Father owned timber, but this year he had cut down nothing. Yet he took jobs driving throughout the winter. He drove supplies for the storekeeper and took his pay in food and clothing. Per was too small; he was not allowed to go the long way to fetch the stores. Brownie was tired when he arrived home after these journeys. Later Father drove timber for the neighboring farm. Per was not taken to the woods either. It was dangerous, said his father; logs and snow might fall on him from the piles of timber, so Per had to stay at home. There were snowdrifts at home too, and Per dug tunnels in the drifts and built houses where he sat inside alone, staring out in front of him. Father came home with wet clothes when the weather was bad, the seat of his trousers soaked from sitting on the logs and on icy tree-stumps.

"It's bad for your health," said Mother, wiping the chairs where he had sat. "Couldn't you at least take a sack to sit on, on top of the load?"

"Yes, I suppose so," he answered indifferently.

After a while he said, "Have you ever seen me ill?"

Father was never ill.

"No," said Mother, "but I expect I will one of these days."

Per's heart turned over. Such prophecies were so dreadful--- They could just shut up. They stood there saying things like: You are to stay at Bufast to the end of your days; I expect I shall see you ill one of these days. He felt as if it would have to happen once it was said.

Father's clothes smelled of resin now. It was a good smell.

He was afraid of Father. He felt it more and more. He had been afraid of Father since he had taken hold of him on the cleared land and seemed to pronounce his sentence. Father had laid a burden on him. And he had renewed it the day the stranger had come from town.

The stranger had written about Father in a newspaper and praised him to the skies. Father had been sent the paper. Mother had kept it in a safe place, even though it was full of boasting.

In the barn the calves were arriving. They kept one of them a long time, even though he was a bull-calf; he drank milk fit to burst. Then Father slaughtered him one day and bartered him for goods from the storekeeper. Whatever Father got for driving the logs went to the storekeeper. They fattened two pigs: one day they were slaughtered, and one of them was driven to the storekeeper. Mother and Aunt Anne churned butter, and Father took that to the storekeeper. The hens laid eggs, and the storekeeper got most of them. The sheep were sheared, and the wool was sent to the storekeeper to pay off credit.

"Is he going to get everything, that storekeeper?"

"Yes. We're still in debt to him. We had to ask for credit."

Per harbored a grudge against this storekeeper who had given them credit so that they were in his debt.

Each time they slaughtered an animal on the farm, Brownie went wild. Father always did the job himself. Per did not see the animal until it lay dead on the bench. He did not find it horrible; it was certain and settled beforehand that they had to be slaughtered, just as certain and natural as that one would eat and sleep oneself. But when Father went into Brownie's stall afterwards to give him his feed, Brownie snorted wildly, shivered, and cringed against the wall. The stink of the slaughter was in Father's clothes and on his hands. Brownie smelled it no matter how well Father had washed.

It was a strange sight: big, strong Brownie cringing because of a smell on someone's hands.

Per heard talk of slaughterers who went the rounds of the farms. Why didn't Father use them?

"He's too good to animals to do that," replied Auntie. "Don't you think the animals know when they're going to be killed? He'd rather do it himself, not have strangers to do it. Don't you understand?"

"No."

But---he's good to animals, Auntie had said. It was reassuring that she had said so. It sounded safe and reassuring. Perhaps he too would be good to animals one day?

People came leading their cows to Bufast. The cows plodded along in the snow, looking out of place. Cows belonged to green meadows and leaves and horseflies. Now they were being led through the snowdrifts to the great bull that belonged to Eilev Bufast. There they were given calves. Then they plodded home again through the cold, white drifts. They ought not to have been out of doors at this time of year; they were out of place.

The bull was dangerous and was never let loose.

Towards spring fewer cows came, and then the bull was slaughtered. He was too old; Father wanted a new one.

Per got a glimpse of the slaughtering of the bull through a hidden peephole. He saw the savage bull standing tied behind the barn one morning. All four feet were tied, and he was tied by the ring in his nose. There was one man holding each rope. The bull raised one of his forelegs and pawed the ground slowly.

Then Father went straight towards him to make an end of it, his rifle in his hand. The bull straddled his legs, terrifyingly strong. Per was too far away to see the whites of his eyes. There was an explosion, and the bull toppled. Per was glued to his peephole. Now all the men were on the ground holding down the bull. It was a black lump. Per tore himself away, trembling. He ran to the stable and stroked Brownie   [p. 46]   over the nostrils again and again. Brownie stood quietly, enjoying it, bending his head without shivering.

When Father came today, Brownie would shiver and fuss.

One day Father would go up to Brownie with the rifle, he thought. Somebody had said so.

What did it mean, to be good to animals?

Father was out of sorts the whole time the snow lay. Everyone knew what the matter was, and everyone waited for the snow to go so that Father could begin working on the cleared land, digging in the earth. After all, his affairs were theirs as well.

And then the snow went. The river began murmuring again. Father began digging. At this time too, the last cow calved. Per heard a question inside himself on the morning of pancake day: Do you love earth, Per?

The earth lay there around him; he looked at it, but it said nothing to him.

He was asked to do more that summer: now this, now that. "You do it for me, Per." "Perhaps you could do it, Per." "You must try, Per."

He was seven years old. In the autumn he would start school. He had learned to read a little, stammering through it. More and more often he was told: "You must try, Per."

To the end of my days, he thought, and ran to do as he was told. Father, over there on the cleared land, had sentenced him.