as it had rained enough to spoil Isak's
lichen, it stopped. The sky was blue. "What did I say," said Isak,
stiff-necked and hard.

The shower made no difference to the potato crop, and days came and
went; the sky was blue. Isak set to work on his timber sledge, worked
hard at it, and bowed his heart, and planed away humbly at runners and
shafts. Eyah, _Herregud_! Ay, the days came and went, and the child
grew. Inger churned and made cheeses; there was no serious danger;
folk that had their wits about them and could work need not die for
the sake of one bad year. Moreover, after nine weeks, there came a
regular blessing of rain, rain all one day and night, and sixteen
hours of it pouring as hard as it could. If it had come but two weeks
back, Isak would have said, "It's too late now!" As it was, he said to
Inger, "You see, that'll save some of the potatoes."

"Ay," said Inger hopefully. "It'll save the lot, you'll see."

And now things were looking better. Rain every day; good, thorough
showers. Everything looking green again, as by a miracle. The potatoes
were flowering still, worse than before, and with big berries growing
out at the tops, which was not as it should be; but none could say
what might be at the roots--Isak had not ventured to look. Then one
day Inger went out and found over a score of little potatoes under one
plant. "And they've five weeks more to grow in," said Inger. Oh,
that Inger, always trying to comfort and speak hopefully through her
hare-lip. It was not pretty to hear when she spoke, for a sort of
hissing, like steam from a leaky valve, but a comfort all the same out
in the wilds. And a happy and cheerful soul she was at all times.

"I wish you could manage to make another bed," she said to Isak one
day.

"Ho!" said he.

"Why, there's no hurry, but still...."

They started getting in the potatoes, and finished by Michaelmas, as
the custom is. It was a middling year--a good year; once again it was
seen that potatoes didn't care so much about the weather, but grew up
all the same, and could stand a deal. A middling year--a good year
... well, not perhaps, if they worked it out exactly, but that they
couldn't do this year. A Lapp had passed that way one day and said how
fine their potatoes were up there; it was much worse, he said, down in
the village.

And now Isak had a few weeks more to work the ground before the frost
set in. The cattle were out, grazing where they pleased; it was go