Page:Cornelia Meigs-The Pirate of Jasper Peak.djvu/128

 noticed in Rudolm, the tiny houses, the narrow fields, the heavy sad faces. He thought of the road, “Oscar’s road,” that went to the top of the  first hill, and stopped.

“It was hard to make them heed, for they had been deceived once, but in the end they began to  listen. The first step needed was to build a road through the forest so that the new valley should  not be buried beyond the reach of the world. We got together a little money, the men came with their horses, their axes and picks and, at  the summer Festival, with laughing and singing  and a few tears too, so great a plan did it seem to  some, we began to push our way into the wilderness. But the labor was harder than they thought and the men began to be discouraged and  to quarrel and to mutter among themselves,  ‘That mad Oscar Dansk, he and his father, they  were both dreamers of dreams.’ So the work  went slower and slower until we came at last to  the top of the hill.

“You see it was Jake who had commenced to make trouble. He began to think that this