"No; I dare say not: old folks don't go out much. But my son, p'r'aps you know a little--Arne Kampen; I'm his mother," said Margit, with a stolen glance at Eli, who suddenly looked grave and breathed slowly. "I'm pretty sure he worked at Böen once."
"It's a fine evening; we turned our hay this morning, and got it in before I came away; it's good weather indeed for everything."
"There will be a good hay-harvest this year," Eli suggested.
"Yes, you may well say that; everything's getting on well at Böen, I suppose?"
"Oh, yes, I dare say you have; your folks work well, and they have plenty of help. Are you going home to-night?"
"Couldn't you go a little way with me? I so seldom have anybody to talk to; and it will be all the same to you, I suppose?"
Eli excused herself, saying she had not her jacket on.
"Well, it's a shame to ask such a thing the first time of seeing anybody; but one must put up with old folks' ways."
Eli said she would go; she would only fetch her jacket first.
It was a close-fitting jacket, which when fastened looked like a dress with a bodice; but now she fastened only two of the lower hooks, because she was so hot. Her fine linen bodice had a little turned-down collar, and was fastened with a silver stud in the shape of a bird with spread wings. Just such a one, Nils, the tailor, wore the first time Margit danced with him.
"A pretty stud," she said, looking at it.
"Ah, I thought so," Margit said, helping her with the jacket.
They walked onwards over the fields. The hay was lying in heaps; and Margit took up a handful, smelled it, and thought it was very good. She asked about the cattle at the parsonage, and this led her to ask also about the live stock at Böen, and then she told how much they had at Kampen. "The farm has improved very much these last few years, and it can still be made twice as large. He keeps twelve milch-cows now, and he could keep several more, but he reads so many books and manages according to them, and so he will have the cows fed in such a first-rate way."
Eli, as might be expected, said nothing to all this; and Margit then asked her age. She was above twenty.
"Have you helped in the house-work? Not much, I dare say--you look so spruce."