servant-girls and a lad.

As for the land at Storborg, it remained untouched for the present.
Aronsen had no time for working on the soil--where was the sense of
digging up a barren moor? But Aronsen had a garden, with a fence all
round, and currant bushes and asters and rowans and planted trees--ay,
a real garden. There was a b