deed was now spread out for
him to sign. The manager himself handed him the pen, and pointed to
the place where he was to write his name.

"Here," he said, "here's where you write your name in full--'Hoek
Matts Ericsson.'"

When he took the pen it flashed across his mind how, thirty-one
years back, he had signed a deed whereby he had acquired a bit of
barren land. He remembered that after writing his name, he had gone
out to inspect his new property. Then this thought had come to him:
"See what God has given you! Here you have work to keep you going a
lifetime."

The manager, thinking his hesitancy was due to uncertainty as to
where he should write his name, again pointed to the place.

"The name must be written there. Now write 'Hoek Matts Ericsson.'"

He put the pen to the paper. "This," he mused, "I write for the
sake of my faith and my soul's salvation; for the sake of my dear
friends the Hellgumists, that I may be allowed to live with them in
the unity of the spirit, and so as not to be left alone here when
they all go."

And he wrote his first name.

"And this," he went on thinking, "I write for the sake of my son
Gabriel, so I shan't have to lose the dear, good lad who has always
been so kind to his old father, and to let him see that after all
he is dearer to me than aught else."

And then he wrote his middle name.

"But this," he thought as he moved the pen for the third time, "why
do I write this?" Then, all at once, his hand began to move, as of
itself, up and down the page, leaving great black streaks upon the
hateful document. "This I do because I'm an old man and must go on
tilling the soil--go on plowing and sowing in the place where I
have always worked and slaved."

Hoek Matts Ericsson looked rather sheepish when he turned to the
manager and showed him the paper.

"You'll have to excuse me, sir," he said. "It really was my
intention to part with my property, but when it came to the
scratch, I couldn't do it."

THE AUCTION

One day in May there was an auction sale at the Ingmar Farm, and
what a perfect day it was!--quite as warm as in the summertime. The
men had all discarded their long white sheepskin coats and were
wearing their short jackets; the women already went about in the
loose-sleeved white blouses which belonged with their summer dress.

The schoolmaster's wife was getting ready to attend the auction.
Gertrude did not care to go, and Storm was too busy with his class
w