So up the drift the horse had to mount. The icy crust held until the animal had reached the top, then it gave way and the horse suddenly disappeared from sight, as if into a grave, while the two men sat gazing down helplessly. One of the traces had snapped; so they could not have gone farther even if they had been able to get the horse out of the drift.
A few minutes later the pastor stepped into the living-room at the Ingmar Farm. A blazing log fire was burning on the hearth. The housewife sat at one side of the fireplace spinning fine carded wool; behind her were the maids, seated in a long row, spinning flax. The men had taken possession of the other side of the fireplace. They had just come in from their work; some were resting, others, to pa.s.s the time, had taken up some light work, such as whittling sticks, sharpening rakes, and making axe handles.
When the pastor told of his mishap, they all bestirred themselves, and the menservants went out to dig the horse out of the drift.
Halvor led the pastor up to the table, and asked him to sit down.
Karin sent the maids into the kitchen to make fresh coffee and to prepare a special supper. Then she took the pastor"s big fur coat and hung it in front of the fire to dry, lighted the hanging lamp, and moved her spinning wheel up to the table, so that she could talk with the menfolk.
"I couldn"t have had a better welcome had Big Ingmar himself been alive," thought the pastor.
Halvor talked at length about the weather and the state of the roads, then he asked the clergyman if he had got a good price for his grain, and if he had succeeded in getting certain repairs made that he had been wanting for such a long time. Karin then asked after the pastor"s wife, and hoped that there had been some improvement in her health of late.
At that point the pastor"s man came in and reported that the horse had been dug out, the trace mended, and that all was in readiness to start. But Karin and Halvor pressed the pastor to stay to supper, and would not take no for an answer.
The coffee tray was brought in. On it were the large silver coffee urn and the precious old silver sugar bowl, which was never used save at such high functions as weddings and funerals, and there were three big silver cake baskets full of fresh rusks and cookies.
The pastor"s small, round eyes grew big with astonishment; he sat as if in a trance, afraid of being awakened.
Halvor showed the pastor the skin of an elk, which had been shot in the woods on the Ingmar Farm. The skin was then spread out upon the floor. The pastor declared that he had never seen a larger or more beautiful hide. Then Karin went up to Halvor and whispered in his ear. Immediately Halvor turned to the clergyman, and asked him to accept the skin as a gift.
Karin bustled back and forth, between the table and the cupboard, and brought out some choice old silverware. She had spread a fine hemst.i.tched cloth on the table, which she was dressing as if for a grand party. She poured milk and unfermented beer into huge silver jugs.
When they had finished supper, the pastor excused himself, and rose to go. Halvor Halvorsson and two of his hired men went with him to open a way through the drifts, steadying the sledge whenever it was about to upset, and never leaving him till he was safe within his own dooryard.
The parson was thinking how pleasant it was to renew old friendships, as he bade Halvor a hearty good-bye. Halvor stood feeling for something in his pocket. Presently he pulled out a slip of folded paper. He wondered whether the pastor would mind taking it now. It was an announcement which was to be read after the service in the morning. If the pastor would be good enough to take it, it would save him the bother of sending it to the church by a special messenger.
When the pastor had gone inside, he lighted the lamp, unfolded the paper, and read:
"In consequence of the owner"s contemplated removal to Jerusalem, the Ingmar Farm is offered for sale--"
He read no farther. "Well, well, so now it has come upon us," he murmured, as if speaking of a storm. "This is what I"ve been expecting for many a long year!"
HoK MATTS ERICSSON
It was a beautiful day in spring. A peasant and his son were on their way to the great ironworks, which are situated close to the southern boundary of the parish. As they lived up at the north end, they had to traverse almost the entire length of the parish. They went past newly sown fields, where the grain was just beginning to spring up. They saw all the green rye fields and all the fine meadows, where the clover would soon be reddening and sending forth its sweet fragrance.
They also walked past a number of houses which were being repainted, and fitted up with new windows and gla.s.s-enclosed verandas, and past gardens where spading and planting were going on. All whom they met along the way had muddy shoes and grimy hands from working in fields and vegetable gardens, where they had been planting potatoes, setting out cabbages, and sowing turnips and carrots.
The peasant simply had to stop and ask them what kind of potatoes they were planting and just when they had sown their oats. At sight of a calf or a foal, he at once began to figure out how old it was.
He calculated the number of cows they would be likely to keep at such and such a farm, and wondered how much this or that colt would fetch when broken.
The son tried time after time to turn his father"s thought away from such things. "I"m thinking that you and I will soon be wandering through the valley of Sharon and the desert of Judea," he said.
The father smiled, and his face brightened for a moment. "It will indeed be a blessed privilege to walk in the footsteps of our dear Lord Jesus," he answered. But the next minute, on seeing a couple of cartloads of quicklime, his thoughts were diverted. "I say, Gabriel, who do you suppose is hauling lime? Folks say that lime as a fertilizer makes a rich crop. That will be something to feast your eyes on in the fall."
"In the fall, father!" said the son reprovingly.
"Yes, I know," returned the farmer, "that by fall I shall be dwelling in the tents of Jacob and labouring in the Lord"s vineyard."
"Amen!" cried the son. "So be it. Amen!"
Then they walked on in silence for a s.p.a.ce, watching the signs of spring. Water trickled in the ditches, and the road itself was badly broken up from the spring rains. Whichever way they looked there was work to be done. Every one wanted to turn to and help, even when crossing some field other than his own.
"To tell the truth," said the farmer thoughtfully, "I wish I had sold my property some fall, when the work was over. It"s hard having to leave it all in the springtime, just when you"d like to take hold with might and main."
The son only shrugged; he knew that he would have to let the old man talk.
"It"s just thirty-one years now since I, as a young man, bought a piece of waste land on the north side of this parish," said the farmer. "The ground had never been touched by a spade. Half of it was bog, the other half a ma.s.s of stones. It looked pretty bad. On that very land I worked like a slave, digging up stones until my back was ready to break. But I think I laboured even harder with the swamp, before I finally got it drained and filled in."
"Yes, you have certainly worked hard, father," the son admitted.
"This is why G.o.d thinks of you, and summons you to His Holy Land."
"At first," the farmer went on, "I lived in a hovel that wasn"t much better than a charcoaler"s hut. It was made of unstripped logs, with only sod for a roof. I could never make that but water tight; so the rains always came in. It was mighty uncomfortable, especially at night. The cow and the horse fared no better than I; the whole of the first winter they were housed in a mud cave that was as dark as a cellar."
"Father, how can you be so attached to a place where you have suffered such hardships?"
"But only think of the joy of it when I was able to build a big barn for the animals, and when year by year my livestock increased so that I was always having to add new extensions for housing them.
If I were not going to sell the place now, I should have to put a new roof on the barn. This would have been just the time to do it-- as soon as I"d finished with the sowing."
"Father, you are to do your sowing in that land where some seeds fall among thorns, some on stony ground, some by the wayside, and some on good ground."
"And the old cottage," the farmer pursued, "which I built after the first hut, I had thought of pulling down this year, to put up a fine new dwelling house. What"s to be done now with all the timber that we two hauled home in the winter? It was mighty tough work getting it down. The horses were hard driven, and so were we."
The son began to feel troubled. He thought his father was slipping away from him. He feared that the old man was not going to offer his property to the Lord in the right spirit. "Well," he argued, "but what are new houses and barns as compared with the blessed privilege of living a pure life among people who are of one mind?"
"Hallelujah!" cried the father. "Don"t you suppose I know that a wonderful portion has been allotted to us? Am I not on my way to the works to sell my property to the Company? When I come back this way everything will be gone, and I shall have nothing I can call mine."
The son did not reply, but he was pleased to hear that his father still held to his decision.
Presently they came to a farm beautifully situated on a hill. There was a white-painted dwelling house, with a balcony and a veranda, and round the house were tall poplars whose pretty silvery stems were swollen with sap.
"Look!" said the farmer. "That was just the sort of house I meant to have--with a veranda and a balcony and a lot of ornamental woodwork, and with just such a well-mown lawn in front. Wouldn"t that have been nice, Gabriel?"
As the son said nothing, the farmer concluded that he must be tired of hearing about the farm, so he, too, lapsed into silence although his thoughts were still upon his home. He wondered how the horses would fare with their new owners, and how things in general would be run on the place. "My goodness!" he muttered under his breath, "I"m surely doing a foolish thing in selling out to a corporation!
They"ll go and cut down all the trees, and let the farm go to waste. It would be just like them to allow the land to become marshy again, and to let the birch woods grow down into the fields."
They had at last reached the works, where the farmer"s interest was again roused. There he saw ploughs and harrows of the latest pattern, and was suddenly reminded that for a long time he had been thinking of getting a new reaper. Gazing fondly at his good-looking son, he pictured him sitting on a fine, red-painted reaper, cracking his whip over the horses, and mowing down the thick, waving gra.s.s, as a war hero mows down his enemies. And as he stepped into the office he seemed to hear the clicking noise of the reaper, the soft swish of falling gra.s.s and the shrill chirp and light flutter of frightened birds and insects.
On the desk in there lay the deed. The negotiations had been concluded, and the price settled upon; all that was needed to complete the deal was his signature.
While the deed was being read to him he sat quietly listening. He heard that there were so and so many acres of woodland, and so and so many of arable land and meadow, so and so many head of cattle, and such and such household furnishings, all of which he must turn over. His features became set.
"No," he said to himself, "it mustn"t happen."
After the reading he was about to say that he had changed his mind, when his son bent down and whispered to him:
"Father, it"s a choice between me and the farm, for I"m going anyway no matter what you do."