This was wholly unexpected. The son could feel the blood mounting to his face. It was as if he had done something dreadful, and been caught at it.
"But my dear father!" he protested, "I've never said or thought—"
"True," the old man struck in, turning now to his guests. "I know you will hardly believe what I tell you, but it's a fact that this son of mine has never spoken an unkind word to me; neither has his wife."
These remarks were not addressed to any one in particular, nor did any one feel disposed to respond to them.
"They have been put to some pretty hard tests," Ol' Bengtsa went on. "It was a large property they were deprived of. They could have been landed proprietors by this time if I had only done the right thing. Yet they have never uttered a word of complaint and every summer they pay me a visit, just to show they are not angry with me."
The old man's face looked so dead now, and his voice sounded so hollow! The son could not tell whether he was trying to come out with something or whether he talked merely for talk's sake.
"Now it's altogether different with Lisa," said Ol' Bengtsa, pointing at the daughter-in-law with whom he lived. "She scolds me every day for not holding on to my property."
The daughter-in-law, not in the least perturbed, retorted with a good-natured laugh: "And you scold me because I can't find time to patch all the holes in the boys' clothes."
"That's true," the old man admitted. "You see, we're not shy; we say right out what we think and tell each other everything. What I've got is hers, and what she's got is mine; so I'm beginning to think it is she who is my real child."
Again the son felt embarrassed, and troubled as well.