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Updated: October 14, 2025
They were the last wishes of the dying woman, and they were followed in the smallest detail. Lasse remembered them word for word, in spite of his bad memory. Then there were little things that had belonged to Bengta herself, cheap finery that all had its happy memory of fairs and holidays, which he recalled in his muttered reverie.
What kindness I've known has been from my own people; a poor bird will pull out its own feathers to cover another. But I can't complain; I have had bad days, but there are folks who have had worse. And the women have always been good to me. Bengta was a grumbler, but she meant it kindly; Karna sacrificed money and health to me God be thanked that she didn't live after they took the farm from me.
Pelle would not have a dram. "What's a Jute?" he asked in a whisper. "A Jute? Good gracious me, laddie, don't you know that? It was the Jutes that crucified Christ. That's why they have to wander all over the world now, and sell flannel and needles, and such-like; and they always cheat wherever they go. Don't you remember the one that cheated Mother Bengta of her beautiful hair?
Never had he known such a woman; Bengta was a perfect lamb compared to her! The farmer at Kaase Farm, who was standing at his gate when they dashed past, was secretly of the same opinion; and the workers in the fields dropped their implements, stared and were scandalized at the sight. At last, for very shame, he had to stop and turn round.
"Run over to Karna with this and ask her to accept it. We're not so poor that we should let kindness itself go from us empty-handed. But you mustn't let any one see it, in case they didn't like it. Mother Bengta in her grave won't be offended; she'd have proposed it herself, if she could have spoken; but her mouth's full of earth, poor thing!" Lasse sighed deeply.
Pelle, who concerned himself with everything in heaven and earth, had been absorbing every word that was spoken with his protruding ears, but when the conversation turned upon death he yawned. He himself had never been seriously ill, and since Mother Bengta died, death had never encroached upon his world.
"You can go into her room and see for yourself; you know the way!" said Karna tartly. "And what's become of the pupil to-day, as he hasn't rung?" said Karl Johan. "Have any of you girls seen him?" "No, I expect he's overslept himself," cried Bengta from the wash-house. "And so he may! I don't want to run up and shake life into him every morning!"
The branches hung silently listening, but the noise from the open ground came down in bursts, and in the darkness under the bushes living things rustled about and spoke in voices of joy or sorrow. A sudden scream rang through the wood, and made his knees knock together. Karna sat at the back of the cart asleep, and Bengta stood leaning against the front seat, weeping.
His father was so careful of that sack, that he would be sure to be sorry if he lost it he might even cry as he did when he lost Mother Bengta. For perhaps the first time, the boy was being subjected to one of life's serious tests, and stood as so many had stood before him with the choice between sacrificing himself and sacrificing others.
The girls were always on the look-out for him, married man though he was, and he had fun with them all quite proper, of course, for Bengta was not good to quarrel with if she heard anything. But now! Yes well, yes he might fetch the gin for the others and do their work for them when they had a holiday, without their doing anything in exchange! "Lasse! Where's Lasse?
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