In the woods. Petter is one of the farm-hands; he showed us the way here.

When we talked together, Falkenberg was not by any means so grateful to Fruen for giving us work. “Nothing to bow and scrape for in that,” he said. “It’s none so easy to get workmen these days.” Falkenberg, by the way, was nothing out of the ordinary in the woodcutting line, while I’d had some experience of the work in another part of the world, and so could take a lead in this at a finish. And he agreed I was to be leader.

Just now I began working in my mind on an invention.

With the ordinary sort of saw now in use, the men have to lie down crookedwise on the ground and pull sideways. And that’s why there’s not so much gets done in a day, and a deal of ugly stumps¹ left after in the woods. Now, with a conical transmission² apparatus³ that could be screwed on to the root, it should be possible to work the saw with a straight back-and-forward movement, but the blade cutting horizontally all the time. I set to work designing parts of a machine of this sort. The thing that puzzled me most was how to get the little touch of pressure on the blade that’s needed. It might be done by means of a spring that could be wound up by clockwork, or perhaps a weight would do it. The weight would be easier, but uniform, and, as the saw went deeper, it would be getting harder all the time, and the same pressure would not do. A steel spring, on the other hand, would slacken down as the cut grew deeper, and always give the right amount of pressure. I decided⁴ on the spring system. “You can manage it,” I told myself. And the credit for it would be the greatest thing in my life.

The days passed, one like another; we felled our nine-inch timber⁵, and cut off twigs⁶ and tops. We lived in plenty, taking food and coffee with us when we started for the woods, and getting a hot meal in the evening when we came home. Then we washed and tidied ourselves — to be nicer-mannered than the farm-hands — and sat in the kitchen, with a big lamp alight, and three girls. Falkenberg had become Emma’s sweetheart.

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