esent style of
conversation. These letters caused much puzzling in the golden house,
and occasionally had to be taken to the old pastor for explanation and
translation. One came at last, beginning "Dear moder and broder,
hillo!" Then followed a page in a curious lingo, wherein it was stated
that Erik now had a nice room to himself in the "place" he had
obtained. He did not say that the room was in the stable where he was
hostler, or that it was just six feet by eight when lawfully measured.
He also mentioned that he had food fit for a count; which was true in a
way, as he was daily regaled with fruit and vegetables that would have
been esteemed in Sweden luxuries sufficient for the table of any
nobleman. He dressed like a count too, he said; on which point Erik's
testimony was not to be accepted, as he had had little to do with
counts in his native land. The big boy did not mean to exaggerate. He
was simply and honestly delighted at his success in seeking his
fortune. Not that he was laying up money. Far from it. He was
sending home to "old Sweden" all he could possibly spare, and was
anxious to have Karin feel that it was a light thing for a son who was
so comfortable to be remitting a bit of money now and then to a mother
who had given him such love and care all the days of his life. Erik
did not write much about or to his father, but he thought of him all
the more, and inwardly thanked that father for his stern and steady
hand with his boys, and for teaching them not only to do honest work,
but to know what a real Christian man should be.

Oke, the next boy, had been the bearer to the parsonage of Erik's
unreadable letters, and had there been instructed in their proper
rendering into everyday Swedish. So a kind of special acquaintance had
grown up between the slender, pale boy and the kind old pastor.

The pastor was a bachelor, and lonely in his declining years. He had
found it pleasant to see Oke coming with an American letter in his
hand, his young face beaming with delight. The pastor had, besides,
learned to know more and more of Karin's home and the spirit that was
reigning there. Perhaps, when he saw Uncle Pelle sitting in church,
Sunday after Sunday, clean and happy among Karin's boys, he had thought
he too might have a guest-room that might receive one member from the
full golden house. So Oke came to live at the pastor's, who said he
did not see as well as he once did, and he must have a bo