United States or Norfolk Island ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"I felt somehow that I had not the strength to do a thing that would part me from you." Then she bowed her head over Ingmar's hand, and kissed it. And it seemed to Ingmar as if great bells were ringing in a holy day. Within reigned Sabbath peace and stillness, while love, honey sweet, rested upon his lips, filling his whole being with a blissful solace.
I could hear how the fiends kept calling to me and threatening me, and shrieking my name, as they rushed by." As for Gertrude, her only thought was: "I know now that I can never live without Ingmar; I must always be near him because of that feeling of confidence he gives one."
When one feels timid about asking questions, and when no one voluntarily speaks of that which one longs above everything to hear about, it is mighty provoking, to say the least. But if young Ingmar seemed to be happy and content, the same could not be said of Strong Ingmar. The old man had of late become sullen and taciturn and difficult to get on with.
"It would have been too late in any case, Ingmar. It was too late a week ago, it is too late now, and it will be too late forever." Ingmar had again sunk down on the stone. He covered his face with his hands and wailed: "And I thought there was no help for it! I believed that no power on earth could have altered this; but now I find that there was a way out, that we might all have been happy."
Gertrude then went up to the man and asked him, half in fun, if he wouldn't like to set fire to the Ingmar Farm. She wished it done, she said, because Ingmar Ingmarsson thought more of the farm than of her. To her horror, the half-witted dwarf was ready to act on her suggestion. Nodding gleefully, he started on a run toward the settlement. She hurried after, but could not seem to overtake him.
"He can tell me all I need know about that homestead yonder." Whereupon he crossed the path into the field, stepped up to Ingmar, and asked him if he thought the folks living over there wanted any painting done. Ingmar Ingmarsson was startled, and stood staring at the man as though he were a ghost. "Lord, as I live, it's a painter!" he remarked to himself. "And to think of his coming just now!"
He arose to shake hands with the schoolmaster, but when little Ingmar put out his hand, Halvor was talking so earnestly to Mother Stina that he seemed not to have noticed the boy. Ingmar remained standing a moment, then he went up to the table and sat down. He sighed several times, just as Karin had done the day she was there. "Halvor has come to show us his new watch," said Mother Stina.
Her headkerchief had slipped back, and she sat gazing down at her apron. "Ingmar should be looking about for a new wife." Both mother and son persistently held their peace. "Mother Martha needs a helper in this big household. Ingmar should see to it that she has some comfort in her old age." The senator paused a moment, wondering if they could have heard what he said.
Now and then Gertrude would cast a side glance at Ingmar thinking of how he had worked to learn to dance. Whatever the reason whether it was the memory of Ingmar's weird dancing, or the anticipation of attending a regular dance her thoughts became light and airy. She managed to keep just a little behind the others, that she might muse undisturbed.
"Just you try to oppose them once, and you'll soon hear what they think of you!" Ingmar cut off a big corner of his sandwich and stuffed his mouth full, so he would not have to talk. It irritated him to see Strong Ingmar in such bad humour. "Heigho, hum! It's a queer world," sighed the old man.
Word Of The Day