Read Online Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson, Anne Born - Free Book Online Page A

shut, and was bored now and wanted to move on, but was not allowed to, for Barkald was systematic and had no plan to mow the whole field in one go. It was one section first and then the next, while the sun was shining from a cloudless sky and promised more of the same. The day was so far advanced now that we could feel the backs of our shirts getting soaked with sweat, and each time we lifted a heavy load it ran from our foreheads. The sun was right in the south and there was hardly a shadow in the valley, the river, sparkling, wound its way along, and we could hear it rushing down the rapids under the bridge by the shop. I picked up an armful of poles and carried them out, distributing them at suitable intervals along the steel wire and went back empty-handed for more, and my father and one of the men from the village measured out lengths and with a crowbar made holes every two metres along the line, alternately on each side of the wire and thirty-two in all, and my father was down to his singlet now, white against his dark hair and his tanned skin and his smooth shining upper arms, and the big fencing crowbar went up and then heavily down with a sucking sound in the damp earth, like a machine, my father, and happily, my father, and Jon's mother in tow planting the stakes in the holes the whole way along to the point where the steel wire reel was and a new peg was going down to keep the rack standing, and I could not stop watching them.
    She stopped once and put the stake down and took a few steps to stand with her back turned and look down at the river with shaking shoulders. Then my father straightened his back and waited, gloved hands round the crowbar, and then she turned with her face alight and tear-stained, and my father smiled and nodded to her, his hair falling over his brow, and he lifted the crowbar again, and she smiled soberly back, came over and picked one stake up, and with a twisting movement she wedged it into the hole so that it stuck. And then they went on, in the same rhythm as before.
    Neither Jon nor his father had come, although I had been certain they would, because they had been there the year before, but maybe they had other things to do, things of their own, or they just could not bring themselves to come. That she could was strange, in fact, but when I had watched her working for a while, I thought no more about it. Maybe my father would invite all three of them to the logging. That was not impossible, because Jon's father did have much experience of it, but on the other hand how would things go, if they went on as they had up to now, and could not look at each other?
    When all the stakes were standing in a jagged row across the field, the steel wire had to be stretched at thigh height between them with a loop alternately to the right and the left so the wire would lie straight in the middle. The two men from the village took care of that job; one was tall and the other was short, and that was plainly a good combination, because they had done it before and were brisk and efficient at getting the wire to stretch taut as a guitar string right down to the last stake and lashed securely around the peg that Barkald had knocked in at the other end. We others picked our rakes up and walked out fanwise with the right distance between us and started to rake the grass from all sides towards the rack, and it was obvious at once why the handles were so long. They provided radius enough for us to cover the whole space together, and not so much as a straw was left behind, but it was tough on our palms with the rake rubbing forwards and backwards a thousand times, and we had to wear gloves to save the skin from being torn and prevent burns and blisters after one hour only. And then we filled the first wire, some with hayforks and balance and great precision, others with their hands, like my father and I, who did not have the same experience. But that went well too, and the inner side of our bare arms turned