at me, Clara Vavrika. _Skoal!_"

She raised her burning eyes and answered fiercely: "_Skoal!_"

The barn supper began at six o'clock and lasted for two hilarious
hours. Yense Nelson had made a wager that he could eat two whole fried
chickens, and he did. Eli Swanson stowed away two whole custard pies,
and Nick Hermanson ate a chocolate layer cake to the last crumb. There
was even a cooky contest among the children, and one thin, slablike
Bohemian boy consumed sixteen and won the prize, a gingerbread pig
which Johanna Vavrika had carefully decorated with red candies and burnt
sugar. Fritz Sweiheart, the German carpenter, won in the pickle contest,
but he disappeared soon after supper and was not seen for the rest of
the evening. Joe Vavrika said that Fritz could have managed the pickles
all right, but he had sampled the demijohn in his buggy too often before
sitting down to the table.

While the supper was being cleared away the two fiddlers began to tune
up for the dance. Clara was to accompany them on her old upright piano,
which had been brought down from her father's. By this time Nils had
renewed old acquaintances. Since his interview with Clara in the cellar,
he had been busy telling all the old women how young they looked, and
all the young ones how pretty they were, and assuring the men that
they had here the best farmland in the world. He had made himself so
agreeable that old Mrs. Ericson's friends began to come up to her and
tell how lucky she was to get her smart son back again, and please to
get him to play his flute. Joe Vavrika, who could still play very well
when he forgot that he had rheumatism, caught up a fiddle from Johnny
Oleson and played a crazy Bohemian dance tune that set the wheels going.
When he dropped the bow every one was ready to dance.

Olaf, in a frock coat and a solemn made-up necktie, led the grand march
with his mother. Clara had kept well out of _that_ by sticking to the
piano. She played the march with a pompous solemnity which greatly
amused the prodigal son, who went over and stood behind her.

"Oh, aren't you rubbing it into them, Clara Vavrika? And aren't you
lucky to have me here, or all your wit would be thrown away."

"I'm used to being witty for myself. It saves my life."

The fiddles struck up a polka, and Nils convulsed Joe Vavrika by leading
out Evelina Oleson, the homely schoolteacher. His next partner was a
very fat Swedish girl, who, although she was an heiress