HOMME FARM:

The next year, twenty-five-year-old Steinar, youngest of the Homme clan, married the sister of Sveinung's bride, and occupied the outfarm Hosum.

"This nut didn't fall far from the tree," Jon teased him. The two youngest Homme brothers, wedded to the two Håtveit sisters, took plenty more ribbing from the wedding guests. Jon played the fiddle all evening, and was surprised no one made his bowing the butt of any jokes.

"Because you didn't screech a single note," Birgit told him. "You're turning into a fine fiddler, beloved!"

Tall Såmund had brought his family from Åe to Homme to celebrate his cousin's wedding. "Dance with one of my halfsisters," Gunnhild told him, laughing, after only one turn around the loft floor. "That's all I can handle, in this state." She settled her very pregnant self onto a bale of hay and watched six-year-old Little Såmund shepherd three-year-old Aslaug among the other children.

By the end of the evening she wasn't laughing any more. She sent Little Såmund to find his father. "I don't think we'll make it home," she told Tall Såmund when he arrived.

Her husband knit his brows and sat down beside her, putting an arm around her shoulders. "Not now, is it?"

She bit her lip through a contraction, then nodded. "I'm sorry, I didn't think I was that near—"

"Don't apologize! It was me who hauled you here in a jolting cart then danced you around like a newlywed! Sit tight, and I'll go speak with Jon. Good thing they held the dance here rather than at Håtveit!"

Early the next morning, when young Halvor Jonsson woke, he was delighted to find a tiny Halvor Såmundsson occupying his old cradle. "Two Halvors!" he kept saying. "Can we keep him?"

Little Såmund Såmundsson puffed out his chest at that. "Nei, he's ours!"

"Ours," Aslaug Såmundsdotter agreed.

Later that day, Laki, Knut, and Toli arrived by horseback to collect Little Såmund and Aslaug and take them home again. "Åsne and Bibbi are mad they missed all the fun," Laki said.

"Fun?!" Gunnhild sank back against her pillows and blew a stray strand of hair out of her eyes. "I have something to tell them when we get home!"

ÅE FARM:

Halvor had lots to say, himself. He came with healthy lungs and a strong will, and soon had nine-year-old Åsne wrapped around his finger. Seven-year-old Bibbi and little Aslaug brought him daisy crowns, and the girls argued over whose turn it was to rock the cradle. Little Såmund got tired of waiting for the baby to grow up big enough to play and spent his time following his idols, nineteen-year-old Laki, eighteen-year-old Knut and twelve-year-old Toli, all around Åe farm, trying to do everything they did.

"If we have any more children," Gunnhild told Tall Såmund one day as she worked over the cook stove, "we'll need a bigger porridge pot!" She dished up bowlfuls of barley mush. "Who wants to help me scrub the pot where it boiled over?" she asked when the meal was over. "I have a new tale to tell while we work!"

As the children clamored to join in, Tall Såmund laughed. "I don't know where you get all your stories. You must have a magic mill somewhere that churns them out endlessly."

"It churned salt, not stories," Bibbi said. "Go on, Mor Gunna, tell us the new tale!"