him to be away, as she feared that he might lose his
reason. He had brooded too long over this one idea: that God had allowed
a wicked person to bring about so much evil.

After the father went away they became very poor. For awhile he sent
them money, but afterward things must have gone badly with him, for no
more came.

The day of the eldest daughter's burial the mother closed the cabin and
left home with the two remaining children, Osa and Mats. She went down
to Skane to work in the beet fields, and found a place at the Jordberga
sugar refinery. She was a good worker and had a cheerful and generous
nature. Everybody liked her. Many were astonished because she could be
so calm after all that she had passed through, but the mother was very
strong and patient. When any one spoke to her of her two sturdy
children, she only said: "I shall soon lose them also," without a quaver
in her voice or a tear in her eye. She had accustomed herself to expect
nothing else.

But it did not turn out as she feared. Instead, the sickness came upon
herself. She had gone to Skane in the beginning of summer; before autumn
she was gone, and the children were left alone.

While their mother was ill she had often said to the children they must
remember that she never regretted having let the sick woman stop with
them. It was not hard to die when one had done right, she said, for then
one could go with a clear conscience.

Before the mother passed away, she tried to make some provision for her
children. She asked the people with whom she lived to let them remain in
the room which she had occupied. If the children only had a shelter they
would not become a burden to any one. She knew that they could take care
of themselves.

Osa and Mats were allowed to keep the room on condition that they would
tend the geese, as it was always hard to find children willing to do
that work. It turned out as the mother expected: they did maintain
themselves. The girl made candy, and the boy carved wooden toys, which
they sold at the farm houses. They had a talent for trading and soon
began buying eggs and butter from the farmers, which they sold to the
workers at the sugar refinery. Osa was the older, and, by the time she
was thirteen, she was as responsible as a grown woman. She was quiet and
serious, while Mats was lively and talkative. His sister used to say to
him that he could outcackle the geese.

When the children had been at Jordberga for two yea