ordially
detest her. She generally brought with her a young man from town who
waxed his mustache and wore a red necktie, and she did not even
introduce him to Canute.

The neighbors teased Canute a good deal until he knocked one of them
down. He gave no sign of suffering from her neglect except that he
drank more and avoided the other Norwegians more carefully than
ever. He lay around in his den and no one knew what he felt or
thought, but little Jim Peterson, who had seen him glowering at Lena
in church one Sunday when she was there with the town man, said that
he would not give an acre of his wheat for Lena's life or the town
chap's either; and Jim's wheat was so wondrously worthless that the
statement was an exceedingly strong one.

Canute had bought a new suit of clothes that looked as nearly like
the town man's as possible. They had cost him half a millet crop;
for tailors are not accustomed to fitting giants and they charge for
it. He had hung those clothes in his shanty two months ago and had
never put them on, partly from fear of ridicule, partly from
discouragement, and partly because there was something in his own
soul that revolted at the littleness of the device.

Lena was at home just at this time. Work was slack in the laundry
and Mary had not been well, so Lena stayed at home, glad enough to
get an opportunity to torment Canute once more.

She was washing in the side kitchen, singing loudly as she worked.
Mary was on her knees, blacking the stove and scolding violently
about the young man who was coming out from town that night. The
young man had committed the fatal error of laughing at Mary's
ceaseless babble and had never been forgiven.

"He is no good, and you will come to a bad end by running with him!
I do not see why a daughter of mine should act so. I do not see why
the Lord should visit such a punishment upon me as to give me such a
daughter. There are plenty of good men you can marry."

Lena tossed her head and answered curtly, "I don't happen to want to
marry any man right away, and so long as Dick dresses nice and has
plenty of money to spend, there is no harm in my going with him."

"Money to spend? Yes, and that is all he does with it I'll be bound.
You think it very fine now, but you will change your tune when you
have been married five years and see your children running naked and
your cupboard empty. Did Anne Hermanson come to any good end by
marrying a town man?"

"I don't know