girl was as quiet as a mouse the whole time--the same knowing look
in her eyes. The sexton also kept silence until he had finished;
then he said to the father:

"If you did that only to calm the child, we could just as well
have made believe--"

"No, Sexton," said Jan, "then you would not have succeeded. You
never saw the like of that child! So don't imagine you can get her
to believe in something that isn't what it passes for."


THE BIRTHDAY

On the little girl's first birthday her father was out digging in
the field at Falla; he tried to recall to mind how it had been in
the old days, when he had no one to think about while at work in
the held; when he did not have the beating heart in him, and when
he had no longings and was never anxious.

"To think that a man can be like that!" he mused in contempt of his
old self. "If I were as rich as Eric of Falla or as strong as
Börje, who digs here beside me, it would be as nothing to having a
throbbing heart in your breast. That's the only thing that counts."

Glancing over at his comrade, a powerfully built fellow who could
do again as much work as himself, he noticed that to-day the man
had not gone ahead as rapidly as usual with the digging.

They worked by the job. Börje always took upon himself more work