Mother Stina did not go into the house, but remained in the yard, as did most of the people who had come to attend the sale. She sat down on a pile of boards, and began to glance about her very carefully, as one is wont to do when taking a last look at some beloved spot. Surrounding the farmyard on three sides were ranges of outbuildings, and in the centre was a little storehouse propped on four posts. Nothing looked particularly old, with the exception of the porch with the carved moulding at the entrance to the dwelling-house, and another one, still older, with stout twisted pillars, at the entrance of the washhouse. Mother Stina thought of all the old Ingmarssons whose feet had trod the yard. She seemed to see them coming home from their work in the evening, and gathering around the hearth, tall and somewhat bent, always afraid of intruding themselves, or of accepting more than they felt was their due. And she thought of the industry and honesty which had always been practised on this farm. "It ought never to be allowed!" was her thought as regards the auction. "The king should be told of it!" Mother Stina took it more to heart than if it had been a question of parting with her own home. The sale had not yet begun, but a good many people had arrived. Some had gone into the barns to look over the live stock; others remained out in the yard examining the farm implements placed there for inspection. Mother Stina on seeing a couple of peasant women come out of a cowshed grew indignant. "Just look at Mother Inga and Mother Stava!" she muttered. "Now they've been in and picked out a cow apiece. Think how they'll be going around bragging that they've got a cow of the old breed from the Ingmar Farm!" When she saw old Crofter Nils trying to choose a plow she smiled a little scornfully. "Crofter Nils will think himself a real farmer when he can drive a plough that Big Ingmar himself has used." More and more people kept gathering round the things to be auctioned off. The men looked wonderingly at many of the farming tools, which were of such old-time make that it was difficult to guess what they had been used for. A few spectators had the temerity to laugh at the old sleighs some of which were from ancient times and were gorgeously painted in red and green; and the harnesses that went with them were studded with white shells, and fringed with tassels of many colours. Mother Stina seemed to see the old Ingmarssons driving slowly in these old sleighs, going to a party or coming home from a church wedding, with a bride seated beside them. "Many good people are leaving the parish," she sighed. For to her it was as if all the old Ingmars had gone on living at the farm up to that very day, when their implements and their old carts and sleds were being hawked about. "I wonder where Ingmar is keeping himself, and how he feels? When it seems so dreadful to me, what must it be for him?"