She was immediately ordered out, of course; no one had time to stop and buy eggs in the bustle and excitement, with so many guests to be served. Not in the least discouraged, the old woman went round to the veranda, where the Lieutenant sat with a circle of gentlemen. Indeed she was not embarrassed by the presence of the company; her tongue wagged so rapidly and she was so facetiously persistent, he had to buy her eggs to get rid of her. Even after she had stuffed the money into the pocket of her kirtle, she would not go. Then she wanted to know who the other gentlemen were, and commented rather freely on their personal appearance. Finally, young Lieutenant Hedberg, who thought the joke had gone far enough, said:
“You’d better stop now, Hedda.”
Whereupon the “old peasant woman” rushed up, and dealt him a sound box on the ear.
“Why, Adolph!” she cried, “how can you be so mean as to give me away like that!”
And indeed it was a shame, for her disguise was so perfect and her Värmland dialect so deliciously natural that none would have taken her for the charming lady from Stockholm.
That bit of drollery set the ball of talents rolling. Along in the evening Kristofer Wallroth sang a number of Eric Bögh’s ditties. He had no voice to speak of, but his rendition of the serio-comic was side-splitting. At the end, Auditor Afzelius, with a silk kerchief bound round his head and a mantilla thrown over his shoulder, sang “Emilie’s Heart-throbs.” That was, of course, the star feature of the evening; the Auditor was inimitable in the rôle of the lovelorn maiden.
It must have been rather galling to the local pride of Sexton Melanoz that only these city folk provided entertainment for the Lieutenant and his guests. But the next year it was the sexton who made the “big hit.” The Lieutenant had once presented to the Ostenby school a lot of small wooden muskets made at Mårbacka so that the children might learn to drill. He had even sent an old sergeant to the school to teach the youngsters the first military movements.
The sexton had an inspiration; he and his school children would march to Mårbacka on the Lieutenant’s birthday! Shouldering their arms, and led by banner and drum, they came marching along the driveway. It looked as if a whole army were approaching. There were so many the line extended from the manservants’ cottage all the way up to the dwelling-house veranda, where the sexton, who was in command, called Halt!
First, he said a few words to the effect that the children had come to thank Lieutenant Lagerlöf for considering that their bodies needed to be developed as well as their minds; then he let them demonstrate how well they could march—do right-about, left-about, close ranks, shoulder arms ...
It was a grand surprise the sexton had prepared for them all. The Lieutenant was delighted and his guests were pleased. What the old housekeeper, Mamselle Lovisa, and Fru Lagerlöf thought, when in the middle of a big party they had to serve coffee and cakes to some sixty youngsters, may be left to the imagination. After that, every time the seventeenth of August came round, they remembered with dismay the long procession of children, and hoped the sexton’s army would not be so strong this year.