ork. 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 see