ave wished to celebrate the
festival of joy and merry moods in the midst of the time of
fasting, which is called life. Therefore shame and dishonor shall
befall you, until you change your ways."

He had changed his ways, and the Spirit of Fasting had protected
him. He had never needed to go farther than to the big town, for he
was never followed. And in its working quarter the Spirit of
Fasting had her dwelling. Petter Nord found work in a machine shop.
He grew strong and energetic. He became serious and thrifty. He had
fine Sunday clothes; he acquired new knowledge, borrowed books and
went to lectures. There was nothing really left of little Petter
Nord but his white hair and his brown eyes.

That night had broken something in him, and the heavy work at the
machine-shop made the break ever bigger, so that the wild Vaermland
boy had crept quite out through it. He no longer talked nonsense,
for no one was allowed to speak in the shop, and he soon learned
silent ways. He no longer invented anything new, for since he had
to look after springs and wheels in earnest, he no longer found
them amusing. He never fell in love, for he could not be interested
in the women of the working quarter, after he had learned to know
the beauties of his native town. He had no mice, no squirrels,
nothing to play with. He had no time; he understood that such
things were useless, and he thought with horror of the time when he
used to fight with street boys.

Petter Nord did not believe that life could be anything but gray,
gray, gray. Petter Nord always had a dull time, but he was so used
to it that he did not notice it. Petter Nord was proud of himself
because he had become so virtuous. He dated his good behavior from
that night when Joy failed him and Fasting became his companion and
friend.

But how could the virtuous Petter Nord be coming to the village on
a work-day, accompanied by three boon companions, who were loafers
and drunken?

He had always been a good boy, poor Petter Nord. And he had always
tried to help those three good-for-nothings as well as he could,
although he despised them. He had come with wood to their miserable
hovel, when the winter was most severe, and he had patched and
mended their clothes. The men held together like brothers,
principally because they were all three named Petter. That name
united them much more than if they bad been born brothers. And now
they allowed the boy on account of that name to do th