mplements placed there
for inspection. Mother Stina on seeing a couple of peasant women
come out of a cowshed grew indignant. "Just look at Mother Inga and
Mother Stava!" she muttered. "Now they've been in and picked out a
cow apiece. Think how they'll be going around bragging that they've
got a cow of the old breed from the Ingmar Farm!"

When she saw old Crofter Nils trying to choose a plow she smiled a
little scornfully.

"Crofter Nils will think himself a real farmer when he can drive a
plough that Big Ingmar himself has used."

More and more people kept gathering round the things to be
auctioned off. The men looked wonderingly at many of the farming
tools, which were of such old-time make that it was difficult to
guess what they had been used for. A few spectators had the
temerity to laugh at the old sleighs some of which were from
ancient times and were gorgeously painted in red and green; and the
harnesses that went with them were studded with white shells, and
fringed with tassels of many colours.

Mother Stina seemed to see the old Ingmarssons driving slowly in
these old sleighs, going to a party or coming home from a church
wedding, with a bride seated beside them. "Many good people are
leaving the parish," she sighed. For to her it was as if all the
old Ingmars had gone on living at the farm up to that very day,
when their implements and their old carts and sleds were being
hawked about.

"I wonder where Ingmar is keeping himself, and how he feels? When
it seems so dreadful to me, what must it be for him?"

The weather being so fine, the auctioneer proposed that they carry
out all the things that were to go under the hammer, so as to avoid
any overcrowding of the rooms. So maids and farm hands carried out
boxes and chests, all painted in tulips and roses, Some of them had
been standing in the attic, undisturbed, for centuries. They also
brought out silver jugs and old-fashioned copper kettles, spinning-wheels
and carders, and all kinds of odd-looking weaving appliances. The
peasant women gathered around all these old treasures, picking them
up and turning them over.

Mother Stina had not intended to buy anything, when she remembered
that there was supposed to be a loom here on which could be woven
the finest damask, and went up to look for it. Just then a maid
came out with a huge Bible, which, with its thick leather bindings
and its brass clasps and mountings, was so heavy that she could
hardly ca