[Subsection]

Drought summer.

The steepest slopes turned brown. There were withered patches where the rocks lay just below the surface. The grain grew sparsely and turned yellow when it should have been green.

The cows came home thirsty from the pasture and jostled around the well in the yard. Aunt Anne went among the big animal bodies, pushing them about, pouring water into tubs and pails, standing in a cloud of small black flies that had followed the irritated herd of cows home from the woods. Auntie was as brown as copper.

It was hot week after week. At Bufast day after day they turned up new earth, which was burned and baptized in a flood of sunshine. The sweat poured off them.

There was no more conversation this year than was usual when working with Father.

It occurred to Per that Father had a disease. It was a disease, this digging of his in the earth.

It was dreadful to watch how he dug. To see the gleam in his eye. He was sick and crazy about digging in the earth. It blinded him to other important things so that he did not see all that he should. Mother and Aunt Anne had said so many years ago when they said he dug till he was crazy.

It must be a disease.

Father did other things on the farm only because he had to---and then he turned back to his patch again with an altered face and dug and shovelled until he sighed. But there was no complaint in his sigh. He dug until you could see it was painful for him to straighten his back, but there was great peace in his expression. He was where he belonged; so he would sit and lean against the red edge of the unturned earth and let his back straighten out a little.

There should not have been anything dreadful about it. But it was easy to see that Father was overtaxing himself, wearing himself out over it, the way he kept on without being able to hold himself in check. Besides, he was breaking up too much ground at a time. Per did not know very much about it, but he had heard people say so; Ivar told Father to his face that if he couldn't manure all that newly-turned earth properly, it would be better to take on no more than could be tilled little by little. They knew very well he was too hard up to buy manure.

Father only smiled, presumably thinking they could just try to take away what he took pleasure in. He must have been wrong, but he smiled and went on as before.

He was not strict with Per in that he stood over him and drove him. He simply enjoyed himself in silence, digging tensely and urgently. It was difficult to avoid being drawn into his rhythm. Per was so drawn.