k 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 i