“I am not going,” said Erick.

“Then go to the auction—­that is the best thing for you; I am going now, good night.”

But Churi nevertheless remained.  The blood again rushed into Erick’s cheeks.  He hesitated a moment, then he asked:  “If I go with you, are you sure that I can get there, where I deliver letters?”

“Of course you can,” Churi grumbled.

“Then I will go.”

“Give me your hand on it!”

Churi held out his hand and Erick laid his in it.  Churi kept hold of the hand.  “Promise that you will be there under the apple tree on the meadow at seven o’clock Sunday morning.”

“I promise,” said Erick.

Churi let go of his hand, said “Good night,” and disappeared behind the cottage.

The news of the day spread with wonderful rapidity through the schools of the three parishes.  The next evening, the evening before Organ-Sunday, every child in Upper and Lower Wood, and above all, in Middle Lot, knew that the quiet Erick all at once belonged to the rowdies; that he was not only going to fight with them in the Sunday battle, but that he was going with the worst rowdy, with Churi and his companions, early in the morning before church.

Sally came with swollen eyes to supper, for Kaetheli had informed her of everything:  how the fine Erick, whom she would so gladly have taken into her home and her friendship, had fallen into the hands of the coarse and wicked Churi and would be ruined and led to do all kinds of wicked things by the bad boy.  All this made her tender heart ache.  She had gone, in the afternoon, to the solitary bench under the apple tree and had wept until supper time; for, in spite of deep thinking, she had not been able to find a way by which she could snatch Erick away from the bad companions.

Edi, too, wore a drawn face as though he lived on trouble and annoyance only, and his inner wrath goaded him to unpleasant speeches, for he hardly had taken his seat at table, when he looked across at Sally and said:  “You can count to-morrow the blue bumps which your friend Erick will carry home with him, when he begins in the morning before church and serves under Churi.”

Not much was needed to make Sally break out.  “Yes, I know, Edi, that you would prefer to begin this evening and fight through the whole day to-morrow,” she cried, half sobbing, half defiant, looking across the table, “if Papa had not forbidden it.”

Edi became flushed, for it came into his mind how long he had searched for an example after which he might take part and yet hold his own before his father.

The latter looked earnestly at him and said:  “Edi, Edi, I hope you will try not to be a Pharisee.  It is a bad sign for the boy Erick that he has joined the fighters, moreover, and that he has made friends with the very worst rowdy.  But, dear Sally, you need not knock your potatoes so roughly about your plate as if they were to blame for all the unpleasant things; eat them peacefully.”