But Olle of Maggebysäter was three-score-and-ten, and so crippled with rheumatism that his fingers were stiff and crooked like claws; his head was drawn to one side, one leg was shorter than the other, his sight was poor, his wits were nothing to brag about, and he was toothless and ugly. Washed and combed he had certainly not been in half a year. The fringe of whiskers under his chin was full of sticks and straws. He owned a little croft up in the woods; but being nothing of a worker, he had not been able to keep poverty out of his house. Always grumpy and discontented, he had no friends. And now as the clouds of tobacco smoke rose from the other men’s pipes, he muttered, as if to himself: “I’ve had nothin’ but trouble and misery all my life; but now I’ve heard about a land they call America, and there I want to go.” The other men sat tranquilly musing over their pipes and made no response. Olle of Maggebysäter continued: “You see, ’tis like this in America--you’ve only to hit a rock with your stick and the rum’ll come spurtin’ out. That land I want to see afore I die.” The others gazed straight before them and smiled, but said nothing. Olle of Maggebysäter talked on: “No one can make me stick at home in this dull, miserable place, when I know there’s a land where the hills are full o’ rum.” The others remained persistently silent, but not a word of what Olle of Maggebysäter said was lost on them. “The leaves of the trees in that land, they’re nothin’ but gold,” said the poor old man. “There you don’t have to do day’s work at a manor, you’ve only to go to the woods and pull off an armful of leaves, and then you can buy yourself whatever you want. Blow me, if I don’t move over there, old as I be!” They were now in a mellow mood, all the men in the servants’ hall. They saw, as it were before their eyes, that land where you tap rum from the rocks and pick gold off the trees. The farm-bell rang. Rest-time was up. They must again go out into the wet and cold. Lars of London returned to his plow, Magnus of Vienna to his; Sven of Paris, Johan of Prague, and the farmboy went back to digging potatoes, Per of Berlin betook himself home to his cottage, the stableman had to go and chop the evening’s firewood, and Olle of Maggebysäter, shouldering his sack of rye, limped off to the woods. None of them looked as glum as they did half an hour ago. There was a little glint of light in their eyes. They all felt it was good to know of a land where rum flowed from the hills and the forests were of gold--even though it lay so far away they could never reach it. VIII THE “SLOM” SEASON EAST of Mårbacka, beyond a wooded ridge, lies Gårdsjön, a little lake in which there is a fish we call _slom._ The fish is about two inches long, and so thin as to be almost transparent; but small as it is, it is edible.