kle 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 farm-land 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 school-teacher. His next
partner was a very fat Swedish girl, who, although she was an
heiress, had not been asked for the first dance, but had stood
against the wall in her tight, high-heeled shoes, nervously
fingering a lace handkerchief. She was soon out of breath, so Nils
led her, pleased and panting, to her seat, and went over to the
piano, from which Clara had been watching his gallantry. "Ask Olena
Yenson," she whispered. "She waltzes beautifully."

Olena, too, was rather inconveniently plump, handsome in a smooth,
heavy way, with a fine color and good-natured, sleepy eyes. She was
redolent of violet sachet powder, and had warm, soft, white hands,
but she danced divinely, moving as smoothly as the tide coming in.
"Ther