In the following Spring I left the country again, with two brothers. When we took leave of our mother, she cried and said, "God have mercy upon me, that now I must see three sons go into misery." Excepting that time I never saw my mother cry, for she was a courageous stout-hearted woman, but rather rough. When her third husband died, whom she had married in my absence, she remained a widow, and did all manner of work like a man, in order that she might be better able to bring up her youngest children. Hewing wood, hay-making, threshing, and other work which belongs more to men than women, were not too much for her. She had also buried three of her children herself, who had died in a time of very great pestilence; for in time of pestilence it costs a great deal to get persons buried by the gravediggers. Towards us her first children she was very harsh, for which reason we seldom entered the house. Once when I came to her again, after an absence of five years, in which I had travelled much in far distant lands, the first word she said to me was, "Has the devil carried you hither once more?" I answered, "The devil has not carried me, but my feet; I will not however be a burden to you long." She then said, "You are not a burden to me; but it grieves me that you go strolling backwards and forwards in this manner, and doubtless learn nothing at all. If you learned to work, as your late father did, that would be better;--you will never be a priest: I am not so lucky as to be the mother of a priest." So I remained with her two or three days. She was otherwise a respectable, honest, and pious woman, as was admitted by every body.