Settlers of the Marsh by Frederick Philip Grove

man was a visionary after all—“I haven’t the cash …”
    â€œYou could give me a cheque … I’d pay you good interest … I’d pay … I’d pay you ten percent a month.”
    That decided Niels. This man could not be trusted with money. “As far as the interest goes,” he said, “I don’t care about that. But I can’t.”
    â€œYou think it over,” Lund pleaded. “Think it over, Mr. Lindstedt. I shall see you again …”
    W HEN SIGURDSEN SAW whom Niels had with him, he glared with suspicion. Apparently he wanted to speak to Niels alone. “Go to the house, Lund,” he said.
    And when Lund had gone, he turned to Niels. “The girl … She come this morning see me. She want help in haying.”
    â€œWell,” Niels pondered. “How would it be if we did our work in the morning and then went and helped her together?”
    â€œFine, tya. You go tell her.”
    â€œNow?”
    â€œYea. She be waiting for me. You go.”
    â€œAll right,” Niels consented though he felt a sudden panic running through his body; and he turned his horses and drove back the way he had come.
    H E TIED HIS HORSES at Ellen’s gate, hardly knowing what to do next. But the difficulty solved itself: the girl stepped out of the house and came to meet him.
    â€œHello,” Niels said, his head aglow.
    â€œHello,” she replied, her voice strangely steady.
    â€œSigurdsen was speaking to me …”
    â€œWell,” she asked, “may he come?” It sounded as if she were faintly amused.
    â€œWe’ll both come to-morrow. Right after noon. Where is your hay?”
    The girl nodded backwards. “Beyond the field. Have your dinner here. We’ll use my teams.”
    Niels assented.
    â€œWon’t you come in?” she invited casually, opening the little gate.
    Niels followed mechanically as she led the way.
    She did not go to the house but to a spot in the bush, north of it, where a little table and a folding chair stood in a sort of bower formed by hazelbrush and plum trees. A tin box with smouldering grass inside spread a smoky haze to keep the mosquitoes away.
    â€œI’ll get a chair,” she said.
    â€œNever mind. I’ll sit on the grass …”
    They sat down, Ellen resuming a crochet-hook and some wool with which she had beguiled the time.
    â€œYou’ve been building?” she asked after a while. She was quite at ease.
    â€œYes,” he said. “I’ve built a house.”
    â€œA large house? A regular mansion, Sigurdsen says.”
    Niels coloured. “Four rooms; besides the kitchen which is a lean-to.”
    â€œFour rooms?” Ellen exclaimed, dropping her hands to her knees. “What do you want four rooms for?”
    â€œAnd there is space for two small attic rooms besides,” Niels went on with sudden recklessness.
    Ellen stared at him. Then both laughed; and Niels, too, felt at ease.
    â€œWell,” he said, “people here think more of their machinery than of their houses; more of their farms than of their lives. The house is merely a piece of the farm, a place to sleep in while you are not at work. I want a house of which the farm is a part, the place where what is needed in the house is grown. These people here, when they get anywhere, are rich at best. Their life has slipped by; they have never lived. Especially the women.”
    The girl looked at him. Her eyes had lost their critical, distancing look; they were frankly questioning.
    Niels looked back at her, without speaking. He noticed that her abundant, straw-yellow hair was no longer so severely brushed down. It had little waves and ripples in it; a looser way of doing it up had given it freedom to follow its natural bend. He remembered how, as a girl, she had seemed to him singularly mature; now that in age she was a woman, she seemed almost girlish …
    â€œI’ve looked