Read "Growth of the Soil" by Knut Hamsun online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Sellanraa is no longer a desolate spot in the waste; human beings live here -- seven of them, counting great and small. But in the little time the haymaking lasted there came a stranger or so, folk wanting to see the mowing-machine. Brede Olsen was first, of course, but Axel Ström came, too, and other neighbours from lower down -- ay, from right down in the village. And from across the hills came Oline, the imperishable Oline.
This time, too, she brought news with her from her own village; 'twas not Oline's way to come empty of gossip. Old Sivert's affairs had been gone into, his accounts reckoned up, and the fortune remaining after him come to nothing. Nothing!