seine-maker's to which every one in the Ashdales had been invited.
The old man and his daughter-in-law were in the habit of
entertaining the whole countryside on this day of each year.

Folks wondered, of course, how two people who were so pitiably poor
could afford to give a big feast, but to all who knew the whys and
wherefores it seemed perfectly natural.

As a matter of fact, when the seine-maker was a rich man he gave
his two sons a farmstead each. The elder son wasted his substance
in much the same way as Ol' Bengtsa himself had done, and died
poor. The younger son, who was the more steady and reliable, kept
his portion and even increased it, so that now he was quite well-to-do.
But what he owned at the present time was as nothing to what he
might have had if his father had not recklessly made away with both
money and lands, to no purpose whatever. If such wealth had only
come into the hands of the son in his younger days, there is no
telling to what he might have attained. He could have been owner of
all the woodlands in the Lovsjö district, had a shop at Broby, and
a steamer plying Lake Löven; he might even have been master of the
ironworks at Ekeby. Naturally he found it difficult to excuse the
father's careless business methods, but he kept his thoughts to
himself.

When the crash came for Ol' Bengtsa, a good many persons, Bengtsa
among them, expected the son to come to his aid by the sacrifice of
his own property. But what good would that have done? It would only
have gone to the creditors. It was with the idea in mind that the
father should have something to fall back upon when all his
possessions were gone, that the son had held on to his own.