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Updated: June 9, 2025
She knew it was Glory Goldie who had come, although the person who now pushed the gate open looked like a grand lady. On her head was a large hat trimmed with plumes and flowers and she wore a smart coat and skirt of fine cloth; but all the same it was the little girl of Ruffluck Croft! Glory Goldie, hurrying into the yard in advance of the team, rushed up to her mother with outstretched hand.
But on either of these she had not cared to travel or perhaps she had not even known about them. She had come by wagon from the railway station to the Ashdales. So after all Jan of Ruffluck did not have the pleasure of welcoming his daughter at the Borg pier, where for fifteen years he had awaited her coming. Yes, it was all of fifteen years that she had been away.
Next time he saw Jan and Katrina in the pine grove outside the church, he went up to them. "That girl of yours, that handy little girl of yours is going to be a comfort to you," he told them. There were many who said to Jan of Ruffluck that his little girl would be a comfort to him when she was grown.
At first Lars went right on with his auctioneering, but he kept an eye on Jan of Ruffluck until the later had made his way to the front. There was no fear of Johannes of Portugallia remaining in the background! He shook hands with everybody and spoke a few pleasant words to each and all, at the same time pushing ahead until he had reached the very centre of the ring.
Jan of Ruffluck Croft never tired of telling about the day when his little girl came into the world. In the early morning he had been to fetch the midwife, and other helpers; all the forenoon and a good part of the afternoon he had sat on the chopping-block, in the woodshed, with nothing to do but to wait.
"Jan won't leave his wife though all the glories of Portugallia are tempting him." And think of it! The girls were very glad of this. They patted him on the back and told him he did right. That was a favourable sign, they said, for it showed that all was not over yet with good old Jan Anderson of Ruffluck Croft.
"I thought it was Herod, King of Judea, and his wife, Herodias," he said. When the little girl of Ruffluck was three years old she had an illness which must have been the scarlet fever, for her little body was red all over and burning hot to the touch. She would not eat, nor could she sleep; she just lay tossing in delirium. Jan could not think of going away from home so long as she was sick.
No one had been so zealous in the rescue work as had Jan of Ruffluck. But for him the cow would have been lost. And just think! She was a cow worth at least two hundred rix-dollars. To Jan this seemed a rare stroke of luck. Surely the new master and mistress could not fail to recognize so great a service. Something of a similar nature once happened in the old master's time.
The first time Jan of Ruffluck had gone to Lövdala on a seventeenth of August the visit had not passed off as creditably for him as he could have wished; so he had never repeated it, although he had been told that each year it was becoming more lively and festive at the Manor. But now that the little girl had come up in the world, it was altogether different with him.
Through the elder bushes at the edge of the road a horse could be seen running wildly in the direction of Ruffluck. "Don't you see it's only Lars Gunnarson driving home? He must have drunk himself full at the tavern, for he doesn't seem to know which way he's going." When Katrina said that a horse and wagon dashed by their gate.
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