And he sauntered out of the cabin, coatless as he stood, sauntered out on to the icy ground and headed for the woods. And he had hardly walked twenty feet when he had forgotten both his rage and the fisherman and started to think about what he had owned and what he had lost. Nobody knows what he has owned until he has lost it. He began to think about his sheep, which were as white as snow in the fleece, about his horses, fine old fellows, who were the only ones who understood him and knew him and esteemed him, and about his cows, which were led out the lanes one evening last spring and strange boys ran after them with bits of strap. And he began to think about Jon and Maria, whom God Almighty had taken to Himself up in yon great, foreign heaven, which vaults over New Iceland and is something altogether different from the heaven at home. And he saw still in his mind those Icelandic pioneers who had stood over the grave with their old hats in their sorely tired hands and droned.
And he threw himself down on the frozen ground among the trees and cried bitterly in the frosty night—this big strong man who had gone all the way from Old Iceland to New Iceland—this proletarian who had brought his children as a sacrifice to the hope of a much worthier future, a more perfect life. His tears fell on the ice.
End of Project Gutenberg's Seven Icelandic Short Stories, by Various