I
A young farmer was plowing his field one summer morning. The sun
shone, the grass sparkled with dew, and the air was so light and
bracing that no words can describe it. The horses were frisky from
the morning air, and pulled the plow along as if in play. They were
going at a pace quite different from their usual gait; the man had
fairly to run to keep up with them.
The earth, as it was turned by the plow, lay black, and shone with
moisture and fatness, and the man at the plow was happy in the
thought of soon being able to sow his rye. "Why is it that I feel
so discouraged at times and think life so hard?" he wondered. "What
more does one want than sunshine and fair weather to be as happy as
a child of Heaven?"
A long and rather broad valley, with stretches of green and yellow
grain fields, with mowed clover meadows, potato patches in flower,
and little fields of flax with their tiny blue flowers, above which
fluttered great swarms of white butterflies--this was the setting.
At the very heart of the valley, as if to complete the picture, lay
a big old-fashioned farmstead, with many gray outhouses and a large
red dwelling-house. At the gables stood two tall, spreading pear
trees; at the gate were a couple of young birches; in the
grass-covered yard were great piles of firewood; and behind the
barn were several huge haystacks. The farmhouse rising above the
low fields was as pretty a sight as a ship, with masts and sails,
towering above the broad surface of the sea.
The man at the plow was thinking: "What a farm you've got! Many
well-timbered houses, fine cattle and horses, and servants who are
as good as gold. At least you are as well-to-do as any one in these
parts, so you'll never have to face poverty.
"But it's not poverty that I fear," he said, as if in answer to his
own thought. "I should be satisfied were I only as good a man as my
father or my father's father. What could have put such silly
nonsense into your head?" he wondered. "And a moment ago you were
feeling so happy. Ponder well this one thing: in father's time all
the neighbours were guided by him in all their undertakings. The
morning he began haymaking they did likewise and the day we started
in to plow our fallow field at the Ingmar Farm, plows were put in
the earth the length and breadth of the valley. Yet here I've been
plowing now for two hours and more without any one having so much
as ground a plowshare.
"I believe I have managed this farm as well as any one who has
borne the name of Ingmar Ingmarsson," he mused. "I can get more for
my hay than father ever got for his, and I'm not satisfied to let
the weed-choked ditches which crossed the farm in his time remain.
What's more, no one can say that I misuse the woodlands as he did
by converting them into burn-beaten land.
"There are times when all this seems hard to bear," said the young
man. "I can't always take it as lightly as I do to-day. When father
and grandfather lived, folks used to say that the Ingmarssons had
been on earth such a long time that they must know what was
pleasing to our Lord. Therefore the people fairly begged them to
rule over the parish. They appointed both parson and sexton; they
determined when the river should be dredged, and where gaols should
be built. But me no one consults, nor have I a say in anything.
"It's wonderful, all the same, that troubles can be so easily borne
on a morning like this. I could almost laugh at them. And still I
fear that matters will be worse than ever for me in the fall. If I
should do what I'm now thinking of doing, neither the parson nor
the judge will shake hands with me when we meet at the church on a
Sunday, which is something they have always done up to the present.
I could never hope to be made a guardian of the poor, nor could I
even think of becoming a churchwarden."
Thinking is never so easy as when one follows a plow up a furrow
and down a furrow. You are quite alone, and there is nothing to
distract you but the crows hopping about picking up worms. The
thoughts seemed to come to the man as readily as if some one had
whispered them into his ear. Only on rare occasions had he been
able to think as quickly and clearly as on that day, and the
thought of it gladdened and encouraged him. It occurred to him that
he was giving himself needless anxiety; that no one expected him to
plunge headlong into misery. He thought that if his father were
only living now, he would ask his advice in this matter, as he had
always done in the old days when grave questions had come up.
"If I only knew the way, I'd go to him," he said, quite pleased at
the idea. "I wonder what big Ingmar would say if some fine day I
should come wandering up to him? I fancy him settled on a big farm,
with many fields and meadows, a large house and barns galore, with
lots of red cattle and not a black or spotted beast among them,
just exactly as he wanted it when he was on earth. Then as I step
into the farmhouse--"
The plowman suddenly stopped in the middle of a furrow and glanced
up, laughing. These thoughts seemed to amuse him greatly, and he
was so carried away by them that he hardly knew whether or not he
was still upon earth. It seemed to him that in a twinkling he had
been lifted all the way up to his old father in heaven.
"And now as I come into the living-room," he went on, "I see many
peasants seated on benches along the walls. All have sandy hair,
white eyebrows, and thick underlips. They are all of them as like
father as one pea is like another. At the sight of so many people I
become shy and linger at the door. Father sits at the head of the
table, and the instant he sees me he says; 'Welcome, little Ingmar
Ingmarsson!' Then father gets up and comes over to me. 'I'd like to
have a word with you, father,' I say, 'but there are so many
strangers here.' 'Oh, these are only relatives!' says father. 'All
these men have lived at the Ingmar Farm, and the oldest among them
is from way back in heathen times.' 'But I want to speak to you in
private,' I say.
"Then father looks round and wonders whether he ought to step into
the next room, but since it's just I he walks out into the kitchen
instead. There he seats himself in the fireplace, while I sit down
on the chopping block.
"'You've got a fine farm here, father,' I say. 'It's not so bad,'
says father, 'but how's everything back home?' 'Oh, everything is
all right there; last year we got twelve kroner for a ton of hay.'
'What!' says father. 'Are you here to poke fun at me, little
Ingmar?'
"'But with me everything goes wrong' I say. 'They forever telling
me that you were as wise as our Lord himself, but no one cares a
straw for me.' 'Aren't you one of the district councillors?' the
old man asks. 'I'm not on the School Board, or in the vestry, nor
am I a councillor.' 'What have you done that's wrong, little
Ingmar?' 'Well, they say that he who would direct the affairs of
others, first show that he can manage his own properly.'
"Then I seem to see the old man lower his eyes and sit pondering.
In a little while he says: 'Ingmar, you ought to marry some nice
girl who will make you a good wife.' 'But that's exactly what I
can't do, father,' I reply. 'There is not a farmer in the parish,
even among the poor and lowly, who would give me his daughter.'
'Now tell me straight out what's back of all this, little Ingmar,'
says father, with such a tender note in his voice.
"'Well, you see, father, four years ago--the same year that I took
over the farm--I was courting Brita of Bergskog.' 'Let me see'--
says father, 'do any of our folks live at Bergskog?' He seems to
have lost all remembrance of how things are down on earth. 'No, but
they are well-to-do people, and you must surely remember that
Brita's father is a member of Parliament?' 'Yes, of course; but you
should have married one of our people, then you would have had a
wife who knew about our old customs and habits.' 'You're right,
father, and I wasn't long finding that out!'
"Now both father and I are silent a moment; then the old man
continues: 'She was good-looking, of course?' 'Yes,' I reply. 'She
had dark hair and bright eyes and rosy cheeks. And she was clever,
too, so that mother was pleased with my choice. All might have
turned out well but, you see, the mistake of it was that she didn't
want me.' 'It's of no consequence what such a slip of a girl wants
or doesn't want.' 'But her parents forced her to say "yes."' 'How
do you know she was forced? It's my candid opinion that she was
glad to get a rich husband like you, Ingmar Ingmarsson.'
"'Oh, no! She was anything but glad. All the same, the banns were
published and the wedding day was fixed. So Brita came down to the
Ingmar Farm to help mother. I say, mother is getting old and
feeble.' 'I see nothing wrong in all that, little Ingmar,' says
father, as if to cheer me up.
"'But that year nothing seemed to thrive on the farm; the potato
crop was a failure, and the cows got sick; so mother I decided it
was best to put off the wedding a year. You see, I thought it
didn't matter so much about the wedding as long as the banns had
been read. But perhaps it was old-fashioned to think that way.'
"'Had you chosen one of our kind she would have exercised
patience,' says father. 'Well, yes,' I say. 'I could see that Brita
didn't like the idea of a postponement; but, you see, I felt that I
couldn't afford a wedding just then. There had been the funeral in
the spring, and we didn't want to take the money out of the bank.'
'You did quite right in waiting,' says father. 'But I was a little
afraid that Brita would not care to have the christening come
before the wedding.' 'One must first make sure that one has the
means,' says father.
"'Every day Brita became more and more quiet and strange. I used to
wonder what was wrong with her and fancied she was homesick, for
she had always loved her home and her parents. This will blow over,
I thought, when she gets used to us; she'll soon feel at home on
the Ingmar Farm. I put up with it for a time; then, one day, I
asked mother why Brita was looking so pale and wild eyed. Mother
said it was because she was with child, and she would surely be her
old self again once that was over with. I had a faint suspicion
that Brita was brooding over my putting off the wedding, but I was
afraid to ask her about it. You know, father, you always said that
the year I married, the house was to have a fresh coat of red
paint. That year I simply couldn't afford it. By next year
everything will be all right, I thought then.'"
The plowman walked along, his lips moving all the while. He
actually imagined that he saw before him the face of his father. "I
shall have to lay the whole case before the old man, frankly and
clearly," he remarked to himself, "so he can advise me."
"'Winter had come and gone, yet nothing was changed. I felt at
times that if Brita were to keep on being unhappy I might better
give her up and send her home. However, it was too late to think of
that. Then, one evening, early in May, we discovered that she had
quietly slipped away. We searched for her all through the night,
and in the morning one of the housemaids found her.'
"I find it hard now to continue, and take refuge in silence. Then
father exclaims: 'In God's name, she wasn't dead, was she?' 'No,
not she,' I say, and father notes the tremor in my voice. 'Was the
child born?' asks father. 'Yes,' I reply, 'and she had strangled
it. It was lying dead beside her.' 'But she couldn't have been in
her right mind.' 'Oh, she knew well enough what she vas about!' I
say. 'She did it to get even with me for forcing myself upon her.
Still she would never have done this thing had I married her. She
said she had been thinking that since I did not want my child
honourably born, I should have no child.' Father is dumb with
grief, but by and by he says to me: 'Would you have been glad of
the child, little Ingmar?' 'Yes,' I answer. 'Poor boy! It's a shame
that you should have fallen in with a bad woman! She is in prison,
of course,' says father. 'She was sent up for three years.' 'And
it's because of this that no man will let you marry a daughter of
his?' 'Yes, but I haven't asked anyone, either.' 'And this is why
you have no standing in the parish?' 'They all think it ought not
to have gone that way for Brita. Folks say that if I had been a
sensible man, like yourself, I would have talked to her and found
out what was troubling her.' 'It's not so easy for a man to
understand a bad woman!' says father. 'No, father, Brita was not
bad, but she was a proud one!' 'It comes to the same thing,' says
father.
"Now that father seems to side with me, I say: 'There are many who
think I should have managed it in such a way that no one would have
known but that the child was born dead.' 'Why shouldn't she take
her punishment?' says father. 'They say if this had happened in
your time, you would have made the servant who found her keep her
tongue in her head so that nothing could have leaked out.' 'And in
that case would you have married her?' 'Why then there would have
been no need of my marrying her. I would have sent her back to her
parents in a week or so and the banns annulled, on the grounds that
she was not happy with us.' 'That's all very well, but no one can
expect a young chap like you to have an old man's head on him.'
'The whole parish thinks that I behaved badly toward Brita.' 'She
has done worse in bringing disgrace upon honest folk.' 'But I made
her take me.' 'She ought to be mighty glad of it,' says father.
'But, father, don't you think it is my fault her being in prison?'
'She put herself there, I'm thinking.' Then I get up and say very
slowly: 'So you don't think, father, that I have to do anything for
her when she comes out in the fall?' 'What should you do? Marry
her?' 'That's just what I ought to do.' Father looks at me a
moment, then asks: 'Do you love her?' 'No! She has killed my love.'
Father closes his eyes and begins to meditate. 'You see, father, I
can't get away from this: that I have brought misfortune upon some
one.'
"The old man sits quite still and does not answer.
"'The last time I saw her was in the courtroom. Then she was so
gentle, and longed so for her child. Not one harsh word did she say
against me. She took all the blame to herself. Many in that
courtroom were moved to tears, and the judge himself had to swallow
hard. He didn't give her more than three years, either.'
"But father does not say a word.
"'It will be hard for her when fall comes, and she's sent home.
They won't be glad to have her again at Bergskog. Her folks all
feel that she has brought shame upon them, and they're pretty sure
to let her know it, too! There will be nothing for her but to sit
at home all the while; she won't even dare to go to church. It's
going to be hard for her in every way.'
"But father doesn't answer.
"'It is not such an easy thing for me to marry her! To have a wife
that menservants and maidservants will look down upon is not a
pleasant prospect for a man with a big farmstead. Nor would mother
like it. We never invite people to the house, either to weddings
or funerals.'
"Meanwhile, not a word out of father.
"Of course at the trial I tried to help her as much as I could. I
told the judge that I was entirely to blame, as I took the girl
against her will. I also said that I considered her so innocent of
any wrong that I would marry her then and there, if she could only
think better of me. I said that so the judge would give her a
lighter sentence. Although I've had two letters from her, there's
nothing in them to show any changed feeling toward me. So you see,
father, I'm not obliged to marry her because of that speech.'
"Father sits and ponders, but he doesn't speak.
"'I know that this is simply looking at the thing from the
viewpoint of men, and we Ingmars have always wanted to stand well
in the sight of God. And yet sometimes I think that maybe our Lord
wouldn't like it if we honoured a murderess.'
"And father doesn't utter a sound.
"'Think, father, how one must feel who lets another suffer without
giving a helping hand. I have passed through too much these last
few years not to try to do something for her when she gets out.
"Father sits there immovable.
"Now I can hardly keep back the tears. 'You see, father, I'm a
young man and will lose much if I marry her. Every one seems to
think I've already made a mess of my life; they will think still
worse of me after this!'
"But I can't make father say a word.
"'I have often wondered why it is that we Ingmars have been allowed
to remain on our farm for hundreds of years, while the other farms
have all changed hands. And the thought comes to me that it may be
because the Ingmars have always tried to walk in the ways of God.
We Ingmars need not fear man; we have only to walk in God's ways.'
"Then the old man looks up and says: 'This is a difficult problem,
my son. I guess I'll go in and talk it over with the other Ingmarssons.'
"So father goes back to the living-room, while I remain in the
kitchen. There I sit waiting and waiting, but father does not
return. Then, after hours and hours of this, I get cross and go to
him. 'You must have patience, little Ingmar,' says father. 'This is
a difficult question.' And I see all the old yeomen sitting there
with closed eyes, deep in thought. So I wait and wait and, for
aught I know, must go on waiting."
Smiling, he followed the plow, which was now moving along very
slowly, as if the horses were tired out and could scarcely drag it.
When he came to the end of the furrow he pulled up the plow and
rested. He had become very serious.
"Strange, when you ask anyone's advice you see yourself what is
right. Even while you are asking, you discover all at once what you
hadn't been able to find out in three whole years. Now it shall be
as God wills."
He felt that this thing must be done, but at the same time it
seemed so hard to him that the mere thought of it took away his
courage. "Help me, Lord!" he said.
Ingmar Ingmarsson was, however, not the only person abroad at that
hour. An old man came trudging along the winding path that crossed
the fields. It was not difficult to guess his occupation, for he
carried on his shoulder a long-handled paint brush and was
spattered with red paint from his cap to his shoe tips. He kept
glancing round-about, after the manner of journeymen painters, to
find an unpainted farmhouse or one that needed repainting. He had
seen, here and there, one and another which he thought might answer
his purpose, but he could not seem to fix upon any special one.
Then, finally, from the top of a hillock he caught sight of the big
Ingmar Farm down in the valley. "Great Caesar!" he exclaimed, and
stopped short. "That farmhouse hasn't been painted in a hundred
years. Why, it's black with age, and the barns have never seen a
drop of point. Here there's work enough to keep me busy till fall."
A little farther on he came upon a man plowing. "Why, there's a
farmer who belongs here and knows all about this neighbourhood,"
thought the painter. "He can tell me all I need know about that
homestead yonder." Whereupon he crossed the path into the field,
stepped up to Ingmar, and asked him if he thought the folks living
over there wanted any painting done.
Ingmar Ingmarsson was startled, and stood staring at the man as
though he were a ghost.
"Lord, as I live, it's a painter!" he remarked to himself. "And to
think of his coming just now!" He was so dumbfounded that he could
not answer the man. He distinctly recalled that every time any one
had said to his father: "You ought to have that big, ugly house of
yours painted, Father Ingmar," the old man had always replied that
he would have it done the year Ingmar married.
The painter put the question a second time, and a third, but Ingmar
stood there, dazed, as if he had not understood him.
"Are they ready at last with their answer?" he wondered. "Is this a
message from father to say that he wishes me to marry this year?"
He was so overwhelmed by the thought that he hired the man on the
spot. Then he went on with his plowing, deeply moved and almost
happy.
"You'll see it won't be so very hard to do this now that you know
for certain it is father's wish," he said.