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In the night Karin had a frightful dream. She dreamt that Elof was alive and was holding a big revel. She could hear him in the next room clinking glasses, laughing loudly, and singing ribald songs. She thought, in the dream, that Elof and his boon companions were getting noisier and noisier, and at last it sounded as though they were trying to break up both tables and chairs.
Elof had gone to live with Halvor. All summer he lay in the little bedroom off the shop. Halvor was not troubled with the care of him for a great while, for in the autumn he died. Shortly after his death Mother Stina said to Halvor: "Now you must promise me one thing: promise me that you will exercise patience as regards Karin." "Of course I'll have patience," Halvor returned, wonderingly.
Taking the boy in her arms, she carried him into the bedroom, locked the door after her, and tried to bring him to. After a while she stepped into the living-room, where Elof sat eating his breakfast. She walked straight up to him and put her hand on his shoulder.
"But it wasn't your fault, child." "Maybe father will think that I shouldn't have taken what Elof offered me? Don't you suppose the whole parish must know that I have been full?" he asked. "What do the hired men say, and what does old Lisa say, and Strong Ingmar?" "They're not saying anything," Karin replied. "You will have to tell them how it happened.
As a matter of fact, Karin had always imagined that Halvor had courted her only because of her money and good connections. It had never occurred to her that he might have loved her for herself alone. She probably knew she was not the kind of girl that men care for. Nor had she herself been in love, either with Halvor or Elof.
A couple of peasants who had come from a distance to trade with him hung around outside the shop from noon till evening. But no Tims Halvor appeared. Elof Ersson, the husband of Karin Ingmarsson, was the son of a cruel and avaricious peasant, who had always treated him harshly. As a child he had been half starved, and even after he was grown up his father kept him under his thumb.
There were precious few nights that they were allowed to sleep in peace. Elof was constantly hitting upon new ways of tormenting both the servants and Karin, to make them give in to his demands. In this misery Karin passed a winter and a summer and another winter. But Karin had a retreat to which she would flee at times in order to be alone with her thoughts.
That will be the best kind of schooling for him. When I was his age, I spent a whole winter working at the kiln." As Karin could not induce him to alter his mind, she had to make the best of it and keep Ingmar at home for the time being. Elof then tried to win the confidence of little Ingmar. Whenever he went anywhere he always wanted the boy to accompany him.
"I'm not full," Elof protested. "The fact is, as I started to run down the stairs I thought I saw Big Ingmar coming toward me, to take the watch. That's how I got such an ugly fall." Then Halvor bent down and gave the poor wretch a lift, for his back was broken. He had to be put into a wagon and driven home. He would never again have the use of his legs.
She thought of all the work ahead of her sowing and haymaking; spring baking and spring cleaning; weaving and sewing and wondered how she would ever get through with it all. "I might better be dead," she sighed. "I seem to be here for no other purpose than to prevent Elof killing himself with drink." Suddenly she looked up, as if she had heard some one calling her.
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