The peasant had been so completely taken up with thoughts of his farm that it had not occurred to him that his son would leave him.

So Gabriel would go in any case! He could not quite make this out.

He would never have thought of leaving had his son decided to remain at home. But, naturally, wherever his son went, he, too, must go.

He stepped up to the desk, where the deed was now spread out for him to sign. The manager himself handed him the pen, and pointed to the place where he was to write his name.

"Here," he said, "here's where you write your name in full--'Hok Matts Ericsson.'"

When he took the pen it flashed across his mind how, thirty-one years back, he had signed a deed whereby he had acquired a bit of barren land. He remembered that after writing his name, he had gone out to inspect his new property. Then this thought had come to him: "See what G.o.d has given you! Here you have work to keep you going a lifetime."

The manager, thinking his hesitancy was due to uncertainty as to where he should write his name, again pointed to the place.

"The name must be written there. Now write 'Hok Matts Ericsson.'"

He put the pen to the paper. "This," he mused, "I write for the sake of my faith and my soul's salvation; for the sake of my dear friends the h.e.l.lgumists, that I may be allowed to live with them in the unity of the spirit, and so as not to be left alone here when they all go."

And he wrote his first name.

"And this," he went on thinking, "I write for the sake of my son Gabriel, so I shan't have to lose the dear, good lad who has always been so kind to his old father, and to let him see that after all he is dearer to me than aught else."

And then he wrote his middle name.

"But this," he thought as he moved the pen for the third time, "why do I write this?" Then, all at once, his hand began to move, as of itself, up and down the page, leaving great black streaks upon the hateful doc.u.ment. "This I do because I'm an old man and must go on tilling the soil--go on plowing and sowing in the place where I have always worked and slaved."

Hok Matts Ericsson looked rather sheepish when he turned to the manager and showed him the paper.

"You'll have to excuse me, sir," he said. "It really was my intention to part with my property, but when it came to the scratch, I couldn't do it."

THE AUCTION

One day in May there was an auction sale at the Ingmar Farm, and what a perfect day it was!--quite as warm as in the summertime. The men had all discarded their long white sheepskin coats and were wearing their short jackets; the women already went about in the loose-sleeved white blouses which belonged with their summer dress.

The schoolmaster's wife was getting ready to attend the auction.

Gertrude did not care to go, and Storm was too busy with his cla.s.s work. When Mother Stina was all ready to start, she opened the door to the schoolroom, and nodded a good-bye to her husband. Storm was then telling the children the story of the destruction of the great city of Nineveh, and the look on his face was so stern and threatening that the poor youngsters were almost frightened to death.

Mother Stina, on her way to the Ingmar Farm, stopped whenever she came to a hawthorn in bloom, or a hillock decked with white, sweet-scented lilies of the valley.

"Where could you find anything lovelier than this," she thought, "even if you were to go as far away as Jerusalem?"

The schoolmaster's wife, like many others, had come to love the old parish more than ever since the h.e.l.lgumists had called it a second Sodom and wanted to abandon it. She plucked a few of the tiny wild flowers that grew by the roadside, and gazed at them almost tenderly. "If we were as bad as they try to make us out,"

she mused, "it would be an easy matter for G.o.d to destroy us. He need only let the cold continue and keep the ground covered with snow. But when our Lord allows the spring and the flowers to return, He must at least think us fit to live."

When Mother Stina finally reached the Ingmar Farm she halted and glanced round timidly. "I think I'll go back," she said to herself.

"I could never standby and see this dear old home broken up." But all the same she was far too curious to find out what was to be done with the farm to turn back.

As soon as it became known that the farm was for sale, Ingmar put in a bid for it. But Ingmar had only about six thousand kroner, and Halvor had already been offered twenty-five thousand by the management of the big Bergsana sawmills and ironworks. Ingmar succeeded in borrowing enough money to enable him to offer an equally large sum. The Company then raised its bid to thirty thousand, which was more than Ingmar dared offer; for he could not think of a.s.suming so heavy a debt. The worst of it was, that not only would the homestead by this means pa.s.s out of the hands of the Ingmars for all time--for the Company was never known to part with anything once it became its property--but moreover it was not likely that it would allow Ingmar to run the sawmill at Langfors Falls, in which case he would be deprived of his living. Then he would have to give up all thought of marrying Gertrude in the fall, as had been planned. It might even be necessary for him to go elsewhere, to seek employment.

When Mother Stina thought of this, she did not feel very pleasantly disposed toward Karin and Halvor. "I hope to goodness that Karin won't come up and speak to me!" she muttered to herself. "For if she does, I'll just have to let her know what I think of her treatment of Ingmar. After all, it's her fault that the farm does not already belong to him. I've been told that they'll need a lot of money for the journey. Just the same it seems mighty strange that Karin can have the heart to sell the old place to a corporation that would cut down all the timber and let the fields go to waste."

There was some one outside the corporation who wished to buy the place; it was the rich district judge, Berger Sven Persson. Mother Stina felt that such an arrangement would be better for Ingmar, as Sven Persson was a generous man, who would surely let him keep the sawmill. "Sven Persson will not forget that he was once a poor goose boy on this farm," she reflected; "and that it was Big Ingmar who first took him in hand and gave him a start in life."

Mother Stina did not go into the house, but remained in the yard, as did most of the people who had come to attend the sale. She sat down on a pile of boards, and began to glance about her very carefully, as one is wont to do when taking a last look at some beloved spot.

Surrounding the farmyard on three sides were ranges of outbuildings, and in the centre was a little storehouse propped on four posts.

Nothing looked particularly old, with the exception of the porch with the carved moulding at the entrance to the dwelling-house, and another one, still older, with stout twisted pillars, at the entrance of the washhouse.

Mother Stina thought of all the old Ingmarssons whose feet had trod the yard. She seemed to see them coming home from their work in the evening, and gathering around the hearth, tall and somewhat bent, always afraid of intruding themselves, or of accepting more than they felt was their due.

And she thought of the industry and honesty which had always been practised on this farm. "It ought never to be allowed!" was her thought as regards the auction. "The king should be told of it!"

Mother Stina took it more to heart than if it had been a question of parting with her own home.

The sale had not yet begun, but a good many people had arrived.

Some had gone into the barns to look over the live stock; others remained out in the yard examining the farm implements placed there for inspection. Mother Stina on seeing a couple of peasant women come out of a cowshed grew indignant. "Just look at Mother Inga and Mother Stava!" she muttered. "Now they've been in and picked out a cow apiece. Think how they'll be going around bragging that they've got a cow of the old breed from the Ingmar Farm!"

When she saw old Crofter Nils trying to choose a plow she smiled a little scornfully.

"Crofter Nils will think himself a real farmer when he can drive a plough that Big Ingmar himself has used."

More and more people kept gathering round the things to be auctioned off. The men looked wonderingly at many of the farming tools, which were of such old-time make that it was difficult to guess what they had been used for. A few spectators had the temerity to laugh at the old sleighs some of which were from ancient times and were gorgeously painted in red and green; and the harnesses that went with them were studded with white sh.e.l.ls, and fringed with ta.s.sels of many colours.

Mother Stina seemed to see the old Ingmarssons driving slowly in these old sleighs, going to a party or coming home from a church wedding, with a bride seated beside them. "Many good people are leaving the parish," she sighed. For to her it was as if all the old Ingmars had gone on living at the farm up to that very day, when their implements and their old carts and sleds were being hawked about.

"I wonder where Ingmar is keeping himself, and how he feels? When it seems so dreadful to me, what must it be for him?"

The weather being so fine, the auctioneer proposed that they carry out all the things that were to go under the hammer, so as to avoid any overcrowding of the rooms. So maids and farm hands carried out boxes and chests, all painted in tulips and roses, Some of them had been standing in the attic, undisturbed, for centuries. They also brought out silver jugs and old-fashioned copper kettles, spinning-wheels and carders, and all kinds of odd-looking weaving appliances. The peasant women gathered around all these old treasures, picking them up and turning them over.

Mother Stina had not intended to buy anything, when she remembered that there was supposed to be a loom here on which could be woven the finest damask, and went up to look for it. Just then a maid came out with a huge Bible, which, with its thick leather bindings and its bra.s.s clasps and mountings, was so heavy that she could hardly carry it.

Mother Stina was as astounded as if some one had struck her in the face; and went back to her seat. She knew, of course, that no one nowadays reads these old Bibles, with their obsolete and antiquated language, but just the same it seemed strange that Karin would want to sell it.

It was perhaps the very Bible the old housewife was reading when they came and told her that her husband, the great-grandfather of young Ingmar, had been killed by a bear. Everything that Mother Stina saw had something to tell her. The old silver buckles lying on the table had been taken from the trolls in Mount Klack by an Ingmar Ingmarsson. In the rickety chaise over yonder the Ingmar Ingmarsson who had lived during her childhood had driven to church.

She remembered that every time he had pa.s.sed by her and her mother on their way to church, the mother had nudged her and said: "Now you must curtsy, Stina, fox here comes Ingmar Ingmarsson."

She used to wonder why it was that her mother always wanted her to curtsy to Ingmar Ingmarsson; she had never been so particular when it came to the judge or the bailiff.

Afterward she was told that when her mother was a little girl and went to church with her mother, the latter had always nudged her and said: 'Now you must curtsy, Stina, for here comes Ingmar Ingmarsson."

"G.o.d knows," sighed Mother Stina, "it's not only because I had expected that Gertrude would some day have been mistress here that I grieve, but it seems to me as if the whole parish were done for."

Just then the pastor came along, looking solemn and depressed. He did not stop an instant, but went straight to the house. Mother Stina surmised that he had come to plead Ingmar's cause with Karin and Halvor.

Shortly after, the manager of the sawmills at Bergsna arrived, and also judge Persson. The manager, who was there in the interest of the corporation, straightway went inside, but Sven Persson walked about in the yard for a while and looked at the things. Presently he stopped in front of a little old man with a big beard, who was sitting on the same pile of boards as Mother Stina.

"I don't suppose you happen to know, Strong Ingmar, whether Ingmar Ingmarsson has decided to buy the timber I offered him?"

"He says no," the old man answered, "but I shouldn't be surprised if he were to change his mind soon." At the same time he winked and jerked his thumb in the direction of Mother Stina, thus cautioning Sven Persson not to let her hear what they were talking about.

"I should think he'd be satisfied to accept my terms," said the Judge. "I don't make these offers everyday; but this I'm doing for Big Ingmar's sake."