her as the most important member of the household. They had noticed
that whenever relatives came to visit, the first thing they did was to
go out to the kitchen and pay their respects to the housekeeper. If
anything unusual happened in the family Lieutenant Lagerlöf would
always call her in and tell her about it, and when Daniel and Johan
were returning to school after the Christmas and summer holidays, they
were told to say good-bye to the housekeeper. They had also heard
outsiders say that Fru Lagerlöf was in great luck to have such a
treasure in her kitchen, that nothing was ever wasted under her
watchful eye. They said, moreover, that nowhere else could one get such
Christmas ale, such _knäckebröd_, and such tasty dishes as were set
before you at Mårbacka. And it was all due to the old housekeeper, they
declared. So it was not strange the children regarded her as the main
prop of the home, and firmly believed that were she not there Mårbacka
would collapse.
Then, one day, little Anna found out a great secret, which gave her an
awful fright, and she confided it to her sister Selma. She had
overheard two of the maids talking about the housekeeper; they had said
she was married and had a husband.
The distress of the two little girls was indescribable. If the
housekeeper were actually married and had a husband they could not be
sure of keeping her at Mårbacka. What would their mother do without
her? And what would they themselves do who got such nice titbits from
her whenever they went into the kitchen? And what would happen to the
whole place, they wondered?
It was most imperative, therefore, that they should know how the matter
stood; so they asked Nurse Maja if it were true that the housekeeper
was married and had a husband.
Oh, yes. Nurse Maja knew the whole story. She had heard it from her
mother, who was in service at Mårbacka at the time it all happened.
“It is the truth and no lie,” said she. The housekeeper’s husband was
living in Karlstad, and was a boss carpenter. There was no such luck as
his being dead!
And this was how it came about: When Lieutenant Lagerlöf and his
brother as lads attended school at Karlstad, their mother, the old
mistress, had sent her trusted housekeeper along with the boys, to look
after them and prepare their meals. While there, she had made the
acquaintance of a carpenter, who proposed to her. When on her return to
Mårbacka in the spring she announced that she was going to be married,
the old mistress was both sad and alarmed at the thought of losing her
“greatest treasure.”
“And what sort of fellow are you marrying?” she had asked her. “Do you
know whether he is a good man?”
Oh, yes, she was certain of that. He was a boss carpenter, who had his
own shop and his own home. The house was in order, so that she might be
married at once, and she could never have found a better husband.
“But how can you be content to live the year round in a barren city
street--you who have always lived in the country?” the old mistress had
then said.
Oh, she had no fears as to that. All would be well for her hereafter.
She was to have an easy life--no baking, no brewing; she had only to go
to the market and bring home whatever was needed.
When the old mistress heard her housekeeper speak in that manner she
knew the woman was bent on marriage, and there was nothing to be done
but give her a wedding at Mårbacka.
The bridegroom appeared to be a clever, sensible sort, and the day
after the wedding he took his bride to Karlstad.
One evening a fortnight later--no, it was hardly that long--as the old
mistress went out to the larder to slice some ham for supper (she could
never take up the key to the larder but she thought of Maja Persdotter
and wondered how she was getting along), she said to herself: “If I had
not sent her to Karlstad she would never have met that carpenter and I
should still have my good helper, and wouldn’t have to run out to the
larder twenty times a day, as I do now.” Suddenly she saw a figure
coming through the birch grove that was the living image of her
housekeeper. The nearer the figure approached the more certain was
Grandmother Lagerlöf of what she beheld. When Maja Persdotter presently
stood before her and said, “Good-evening, Frua,” she had to believe her
eyes and ears.
“Well, well, is it you, Maja Persdotter!” she exclaimed. “But what
brings you here? Haven’t you got a good husband?”
“All he does is drink,” declared the housekeeper. “He’s been drunk
every day since the wedding. It’s the pure alcohol he should be using
in his work he guzzles. I can’t put up any longer with such a swine.”
“But I thought you were to go to the market and buy all your
provisions, in order to escape hard work?”
“I’ll work my fingers to the bone for Frua and the children if you’ll
only take me back!” vowed the housekeeper. “I’ve wished myself back at
Mårbacka day and night since I went away.”
“Come in, then, and we’ll talk this over with the Paymaster of the
Regiment,” the old mistress said with tears of joy in her eyes. “God
willing, we’ll never part again so long as we live,” she added.
Nor did they. The housekeeper’s husband probably knew it would be
useless for him to try to get her back. At all events, he never came to
fetch her. The wedding ring she removed from her finger and laid away
in her trunk. Nothing more was said about that episode in her life.
Lieutenant Lagerlöf’s little daughters should have felt quite easy
in their minds on hearing this; but for a long time afterward they were
troubled. Since that carpenter was still alive he might come some day
and take her away. Whenever they looked down the road they expected to
see him coming. Nurse Maja had told them that if he came and demanded
the return of his wife, she would have to go with him.
They did not know just how old the housekeeper was. She herself had
forgotten the year of her birth, and the date set down in the parish
register was said not to be authentic. She must have been over seventy;
but for all that, the carpenter might want her back--fine, capable
woman that she was.
Then what would happen to Mårbacka!
IV
THE MANSERVANTS’ COTTAGE
IN OLDEN times, when the master had to furnish the clothing for all the
servants on his place, the womenfolk must have had their hands full of
work the year round. Through the long, dark winter mornings and the
long, dark winter evenings, they sat at the spinning wheels drawing out
the threads for warp and weft. But the weaving itself was not begun
until the spring, when the days grew longer; for such work cannot be
done in semi-darkness.
In order to get the coarse wadmal and fine woollen cloth, the linen and
cotton webs finished by summer, when the parish tailor came, they had
to put speed into the looms. But if a loom stood in the kitchen the
work did not go very fast. The weavers should have a place to
themselves, where they can work without interruptions. Therefore, in
former days every well-conducted farmstead had its special loom-room,
and, of course, Mårbacka had one also. This was from the time of the
clergymen. They had added a story to the manservants’ cottage
consisting of two rooms, with clay-coated walls and boarded ceilings;
and in each was a tile-stove. The back room was occupied by the farm
overseer; and in the front room stood two looms, one at either window.
The loom-room was in use even in Lieutenant Lagerlöf’s time, though it
was then no longer the custom to pay one’s serving-folk their earnings
in clothing but in money. It was Fru Lagerlöf’s great delight to sit at
a loom weaving towelling, bed linen, table linen, floor mats, curtains,
furniture coverings, and dress fabrics--in fact, everything of that
sort needed in the home. All summer long she had her looms going.
In the autumn, however, the looms were taken out to make room for a
long, low table which was well smeared with bezum, and the round,
three-legged stools were brought up from the servants’ room. That meant
that Soldier Svens, the parish shoemaker, was expected. Soon he and his
apprentices came shouldering great knapsacks packed full of awls,
hammers, bundles of lasts, wax-ends, eyelets, heel-irons and shoe-pegs,
all of which were dumped upon the table.
The cobbler was a tall, gaunt man with a shock of black hair and a full
black beard. Seeing him for the first time one thought him a fierce and
dangerous fellow, more fit for fighting than for the shoemaker’s bench.
But when he spoke, it was in a soft, timorous voice. His eyes were
rather small and mild-looking, and his whole bearing was a bit
uncertain. He was perhaps not so very dangerous after all.
Lieutenant Lagerlöf’s little children were in high glee when the
shoemaker arrived. They bounded up the difficult stairs to the
loom-room many times a day. It was not so much for chatter they
came--for Soldier Svens was a reticent and diligent man--as to watch the
work, to see how a shoe was made, from the stretching of the leather on
the last to the cutting out of the bootlaces.
The shoemaker, who usually sat with drooping head, brightened when he
heard Lieutenant Lagerlöf’s footstep on the stairs. He and the
Lieutenant were old regiment comrades. After they had discussed
brogans, sole-leather, and boot-grease a while, they fell to
reminiscing about Trossnäs Field, and when they were well warmed up to
it, the Lieutenant would coax the shoemaker to sing an old war song
which was unlike any other battle hymn in that it began thus: _We
heroes from Sweden, we do not love to fight._ That song the soldiers
had made up when they marched down to Denmark in the year 1848 on the
expedition known as the “Sandwich War.”
Singularly enough, Shoemaker Svens loved to talk about Tailor Lager,
who had sat many a time in that very room in the days of the Paymaster
of the Regiment, and who was as merry and full of fun as he was grave
and mournful.
“You have probably heard, Lieutenant, how the tailor came to be called
Lager,” the shoemaker began.
The Lieutenant knew the story as well as he knew his “Our Father,” but
all the same he replied:
“I may have heard it, Svens, but you tell it--in your way.”
“Well, you see, Lager he was a soldier like myself, though he was
before my time. They say in the regiment that at first he was called
Lars Andersson. Then came orders for the privates to change their names
because there were too many Anderssons and Johanssons in the regiment.
“One day at a rally at Trossnäs, the soldiers were called in by your
father to say by what name they wished to be known, and to have it set
down in the roll.
“Of course Lars Andersson was among them. The Paymaster of the Regiment
knew him from of old as a joke-maker, for year after year Lars had sat
here at Mårbacka weeks at a stretch, making clothes for the Paymaster
and all his folks. From the time he came till he went it was nothing
but fun and laughter. He could mimic everybody in the parish and make
things disappear like a magician at the fair, and he played on a stick
till you thought you heard the whole regiment marching. But he was a
bit dangerous, was Lars, for he made up yarns about folk that caused
bad feeling among the neighbours.
“‘Well, what shall you call yourself, Lars Andersson?’ the Paymaster
asked him, putting on a stern face so that Lars would not dare come
with any of his monkey tricks.
“‘Lord preserve the Paymaster of the Regiment!’ says he. ‘May I call
myself anything I like?’ He puckered his forehead as if he were trying
hard to think of a name.
“‘You may, Lars Andersson.’ The Paymaster, knowing his man, added, ‘But
it must be a proper and honourable name, and nothing clownish.’
“You remember, Lieutenant, how your father looked. He was a kind man,
but just the sight of him put fear into many a one, for he was a big
tall man with bushy black eyebrows.
“But the tailor was not afraid--not he! ‘Then,’ says he, ‘I’ll call
myself Lagerlöf, for that is both an honourable and respected name. I
know of no other in all Värmland that sounds so sweet.’
“The Paymaster of the Regiment must have got hot in the head when he
heard that that buffoon wanted to call himself Lagerlöf.
“‘No, that won’t do,’ he said. ‘We can’t have two with the same name in
the regiment.’
“‘But,’ says the tailor, ‘there are at least three Ugglas and four
Lilliehööks, and it isn’t likely anyone would mistake me for the
Paymaster.’
“‘No. But can’t you see, Lars Andersson, that it would never do,’
protested the Paymaster.
“‘I wouldn’t have chosen that name if you hadn’t given me leave to call
myself whatever I wished.’ The tailor made himself appear very humble
and serious. ‘I know that when the Paymaster of the Regiment gives you
his word you can usually go by it.’
“Then there was a long silence. Paymaster Lagerlöf sat studying how
he’d get round this. Aside from the fact that it would make him the
butt of the regiment, he didn’t care to have a mountebank like that
tailor knocking about under the name of Lagerlöf.
“‘Look here, Lars,’ he finally said, ‘it might do well enough here in
the regiment for us two to bear the same name, but home at Mårbacka it
would never go. So understand, if you insist on this thing you can’t do
any more tailoring there.’
“That must have given the tailor a scare, for the weeks he sat sewing
at Mårbacka were to him the best in the whole year. At no other place
did he fare so well, and nowhere else did they laugh so heartily at his
yarns and pranks.
“‘Perhaps you’d be satisfied to call yourself Lager?’ the Paymaster
suggested, seeing the fellow was wavering. The tailor must have agreed
to that, for he went by the name of Lager the rest of his life.”
V
THE “JUNGFRU”
SHE was an old _jungfru_ who had once been in service in the home of
Fru Lagerlöf’s parents, at Filipstad, but lived now, in her old age, at
Ämtervik. She had known Fru Lagerlöf as a child, and used to come to
Mårbacka two or three times a year to see the folks.
The _jungfru_ was a tall, good-looking woman with white hair. She had a
strong nose, a firm mouth, and a grave manner. She liked preachers and
missionaries, and ran to prayer-meetings and sewing-circles. One could
not talk with her about dancing, or novels, or love affairs; such
things were to her an abomination. Nor did one dare speak ill of any
one in her presence, or even discuss pretty clothes, and she would not
hear about the sinful things that went on in the world.
It was not easy to know just what one should talk about. Outside of
cookery and the weather there were few topics of conversation one might
safely touch upon. These, to be sure, held out a long while, but even
they could become exhausted, for the _jungfru_ was a person of few
words, and her answers were short and well posed.
There was a way, however, to loosen the _jungfru’s_ tongue; but it had
its drawbacks. She had once on a time been cook at a large deanery. The
dean had twenty children, all living and arrived at maturity. That
family she continually kept in mind, and her supreme delight was to
talk about those people.
The family at Mårbacka were having their usual afternoon coffee in the
living room. The coffeepot and tray stood on the big table. Everyone,
in turn, went up and poured himself a cup. None took more than one lump
of sugar, one wheaten rusk and one of rye, one ring-biscuit, one ginger
cookie, and a bit of fresh cake, if there happened to be any. Whereupon
each sat down in his accustomed place. Fru Lagerlöf occupied one corner
of the sofa, Mamselle Lovisa the other. The Lieutenant always had the
rocker, which was his favourite seat. No one else would have ventured
to appropriate that. Herr Tyberg, Johan’s tutor, took a cane-bottomed
chair, and between these four stood a table made from the root of an
alder. At one of the little window-tables sat Johan, at the other Anna,
while over in the chimney corner, by the folded card table, sat the two
little tots, Selma and Gerda; they were considered too young to have
coffee, and had to be content with a glass of milk each.
The _jungfru_, who had come that day for a visit, was having coffee
with the family. She had placed her chair in the middle of the room,
where all might see and talk with her. They had run the whole gamut of
harmless topics, and were now at a standstill. Lieutenant Lagerlöf, who
could not abide a lull in the conversation, began to question her about
missions, colporteurs, sewing-circles, and prayer-meetings. Knowing the
sort he was and what she was, it was clear that this could not run
smoothly.
Fru Lagerlöf tried to change the conversation, Mamselle Lovisa gave her
brother a nudge with her elbow, and Herr Tyberg called attention to the
excellent quality of the coffee. But the Lieutenant and the _jungfru_
went right on with their discussion, which was getting a bit hot.
Now Fru Lagerlöf knew from of old that if the _jungfru_ took offence at
anything the Lieutenant said about the “miss-i-on,” she would not come
again for at least a year; and her circumstances were such that she
needed to come to Mårbacka occasionally, to get a few good meals, a
sack of flour, and something tasty to take home with her. She saw no
way out of it but to ask the _jungfru_ what had become of all the
dean’s twenty children.
In a twinkling the foreign and home missions, the heathen children, and
even the impious Lieutenant were forgotten. She brightened, and
promptly started in:
“I’ve never known the like of it in all my life. In that house we’d a
wash-day every other week, and at that, the tubs were always full of
clothes. You could never sit down to a meal but you must have a child
on each side of you. You had to fix its food and help feed it in the
bargain. When there was shifts to be made, they had to fetch home whole
bolts of linen, and sempstresses and tailors and shoemakers never found
time to go to other places in the parish, for they’d enough to do in
that one place.”
“But, my dear Jungfru Anna, however could the dean and his wife manage
to bring up so many children?” Fru Lagerlöf said to get her well
started.
“Ah, but they did, though, and they turned out grand, all of them. You
never saw better children. Only think! the oldest daughter, Eve--what a
handy one she was at making baby things and tending little ones! And
she got married, indeed, at seventeen to Curate Jansson of Skilanda,
and when he died she got a dean in Västergötland. She had a lot of
children, and after she’d stood a bride the first time she never showed
herself again in her father’s house.”
“She probably thought there were enough without her,” observed the
Lieutenant, dryly.
The little girls over in the chimney-corner began to giggle; but they
got such a sharp look from the _jungfru_ they subsided instantly.
“The next to the oldest was a boy named Adam,” the _jungfru_ continued.
“He was the worst child for crying I ever came across. But later on,
when he became a priest, he chanted the service so beautiful that he
was made Court Chaplain. He could have married any one he liked, but he
had no such wish. For some reason he remained a bachelor all his life.”
“Tell us, what was it?” Herr Tyberg struck in.
Again came a titter from the chimney-corner. The _jungfru_ shot the
children and Herr Tyberg each a glance that scared them into silence.
“The third was a boy called Noah. And d’you know, _Frua_, he was so
good at fishing, and brought home such big catches that both me and his
mother was thankful to him. He became a priest in Halland, and every
year he sent his folks a big barrel of salted salmon.”
“Oh, speaking of salmon----” The Lieutenant started to say something
about their ordering another firkin of salmon, but couldn’t get a word
in for the _jungfru._
“The next was a boy named Shem,” she rattled on. “He was as great a
hunter as Noah was a fisher. Oh, you’d ought t’ve seen all the grouse
and hares he brought home! And he became a priest, too, and got a
vicarage down in Skåne; and every winter he sent home a reindeer he’d
shot himself.”
After Shem she took breath and looked round. Her hearers sat silent and
subdued. None thought of interrupting her.
“The one that came after the three boys was a girl whose name was Sara.
And I’d be willing to swear before God and man, that never have I seen
any one with such a knack at putting up pickles and making jam and
fruit juice. All the same, she didn’t get married; she went to
Stockholm and kept house for her brother the Court Chaplain.
“The next was also a girl, and Rebecca was her name. I must say that
she was the one who understood me the least. She had such a good head
for learning she could have been a priest like her brothers. And the
way she could make up poetry was something wonderful! Folks said there
was nobody in all Sweden beat her writing cradle songs. Just the same
she got married, but ’twas only to a school teacher.”
At that point the _jungfru_ was interrupted by the maid coming in with
fresh coffee, and they must all have a second cup.
“I wonder if there was any one in that batch who could make a decent
cup of coffee?” Lieutenant Lagerlöf ventured.
“The Lieutenant takes the words out of my mouth!” exclaimed the
_jungfru._ “It may sound queer, but the one who had a real turn for
cooking was the fourth boy, Isaac. He was so clever at whipping up a
sauce and basting a roast that one could have right good help from him
round the stove.”
“He must have excelled, though, at preparing baby-food,” Herr Tyberg
observed.
Snickers went up not only from the chimney-corner, but from all parts
of the room. Fru Lagerlöf, however, kept a straight face.
“What a wonderful memory Jungfru Anna must have to be able to remember
all that!” she said, so as to keep the old girl in good humour.
Ordinarily the _jungfru_ was quick to take offence, but not when she
could talk about her dear deanery children. Then she was imperturbable.
At all events, Herr Tyberg had helped them away from Isaac. They never
learned to what uses he eventually put his talent.
“The two next were twins, and they were called Jacob and Esau. They
were as like as two coffee beans. I couldn’t tell one from t’other. I
never saw such boys for running and jumping and skating. But they
became priests, they, too.”
“I thought they were going to be rope-dancers,” the Lieutenant cut in.
“They became priests, they, too,” the _jungfru_ reiterated, not in the
least put out. “Esau went up to Jämtland, where he had to clamber ’mong
the fells, and Jacob, he went down to Bohuslän, where he scrambled in
and out of boats and ships. They found their right places and turned to
use the talents God had given ’em--they, like their brothers and
sisters.”
“But what happened to Joseph?” asked the Lieutenant quickly.
“There were two girls before him, Lieutenant, called Rachel and Leah.
They were handy in the garden; the one planted and the other weeded.
When the bishop paid a visit he declared he’d never tasted such peas
and such strawberries. They married, too; each of them got a foundry
owner. And now I’m coming to Joseph.”
“He became a squire, I suppose?” said the Lieutenant.
“He became a tenant of his father’s,” the _jungfru_ corrected him. “He
looked after the fields and tended the cows and provided food for his
parents and his brethren.”
“H’m--that was just what I thought.” So saying, the Lieutenant arose
and sidled toward the door, where his hat and cane were hanging, and
sneaked out.
“The thirteenth was David,” pursued the _jungfru._ “He married three
times, and had three children by each wife. If it please you, I can
tell you the names of all the wives and children.... But maybe ’twould
be better to keep to the twenty brethren?”
They all thought that quite the wisest plan. But with these prospects
before her, Fru Lagerlöf felt a bit uneasy.
“I’ll run out and fetch something to work on,” she said, “then I’ll be
able to follow you better.” But it was a good while before she came
back with that work.
“The fourteenth was a girl named Deborah. She was always so nice about
giving me a hand with the bread-making. She never got married and never
left home, for she had to stay at the deanery and help me and her
mother with the little ones. Sometimes she was kind of queer, though,
and then she’d say she liked the Catholic religion because it didn’t
allow its priests to marry.”
A slight noise was heard down by the door. Herr Tyberg had slipped out
so softly no one noticed it till he was gone.
“The fifteenth was a girl, and her name was Martha. She was the
greatest beauty you ever set eyes on! But she, too, was a bit queer.
When she came seventeen she married a dean who was two-and-sixty, just
because she wanted to get away from home.”
Here Anna and Johan stood up. They must go fetch a light, they said. It
was some little time before that light was brought.
“The sixteenth was called Mary. She was homely, and she used to say
she’d never be able to catch a parson or a gentleman; but she was that
eager to leave home she took up with a farm-hand, and went off and got
married.”
Mamselle Lovisa remained faithfully at her post, where she had gone
sound asleep; but this the _jungfru_ had not noticed.
“The seventeenth was hardly eighteen when she moved away from the
deanery. She used to help the missus write letters to all the brothers
and sisters; for that was more than any one body could do.”
The door opened ever so little and shut again.