Jerusalem

"It will be very hard for father and mother," she reiterated. "Father is an old man now, and must soon give up his school; so they will have even less to live upon than before. When he has no work to take up his mind, he will become restless and irritable. Mother won't have an easy time with him. They'll be very unhappy, both of them. Of course it would have been quite different could I have stayed at home to cheer them."

Gertrude paused, as if afraid to come out with what she wanted to say. Ingmar's throat tightened, and his eyes began to fill. He divined that Gertrude wanted to ask him to look after her old parents.

"And I fancied that she had come here to-day only to abuse and threaten me! And instead she opens her heart to me."

"You won't have to ask me, Gertrude," he said. "This is a great honour for you to confer upon one who has behaved so badly to you. Be assured that I shall treat your old parents better than I have treated you."

When Ingmar said this, his voice trembled, and the wary look was gone from his face. "How kind Gertrude is to me!" he thought. "She does not ask this of me only out of consideration for her parents, but she wants to show me that she has forgiven me."

"I knew, Ingmar, that you wouldn't say no to this. And I have something more to tell you." She spoke now in a brighter and more confident tone. "I've got a great surprise for you!"

"How charmingly Gertrude speaks!" Ingmar was thinking. "She has the sweetest, the cheeriest, and most tuneful voice I have ever heard!"

"About a week ago," Gertrude continued, "I left home intending to go straight on to Gothenburg, so as to be there when the Hellgumists arrive. The first night I stopped over at Bergsåna with a poor widow whose name it Marie Boving. That name I want you to remember Ingmar —Marie Boving. If she should ever come to want, you must help her."

"How pretty Gertrude is!" he thought, as he nodded and promised to remember Marie Boving's name. "How pretty she is! What will become of me when she goes? God forgive me if I did wrong in giving her up for an old farm! Fields and meadows can never be the same to you as a human being; they can't laugh with you when you're happy, nor comfort you when you're sad! Nothing on earth can make up for the loss of one who has loved you."

"Marie Boving," Gertrude went on, "has a little room off her kitchen, which she let me have for the night. 'You'll surely sleep well to-night,' she said to me, 'as you are to lie on the bedding which I bought at the sale on the Ingmar Farm.' But as soon as I laid down, I felt a hard lump in the pillow under my head. After all, it wasn't such extra good bedding Marie had bought for herself, I thought; but I was so tired out from tramping around all day, that I finally dropped off to sleep. In the middle of the night I awoke and turned the pillow, so I shouldn't feel that hard lump. While smoothing out the pillow, I discovered that the ticking had been cut and clumsily basted together. Inside there was something hard that crackled like paper. 'I don't have to lie on rocks,' I said to myself; then I ripped open a corner of the pillow, and pulled out a small parcel, which was done up in wrapping paper and tied with string."

Gertrude paused and glanced at Ingmar, to see whether his curiosity was aroused; but apparently he had not listened very closely to what she was telling.

"How prettily Gertrude uses her hands when she talks!" he thought. "I don't think I've ever seen any one as graceful as she is. There's an old saying that man loves mankind above everything. However, I believe that I did the right thing, for it wasn't only the farm that needed me, but the whole parish." Just the same, he felt to his discomfort that now it was not so easy to persuade himself that he loved his old home more than he loved Gertrude.

"I put the parcel down beside the bed, thinking that in the morning I would give it to Marie. But at daybreak I saw that your name was written on the wrapper. On closer examination I decided to take it along, and turn it over to you without saying anything about it, either to Marie or to any one else." Then taking a little parcel from the bottom of her basket, she said: "Here it is, Ingmar. Take it; it's your property." She supposed, of course, that he would be happily surprised.

Ingmar took the parcel, without much thought as to what he was receiving. He was struggling to ward off the bitter regrets that were stealing in on him.

"If Gertrude only knew how bewitching she is when she's so sweet and gentle! It would have been better for me had she come to upbraid me. I suppose I ought to be glad that she is as she is," he thought, "but I'm not. It seems as if she were grateful to me for having failed her."

"Ingmar," said Gertrude, in a tone that finally made him understand that she had something very important to tell him. "When Elof lay sick at the Ingmar Farm, he must have used that very pillow."

She took the parcel from Ingmar and opened it. Then she counted out twenty crisp, new bank notes, each of which was a thousand-krona bill. Holding the money in front of his eyes, she said:

"Look, Ingmar! here's every krona of your inheritance money. It was

Elof, of course, who hid it in the pillow!"

Ingmar heard what she said, and he saw the bank notes – but he saw and heard as in a daze. Gertrude placed the money in his hand, but his fingers would not close over it, and it fell to the ground. Then Gertrude picked it up and stuffed it into his pocket. Ingmar stood there, reeling like a drunken man. Suddenly he raised his arm, clenched his fist tight, and shook it, just as a drunken man might have done. "My God! My God!" he groaned.

Indeed, he wished that he could have had a word with our Lord, could have asked Him why this money had not been found sooner, and why it should have turned up now when it was not needed, and when Gertrude was already lost to him. The next moment his hand dropped heavily on Gertrude's shoulder.

"You certainly know how to take your revenge!"

"Do you call this revenge, Ingmar?" asked Gertrude, in dismay.

"What else should I call it? Why didn't you bring me this money at once?"

"I wanted to wait until the day of your wedding."

"If you had only come before, I'm sure I could have bought back the farm from Berger Sven Persson, and then I would have married you."

"Yes, I knew that."

"And yet you come on my wedding day, when it's too late!"

"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."

"Understand one thing, Ingmar: when I found the money, I knew at once that it would be the kind of help to us that you say. But it was no temptation to me – no, not for a second; for I belong to another."

"You should have kept it yourself!" cried Ingmar. "I feel as if a wolf were gnawing at my heart. So long as I believed there was no other course open to me, it wasn't so bad; but now that I know you could have been mine, I can't – "

"Why Ingmar! I came here to bring you happiness."

Meanwhile, the folks at the house had become impatient, and had gone out on the porch, where they were calling: "Ingmar! Ingmar!"

"Yes, and there's the bride, too, waiting for me!" he said mournfully. "And to think that you, Gertrude, should have brought all this about! When I had to give you up, circumstances forced me to do so, while you have spoiled everything simply to make me unhappy. Now I know how my father felt when my mother killed the child!"

Then he broke into violent sobs. "Never have I felt toward you as I do now!" he cried passionately. "I've never loved you half so much as I do now. Little did I think that love could be so cruelly bitter!"

Gertrude gently placed her hand on his head. "Ingmar," she said very quietly, "it was never, never my meaning to take revenge on you. But so long as your heart is wedded to the things of this earth, it is wedded to sorrow."

For a long while Ingmar sat motionless, his head bowed. When he at last looked up, Gertrude was gone. People now came running from the farm to find him. He struck his clenched fist against the stone upon which he sat, and a look of determination came into his face.

"Gertrude and I will surely meet again," he said. "Then maybe it will be altogether different. We Ingmarssons are known to win what we yearn for."

THE DEAN'S WIDOW

Everybody tried to dissuade the Hellgumists from going to Jerusalem. And toward the last, it seemed as though the very hills and vales echoed the plea, "Do not go! Do not go!"

Even the country gentlemen did their best to get the peasants to abandon the idea. The bailiff, the judge, and the councilmen gave them no peace; they asked them how they could feel sure that these Americans were not imposters; for they had no way of knowing what sort of folk they would be getting in with. In that far Eastern country there was neither law nor order; there one was always in danger of falling into the hands of brigands. Besides, there were no decent roads in that land – all their goods would have to be transported by means of pack-horses, as in the wild forests up North.

The doctor told them they would never be able to stand the climate; that Jerusalem was full of smallpox and malignant fevers; they were going away only to die.

The Hellgumists answered that they knew all this, and it was for that very reason they were going. They were going there in order to fight the smallpox and the fevers, to build roads and to till the soil. God's country should no longer lie waste; they would transform it into a paradise. And no one was able to turn them from their purpose.

Down in the village lived an old lady, the widow of the Dean. She was very, very old! She occupied a large chamber above the post office, just across the street from the church, where she had lived since the death of her husband.

Some of the more well-to-do peasant women had always made it a rule to drop in to see the old lady on Sundays, before the service, and bring her some freshly baked bread, a pat of butter, or a can of milk. On these occasions she would always have the coffee pot put on the fire the moment they came in, and the one who could shout the loudest always talked with her, for she was frightfully deaf. Of course they would try to tell her about everything that had happened during the week, but they could never be certain as to how much she heard of what was told her.

She never left her room, and there were times when it seemed as if people had forgotten her entirely. Then some one, in passing, would see her old face back of the draped white curtains at the window, and think: "I must not forget her in her loneliness; to-morrow when we have killed the calf, I'll run in to see her, and take her a bit of fresh meat."

No one could find out just how much she knew or did not know of what went on in the parish. With the advancing years, she became more and more detached, and apparently lost all interest in the things of this world. Now she just sat reading all the while in an old Postil, which she seemed to know by heart.

Living with her was a faithful old servant, who helped her dress, and prepared her meals. The two of them were in mortal fear of robbers and mice, and they were so afraid of fire that they would sit in the dark the whole evening rather than light the lamp.

Several among those who had lately become followers of Hellgum, used to call on the Dean's widow in the old days, and bring her little gifts; but since their conversion they had separated themselves from all who were not of their faith; so they no longer went to see her. No one knew whether she understood why they did not come. Nor did anybody know whether she had heard anything about their proposed emigration to Jerusalem.

But one day the old lady took it into her head to go for a drive, and ordered the servant to get her a carriage and pair. Imagine the astonishment of the old servant! But when she attempted to remonstrate, the old lady suddenly became stone deaf. Raising her right hand, her forefinger poised in the air, she said:

"I wish to go for a drive, Sara Lena, you must find me a carriage and a pair of horses."

There was nothing for Sara Lena but to do as she was told. So she went over to the pastor's to ask for the loan of his rig, which was a fairly decent-looking turnout. That done, she was put to the bother of airing and brushing an old fur cape and an old velvet bonnet that had been lying in camphor twenty consecutive years. And it was no small task getting the old lady down the stairs and into the wagon! She was so feeble that it seemed as if her life could have been as easily snuffed out as a candle flame in a storm.

When the Dean's widow was at last safely seated in the carriage, she ordered the driver to take her to the Ingmar Farm.

Maybe the folks up at the farm were not surprised when they saw who was coming! The housefolk came running out, and lifted her down from the carriage, and ushered her into the living-room. Seated at the table in there were quite a number of Hellgumists. Of late they had been in the habit of coming together and having their frugal meals in common – meals which consisted of rice and tea and other light things; this was to prepare them for the coming journey across the desert.

The Dean's widow glanced around the room. Several persons tried to speak to her, but that day she heard nothing whatever. Suddenly she put up her hand, and said in that hard, dry voice in which deaf people are wont to speak: "You do not come to see me any more; therefore, I have come to you, to warn you not to go to Jerusalem. It is a wicked city. It was there they crucified our Saviour."

Karin attempted to answer the old lady, who apparently did not hear, for she went right on:

"It is a wicked city," she repeated. "Bad people live there. 'Twas there they crucified Christ. I have come here to-day," she added, "because this has been a good house. Ingmarsson has been a good name; it has always been a good name. Therefore, you must remain in our parish,"

Then she turned and walked out of the house. Now she had done her part, and could die in peace. This was the last service that life demanded of her.

After the old lady had gone, Karin broke into tears. "Perhaps it isn't right for us to go," she sighed. But she was pleased that the Dean's widow had said that Ingmarsson was a good name – that it had always been a good name.

It was the first and only time Karin had been known to waver, or to express any doubt as to the advisability of the great undertaking.

THE DEPARTURE OF THE PILGRIMS

One beautiful morning in July, a long train of carts and wagons set out from the Ingmar Farm. The Hellgumists had at last completed their arrangements, and were now leaving for Jerusalem – the first stage of their journey being the long drive to the railway station.

The procession, in moving toward the village, had to pass a wretched hovel which was called Mucklemire. The people who lived there were a disreputable lot – the kind of scum of the earth which must have sprung into being when our Lord's eyes were turned, or when he had been busy elsewhere.

There was a whole horde of dirty, ragged youngsters on the place, who were in the habit of running loose all day, shrieking after passing vehicles, and calling the occupants bad names; there was an old crone, who usually sat by the roadside, tipsy; and there were a husband and wife who were always quarrelling and fighting, and who had never been known to do any honest work. No one could say whether they begged more than they stole, or stole more than they begged.

When the Jerusalem-farers came alongside this wretched hovel, which was about as tumbledown as a place can become where wind and storm have, for many years, been allowed to work havoc, they saw the old crone standing erect and sober at the roadside, on the same spot where she usually sat in a drunken stupor, lurching to and fro, and babbling incoherently, and with her were four of the children. All five were now washed and combed, and as decently dressed as was possible for them to be.

When the persons seated in the first cart caught sight of them, they slackened their speed and drove by very slowly; the others did likewise, walking their horses.

All the Jerusalem-farers suddenly burst into tears, the grown-ups crying softly, while the children broke into loud sobs and wails.

Nothing had so moved them as the sight of Beggar Lina standing at the roadside clean and sober. Even to this day their eyes fill when they think of her; of how on that morning she had denied herself the drink, and had come forth sober, with the grandchildren washed and combed, to do honour to their departure.

When they had all passed by, Beggar Lina also began to weep.

"Those people are going to Heaven to meet Jesus," she told the children. "All those people are going to Heaven but we are left standing by the wayside."

***

When the procession of carts and wagons had driven halfway through the parish, it came to the long floating bridge that lies rocking on the river.

This is a difficult bridge to cross. The first part of it is a steep incline all the way down to the edge of the stream; then come two rather abrupt elevations, under which boats and timber rafts can pass; and at the other end the up grade is so heavy that both man and beast dread to climb it.

That bridge has always been a source of annoyance. The planks keep rotting, and have to be replaced continually. In the spring, when the ice breaks, it has to be watched day and night to prevent its being knocked to pieces by drifting ice floes; and when the spring rains cause a rise in the river, large portions of the bridge are washed away.

But the people of the parish are proud of their bridge, and glad to have it, rickety as it is. But for that blessed bridge they would have to use a rowboat or a ferry every time they wanted to cross from one side of the parish to the other.

The bridge groaned and swayed as the Jerusalem-farers passed over it, and the water came up through the cracks in the planks and splashed the horses' legs.

They felt sad at having to leave their dear old bridge, for they knew it was something which belonged to all of them. Houses and farms, groves and meadows, were owned by different persons, but the bridge was their common property.

But was there nothing else that they had in common? Had they not the church in among the birches on the other side of the bridge? Had they not the pretty white schoolhouse, and the parsonage?

And they had something more in common. Theirs was the beauty which they saw from the bridge: the lovely view of the broad and mighty river flowing peacefully on between its tree-clad banks, and all a-sparkle in the summer light; the wide view across the valley clear over to the blue hills. All this was theirs! It was as if burned into their eyes. And now they would never see it again.

When the Hellgumists came to the middle of the bridge, they began to sing one of Sankey's hymns. "We shall meet once again," they sang, "we shall meet in that Eden above."

There was no one on the bridge to hear them. They were singing to the blue hills of their homeland, to the silvery waters of the river, to the waving trees. And from throats tightened by sobs and tears came the song of farewell:

"O beautiful homeland, with thy peaceful farms with their red and white tree-sheltered houses; with thy fertile fields and green meadows; thy groves and orchards; thy long valley, divided by the shining river, hear us! Pray God that we may meet again, that we may see thee again in Paradise!"

***

When the long procession of carts and wagons had crossed the bridge, it came to the churchyard. In the churchyard there was a large flat gravestone that was crumbling from age. It bore neither name nor date, but according to tradition, the bones of an ancestor of the Ljung family rested under it.

When Ljung Björn Olafsson, who was now going to Jerusalem, and his brother Pehr were children, they had once sat on that stone and talked. At first they were as chummy as could be; then all at once they got to quarrelling about something, became very much excited, and raised their voices. What they quarrelled about they had long since forgotten, but what they never could forget was, that while they were quarreling the hardest, they heard several distinct and deliberate rappings on the stone where they were seated. They broke off instantly. Then they took each other by the hand, and stole quietly away. Afterward, they could never see that stone without thinking of this incident.

And now, when Ljung Björn was driving past the churchyard, who should he see but his brother Pehr, sitting on that selfsame stone, with his head resting on his hands. Ljung Björn reined in his horse, and signalled to the others to wait for him. He got down from the cart, climbed over the cemetery wall, and went and sat on the stone beside his brother.

Pehr Olafsson immediately said: "So you sold the farm, Björn!"

"Yes," answered Björn. "I have given all I owned to God."

"But the farm was not yours," the brother mildly protested.

"Not mine?"

"No, it belonged to the family."

Ljung Björn did not reply, but sat quietly waiting. He knew that when his brother had seated himself on that stone, it was for the purpose of speaking words of peace. Therefore, he was not afraid of what Pehr might say.

"I have bought back the farm," said the brother.

Ljung Björn gave a start. "Couldn't you bear to have it go out of the family?" he asked.

"I'm hardly rich enough to do such things for that reason."

Björn looked at his brother inquiringly.

"I did it that you might have something to come back to."

Björn was overwhelmed, and could hardly keep the tears back.

"And that your children may have a place to come back to – "

Björn put his arm around his brother's neck.

" – and for the sake of my dear sister-in-law," said Pehr. "It will be good for her to know that she has a house and home waiting for her. The old home will always be open to any of you who may want to come back."

"Pehr, take my place in the cart and go to Jerusalem, and I'll stay at home. You are far more worthy to enter the Promised Land than I am."

"No, no!" said the brother smilingly. "I understand how you mean it, but I guess I fit in better at home."

"I think you're more fit for Heaven," said Björn, laying his head on his brother's shoulder. "Now you must forgive me everything," he said.

Then they got up and clasped hands in farewell.

"This time there were no rappings," Pehr remarked.

"Strange you should have thought of coming here," said Björn.

"We brothers have had some difficulty in maintaining peace, when we've met of late."

"Did you think that I would want to quarrel to-day?"

"No, but I become angry when I think of having to lose you!"

They walked together down to the road. Presently Pehr went up to

Björn's wife, and gave her a hearty handclasp.

"I've bought the Ljung Farm," he said. "I tell you this now so that you may know you've always got a place to come to." Then he took the eldest of the children by the hand, and said: "Remember, now, that you have a house and land to come back to, should you want to return to the old country." He went from one child to the other, even to little Eric, who was only two years old and couldn't understand what it all meant. "The rest of you youngsters must not forget to tell little Eric that he has a home to return to whenever he wants to come back."

And the Jerusalem-farers went on.

***

When the long line of carts and wagons had passed the churchyard, the travellers came upon a large crowd of friends and relatives who had come out to bid them goodbye. They had a long halt here, for everybody wanted to shake hands with them, and say a few parting words.

And later, when they drove through the village, the road was lined with people who wished to witness their departure. There were people standing on every doorstep and leaning out of every window; they sat upon the low stone hedges all along the way, and those who lived farther off stood on mounds and hills waving a last farewell.