A week after Ingebjørg's wedding at Brekke farm, at Dalen farm, Gunnhild's mother came down with a nasty stomach ailment. The illness didn't stop the perpetual arguing.

"What are you thinking?" Aslaug cried. "We can't afford to buy up all the outfarms!"

"They'll pay for themselves within a year or two," said Såmund the Sawyer.

"You're not accounting for the chance of a poor crop."

"Your embroidery still sells, and you yourself said Gunnhild's skill at the needle will soon match your own."

"Lacework won't pay for an estate this size! You must back out of this purchase."

"Too late. It's all set. My word of honor."

"You'll impoverish us!"

"We have the sawmill to fall back on, once I get it repaired."

"Repairs cost money. And then there are the fees for running the mill, and the taxes on all those fields that may not produce."

"Stop your fretting, woman. No wonder your guts run to water."

"Your pride will be the ruin of us."

"Pride? Don't be ridiculous."

"You can't become a great bonde like your ancestors by going into debt overnight."

"Who says I'm trying to become a bonde?"

"What else do you call it? Owning all the farmland within a dale, leasing out fields, hiring laborers and baker-wives..."

As their mother worsened, Gunnhild and her fourteen-year-old sister put aside their genteel embroidery and took over all the women's chores at Dalen farm, cooking and cleaning and mending for their father and four brothers. The arguments wound down, replaced by the moans of a sickroom, the hush of a death watch -- and at last the weeping of grief.

They could not spare much time on the funeral, for it fell too close to harvest time and Såmund the Sawyer needed every riksdaler he could get from the crops to pay that year's debts.

The next year, 1812, he and everyone else fared even worse. The summer was colder than anyone could remember. In some places the crops even froze in the fields.

The traders carried no wheat because of a new blockade by the British, and no salted cod, for the fishermen up north had just had a terrible season, too. Såmund the Sawyer spent long hours negotiating with his creditors, trying to salvage his expanded estate – while on the continent, Napoleon lost most of his army in his failed attempt to extend his empire into Russia.