CHAPTER XXXV

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT

Andy, who had stood singing with his eyes still lifted toward the late evening sun, gradually regained his eyesight. And what he saw brought him to earth. It was the district minister, he himself, he who had preached so beautifully in the Lapp mountains, who stood there and listened to him.

As if frightened out of his senses, Andy jumped down from the stone and fled into the woods.

Maglena more than wanted to follow his example, so terrible did it seem to be left alone among so many fine people. For two well-dressed women had just come, while Andy was preaching. They wore hats with silk ribbons, and on their hands mittens that looked like lace, and beautiful ‘bought’ dresses: shoes with elastic sides too.

And it was the district minister himself who had come with them. Maglena knew him at once, because as he stood leaning against a fir trunk, listening to Andy, something kind and bright shone from his eyes just as it did up in the little chapel. He appeared ‘revered’ and high. Maglena felt so little, so little, when he looked at her. But she could not get away and dart after Andy, because Sylvia sat in her lap and wanted to be baby. Sylvia was so slender and small, and had such thin soft clothing that Maglena could easily hold her, yes, even rock her a wee bit, and keep the mosquitoes from her delicate, pale little face.

When Sylvia caught sight of the strangers, she sat up. She called to one of them, her mother, who at once was told that she had found a ‘best friend’ up here at the mountain dairy who was never going to leave her.

Now that the sermon was over, and the ‘minister’ fled to the woods, life and uproar followed among the children.

Elsa, the eldest daughter at the parsonage to which the dairy farm belonged, was suddenly depressed when she saw her mother so early. She and the other children had made many bright plans about the reception they were going to give their parents and Aunt Gerda when they came. And now they came upon them and not a thing had been done to honor them. Now Elsa scarcely had time to greet them before she set off for the house as fast as her legs could carry her. She thought with horror of the awfully untidy room being seen by mother. Mother wasn’t _supposed_ to come to the dairy until Sunday _evening_! For her, as well as for her four sisters, Angela, Ingegard, Gertrude, and Viva, who too had just got up, it still seemed morning.

However, Elsa contrived to get the always inseparable twins, Ingegard and Gertrude, with her. And as they, with united strength, rushed about, made the beds, swept, put fresh boughs on the floor, cleaned the hearth, put wood on the fire, and the coffee-pot over the fire, they had everything clean and in order when mother and the rest came in.

The joy of seeing the parents was, however, a little mixed. For now there would be an end to the wonderful week’s visit at the mountain dairy. The cows and goats were now to be driven home for haying time, and the dairy would be closed for several weeks.

When people and cattle were to be there again in the late summer, the children would already have begun their lessons and reading. No chance then to get up to the dairy, still less to stay there.

But now it was best to forget lessons and a shut-in life. Now there was plenty to do. Pelle had just come home with a string of trout that he had caught while watching the cattle. Elsa cleaned the fish quickly and skillfully and then fried them in a pan over the coals. Ingegard cleaned potatoes, washed wooden bowls, and scoured knives.

Angela set the table that opened up and became large enough for them all. She decorated it with wild flowers and leaves that Sylvia, Maglena, and Viva brought home from the woods, while Pelle cleaned outside, raked, and carried away fallen leaves and withered boughs that had done service on the floor.

Gertrude toiled in the milk-room. She carried out bowls of clotted milk, and goats’-milk cheese, and broke up the hard coarse bread into pieces more suitable for the table. The butter jar, full of yellow butter with an almost flowery fragrance, she put in the center of the table. With the support of Ingegard, she won this place of honor for it, though Angela fussed about such a vulgar way of setting the table. Yellow brown whey butter and fresh ‘cow-cheese’ that was so dry that one choked on it, though when old and ripe it became soft and delicious, were also set forth.

At length, far out in the woods, a beautiful trilling yodeling and the jubilant blasts of a horn could be heard.

Apparently Karl and Sara were together and had been all day. The twins thought this _quite strange_ and that it would have been better and more seemly if Sara at least had stayed at the farm until she really had them awake, even if it did take all day.