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Page 27
"At last they had succeeded in finding the crofter. Big Ingmar
glanced away from the children with a sigh of relief when he heard
Strong Ingmar's heavy step in the hallway. And when his friend came
over to the bedside, he took his hand and patted it gently, saying:
'Do you remember the time when you and I stood on the bridge and
saw heaven open?' 'As if I could ever forget that night when we two
had a vision of Paradise!' Strong Ingmar responded. Then Big Ingmar
turned toward him, his face beaming as if he had the most glorious
news to impart. 'Now I'm going there,' he said. Then the crofter
bent over him and looked straight into his eyes. 'I shall come
after,' he said. Big Ingmar nodded. 'But you know I cannot come
before your son returns from the pilgrimage.' 'Yes, yes, I know,'
Big Ingmar whispered. Then he drew in a few deep breaths and,
before we knew it, he was gone."
The schoolmaster and his wife thought, with the pastor, that it was
a beautiful death. All three of them sat profoundly silent for a
long while.
"But what could Strong Ingmar have meant," asked Mother Stina
abruptly, "when he spoke of the pilgrimage?"
The pastor looked up, somewhat perplexed. "I don't know," he
replied. "Big Ingmar died just after that was said, and I have not
had time to ponder it." He fell to thinking, then he spoke kind of
half to himself: "It was a strange sort of thing to say, you're
right about that, Mother Stina."
"You know, of course, that it has been said of Strong Ingmar that
he can see into the future?" she said reflectively.
The pastor sat stroking his forehead in an effort to collect his
thoughts. "The ways of Providence cannot be reasoned out by the
finite mind," he mused. "I cannot fathom them, yet seeking to know
them is the most satisfying thing in all the world."
KARIN, DAUGHTER OF INGMAR
Autumn had come and school was again open. One morning, when the
children were having their recess, the schoolmaster and Gertrude
went into the kitchen and sat down at the table, where Mother Stina
served them with coffee. Before they had finished their cups a
visitor arrived.
The caller was a young peasant named Halvor Halvorsson, who had
lately opened a shop in the village. He came from Tims Farm, and
was familiarly known as Tims Halvor. He was a tall, good-looking
chap who appeared to be somewhat dejected. Mother Stina asked him
also to have some coffee; so he sat down at the table, helped
himself, and began to talk to the schoolmaster.
Mother Stina sat by the window knitting; from where she was seated
she could look down the road. All at once she grew red in the face
and leaned forward to get a better view. Trying to appear
unconcerned, she said with feigned indifference: "The grand folk
seem to be out walking to-day."
Tims Halvor thought he detected a certain something in her tone
that sounded a bit peculiar, and he got up and looked out. He saw a
tall, stoop-shouldered woman and a half-grown boy coming toward the
schoolhouse.
"Unless my eyes deceive me, that's Karin, daughter of Ingmar!" said
Mother Stina.
"It's Karin all right," Tims Halvor confirmed. He said nothing
more, but turned away from the window and glanced around the room,
as if trying to discover some way of escape; but in a moment he
quietly went back to his seat.
The summer before, when Big Ingmar was still alive, Halvor had paid
court to Karin Ingmarsson. The courtship had been a long one, with
many ifs and buts on the part of her family. The old Ingmars were
not quite sure that he was good enough for Karin. It had not been
a question of money, for Halvor was well-to-do; his father,
however, had been addicted to drink, and who could say but that
this failing had been transmitted to the son. However, it was
finally decided that Halvor should have Karin. The wedding day was
fixed and they had asked to have the banns published. But before
the day set for the first reading Karin and Halvor made a journey
to Falun, to purchase the wedding ring and the prayerbook. They
were away for three days, and when they got back Karin told her
father that she could not marry Halvor. She had no fault to find
with him save that on one occasion he had taken a drop too much,
and she feared he might become like his father. Big Ingmar then
said that he would not try to influence her against her better
judgment, so Halvor was dismissed, and the engagement was off.
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