And she thought of the industry and honesty which had always been practised on this farm.  “It ought never to be allowed!” was her thought as regards the auction.  “The king should be told of it!” Mother Stina took it more to heart than if it had been a question of parting with her own home.

The sale had not yet begun, but a good many people had arrived.  Some had gone into the barns to look over the live stock; others remained out in the yard examining the farm implements placed there for inspection.  Mother Stina on seeing a couple of peasant women come out of a cowshed grew indignant.  “Just look at Mother Inga and Mother Stava!” she muttered.  “Now they’ve been in and picked out a cow apiece.  Think how they’ll be going around bragging that they’ve got a cow of the old breed from the Ingmar Farm!”

When she saw old Crofter Nils trying to choose a plow she smiled a little scornfully.

“Crofter Nils will think himself a real farmer when he can drive a plough that Big Ingmar himself has used.”

More and more people kept gathering round the things to be auctioned off.  The men looked wonderingly at many of the farming tools, which were of such old-time make that it was difficult to guess what they had been used for.  A few spectators had the temerity to laugh at the old sleighs some of which were from ancient times and were gorgeously painted in red and green; and the harnesses that went with them were studded with white shells, and fringed with tassels of many colours.

Mother Stina seemed to see the old Ingmarssons driving slowly in these old sleighs, going to a party or coming home from a church wedding, with a bride seated beside them.  “Many good people are leaving the parish,” she sighed.  For to her it was as if all the old Ingmars had gone on living at the farm up to that very day, when their implements and their old carts and sleds were being hawked about.

“I wonder where Ingmar is keeping himself, and how he feels?  When it seems so dreadful to me, what must it be for him?”

The weather being so fine, the auctioneer proposed that they carry out all the things that were to go under the hammer, so as to avoid any overcrowding of the rooms.  So maids and farm hands carried out boxes and chests, all painted in tulips and roses, Some of them had been standing in the attic, undisturbed, for centuries.  They also brought out silver jugs and old-fashioned copper kettles, spinning-wheels and carders, and all kinds of odd-looking weaving appliances.  The peasant women gathered around all these old treasures, picking them up and turning them over.

Mother Stina had not intended to buy anything, when she remembered that there was supposed to be a loom here on which could be woven the finest damask, and went up to look for it.  Just then a maid came out with a huge Bible, which, with its thick leather bindings and its brass clasps and mountings, was so heavy that she could hardly carry it.