ecome of his
employer. Presently he heard the old familiar voice he had always
obeyed; but it sounded so feeble he could hardly make out what it
was saying.

"Go get a team and some men to take me home," said the voice.

"Shan't I help you from under first?" asked Jan.

"Do as I tell you!" said Eric of Falla.

Jan, knowing his employer to be a man who always demanded prompt
obedience, said nothing further but hurried back to Falla as fast
as he could. The farm was some distance away, so that it took time
to get there.

On arriving, the first person Jan came upon was Lars Gunnarson, the
husband of Eric's eldest daughter and prospective master of Falla,
which he was destined to take over upon the decease of the present
owner.

When Lars Gunnarson had received his instructions he ordered Jan to
go straight to the house and tell the mistress of what had
occurred; then he was to call the hired boy. Meantime Lars himself
would run down to the barn and harness a horse.

"Perhaps I needn't be so very particular about telling the
womenfolk just yet?" said Jan. "For if they once start crying and
fretting it will only mean delay. Eric's voice sounded so weak from
where he lay that I think we'd best hurry along."

But Lars Gunnarson, since coming to the farm, had made it a point
to assert his authority. He would no more take back an order once
given than would his father-in-law.

"Go into mother at once!" he commanded. "Can't you understand that
she must get the bed ready so we'll have some place to put him when
we come back with him?"

Then of course Jan was obliged to go inside and notify the
mistress. Try as he would to make short work of it, it took time to
relate what had happened and how it had happened.

When Jan returned to the yard he heard Lars thundering and swearing
in the stable. Lars was a poor hand with animals. The horses would
kick if he went anywhere near them and he had not been able to get
one of the beasts out of its stall the whole time that Jan had been
inside talking with the housewife.

It would not have been well for Jan had he offered to help Lars.
Knowing this he went immediately on his other errand, and fetched
the hired boy. He thought it mighty strange that Lars had not told
him to speak to Boerje, who was threshing in the barn close by,
instead of sending him after the hired boy, who was at work out in
the birch-grove, a good way from the farmyard.

And while Jan ran these needless