inst the manger
and talked about two strangers who had been to see her, and had asked if
they might buy the swamp. They wanted to drain it, and sow and raise
grain on it. This had made her both anxious and glad. "Do you hear,
Roedlinna," she had said, "do you hear they said that grain can grow on
the swamp? Now I shall write to the children to come home. Now they'll
not have to stay away any longer; for now they can get their bread here
at home." It was this that she had gone into the cabin to do--

The boy heard no more of what the old cow said. He had opened the
cowhouse door and gone across the yard, and in to the dead whom he had
but lately been so afraid of.

It was not so poor in the cabin as he had expected. It was well supplied
with the sort of things one generally finds among those who have
relatives in America. In a corner there was an American rocking chair;
on the table before the window lay a brocaded plush cover; there was a
pretty spread on the bed; on the walls, in carved-wood frames, hung the
photographs of the children and grandchildren who had gone away; on the
bureau stood high vases and a couple of candlesticks, with thick, spiral
candles in them.

The boy searched for a matchbox and lighted these candles, not because
he needed more light than he already had; but because he thought that
this was one way to honour the dead.

Then he went up to her, closed her eyes, folded her hands across her
breast, and stroked back the thin gray hair from her face.

He thought no more about being afraid of her. He was so deeply grieved
because she had been forced to live out her old age in loneliness and
longing. He, at least, would watch over her dead body this night.

He hunted up the psalm book, and seated himself to read a couple of
psalms in an undertone. But in the middle of the reading he
paused--because he had begun to think about his mother and father.

Think, that parents can long so for their children! This he had never
known. Think, that life can be as though it was over for them when the
children are away! Think, if those at home longed for him in the same
way that this old peasant woman had longed!

This thought made him happy, but he dared not believe in it. He had not
been such a one that anybody could long for him.

But what he had not been, perhaps he could become.

Round about him he saw the portraits of those who were away. They were
big, strong men and women with earnest faces. There