Knut Hamsun

“ Isak must have been taken aback at this; he laughed a little in his iron beard, and took it as a jest. "Ay, we should have a servant-girl," said he.
"Housewives in the towns always have a servant," said Inger.
"Ho!" said Isak.
Well, Isak was not perhaps in the best of humour just then, not exactly gentle and content, no, for he had started work on that sawmill, and it was a slow and toilsome business; he couldn't hold the baulks with one hand, and a level in the other, and fix ends at the same time. But when the boys came back from school again it was easier ”

“ Isak works and works, consulting the almanac for all that he does, notes the changes of the moon, pays heed to the signs of the weather, and works on. He has beaten out so much of a track down to the village that he can drive in now with horse and cart, but for the most part, he carries his load himself ”

“ He had a pair of boots, so unimaginably heavy and thick, with great slabs of iron on the soles, even the straps were fastened with copper nails — it was a marvel that one man could walk in such boots at all. ”

“ But when she had made the cloak, she had to find some one to show it to; accordingly, when the boys went down to the village to be put to school, Inger herself went with them. And that journey might have seemed a little thing, but it left its mark.
They came first of all to Breidablik, and the Breidablik woman and her children came out to see who it was going by. There sat Inger and the two boys, driving down lordly-wise — the boys on their way to school, nothing less, and Inger wearing a cloak. The Breidablik woman felt a sting at the sight ”

“ Sometimes she would even hem a whole length on her machine, and all for nothing, and give the stuff back to the girls with a delightful jest: "There — now you can sew the buttons on yourself!"
Later in the year Inger was sent for down to the village, to do dressmaking for some of the great folks there. Inger could not go; she had a household to look after, and animals besides, all the work of the home, and she had no servant.
Had no what? Servant!
She spoke to Isak one day.
"If only I had some one to help me, I could put in more time sewing."
Isak did not understand. "Help?" ”

“ Sivert especially had a genius for knocking in nails, but Eleseus was better at handling a plumb-line. By the end of a week, Isak and the boys had actually got the foundation posts in, and soundly fixed with stretcher pieces as thick as the beams themselves. ”