“Goods. ’Tis Andresen is going to sell them.”
“Well, then, I’m a man that knows what’s the right thing to do, but doesn’t do it,” says Geissler. “I’m the fog. Now perhaps I’ll buy that mine back again one of these days, it’s not impossible; but if I do, it wouldn’t be to go about staring up at the sky and saying, ‘Aerial railway! South America!’ No, leave that to the gamblers. Folk hereabout say I must be the devil himself because I knew beforehand this was going to break up. But there’s nothing mystical about me, ’tis simple enough. The new copper mines in Montana, that’s all. The Yankees are smarter than we are at that game; they are cutting us to death in South America—our ore here’s too poor. My son’s the lightning; he got the news, and I came floating up here. Simple, isn’t it? I beat those fellows in Sweden by a few hours, that’s all.”
Geissler is short of breath again; he gets on his feet, and says: “If you’re going down, let’s get along.”
They go on down together, Geissler dragging behind, all tired out. The caravan has stopped at the quay, and Fredrik Ström, cheerful as ever, is poking fun at Aronsen: “I’m clean out of tobacco; got any tobacco, what?”
“I’ll give you tobacco,” said Aronsen threateningly.
Fredrik laughs, and says comfortingly: “Nay, you’ve no call to take it all heavy-like and sad, Aronsen. We’re just going to sell these things here before your eyes, and then we’ll be off home again.”
“Get away and wash your dirty mouth,” says Aronsen furiously.
“Ha ha ha! Nay, you’ve no call to dance about that way; keep still and look like a picture!”
Geissler is tired, tired out, even his smoked glasses do not help him now, his eyes keep closing in the glare.
“Goodbye, Sivert man,” says he all at once. “No, I can’t get up to Sellanraa this time, after all; tell your father. I’ve a heap of things to see to. But I’ll come later on—say that. …”
Aronsen spits after him, and says: “Ought to be shot!”
For three days the caravan peddles its wares, selling out the contents of the sacks, and getting good prices. It was a brilliant piece of business. The village folk were still well supplied with money after the downfall of the mine, and were excellently in form in the way of spending; those stuffed birds on springs were the very thing they wanted; they set them up on chests of drawers in their parlours, and also bought nice paper-knives, the very thing for cutting the leaves of an almanac. Aronsen was furious. “Just as if I hadn’t things every bit as good in my store,” said he.
Trader Aronsen was in a sorry way; he had made up his mind to keep with these pedlars and their sacks, watching them all the time; but they went separate ways about the village, each for himself, and Aronsen almost tore himself to pieces trying to follow all at once. First he gave up Fredrik Ström, who was quickest at saying unpleasant things; then Sivert, because he never said a word, but went on selling; at last he stuck to following his former clerk, and trying to set folk against him wherever he went in. Oh, but Andresen knew his master that was—knew him of old, and how little he knew of business and unlawful trading.
“Ho, you mean to say English thread’s not prohibited?” said Aronsen, looking wise.
“I know it is,” answered Andresen. “But I’m not carrying any this way; I can sell that elsewhere. I haven’t a reel in my pack; look for yourself, if you like.”
“That’s as it may be,” says Aronsen. “Anyway, I know what’s forbidden, and I’ve shown you, so don’t try to teach me.”
Aronsen stood it for a whole day, then he gave up Andresen, too, and went home. The pedlars had no one to watch them after that.
And then things began to go swimmingly. It was in the day when womenfolk used to wear loose plaits in their hair; and Andresen, he was the man to sell loose plaits. Ay, at a pinch he could sell fair plaits to dark girls, and be sorry he’d nothing lighter; no grey plaits, for instance, for that was the finest of all. And every evening the three young salesmen met at an appointed place and went over the day’s trade, each borrowing from another anything he’d sold out of; and Andresen would sit down, often as not, and take out a file and file away the German trademark from a sportsman’s whistle, or rub out “Faber” on the pens and pencils. Andresen was a trump, and always had been.
Sivert, on the other hand, was rather a disappointment. Not that he was any way slack, and failed to sell his goods—’twas he, indeed, sold most—but he did not get enough for them. “You don’t put in enough patter with it,” said Andresen.
No, Sivert was no hand at reeling off a lot of talk; he was a fieldworker, sure of what he said, and speaking calmly when he spoke at all. What was there to talk about here? Also, Sivert was anxious to be done with it and get back home, there was work to do in the fields.
“ ’Tis that Jensine’s calling him,” Fredrik Ström explained. Fredrik, himself, by the way, had work on his own fields to be done that spring, and little time to waste; but for all that, he must look in on Aronsen the last day and get up an argument with him. “I’ll sell him the empty sacks,” said he.
Andresen and Sivert stayed outside while he went
