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Updated: May 9, 2025
"Oh, you don't know me as well as you think. I won't cut away. Sometimes, when I'm with father, I feel like it. But I can hold out as long as the Ericsons can. They've never got the best of me yet, and one can live, so long as one isn't beaten. If I go back to father, it's all up with Olaf in politics. He knows that, and he never goes much beyond sulking. I've as much wit as the Ericsons.
She was inordinately proud of Olaf's position, and she found a sufficiently exciting career in managing Clara's house, in keeping it above the criticism of the Ericsons, in pampering Olaf to keep him from finding fault with his wife, and in concealing from every one Clara's domestic infelicities.
Ericson was sitting alone in her wooden rocking-chair on the front porch. Little Hilda had been sent to bed and had cried herself to sleep. The old woman's knitting was on her lap, but her hands lay motionless on top of it. For more than an hour she had not moved a muscle. She simply sat, as only the Ericsons and the mountains can sit.
"It has, I'm afraid," Clara admitted mournfully. "Then why don't you cut away? There are more amusing games than this in the world. When I came home I thought it might amuse me to bully a few quarter sections out of the Ericsons; but I've almost decided I can get more fun for my money somewhere else." Clara took in her breath sharply. "Ah, you have got the other will! That was why you came home!"
He took the flask and filled the two glasses carefully to the brim. "I've found out what I want from the Ericsons. Drink skoal, Clara." He lifted his glass, and Clara took hers with downcast eyes. "Look at me, Clara Vavrika. Skoal!" She raised her burning eyes and answered fiercely: "Skoal!" The barn supper began at six o'clock and lasted for two hilarious hours.
"Don't talk about that. I try never to think of it. If I lost Father I'd lose everything, even my hold over the Ericsons." "Bah! You'd lose a good deal more than that. You'd lose your race, everything that makes you yourself. You've lost a good deal of it now." "Of what?" "Of your love of life, your capacity for delight." Clara put her hands up to her face. "I haven't, Nils Ericson, I haven't!
I'll never leave them unless I can show them a thing or two." "You mean unless you can come it over them?" "Yes unless I go away with a man who is cleverer than they are, and who has more money." Nils whistled. "Dear me, you are demanding a good deal. The Ericsons, take the lot of them, are a bunch to beat. But I should think the excitement of tormenting them would have worn off by this time."
"The Kinlays and the Ericsons will never be friends." Thereafter Captain Gordon became very quiet and thoughtful, and when again he spoke it was about my own sister Jessie. He asked me many a question concerning her; and if I turned from the subject to point out some object in the scenery that I thought would interest him, he was sure to lead me back in some way to talk of Jessie.
I'm with a Norwegian shipping line; came over on business with the New York offices, but now I'm going straight back to Bergen. I expect I've got as much money as the Ericsons. Father sent me a little to get started. They never knew about that. There, I hadn't meant to tell you; I wanted you to come on your own nerve." Clara looked off across the fields.
Nils laughed down at her sullen frown and began mockingly to sing: "Oh, how could a poor gypsy maiden like me Expect the proud bride of a baron to be?" Clara clutched his shoulder. "Hush, Nils; every one is looking at you." "I don't care. They can't gossip. It's all in the family, as the Ericsons say when they divide up little Hilda's patrimony amongst them.
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