I said I'd
thought of doing you a return service, it wasn't just empty
chatter. I meant it. And now it has already been done. The other
day I ran across the travelling salesman who gave that lass of
yours the red dress."

"Who?" cried Jan, so excited he could hardly get his breath.

"That blackguard who gave the girl the red dress and who afterward
sent her to the devil in Stockholm. First I gave him, on your
account, all the thrashing he could take, and then I told him that
the next time he showed his face around here he'd get just as big a
dose of the same kind of medicine."

Jan would not believe he had heard aright. "But what did he say?"
he questioned eagerly. "Didn't you ask him about Glory Goldie? Had
he no greetings from her?"

"What could he say? He took his punishment and held his tongue. Now
I've done you a decent turn, Jan Anderson, and we're even. Johan
Utter Agrippa Praestberg wants no unpaid scores."

With that he strode on, leaving Jan in the middle of the road,
lamenting loudly. The little girl had wanted to send him a message!
That merchant had come with greetings from her, but not a thing had
he learned because the man had been driven away.

Jan stood wringing his hands. He did not weep, but he ached all
over worse than if he were ill. He felt certain in his own mind
that Glory Goldie had wanted Praestberg to take a message from her
brought by the merchant and convey it to her father. But it was
with Praestberg as with the trolls--whether they wanted to help or
hinder they only wrought mischief.

THE SUNDAY AFTER MIDSUMMER

The first Sunday after Midsummer Day there was a grand party at the
seine-maker's to which every one in the Ashdales had been invited.
The old man and his daughter-in-law were in the habit of
entertaining the whole countryside on this day of each year.

Folks wondered, of course, how two people who were so pitiably poor
could afford to give a big feast, but to all who knew the whys and
wherefores it seemed perfectly natural.

As a matter of fact, when the seine-maker was a rich man he gave
his two sons a farmstead each. The elder son wasted his substance
in much the same way as Ol' Bengtsa himself had done, and died
poor. The younger son, who was the more steady and reliable, kept
his portion and even increased it, so that now he was quite well-to-do.
But what he owned at the present time was as nothing to what he
might have had if his father had not recklessly mad