lieved I would, and he was only a baby when I went away.
However, all's well that ends well, and I haven't come back to be a
skeleton at the feast. We mustn't quarrel. Mother mill be here with a
search warrant pretty soon." He swung round and faced her, thrusting his
hands into his coat pockets. "Come, you ought to be glad to see me, if
you want something to happen. I'm something, even without a will. We can
have a little fun, can't we? I think we can!"

She echoed him, "I think we can!" They both laughed and their eyes
sparkled. Clara Vavrika looked ten years younger than when she had put
the velvet ribbon about her throat that morning.

"You know, I'm so tickled to see mother," Nils went on. "I didn't know
I was so proud of her. A regular pile driver. How about little pigtails,
down at the house? Is Olaf doing the square thing by those children?"

Clara frowned pensively. "Olaf has to do something that looks like the
square thing, now that he's a public man!" She glanced drolly at Nils.
"But he makes a good commission out of it. On Sundays they all get
together here and figure. He lets Peter and Anders put in big bills for
the keep of the two boys, and he pays them out of the estate. They are
always having what they call accountings. Olaf gets something out of
it, too. I don't know just how they do it, but it's entirely a family
matter, as they say. And when the Ericsons say that--" Clara lifted her
eyebrows.

Just then the angry _honk-honk_ of an approaching motor sounded from
down the road. Their eyes met and they began to laugh. They laughed as
children do when they can not contain themselves, and can not explain
the cause of their mirth to grown people, but share it perfectly
together. When Clara Vavrika sat down at the piano after he was gone,
she felt that she had laughed away a dozen years. She practised as if
the house were burning over her head.

When Nils greeted his mother and climbed into the front seat of the
motor beside her, Mrs. Ericson looked grim, but she made no comment
upon his truancy until she had turned her car and was retracing her
revolutions along the road that ran by Olaf's big pasture. Then she
remarked dryly:

"If I were you I wouldn't see too much of Olaf's wife while you are
here. She's the kind of woman who can't see much of men without getting
herself talked about. She was a good deal talked about before he married
her."

"Hasn't Olaf tamed her?" Nils asked indifferently.

Mr