Jerusalem by Selma Lagerloef

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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 pass 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
hemstitched 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!"

HOEK 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 glass-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 space, 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 mass 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 God 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 grass, 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 grass 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."

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--'Hoek
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 God 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 'Hoek 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 Hellgumists, 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 document. "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."

Hoek 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 class
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 Hellgumists 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 God 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 assuming so heavy a debt. The worst of it was, that not
only would the homestead by this means pass 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 shells, and
fringed with tassels 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 brass 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 passed 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."

"God 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 Bergsana 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."

"You're right about its being a good offer," the old man agreed,
"but he says that he has already made a deal else where."

"I wonder if he has really considered what it is that he's losing?"
said Sven Persson, and walked on.

Thus far none of the Ingmarsson family had been seen about the
yard; but presently young Ingmar was discovered standing leaning
against a wall, quite motionless, and with his eyes half closed.
Now a number of people got up to go over and shake hands with him,
but when they were quite close, they bethought themselves and went
back to their seats.

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