CHAPTER IV.

A HAPPY MORNING.

The home to which the little schoolmistress and Nils were bound had
formerly been a wayside inn of most modest pretensions. It was but a
one-story red building, with a row of white-framed windows looking out
on the road close at hand. There was a storm-house, for stamping off the
snow and depositing extra articles of carriage, and for dogs, who, like
the Peri, must stand outside the paradise within. Next came one large,
cheerful room, which served as kitchen, as well as general place of
refreshment and assembly. On one side of this apartment of manifold uses
were four small rooms for lodgers, furnished with almost as much
simplicity as the prophet's chamber of the Scriptures, save that a plain
sofa-bed was added in each, as a possible accommodation for an extra
sleeper when there was a throng of guests.

On the death of Nils's father, the widow had resolved to retire into
private life, as she was comfortably provided for. Not but that she was
willing at times to give a meal or a bed to an old acquaintance; but
such inmates must conform to the temperance arrangements of the
establishment, for total abstinence was now the rule of the house. The
widow had declared that her son should not be brought up with the fumes
of spirituous liquors as his natural atmosphere. Perhaps this resolution
had been prompted by the suspicion that her husband's life had been
shortened by too frequent good meals and too frequent strong potations.
Be that as it may, the determined woman had made it known that, now that
she was mistress in her own house, she would manage it as she thought
best. The tables for guests had been swept away (or rather sold
discreetly at private sale) to make room for a spinning-wheel, a loom,
and a sewing-machine, by which the prudent woman said she was sure she
could add to her substance in a quiet way. "The clicking, the buzzing,
and the slamming," she said, were nothing to her, and now she could
choose what noises she would have in her ears.

It was not yet time for the usual return of her son from school, but
the mother had begun to go to the door to see if Nils could possibly be
coming. Perhaps the old habit of looking out occasionally up and down
the road, to reconnoitre as to what customers might be expected, had
lingered to keep the former hostess now constantly, as it were, on
guard. In one of these excursions for inspection she was surprised to
see a big wagon drawing u