His shirt, freshly laundered and unused, lay in the bureau drawer. It hurt him to think of its being there; at the same time he felt it would hardly be fair to Katrina to use her gift as a sheet for the child.
However, as it drew on toward midnight and Katrina was sleeping soundly, he went over to the bureau and took out the shirt. First he tore away the stiff front, then he slit the shirt into two parts, whereupon he slipped one piece under the little girl's body, and spread the other one between the child and the heavy quilt that covered her.
That done, he stole back to his corner and again took up his vigil. He had not sat there long when the clock struck twelve. Almost without thinking of what he was doing he put the two fingers of his left hand up to his eye, ring fashion, and peeped through at the bed.
And lo, at the edge of the bed sat a little angel of God! It was all scratched, and bleeding, from contact with the coarse bedding, and was about to go away, when it turned and felt of the fine shirt, running its tiny hands over the smooth white linen. Then, in a twinkling, it swung its legs inside the edge of the bed and lay down again, to watch over the child. At the same time up one of the bedposts crawled something black and hideous, which on seeing that the angel of God seemed about to depart, stuck its head over the bedside and grinned with glee, thinking it could creep inside and lie down in the angel's place.
But when it saw that the angel of God still guarded the child, it began to writhe as if suffering the torments of hell, and shrank back toward the floor.
The next day the little girl was on the road to recovery. Katrina was so glad the fever was broken that she had not the heart to say anything about the spoiled wedding shirt, though she probably thought to herself that she had a fool of a husband.
CALLING ON RELATIVES
One Sunday afternoon Jan and Glory Goldie set out together in the direction of the big forest; the little girl was then in her fifth year.
Silent and serious, father and little daughter walked hand in hand, as if bent upon a very solemn mission. They went past the shaded birch grove, their favourite haunt, past the wild strawberry hill and the winding brook, without stopping; then, disappearing in an easterly direction, they went into the densest part of the forest; nor did they stop there. Wherever could they be going? By and by they came out on a wooded hill above Loby. From there they went down to the scale-pan, where country-road and town-road cross. They did not go to Nästa or to Nysta, and never even glanced toward Där Fram and På Valln, but went farther and farther into the village. No one could have told just where they were bound for. Surely they could not be thinking of calling upon the Hindricksons, here in Loby?
To be sure Björn Hindrickson's wife was a half-sister of Jan's mother, so that Jan was actually related to the richest people in the parish, and he had a right to call Hindrickson and his wife uncle and aunt. But heretofore he had never claimed kinship with these people. Even to Katrina he had barely mentioned the fact that he had such high connections. Jan would always step out of the way when he saw Björn Hindrickson coming, and not even at church did he go up and shake hands with him.