She was elated over her success, as can be imagined, and received praise from her mother for being able to provide food for the family, when she was only a little girl of eight. To encourage the child, Katrina let her cleanse and fry the fish. Jan ate of it and declared he had never tasted the like of that fish, which was the plain truth. For the fish was so bony and dry and burnt that the little girl herself could scarcely swallow a morsel of it.
But for all that the little girl was just as enthusiastic over her fishing. She got up every morning at the ionic time that Jan did and hurried off to the brook, a basket on her arm, and carrying in a little tin box the worms to bait her hooks. Thus equipped, she went off to the brook, which came gushing down the rocky steep in numerous falls and rapids, between which were short stretches of dark still water and places where the stream ran, clear and transparent, over a bed of sand and smooth stones.
Think of it! After the first week she had no luck with the fishing. The worms were gone from all the hooks, but no fish had fastened there. She shifted her tackle from rapid to still water, from still water to rippling falls, and she changed her hooks—but with no better results.
She asked the boys at Börje's and at Eric's if they were not the ones who got up with the lark and carried off her fish. But a question like that the boys would not deign to answer. For no boy would stoop to take fish from the brook, when he had the whole of Dove Lake to fish in. It was all right for little girls, who were not allowed to go down to the lake, to run about hunting fish in the woods, they said.
Despite the superior airs of the boys, the little girl only half-believed them. "Surely someone must take the fish off my hooks!" she said to herself. Hers were real hooks, too, and not just bent pins. And in order to satisfy herself she arose one morning before Jan or Katrina were awake, and ran over to the brook. When near to the stream she slackened her pace, taking very short cautious steps so as not to slip on the stones or to rustle the bushes. Then, all at once her, whole body became numb. For at the edge of the brook, on the very spot where she had set out her poles the morning before, stood a fish thief tampering with her lines. It was not one of the boys, as she had supposed, but a grown man, who was just then bending over the water, drawing up a fish.
Little Glory Goldie was never afraid. She rushed right up to the thief and caught him in the act.
"So you're the one who comes here and takes my fish!" she said. "It's a good thing I've run across you at last so we can put a stop to this stealing."
The man then raised his head, and now Glory Goldie saw his face. It was the old seine-maker, who was one of their neighbours.
"Yes, I know this is your tackle," the man admitted, without getting angry or excited, as most folks do when taken to task for wrongdoing.
"But how can you take what isn't yours?" asked the puzzled youngster.
The man looked straight at her; she never forgot that look; she seemed to be peering into two open and empty caverns at the back of which were a pair of half-dead eyes, beyond reflecting either joy or grief.
"Well, you see, I'm aware that you get what you require from your parents and that you fish only for the fun of it, while at my home we are starving."
The little girl flushed. Now she felt ashamed.
The seine-maker said nothing further, but picked up his cap (it had dropped from his head while he was bending over the fishing-poles) and went his way. Nor did Glory Goldie speak. A couple of fish lay floundering on the ground, but she did not take them up; when she had stood a while looking at them, she kicked them back into the water.
All that day the little girl felt displeased with herself, without knowing why. For indeed it was not she who had done wrong. She could not get the seine-maker out of her thoughts. The old man was said to have been rich at one time; he had once owned seven big farmsteads, each in itself worth as much as Eric of Falla's farm. But in some unaccountable way he had disposed of his property and was now quite penniless.
However, the next morning Glory Goldie went over to the brook the same as usual. This time no one had touched her hooks, for now there was a fish at the end of every line. She released the fishes from the hooks and laid them in her basket; but instead of going home with her catch she went straight to the seine-maker's cabin.
When the little girl came along with her basket the old man was out in the yard, cutting wood. She stood at the stile a moment, watching him, before stepping over. He looked pitifully poor and ragged. Even her father had never appeared so shabby.
The little girl had heard that some well-do-to people had offered the seine-maker a home for life, but in preference he had gone to live with his daughter-in-law, who made her home here in the Ashdales, so as to help her in any way that he could; she had many children, and her husband, who had deserted her, was now supposed to be dead.
"To-day there was fish on the hooks!" shouted the little girl from the stile.
"You don't tell me!" said the seine-maker. "But that was well."
"I'll gladly give you all the fish I catch," she told him, "if I'm only allowed to do the fishing myself." So saying, she went up to the seine-maker and emptied the contents of her basket on the ground, expecting of course that he would be pleased and would praise her, just as her father—who was always pleased with everything she said or did—had always done. But the seine maker took this attention with his usual calm indifference.
"You keep what's yours," he said. "We're so used to going hungry here that we can get on without your few little fishes."
There was something out of the common about this poor old man and
Glory Goldie was anxious to win his approval.
"You may take the fish of and stick the worms on the hooks, if you like," said she, "and you can have all the tackle and everything."
"Thanks," returned the old man. "But I'll not deprive you of your pleasure."
Glory Goldie was determined not to go until she had thought out a way of satisfying him.
"Would you like me to come and call for you every morning," she asked him, "so that we could draw up the lines together and divide the catch—you to get half, and I half?"
Then the old man stopped chopping and rested on his axe. He turned his strange, half-dead eyes toward the child, and the shadow of a smile crossed his face.
"Ah, now you put out the right bait!" he said. "That proposition
I'll not say no to."
AGRIPPA
The little girl was certainly a marvel! When she was only ten years old she could manage even Agrippa Prästberg, the sight of whom was enough to scare almost any one out of his wits.
Agrippa had yellow red-lidded eyes, topped with bushy eyebrows, a frightful nose, and a wiry beard that stood out from his face like raised bristles. His forehead was covered with deep wrinkles and his figure was tall and ungainly. He always wore a ragged military cap.
One day when the little girl sat all by herself on the flat stone in front of the hut, eating her evening meal of buttered bread, she espied a tall man coming down the lane whom she soon recognized as Agrippa Prästberg. However, she kept her wits about her, and at once broke and doubled her slice of bread buttered side in—then slipped it under her apron.
She did not attempt to run away or to lock up the house, knowing that that would be useless with a man of his sort; but kept her seat. All she did was to pick up an unfinished stocking Katrina had left lying on the stone when starting out with Jan's supper a while ago, and go to knitting for dear life.
She sat there as if quite calm and content, but with one eye on the gate. No, indeed, there was not a doubt about it—Agrippa intended to pay them a visit, for just then he lifted the gate latch.
The little girl moved farther back on the stone and spread out her skirt. She saw now that she would have to guard the house.
Glory Goldie knew, to be sure, that Agrippa Prästberg was not the kind of man who would steal, and he never struck any one unless they called him Grippie, or offered him buttered bread, nor did he stop long at a place where folk had the good luck not to have a Darlecarlian clock in the house.
Agrippa went about in the parish "doctoring" clocks, and once he set foot in a house where there was a tall, old-fashioned chimney clock he could not rest until he had removed the works, to see if there was anything wrong with them. And he never failed to find flaws which necessitated his taking the whole clock apart. That meant he would be days putting it together again. Meantime, one had to house and feed him.
The worst of it was that if Agrippa once got his hands on a clock it would never run as well as before, and afterward one had to let him tinker it at least once a year, or it would stop going altogether. The old man tried to do honest and conscientious work, but just the name he ruined all the clocks he touched.
Therefore it was best never to let him fool with one's clock. That
Glory Goldie knew, of course, but she saw no way of saving the
Dalecarlian timepiece, which was ticking away inside the hut.
Agrippa knew of the clock being there and had long watched for an opportunity to get at it, but at other times when he was seen thereabout, Katrina had been at home to keep him at a safe distance.
When the old man came up he stopped right in front of the little girl, struck the ground with his stick, and rattled off:
"Here comes Johan Utter Agrippa Prästberg, drummer-boy to His Royal Highness and the Crown! I have faced shot and shell and fear neither angels nor devils. Anybody home?"
Glory Goldie did not have to reply, for he strode past her into the house and went straight over to the big Dalecarlian clock.
The girl ran in after him and tried to tell him what a good clock it was, that it ran neither too fast nor too slow and needed no mending.
"How can a clock run well that has not been regulated by Johan
Utter Agrippa Prästberg!" the old man roared.
He was so tall he could open the clock-case without having to stand on a chair. In a twinkling he removed the face and the works and placed them on the table. Glory Goldie clenched the hand under her apron, and tears came to her eyes; but what could she do to stop him?
Agrippa was in a fever of a hurry to find out what ailed the clock, before Jan or Katrina could get back and tell him it needed no repairing. He had brought with him a small bundle, containing work-tools and grease jars, which he tore open with such haste that half its contents fell to the floor.
Glory Goldie was told to pick up everything that had dropped. And any one who has seen Agrippa Prästberg must know she would not have dared do anything but obey him. She got down on all fours and handed him a tiny saw and a mallet.
"Anything more!" he bellowed. "Be glad you're allowed to serve His
Majesty's and the Kingdom's drummer-boy, you confounded crofter-brat!"
"No, not that I see," replied the little girl meekly. Never had she felt so crushed and unhappy. She was to look after the house for her mother and father, and now this had to happen!
"But the spectacles?" snapped Agrippa. "They must have dropped, too?"
"No," said the girl, "there are no spectacles here." Suddenly a faint hope sprang up in her. What if he couldn't do anything to the clock without his glasses? What if they should be lost? And just then her eye lit on the spectacle-case, behind a leg of the table.
The old man rummaged and searched among the cog-wheels and springs in his bundle. "I don't see but I'll have to get down on the floor myself, and hunt," he said presently. "Get up, crofter-brat!"
Quick as a flash the little girl's hand shot out and closed over the spectacle-case, which she hid under her apron.
"Up with you!" thundered Agrippa. "I believe you're lying to me.
What are you hiding under your apron? Come! Out with it!"
She promptly drew out one hand. The other hand she had kept under her apron the whole time. Now she had to show that one, too. Then he saw the buttered bread.
"Ugh! It's buttered bread!" Agrippa shrank back as if the girl were holding out a rattlesnake.
"I sat eating it when you came, and then I put it out of sight for,
I know you don't like butter."
The old man got down on his hands and knees and began to search, but to no purpose, of course.
"You must have left them where you were last," said Glory Goldie.
He had wondered about that himself, though he thought it unlikely.
At all events he could do nothing to the clock without his glasses.
He had no choice but to gather up his tools and replace the works
in the clock-case.
While his back was turned the little girl slipped the spectacles into his bundle, where he found them when he got to Lövdala Manor— the last place he had been to before coming to Ruffluck Croft. On opening the bundle to show they were not there, the first object that caught his eye was the spectacle-case.
Next time he saw Jan and Katrina in the pine grove outside the church, he went up to them.
"That girl of yours, that handy little girl of yours is going to be a comfort to you," he told them.
FORBIDDEN FRUIT
There were many who said to Jan of Ruffluck that his little girl would be a comfort to him when she was grown. Folks did not seem to understand that she already made him happy every day and every hour that God granted them. Only once in the whole time of her growing period did Jan have to suffer any annoyance or humiliation on her account.
The summer the little girl was eleven her father took her to Lövdala Manor on the seventeenth of August, which was the birthday of the lord of the manor, Lieutenant Liljecrona.
The seventeenth of August was always a day of rejoicing that was looked forward to all the year by every one in Svartsjö and in Bro, not only by the gentry, who participated in all the festivities, but also by the young folk of the peasantry, who came in crowds to Lövdala to look at the smartly dressed people and to listen to the singing and the dance music.
There was something else, too, that attracted the young people to Lövdala on the seventeenth of August, and that was all the fruit that was to be found in the orchard at that time. To be sure, the children had been taught strict honesty in most matters, but when it came to a question of such things as hang on bushes and trees, out in the open, they felt at liberty to take as much as they wanted, just so they were careful not to be caught at it.
When Jan came into the orchard with his Glory Goldie he noticed how the little girl opened her eyes when she saw all the fine apple trees, laden with big round greenings. And Jan would not have denied her the pleasure of tasting of the fruit had he not seen Superintendent Söderlind and two other men walking about in the orchard, on the lookout for trespassers.
He hurried Glory Goldie over to the lawn in front of the manor-house, out of temptation's way. It was plain that her thoughts were still on the apple trees and the gooseberry bushes, for she never even glanced at the prettily dressed children of the upper class or at the beautiful flowers. Jan could not get her to listen to the fine speeches delivered by the Dean of Bro and Engineer Boraeus of Borg, in honour of the day. Why she would not even listen to Sexton Blackie's congratulatory poem!
Anders Öster's clarinet could be heard from the house. It was playing such lively dance music just then that folks were hardly able to hold themselves still, but the little girl only tried to find a pretext for getting back to the orchard.
Jan kept a firm grip on her hand all the while and no matter what excuse she would hit upon to break away, he never relaxed his hold. Everything went smoothly for him until evening, when dusk fell.
Then coloured lanterns were brought out and set in the flower beds and hung in the trees and in among the clinging ivy that covered the house wall. It was such a pretty sight that Jan, who had never before seen anything of that kind, quite lost his head and hardly knew whether he was still on earth; but just the same he did not let go of the little hand.
When the lanterns had been lighted, Anders Öster and his nephew and the village shopkeeper and his brother-in-law struck up a song. While they sang the air seemed to vibrate with a strange sort of rapture that took away all sadness and depression. It came so softly and caressingly on the balmy night air that Jan just gave up to it, as did every one else. All were glad to be alive; glad they had so beautiful a world to live in.
"This must be the way folks feel who live in Paradise," said a youth, looking very solemn.
After the singing there were fireworks, and when the rockets went up into the indigo night-sky and broke into showers of red, blue, and yellow stars, Jan was so carried away that for the moment he forgot about Glory Goldie. When he came back to himself she was gone.
"It can't be helped now," thought Jan. "I only hope all will go well with her, as usual, and that Superintendent Söderlind or any of the other watchers won't lay hands on her."
It would have been futile for Jan to try to find her out in the big, dark orchard: he knew that the sensible thing for him to do was to remain where he was, and wait for her. And he did not have to wait very long! There was one more song; the last strains had hardly died away when he saw Superintendent Söderlind come up, with Glory Goldie in his arms.
Lieutenant Liljecrona was standing with a little group of gentlemen at the top of the steps, listening to the singing, when Superintendent Söderlind stopped in front of him and set the little girl down on the ground.
Glory Goldie did not scream or try to run away. She had picked her apron full of apples and thought of nothing save to hold it up securely, so that none of the apples would roll out.
"This youngster has been up in an apple tree," said Superintendent
Söderlind, "and your orders were that if I caught any apple thieves
I was to bring them to you."
Lieutenant Liljecrona glanced down at the little girl, and the fine wrinkles round his eyes began to twitch. It was impossible to tell whether he was going to laugh or cry in a second. He had intended to administer a sharp reprimand to the one who had stolen his apples. But now when he saw the little girl tighten her hands round her apron, he felt sorry for her. Only he was puzzled to know how he should manage this thing so that she could keep her apples; for if he were to let her off without further ado, it might result in his having his whole orchard stripped.
"So you've been up in the apple trees, have you?" said the lieutenant. "You have gone to school and read about Adam and Eve, so you ought to know how dangerous it is to steal apples."
At that moment Jan came forward and placed himself beside his daughter; he felt quite put out with her for having spoiled his pleasure, but of course he had to stand by her.
"Don't do anything to the little girl, Lieutenant!" he said. "For it was I who gave her leave to climb the tree for the apples."
Glory Goldie sent her father a withering glance, and broke her silence. "That isn't true," she declared. "I wanted the apples. Father has been standing here the whole evening holding onto my hand so I shouldn't go pick any."
Now the lieutenant was tickled. "Good for you, my girl!" said he. "You did right in not letting your father shoulder the blame. I suppose you know that when Our Lord was so angry at Adam and Eve it wasn't because they had stolen an apple, but because they were cowards and tried to shift the blame, the one onto the other. You may go now, and you can keep your apples because you were not afraid to tell the truth."
With that he turned to one of his sons, and said:
"Give Jan a glass of punch. We must drink to him because his girl spoke up for herself better than old Mother Eve. It would have been well for us all if Glory Goldie had been in the Garden of Eden instead of Eve."
BOOK TWO
LARS GUNNARSON
One cold winter day Eric of Falla and Jan were up in the forest cutting down trees. They had just sawed through the trunk of a big spruce, and stepped aside so as not to be caught under its branches when it came crashing to the ground.
"Look out, Boss!" warned Jan. "It's coming your way."
There was plenty of time for Eric to have escaped while the spruce still swayed; but he had felled so many trees in his lifetime that he thought he ought to know more about this than Jan did, and stood still. The next moment he lay upon the ground with the tree on top of him. He had not uttered a sound when the tree caught him and now he was completely hidden by the thick spruce branches.
Jan stood looking round not knowing what had become of his employer. Presently he heard the old familiar voice he had always obeyed; but it sounded so feeble he could hardly make out what it was saying.
"Go get a team and some men to take me home," said the voice.
"Shan't I help you from under first?" asked Jan.
"Do as I tell you!" said Eric of Falla.
Jan, knowing his employer to be a man who always demanded prompt obedience, said nothing further but hurried back to Falla as fast as he could. The farm was some distance away, so that it took time to get there.
On arriving, the first person Jan came upon was Lars Gunnarson, the husband of Eric's eldest daughter and prospective master of Falla, which he was destined to take over upon the decease of the present owner.
When Lars Gunnarson had received his instructions he ordered Jan to go straight to the house and tell the mistress of what had occurred; then he was to call the hired boy. Meantime Lars himself would run down to the barn and harness a horse.
"Perhaps I needn't be so very particular about telling the womenfolk just yet?" said Jan. "For if they once start crying and fretting it will only mean delay. Eric's voice sounded so weak from where he lay that I think we'd best hurry along."
But Lars Gunnarson, since coming to the farm, had made it a point to assert his authority. He would no more take back an order once given than would his father-in-law.
"Go into mother at once!" he commanded. "Can't you understand that she must get the bed ready so we'll have some place to put him when we come back with him?"
Then of course Jan was obliged to go inside and notify the mistress. Try as he would to make short work of it, it took time to relate what had happened and how it had happened.
When Jan returned to the yard he heard Lars thundering and swearing in the stable. Lars was a poor hand with animals. The horses would kick if he went anywhere near them and he had not been able to get one of the beasts out of its stall the whole time that Jan had been inside talking with the housewife.
It would not have been well for Jan had he offered to help Lars. Knowing this he went immediately on his other errand, and fetched the hired boy. He thought it mighty strange that Lars had not told him to speak to Börje, who was threshing in the barn close by, instead of sending him after the hired boy, who was at work out in the birch-grove, a good way from the farmyard.
And while Jan ran these needless errands, the faint voice under the spruce branches rang in his ears. The voice was not so imperative now, but it begged and implored him to hasten. "I'm coming, I'm coming!" Jan whispered back. He had the sensation of one in a nightmare who tries to run but who cannot take a step.
Lars had at last managed to get a horse into the shafts. Then the womenfolk came and told him to be sure to take along straw and blankets. This was all very well, but it meant still further delay.
Finally Lars and Jan and the hired boy drove away from the farm.
But they had got no farther than to the edge of the forest, when
Lars stopped the horse.
"One gets sort of rattled when one receives news of this kind," said he. "I never thought of it till just now—but Börje is back at the barn."
"It would have been well to have taken him along," said Jan, "for he's twice as strong as any of us."
Then Lars sent the hired boy back to the farm to get Börje; which meant a long wait.
While Jan sat in the sledge, powerless to act, he felt as though within him opened a big, empty ice-cold void. It was the awful certainty that they would be too late!
Then at last came Börje and the boy, all out of breath from running, and now they drove on into the woods. They went very slowly, though, for Lars had harnessed the old spavined bay to the sledge. What he had said about his being rattled must have been true, for all at once he wanted to turn in on the wrong road.
"If you go in that direction, we'll come to Great Peak," Jan told him; "and we must get to the woods beyond Loby."
"Yes, I know," returned Lars, "but farther up there's a crossroad where it's better driving."
"What road might that be? I've never seen it."
"Wait, and I'll show you," said Lars, determined to continue up the mountain.
Now Börje sided with Jan, so Lars had to give in of course; but precious time had been consumed while they argued with him, and Jan felt as if all the life had gone out of his body.
"Nothing matters now," thought he. "Eric of Falla will be beyond our help when we arrive."
The old bay jogged along the forest road as well as it could, but it had not the strength for a heavy pull like this. It was poorly shod, and stumbled time after time. When going uphill the men had to get down from the sledge and walk, and when they came upon trackless unbeaten ground in the thick of the forest the horse was almost more of a hindrance than a help.
At all events they got there finally. Strange to say, they found Eric of Falla in fairly good condition; he was not much hurt and no bones were broken. One of his thighs had been lacerated by a branch, and there he had an ugly wound; still it was nothing but what he could recover from.
When Jan went back to his work the next morning he learned that Eric had a high fever and was suffering intense pain. While lying on the frozen ground he had caught a severe cold, which developed into pneumonia, and within a fortnight he was dead.
THE RED DRESS
The summer the young girl was in her seventeenth year she went to church one Sunday with her parents. On the way she had worn a shawl, which she slipped off when she came to the church knoll. Then everybody noticed that she was wearing a dress such as had never before been seen in the parish.
A travelling merchant, one of the kind that goes about with a huge pack on his back, had found his way to the Ashdales, and on seeing Glory Goldie in all the glow and freshness of her youth he had taken from his pack a piece of dress goods which he tried to induce her parents to buy for her. The cloth was a changeable red, of a texture almost like satin and as costly as it was beautiful. Of course Jan and Katrina could not afford to buy for their girl a dress of that sort, though Jan, at least, would have liked nothing better.
Fancy! When the merchant had vainly pressed and begged the parents for a long while he grew terribly excited because he could not have his way. He said he had set his heart on their daughter having the dress, that he had not seen another girl in the whole parish who would set it off as well as she could. Whereupon he had measured and cut off as much of the cloth as was needed for a frock, and presented it to Glory Goldie. He did not want any payment, all he asked was to see the young girl dressed in the red frock the next time he came to Ruffluck.
Afterward the frock was made up by the best seamstress in the parish, the one who sewed for the young ladies at Lövdala Manor, and when Glory Goldie tried it on the effect was so perfect that one would have thought the two had blossomed together on one of the lovely wild briar bushes out in the forest.
The Sunday Glory Goldie showed herself at church in her new dress, nothing could have kept Jan and Katrina at home, so curious were they to hear what folks would say.
And it turned out, as has been said, that everybody noticed the red dress. When the astonished folk had looked at it once they turned and looked again; the second time, however, they glanced not only at the dress but at the young girl who wore it.
Some had already heard the story of the dress. Others wanted to know how it happened that a poor cotter's lass stood there in such fine raiment. Then of course Katrina and Jan had to tell them all about the travelling merchant's visit, and when they learned how it had come about they were all glad that Fortuna had thought of taking a little peep into the humble home down in the Ashdales.
There were sons of landed proprietors who declared that if this girl had been of less humble origin they would have proposed to her then and there. And there were daughters of landed proprietors—some of them heiresses—who said to themselves that they would have given half of their possessions for a face as rosy and young and radiant with health as hers.
That Sunday the Dean of Bro preached at the Svartsjö church, instead of the regular pastor. The dean was an austere, old fashioned divine who could not abide extravagance in any form, whether in dress or other things.
Seeing the young girl in the bright red frock he must have thought she was arrayed in silk, for immediately after the service he told the sexton to call the girl and her parents, as he wished to speak with them. Even he noticed that the girl and the dress went well together, but for all that he was none the less displeased.
"My child," he said, laying his hand on Glory Goldie's shoulder, "I have something I want to say to you. Nobody could prevent me from wearing the vestments of a bishop, if I so wished; but I never do it because I don't want to appear to be something more than what I am. For the same reason you should not dress as though you were a young lady of quality, when you are only the daughter of a poor crofter."
These were cutting words, and poor Glory Goldie was so dismayed she could not answer. But Katrina promptly informed him that the girl had received the cloth as a gift.
"Be that as it may," spoke the dean. "But parents, can't you comprehend that if you allow your daughter to array herself once or twice in this fashion she will never again want to put on the kind of clothes you are able to provide for her?"
Now that the dean had spoken his mind in plain words he turned away; but before he was out of earshot Jan was ready with a retort.
"If this little girl could be clothed as befits her, she would be as gorgeous as the sun itself," said he. "For a sunbeam of joy she has been to us since the day she was born."
The dean came back and regarded the trio thoughtfully. Both Katrina and Jan looked old and toil worn, but the eyes in their furrowed faces shone when they turned them toward the radiant young being standing between them.
Then the dean felt it would be a shame to mar the happiness of these two old people. Addressing himself to the young girl, he said in a mild voice:
"If it is true that you have been a light and a comfort to your poor parents, then you may well wear your fine dress with a good grace. For a child that can bring happiness to her father and mother is the best sight that our eyes may look upon."
THE NEW MASTER
When the Ruffluck family came home from church the Sunday the dean had spoken so beautifully to Glory Goldie they found two men perched on their fence, close to the gate. One of the men was Lars Gunnarson, who had become master of Falla after Eric's death, the other was a clerk from the store down at Broby, where Katrina bought her coffee and sugar.
They looked so indifferent and unconcerned sitting there that Jan could hardly think they wanted to see him; so he simply raised his cap as he went past them into the house, without speaking.
The men remained where they were. Jan wished they would go sit where he could not see them. He knew that Lars had harboured a grudge against him since that ill-fated day in the forest and had hinted more than once that Jan was getting old and would not be worth his day's wage much longer.
Katrina brought on the midday meal, which was hurriedly eaten. Lars Gunnarson and the clerk still sat on the fence, laughing and chatting. They reminded Jan of a pair of hawks biding their time to swoop down upon helpless prey. Finally the men got down off the fence, opened the gate, and went toward the house.
Then, after all, they had come to see him!
Jan had a strong presentment that they wished him ill. He glanced anxiously about, as if to find some corner where he might hide. Then his eyes fell on Glory Goldie, who also sat looking out through the window, and instantly his courage came back.
Why should he be afraid when he had a daughter like her? he thought. Glory Goldie was wise and resourceful, and afraid of nothing. Luck was always on her side, so that Lars Gunnarson would find it far from easy to get the best of her!
When the two men came in they seemed as unconcerned as before. Yet Lars said that after sitting so long on the fence looking at the pretty little house they had finally taken a notion to step inside.
They lavished praises upon everything in the house and Lars remarked that Jan and Katrina had reason to feel very thankful to Eric of Falla; for of course it was he who had made it possible for them to build a home and to marry.
"That reminds me," he said quickly, looking away from Jan and Katrina. "I suppose Eric of Falla had the foresight to give you a deed to the land on which the hut stands?"
Neither Jan nor Katrina said a word. Instantly they knew that Lars had now come to the matter he wanted to discuss with them.
"I understand there are no papers in existence," continued Lars, "but I can't believe it is so bad as all that. For in that event the house would fall to the owner of the land."
Still Jan said nothing, but Katrina was too indignant to keep silent any longer.
"Eric of Falla gave us the lot on which this house stands," she said, "and no one has the right to take it away from us!"
"And no one has any intention of doing so," said the new owner in a pacifying tone. He only wanted to have everything regular, that was all. If Jan could let him have a hundred rix-dollars by October fairtime—
"A hundred rix-dollars!" Katrina broke in, her voice rising almost to a shriek.
Lars drew his head back and tightened his lips.
"And you, Jan, you don't say a word!" said Katrina reproachfully. "Don't you hear that Lars wants to squeeze from us one hundred rix-dollars?"
"It won't be so easy, perhaps, for Jan to come up with one hundred rix-dollars," returned Lars Gunnarson, "but just the same I've got to know what's mine."
"And so you're going to steal our hut?"
"Nothing of the kind!" said Lars. "The hut is yours. It's the land
I'm after."
"Then we can move the hut off of your land," said Katrina.
"It would hardly be worth your while to go to the bother of moving something you'll not be able to keep."
"Well, I never!" gasped Katrina. "Then you really do mean to lay hands on our property?"
Lars Gunnarson made a gesture of protest.
No, of course he did not want to put a lien on the house, not he! Had he not already told them as much? But it so happened that the storekeeper at Broby had sent his clerk with some accounts that had not been settled.
The clerk now produced the bills and laid them on the table. Katrina pushed them over to Glory Goldie and told her to figure up the total amount due.
It was no less than one hundred rix-dollars that they owed!
Katrina went white as a sheet. "I see that you mean to turn us out of house and home," she said, faintly.
"Oh, no," answered Lars, "not if you pay what you owe."
"You ought to think of your own parents, Lars," Katrina reminded him. "They, too, had their struggles before you became the son-in-law of a rich farmer."
Katrina had to do all the talking, as Jan would not say anything; he only sat and looked at Glory Goldie—looked and waited. To his mind this affair was just something that had been planned for her special benefit, that she might prove her worth.
"When you take the hut away from the poor man he's done for," wailed Katrina.
"I don't want to take the hut," said Lars Gunnarson, on the defensive. "All I want is a settlement."
But Katrina was not listening. "As long as the poor man has his home he's as good as anybody else, but the homeless man knows he's nobody."
Jan felt that Katrina was right. The hut was built of old lumber and stood aslant on a poor foundation. Small and cramped it certainly was, but just the same it seemed as if all would be over for them if they lost it. Jan, for his part, could not think for a second it would be as bad as that. Was not his Glory Goldie there? And could he not see how her eyes were beginning to flash fire? In a little while she would say something or do something that would drive these tormentors away.
"Of course you've got to have time to think it over," said the new owner. "But bear in mind that either you move on the first of October or you pay the storekeeper at Broby the one hundred rix-dollars you owe him on or before that date. Besides, I must have another hundred for the land."
Old Katrina sat wringing her toil-gnarled hands. She was so wrought up that she talked to herself, not caring who heard her.
"How can I go to church and how can I be seen among people when I'm so poor I haven't even a hut to live in?"
Jan was thinking of something else. He called to mind all the beautiful memories associated with the hut. It was here, near the table, the midwife had laid the child in his arms. It was over there, in the doorway, he had stood when the sun peeped out through the clouds to name the little girl. The hut was one with himself; with Katrina; with Glory Goldie. It could never be lost to them.
He saw Glory Goldie clench her fist, and felt that she would come to their aid very soon.
Presently Lars Gunnarson and the shopkeeper's clerk got up and moved toward the door. When they left they said "good-bye," but not one of the three who remained in the hut rose or returned the salutation.
The moment the men were gone the young girl, with a proud toss of her head, sprang to her feet.
"If you would only let me go out in the world!" she said.
Katrina suddenly ceased mumbling and wringing her hands. Glory
Goldie's words had awakened in her a faint hope.
"It shouldn't be so very difficult to earn a couple of hundred rix-dollars between now and the first of October," said the girl. "This is only midsummer, so it's three whole months till then. If you will let me go to Stockholm and take service there, I promise you the house shall remain in your keeping."
When Jan of Ruffluck heard these words he grew ashen. His head sank back as if he were about to swoon. How dear of the little girl! he thought. It was for this he had waited the whole time—yet how, how could he ever bear to let her go away from him?
ON THE MOUNTAIN-TOP
Jan of Ruffluck walked along the forest road where he and his womenfolk, happy and content, had passed on the way home from church a few hours earlier.
He and Katrina, after long deliberation, had decided that before sending their daughter away or doing anything else in this matter that Jan had better see Senator Carl Carlson of Storvik and ask him whether Lars Gunnarson had the right to take the hut from them.
There was no one in the whole of Svartsjö Parish who was so well versed in the law and the statutes as was the senator from Storvik, and those who had the good sense to seek his advice in matters of purchase and sale, in making appraisals, or setting up an auction, or drawing up a will, could rest assured that everything would be done in a correct and legal manner and that afterward there was no fear of their becoming involved in lawsuits or other entanglements.
The senator was a stern and masterful man, brusque of manner and harsh of voice, and Jan was none too pleased at the thought of having to talk with him.
"The first thing he'll do when I come to him will be to read me a lecture because I've got no papers," thought Jan. "He has scared some folks so badly at the very start that they never dared tell him what they had come to consult him about."
Jan left home in such haste that he had no time to think about the dreadful man he was going to see. But while passing through the groves of the Ashdales toward the big forest the old dread came over him. "It was mighty stupid in me not to have taken Glory Goldie along!" he said to himself.
When leaving home he had not seen the girl about, so he concluded that she had betaken herself to some lonely spot in the woods, to weep away her grief, as she never wanted to be seen by any one when she felt downhearted.
Just as Jan was about to turn from the road into the forest he heard some one yodelling and singing up on the mountain, to right of him. He stopped and listened. It was a woman's voice; surely it could not be the one it sounded like! In any case, he must know for a certainty before going farther.
He could hear the song clearly and distinctly, but the singer was hidden by the trees. Presently he turned from the road and pushed his way through some tangle-brush in the hope of catching a glimpse of her; but she was not as near as he had imagined. Nor was she standing still. On the contrary, she seemed to be moving farther away—farther away and higher up.
At times the singing seemed to come from directly above him. The singer must be going up to the peak, he thought.
She had evidently taken a winding path leading up the mountain, where it was almost perpendicular. Here there was a thick growth of young birches; so of course he could not see her. She seemed to be mounting higher and higher, with the swiftness of a bird on the wing, singing all the while.
Then Jan started to climb straight up the mountain; but in his eagerness he strayed from the path and had to make his way through the bewildering woods. No wonder he was left far behind! Besides he had begun to feel as if he had a heavy weight on his chest; he could hardly get his breath as he tramped uphill, straining his ears to catch the song. Finally he went so slowly that he seemed not to be moving at all.
It was not easy to distinguish voices out in the woods, where there was so much that rustled and murmured and chimed in, as it were. But Jan felt that he must get to where he could see the one who for very joy went flying up the steep. Otherwise he would harbour doubts and misgivings the rest of his life. He knew that once he was on the mountain top, where it was barren of trees, the singer could not elude him.
The view from the summit was glorious. From there could be seen the whole of long Lake Löven, the green vales encircling the lake and all the blue hills that shelter the valley. When folks from the shut-in Ashdales climbed to the towering peak they must have thought of the mountain whither the Tempter had once taken Our Lord, that he might show Him all the kingdoms of the world, and their glories.
When Jan had at last left the dense woods behind him and had come to a cleared place, he saw the singer. At the top of the highest peak was a cairn, and on the topmost stone of this cairn silhouetted against the pale evening sky stood Glory Goldie Sunnycastle, in her scarlet dress.
If the folk in the dales and woodlands below had turned their eyes toward the peak just then, they would have seen her standing there in her shining raiment.
Glorv Goldie looked out over miles and miles of country. She saw steep hills crowned with white churches on the shores of the lake, manors and founderies surrounded by parks and gardens, rows of farmhouses along the skirt of the woods, stretches of field and meadow land, winding roads and endless tracts of forest.
At first she sang. But presently she hushed her singing and thought only of gazing out over the wide, open world before her. Suddenly she flung out her arms as if wanting to take it all into her embrace—all this wealth and power and bigness from which she had been shut out until that day.
Jan did not return until far into the night, and when he reached home he could give no coherent account of his movements. He declared he had seen and talked with the senator, but what the senator had advised him to do he could not remember.
"It's no good trying to do anything," he said again and again.
That was all the satisfaction Katrina got.
Jan walked all bent over, and looked ill. Earth and moss clung to his coat, and Katrina asked him if he had fallen and hurt himself.
"No," he told her, but he may have lain on the ground a while.
Then he must be ill, thought Katrina.
It was not that either. It was just that something had stopped the instant it dawned on him that his little girl had offered to save the home for her parents not out of love for them, but because she longed to get away and go out in time world. But this he would not speak of.
THE EVE OF DEPARTURE
The evening before Glory Goldie of Ruffluck left for Stockholm Jan discovered no end of things that had to be attended to all at once. He had no sooner got home from his work than he must betake himself to the forest to gather firewood, whereupon he set about fixing a broken board in the gate that had been hanging loose a whole year. When he had finished with that he dragged out his fishing tackle and began to overhaul it.
All this time he was thinking how strange it seemed not to feel any actual regret. Now he was the same as he had been seventeen years before; he felt neither glad nor sad. His heart had stopped like a watch that has received a hard blow when he had seen Glory Goldie on the mountain-top, opening her arms to the whole world.
It had been like this with him once before. Then folks had wanted him to be glad of the little girl's coming, but he had not cared a bit about it; now they all expected him to be sad and disconsolate over her departure, and he was not that, either.
The hut was full of people who had come to say good-bye to Glory Goldie. Jan had not the face to go in and let them see that he neither wept nor wailed; so he thought it best to stop outside.
At all events it was a good thing for him matters had taken this turn, for if all had been as before he knew he should never have been able to endure the separation, and all the heartache and loneliness.
A while ago, in passing by the window, he had noticed that the hut inside was decked with leaves and wild flowers. On the table were coffee cups, as on the day of which he was thinking. Katrina was giving a little party in honour of the daughter who was to fare forth into the wide world to save the home. Every one seemed to be weeping, both the housefolk and those who had come to bid the little girl Godspeed. Jan heard Glory Goldie's sobs away out in the yard, but they had no effect upon him.
"My good people," he mumbled to himself, "this is as it should be. Look at the young birds! They are thrust out of the nest if they don't leave it willingly. Have you ever watched a young cuckoo? What could be worse than the sight of him lying in the nest, fat and sleek, and shrieking for food the whole blessed day while his parents wear themselves out to provide for him? It won't do to let the young ones sit around at home and become a burden to us older ones. They have got to go out into the world and shift for themselves my good friends."
At last all was quiet in the house. The neighbours had left, so that Jan could just as well have gone inside; but he went on puttering with his fishing tackle a while longer. He would rather that Glory Goldie and Katrina should be in bed and asleep before he crossed the threshold.
By and by, when he had heard no sound from within for ever so long, he stole up to the house as cautiously as a thief.
The womenfolk had not retired. As Jan passed by the open window he saw Glory Goldie sitting with her arms stretched out across the table, her head resting on them. It looked as if she were still crying. Katrina was standing back in the room wrapping her big shawl around Glory Goldie's bundle of clothing.
"You needn't bother with that, mother," said Glory Goldie without raising her head. "Can't you see that father is mad at me because I'm leaving?"
"Then he'll have to get glad again," returned Katrina, calmly.
"You say that because you don't care for him," said the girl, through her sobs. "All you think about is the hut. But father and I, we think of each other, and I'll not leave him!"
"But what about the hut?" asked Katrina.
"It can go as it will with the hut, if only father will care for me again."
Jan moved quietly away from the door, where he had been standing a moment, listening, and sat down on the step. He never thought for an instant that Glory Goldie would remain at home. Indeed he knew better than did any one else that she must go away. All the same it was to him as if the soft little bundle had again been laid in his arms. His heart had been set going once more. Now it was beating away in his breast as if trying to make up for lost time. With that he felt that his armour of defence was gone.
Then came grief and longing. He saw them as dark shadows in among the trees. He opened his arms to them, a smile of happiness lighting his face.
"Welcome! Welcome!" he cried.
AT THE PIER
When the steamer Anders Fryxell pulled out from the pier at Borg Point with Glory Goldie of Ruffluck on board, Jan and Katrina stood gazing after it until they could no longer see the faintest outline of either the girl or the boat. Every one else had left the pier, the watchman had hauled down the flag and locked the freight shed, but they still tarried.
It was only natural that the parents should stand there as long as they could see anything of the boat, but why they did not go their ways afterward they hardly knew themselves. Perhaps they dreaded the thought of going home again, of stepping into the lonely hut in each other's company.
"I've got no one but him to cook for now!" mused Katrina, "no one but him to wait for! But what do I care for him? He could just as well have gone, too. It was the girl who understood him and all his silly talk, not I. I'd be better off alone."
"It would be easier to go home with my grief if I didn't have that sour-faced old Katrina sitting round the house," thought Jan. "The girl knew so well how to get on with her, and could make her happy and content; but now I suppose I'll never get another civil word from that quarter."
Of a sudden Jan gave a start. Bending forward he clapped his hands to his knees. His eyes kindled with new-found hope and his whole face shone. He kept his gaze on the water and Katrina thought something extraordinary must have riveted his attention, although she, who stood beside him, saw nothing save the ceaseless play of the gray-green waves, chasing each other across the surface of the lake, with never a stop.
Jan ran to the far end of the pier and bent down over the water, with the look on his face which he always wore whenever Glory Goldie approached him, but which he could never put on when talking to any one else. His mouth opened and his lips moved as though he were speaking, but not a word was heard by Katrina. Smile after smile crossed his face, just as when the girl used to stand and rail at him.
"Why, Jan!" said Katrina, "what has come over you?"
He did not reply, but motioned to her to be still. Then he straightened himself a little. His gaze seemed to be following something that glided away over the gray-green waves. Whatever it was, it moved quickly in the direction the boat had taken. Now Jan no longer bent forward but stood quite upright, shading his eyes with his hand that he might see the better. Thus he remained standing till there was nothing more to be seen, apparently. Then, turning to Katrina, he said:
"You didn't see anything, perhaps?"
"What can one see here but the lake and its waves?"
"The little girl came rowing back," Jan told her, his voice lowered to a whisper. "She had borrowed a boat of the captain. I noticed it was marked exactly like the steamer. She said there was something she had forgotten about when she left; it was something she wanted to say to us."
"My dear Jan, you don't know what you're talking about! If the girl had come back then I, too, would have seen her."
"Hush now, and I'll tell you what she wants of us!" said Jan, in solemn and mysterious whispers. "It seems she had begun to worry about us; she was afraid we two wouldn't get on by ourselves. Before she had always walked between us, she said, with one hand in mine and the other in yours, and in that way everything had gone well. But now that she wasn't here to keep us together she didn't know what might happen, 'Now perhaps father and mother will go their separate ways,' she said."
"Sakes alive!" gasped Katrina, "that she should have thought of that!" The woman was so affected by what had just been said—for the words were the echo of her own thoughts—that she quite forgot that the daughter could not possibly have come back to the pier and talked with Jan without her seeing it.
"'So now I've come back to join your hands,' said he, 'and you mustn't let go of each other, but keep a firm hold for my sake till I return and link hands with you again.' As soon as she had said this she rowed away."
There was silence for a moment on the pier.
"And here's my hand," Jan said presently, in an uncertain voice that betrayed both shyness and anxiety—and put out a hand, which despite all his hard toil had always remained singularly soft. "I do this because the girl wants me to," he added.
"And here's mine," said Katrina. "I don't understand what it could have been that you saw, but if you and the girl want us to stick together, so do I."
Then they went all the way home to their hut, hand in hand.
THE LETTER
One morning when Glory Goldie had been gone about a fortnight, Jan was out in the pasture nearest the big forest, mending a wattled fence. He was so close to the woods that he could hear the murmur of the pines and see the grouse hen walking about under the trees, scratching for food-along line of grouse chicks trailing after her.
Jan had nearly finished his work when he heard a loud bellowing from the wooded heights! It sounded so weird and awful he began to be alarmed. He stood still a moment and listened. Soon he heard it again. Then he knew it was nothing to be afraid of, but on the contrary, it seemed to be a cry for help.
He threw down his pickets and branches and hurried through the birch grove into the dense fir woods, where he had not gone far before he discovered what was amiss. Up there was a big, treacherous marsh. A cow belonging to the Falla folk had gone down in a quagmire and Jan saw at once that it was the best cow they had on the farm, one for which Lars Gunnarson had been offered two hundred rix-dollars. She had sunk deep in the mire and was now so terrified that she lay quite still and sent forth only feeble and intermittant bellowings. It was plain that she had struggled desperately for she was covered with mud clear to her horns, and round about her the green moss-tufts had been torn up. She had bellowed so loud that Jan thought every one in Ashdales must have heard her, yet no one but himself had come up to the marsh. He did not tarry a second, but ran straight to the farm for help.
It was slow work setting poles in the marsh, laying out boards and slipping ropes under the cow, to draw her up by. For when the men reached her she had sunk to her back, so that only her head was above the mire. After they had finally dragged her back onto firm ground and carted her home to Falla the housewife invited all who had worked over the animal to come inside for coffee.
No one had been so zealous in the rescue work as had Jan of
Ruffluck. But for him the cow would have been lost. And just think!
She was a cow worth at least two hundred rix-dollars.
To Jan this seemed a rare stroke of luck. Surely the new master and mistress could not fail to recognize so great a service. Something of a similar nature once happened in the old master's time. Then it was a horse that had been impaled on a picket fence. The one who found the horse and had it carted home received from Eric of Falla a reward of ten rix-dollars; And that despite the fact that the beast was so badly injured that Eric had to shoot it.
But the cow was alive and in nowise harmed. So Jan pictured himself going on the morrow to the sexton, or to some other person who could write, to ask him to write to Glory Goldie and tell her to come home.
When Jan came into the living-room at Falla he naturally drew himself up a bit. The old housewife was pouring coffee and he did not wonder at it when she handed him his cup before even Lars Gunnarson had been served. Then, while they were all having their coffee, every one spoke of how well Jan had done, that is, every one but the farmer and his wife; not a word of praise came from them.
But now that Jan felt so confident his hard times were over and his luck was coming back, it was easy for him to find grounds for comfort. It might be that Lars was silent because he wished to make what he would say all the more impressive. But he was certainly withholding his thanks a distressingly long while.
The situation had become embarrassing. The others had stopped talking and looked a little uncomfortable. When the old mistress went round to refill the coffee cups some of the men hesitated; Jan among them.
"Oh, have another wee drop, Jan!" she said. "If you hadn't been so quick to act we would have lost a cow that's worth her two hundred rix-dollars."
This was followed by a dead silence, and now every one's eyes turned toward the man of the house. All were waiting for some expression of appreciation from him.
Lars cleared his throat two or three times, as if to give added weight to what he was about to say.
"It strikes me there's something queer about this whole business," he began. "You all know that Jan owes two hundred rix-dollars and you also know that last spring I was offered just that sum for the cow. It seems to fit in altogether too well with Jan's case that the cow should have gone down in the marsh to-day and that he should have rescued her."
Lars paused and again cleared his throat. Jan rose and moved toward him; but neither he nor any of the others had an answer ready.
"I don't know how Jan happened to be the one who heard the cow bellowing up in the marsh," pursued Lars. "Perhaps he was nearer the scene when the mishap occurred than he would have us think. Maybe he saw a possibility of getting out of debt and deliberately drove the cow—"
Jan brought his fist down on the table with a crash that made the cups jump in their saucers.
"You judge others by yourself, you!" he said, "That's the sort of thing you might do, but not I. You must know that I can see through your tricks. One day last winter you—"
But just when Jan was on the point of saying something that could only have ended in an irreparable break between himself and his employer, the old housewife tipped him by the coat sleeve.
"Look out, Jan!" said she.
Jan did so. Then he saw Katrina coming toward the house with a letter in her hand.
That was surely the letter from Glory Goldie which they had been longing for every day since her departure. Katrina, knowing how happy Jan would be to get this, had come straight over with it the moment it arrived.
Jan glanced about him, bewildered. Many ugly words were on the tip of his tongue, but now he had no time to give vent to them. What did he care about being revenged on Lars Gunnarson? Why should he bother to defend himself? The letter drew him away with a power that was irresistible. He was out of the house and with Katrina before the people inside had recovered from their dread of what he might have hurled at his employer in the way of accusation.
AUGUST DÄR NOL
One evening, when Glory Goldie had been gone about a month, August Där Nol came down to the Ashdales. August and Glory had been comrades at the Östanby school and had been confirmed the same summer.
A fine, manly lad was August Där Nol, and a favourite with every one. His parents were people of means and no one had a brighter or more assured future to look forward to than had he. Having been absent from home for six months, he had only learned on his return that Glory Goldie had gone away in order to earn money to save her old home. It was his mother who told him of this, and before she had finished talking he snatched up his cap and rushed out, never pausing until he had reached the gate at Ruffluck Croft; there he stopped and looked toward the hut.
Katrina saw August standing there and made a pretext of going to the well for water in order to speak to him; but the lad did not appear to see her, so Katrina immediately went back into the house.
Then in a little while Jan came down from the forest with an armful of wood, and when August saw him coming he stepped to one side until he, too, had gone in; then he went back to the gate.
Presently the window of the hut swung open, disclosing Jan seated at one side of the window-table smoking his pipe, and Katrina at the other side, knitting.
"Well, Katrina dear," said Jan, "now we're having a real cosy evening. There's only one thing I wish for."
"I wish for a hundred things!" sighed Katrina, "and if I could have them all I'd still be unsatisfied."
"But I only wish the seine-maker, or somebody else who can read, would drop in and read us Glory Goldie's letter."
"You've had that letter read to you so many times since you got it that you ought to know it by heart."
"That may be true enough," returned Jan, "but still it always does me good to hear it read, for then I feel as though the little girl herself were standing and talking to me, and I seem to see her eyes beam on me as I listen to her words."
"I wouldn't mind hearing it again, myself," said Katrina, glancing out through the open window. "But on a fine light evening like this we can't expect folks to come to our hut."
"It would be better to me than the taste of white bread with coffee to hear Glory Goldie's letter read while I'm sitting here smoking," declared Jan, "but I'm sure every one in the Ashdales has grown tired of being asked to read the letter over and over, and now I don't know who to turn to."
The words were hardly out of his mouth, when the door opened, and in walked August Där Nol. Jan started in surprise.
"Bless me! Here you come, my dear August, just when wanted." After Jan had shaken hands with the caller and pulled up a chair for him he said: "I've got a letter I'd like you to read to us. It's from an old schoolmate of yours. Maybe you'd be interested to hear how she's getting on?"
August Där Nol took the letter and read it aloud, lingering over each word as if drinking it in. When he had finished, Jan remarked:
"How wonderfully well you read, my dear August! I've never heard Goldie's words sound as beautiful as from your lips. Would you do me the favour to read the letter once more?"
Then the boy read the letter for the second time, with the same deep feeling. It was as if he had come with a thirst-parched throat to a spring of pure water. When he had read to the end he carefully folded the letter and smoothed it over with his hand. As he was about to return it to Jan, it occurred to him the letter had not been properly folded and he must do it over. That done, he sat very silent. Jan tried to start a conversation, but failed. Finally the boy rose to go.
"It's so nice to get a little help sometimes," said Jan. "Now I have another favour to ask of you. We don't know just what to do with Glory Goldie's kitten. It will have to be put out of the way, I suppose, as we can't afford to keep it; but I can't bear the thought of that, nor has Katrina the heart to drown it. We've talked of asking some stranger to take it."