ard the door; but suddenly
he turned back, took Jan's hand, and pressed it.

"Thanks!" he said in a choked voice. "You have given me more than
you yourself know."

"Don't imagine it, my dear August Daer Nol!" Jan said to himself
when the boy had gone. "This is something I understand about. I
know what I've given you, and I know who has taught me to know."

OCTOBER THE FIRST

The first day of October Jan lay on the bed the whole afternoon,
fully dressed, his face turned to the wall, and nobody could get a
word out of him.

In the forenoon he and Katrina had been down to the pier to meet
the little girl. Not that Glory Goldie had written them to say she
was coming, for indeed she had not! It was only that Jan had
figured out that it could not be otherwise. This was the first of
October, the day the money must be paid to Lars Gunnarson, so of
course Glory Goldie would come. He had not expected her home
earlier. He knew she would have to remain in Stockholm as long as
she could in order to lay by all that money; but that she should be
away any longer he never supposed. Even if she had not succeeded in
scraping together the money, that was no reason why she should be
away after the first of October.

That morning while Jan had stood on the pier waiting, he had said
to himself: "When the little girl sees us from the boat she'll put
on a sad face, and the moment she lands she'll tell us she has not
been able to raise the money. When she says that Katrina and I will
pretend to take her at her word and I'll say that can't understand
how she dared come home when she knew that all Katrina and I cared
about was the money." He was sure that before they were away from
the pier she would go down in her pocket, bring up a well-filled
purse, and turn it over to them. Then, while Katrina counted the
bank notes, he would only stand and look at Glory Goldie. The
little girl would then see that all in the world he cared about was
to have her back, and she would tell him he was just as big a
simpleton now as when she went away.

Thus had Jan pictured to himself Glory Goldie's homecoming. But his
dream did not come true.

That day he and Katrina did not have a long wait at the pier. The
boat arrived on time, but it was so overladen with passengers and
freight bound for the Broby Fair that at first glance they were
unable to tell whether or not the little girl was on board. Jan had
expected that she would be the first to come tri