Aunt Anne was not going to have a child.

For a long time Per had been expecting somebody to talk about it. Such things were always talked about by someone. But nobody said anything. Auntie was just as before. So he was relieved of that worry.

All this idle gossip you heard: She's landed herself with a child now, I suppose, said people about this person and that.

They said it without feeling the slightest sympathy for whoever they were talking about. Rather, they said it in such a way that it turned your stomach. People were full of idle gossip.

Auntie would escape their wicked tongues.

But she would have been wonderfully kind to the baby; he would have had more milk than he knew what to do with.

Now she looked just as before: good to look at. And yet, as they toiled in the steaming field during the spring plowing, there was a difference from last year all the same. Per thought about the happy days in the potato field last autumn.

Father was sitting resting in front of Goldie. The horse was dozing with fatigue, his head hanging almost as low as Father's shoulders. Per's back was aching from weeding. Aunt Anne was sitting close by, resting her back too.

So she was not going to have a child by that good-for-nothing. Per could not help thinking of him with horror.

He was still alive. Per saw him on the road sometimes and a flash of horror shot through his body. That man must be on the brink of death and destruction---and yet he went like others to the storekeeper and bought coffee and sugar and shoe leather as if nothing had happened. He talked about the weather, and gossiped about people, and laughed. He was still alive, and it had happened six months ago.

"Look at Goldie," said Auntie, close to his ear.

He started out of his thoughts.

"What?"

The yellow horse was resting his muzzle on Father's shoulder. Father was sitting stock still.

"Look at your father and Goldie," said the soft, pleasant voice behind Per.

Per ran about in the woods after the sheep. He was so bored he could have screamed, but in the evening when the sheep took the permitted, direct route home again, his heart was soothed.

At home life continued unwaveringly as usual. Mother prepared their days and their clothes and their food.

Per learned to swim in a creek of the river while he was herding the sheep that year. He read the newspaper that was wrapped around his food to the last letter of the alphabet.   [p. 102]   The driest matters, which would never have been noticed otherwise, were read with enthusiasm when you were a herdsman sitting on a stone.

Next year he would be confirmed. And Olav would be confirmed, and Åsne.

Father came and said he must help him weed out stones while the sheep were fenced in during the middle of the day. He was choked with anger, for it was unfair. The herdsman was supposed to be free then. He gave Father some dirty looks and threw the stones onto the heap so that they bounced.

Unfair!

He would tell Father to his face that this was none of his business. This was his free time.

Father was digging stones out too, turning over and piling up the biggest. He straightened up and looked at Per with a sneer.

"Quite right, Per," he said, when Per sent a stone into the heap with a clatter. "It's good for the stone to feel it; that's only right and proper."

And he laughed coldly. His laughter felt like a ducking in cold water. This was not work for a sissy, and nobody asked what the herdsman's rights were.

Father merely attacked another heavy stone with the crowbar. The words that Per had thought of hurling at him were never spoken. Per saw that they would roll like bilberries off that homespun back and those square shoulders and that tanned neck.

Father had scorned him. He felt as if he had been beaten. There was another feeling too: it was like having your mouth full of earth. He wished Father would turn around and look in his direction.

No. Father kept his back turned to him, clearly on purpose. It stung.

The midday sun was baking hot, and the ground had a different smell, sending gusts of warmth back again. Per was standing in the middle of the patch of red, barren, newly-   [p. 103]   cleared land. A short way off lay the pieces which Father had cleared in previous years. Some of it was thick meadow now. On last year's patches wheat or oats were growing sparsely. Father had sweated over every foot of it.

Turn around, Father, and look at me just once.

No. Only that back and those square shoulders and those elbows showing through the holes worn in his shirt.

"Home!" called Mother from the doorstep.

It sounded reassuring. Of course, everything was all right. Mother and her call home were part of it and were always there when it was time. Mother never forgot the routine.

They straightened up, answered yes! to the call, washed their hands in the stream, and went in to dinner.

Per looked down at the table that day as he ate. Åsmund refused his food, was spoken to sharply, and sat pouting.

"Eat," said Father. "It's good food."

"No," said Åsmund.

"Then leave the table and go to bed," said Father curtly. Åsmund left, red with the sulks. He went and lay down on his bed, with a sidelong glance at Father.

A thundercloud lay over the table. Per sat and chewed, knowing whose fault it was; it was his fault that Father was irritable and that Åsmund had been sent to bed.

No, it was Father, who was hard as rock. Father will destroy me. . . .

A strong gust of earth came from Father's soil-spattered clothes. Father takes the earth with him all over the place; he's impossible; he'll kill me soon; he's. . . .

Per chewed.

Father chewed slowly.

Mother and Aunt Anne chewed.

Åsmund lay staring through the wall.

Aunt Anne was letting the cows out. They were making a good deal of noise and commotion; it was their first day out, and they were frisky and boisterous. The calves stood as if blind, unable to walk. The grown cows fought each other   [p. 104]   savagely, clashing horns getting entangled, and horns prodding necks and shoulders and flanks. It looked highly dangerous but was unavoidable. Mother and Auntie, hot and short of breath, went among them flailing their arms to part them. Father came and parted them if there was any real danger of a cow's being gored. Their hooves gripped the earth so that they sank in deep and clods spattered up. The bell cow ran amok, and none of them dared touch her; she was an experienced fighter and threw a couple of the young ones aside as soon as she came out, to let it be known that she was keeping her position.

Åsmund sat in the shelter of the doorstep, but Per ran around the yard with a switch. This was fun! Dangerously strong horns glistened and thick strong necks writhed. Their white backs gleamed above their red flanks, reminding him of milk; milk reminded him of Mother and Auntie. Hooves clashed. The two heifers stood still, young and slender. The two calves looked stupid, standing with eyes like marbles, not knowing what to do with their feet. Then they found out and ran like mad things, and then stood still again, staring.

The big bull was still in the barn, butting the wall and bellowing. He was the father of almost all these heifers and calves running about outside. But he could not be with them today; he must never get loose. He would chase the herd, knock them about, destroy them. He stood bellowing and turning up the whites of his eyes.

Olav Bringa and Per met that year too at the river the day the sheep were sent away. They took stock of each other: they were tall and brown and thin. They had herded the sheep for the last time. Next year they would be working on the farm, and some little kid or other would have to run about herding.

"Are you so very glad?" asked Olav uncertainly.

At once Per felt it too: he had been happier in previous years when the herding had ended. Why was that?

They lay on the bank skimming stones across the river. Thinking. There was something missing; they had no desire to yell at the tops of their voices and take wild leaps. The bank was thick with windflowers, the tall, coarse windflowers that last far into the summer. The young aspens were pale green. They were not glad.

Ought they to be?

Yes, they ought. It was said over and over again, and repeated in print, that these were the best days of their lives. And every time it was said, it was a lie.

The truth was, their hearts were heavy. If only they had known why it would have been a help.

Per asked, "Have you seen many of the others from school this spring?"

"No," said Olav.

"D'you think they've been herding sheep?"

"Don't know. Yes, I suppose so," said Olav crossly. "Åsne's been herding for her aunt. Did you know Åsne had learned to swim?"

Per stared at him. "No. Yes, I did. No, I don't know---"

"She told me so one day when I met her at the post office, a long time ago."

There was a long silence.

"I learned to swim this spring too," said Olav finally, and threw a stone into the water.

Per looked away. "I learned this spring too," he said, his mouth dry.

Long silence. Strange, shy thoughts.

"Shall we?" said Per, not knowing what to do next.

"Yes."

They threw off their clothes and swam in the river. They were not very good at it yet. The water was cool but not cold. The bottom was yellow sand.

Something nudged them.

Come! willed the current, wishing to go far and see many things. The water was clear. You could see the outline of England on Olav's back when he floundered.

They climbed up onto a big flat stone and lay there lonely in the sunshine with their shy thoughts.

Their bodies dried. They were both equally tall and equally slim.