The Farm on the Fjord (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1877. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XX. jF any one thing more than another could have helped Gerda to regain her usual cheery spirits, and wipe off the recollection of her interview with Sigurd, it was having Aamund Rolfsson up at the Great Farm. In a couple of days he seemed perfectly at home, always busy either with her father on the farm, or standing and helping her; while she was washing the pails and cans, he would churn or do some little job of repairing and putting straight, which she found the benefit of the next time the article was wanted. He had also found his way up to Knut Svendson's, and enjoyed more than one good day's shooting with the strange hunter before the first fortnight was over. Of an evening when work was done, Gerda listened with delight to his stories of prairie life, and his early struggles as a settler in the west; she always sat opposite to him, and Aamund seemed to have gained the point AAMUND AND HANS. 217 he was aiming at, when the work she was doing lay idle on her lap, and she listened to him.with parted lips and wide-opened eyes. He was very handy with his fingers, and had made her a number of little conveniences for her workbox, as well as household trifles for Bergliot. As for Hans and him the talks between them waxed longer and longer every day, and Hans' face proportionately shorter. Harald came in occasionally, --not so often as before, --perhaps he was a little jealous of the new comer, or he might have enough to occupy his mind at home, where he was short of hands; Sigurd being away, he had to hire. Hirelings must be well looked after, put in the way of doing a hundred little things which one born and bred on the spot would have done without direction of any kind. Anna, too, was almost unbearable, --stern, silent, biting when she did speak, ...