o this converting craze
and to being called devils and hellhounds. But the worst of all was
when the converted children started in to preach!"

"You don't mean to tell me that even the children preached," said
Ingmar doubtingly.

"Oh, yes!" the old man returned. "Hellgum told them that they
should serve the Lord instead of playing, so they started in to
convert their elders. They lay in ambush along the roadside, and
pounced upon innocent passers-by with such ravings as these:
'Aren't you going to begin the fight against the devil? Shall you
continue to live in sin?'"

Young Ingmar did not want to believe what Strong Ingmar was
recounting. "Old man Felt must have put all that into your head,"
he concluded.

"By the way, this was what I wanted to tell you," said Strong
Ingmar: "Felt is done for, too! When I think that all this mischief
has been hatched on the Ingmar Farm, I feel ashamed to look people
in the face."

"Have they wronged Felt in any way?" asked Ingmar.

"It was the work of those youngsters, drat them! One evening, when
they had nothing else to do, they took it into their heads to go
and convert Felt, for of course they had heard that he was a great
sinner."

"But in the old days all the children were as afraid of Felt as
they were of witches and trolls," Ingmar reminded.

"Oh, these youngsters were scared, too, but they must have had
their hearts set upon doing something very heroic. So one evening,
as Felt sat stirring his evening porridge, they stormed his cabin.
When they opened the door and saw the old Corporal, with his
bristling moustaches, his broken nose, and his game eye, sitting
before the fire, they were terribly frightened, and two of the
littlest ones ran away. The dozen or so that went in knelt in a
circle around the old man, and began to sing and pray."

"And didn't he drive them out?" asked Ingmar.

"If only he had!" sighed the old man. "I don't know what had come
over the Corporal. The poor wretch must have been sitting there
brooding over the loneliness and desolation of his old age. And
then I suppose it was because those who had come to him were
children. The fact that children had always been afraid of him must
have been a source of grief to the old man; and when he saw all
those baby faces, with their upturned eyes filled with shining
tears, he was powerless. The children were only waiting for him to
rush at them and strike them. Although they kept right on singing
and