“Perhaps brother Magnus would take him,” she said.
“Not while I live,” Sigurd replied, as he left the room, while his wife turned with a sigh to her household duties. Her family, and especially her elder brother, Magnus, who was a man of wealth and influence, had bitterly opposed her marriage with Sigurd, on account of the latter’s poverty, and she had seen none of them since she came to live on the lonely farm. Through great industry and frugality they had gradually prospered; and now she began to long for a reconciliation, chiefly for her husband’s and children’s sake. It would be much better for Jon if he could find a home in his uncle’s house when they were able to send him to school.
So, when they next rode over to Kyrkedal on a Sabbath day in the late autumn, she took with her a letter to Magnus, which she had written without her husband’s knowledge, for she wished to save him the pain of the slight, in case her brother should refuse to answer or should answer in an unfriendly way. It was a pleasant day for all of them, for Mr. Lorne had stopped a night at Kyrkedal, and Erik had told the story of Jon’s piloting them through the wilderness; so the pastor, after service, came up at once to them and patted Jon on the head, saying; “Bene fecisti, fili!” And the other boys, forgetting their usual shyness, crowded around and said: “Tell us all about it!” Everything was as wonderful to them as it still seemed to Jon in his memory, and when each one said: “If I had gone there I should have done the same thing!” Jon wondered that he and the boys should ever have felt so awkward and bashful when they came together. Now it was all changed; they talked and joked like old companions, and cordially promised to visit each other during the winter, if their parents were willing.
On the way home Sigurd found that he had dropped his whip, and sent Jon back to look for it, leaving his wife and Gudrid to ride onward up the valley. Jon rode at least half a mile before he found it, and then came galloping back, cracking it joyously. But Sigurd’s face was graver and wearier than usual.
“Ride a little while with me,” he said; “I want to ask thee something.” Then, as Jon rode beside him in the narrow tracks which the ponies’ hoofs had cut through the turf, he added: “The boys at Kyrkedal seemed to make much of thee; I hope thy head is not turned by what they said.”
“Oh, father!” Jon cried; “they were so kind, so friendly!”
“I don’t doubt it,” his father answered. “Thou hast done well, my son, and I see that thou art older than thy years. But suppose there were a heavier task in store for thee,—suppose that I should be called away,—couldst thou do a man’s part, and care properly for thy mother and thy little sister?”
Jon’s eyes filled with tears, and he knew not what to say.
“Answer me,” Sigurd commanded.
“I never thought of that,” Jon answered, in a trembling voice; “but if I were to do my best, would not God help me?”