...
"Here's that Oline coming along," Sivert the jester would say. "Now
you'll have to go in and sell her a paper of coffee." And Eleseus was
glad enough to go. Selling Oline some trifle or other meant so many
minutes' rest from throwing heavy clods.
And Oline, poor creature, she might well be needing a pinch of coffee
now and again, whether by chance she managed to get the money from
Axel to pay for it, or bartered a goats' milk cheese in exchange.
Oline was not altogether what she had been; the work at Maaneland was
too hard for her; she was an old woman now, and it was leaving its
mark. Not that she ever confessed to any weakness or ageing herself;
ho! she would have found plenty to say if she had been dismissed.
Tough and irrepressible was Oline; did her work, and found time to
wander over to neighbours here or there for a real good gossip. 'Twas
her plain right, and there was little gossiping at Maaneland. Axel
himself was not given that way.
As for that Barbro case, Oline was displeased, ay, disappointed was
Oline.
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