“If I only knew the way, I’d go to him,” he said, quite pleased at the idea.  “I wonder what big Ingmar would say if some fine day I should come wandering up to him?  I fancy him settled on a big farm, with many fields and meadows, a large house and barns galore, with lots of red cattle and not a black or spotted beast among them, just exactly as he wanted it when he was on earth.  Then as I step into the farmhouse—­”

The plowman suddenly stopped in the middle of a furrow and glanced up, laughing.  These thoughts seemed to amuse him greatly, and he was so carried away by them that he hardly knew whether or not he was still upon earth.  It seemed to him that in a twinkling he had been lifted all the way up to his old father in heaven.

“And now as I come into the living-room,” he went on, “I see many peasants seated on benches along the walls.  All have sandy hair, white eyebrows, and thick underlips.  They are all of them as like father as one pea is like another.  At the sight of so many people I become shy and linger at the door.  Father sits at the head of the table, and the instant he sees me he says; ’Welcome, little Ingmar Ingmarsson!’ Then father gets up and comes over to me.  ’I’d like to have a word with you, father,’ I say, ’but there are so many strangers here.’  ‘Oh, these are only relatives!’ says father.  ’All these men have lived at the Ingmar Farm, and the oldest among them is from way back in heathen times.’  ’But I want to speak to you in private,’ I say.

“Then father looks round and wonders whether he ought to step into the next room, but since it’s just I he walks out into the kitchen instead.  There he seats himself in the fireplace, while I sit down on the chopping block.

“‘You’ve got a fine farm here, father,’ I say.  ‘It’s not so bad,’ says father, ‘but how’s everything back home?’ ’Oh, everything is all right there; last year we got twelve kroner for a ton of hay.’  ‘What!’ says father.  ’Are you here to poke fun at me, little Ingmar?’

“‘But with me everything goes wrong’ I say.  ’They forever telling me that you were as wise as our Lord himself, but no one cares a straw for me.’  ‘Aren’t you one of the district councillors?’ the old man asks.  ’I’m not on the School Board, or in the vestry, nor am I a councillor.’  ’What have you done that’s wrong, little Ingmar?’ ’Well, they say that he who would direct the affairs of others, first show that he can manage his own properly.’

“Then I seem to see the old man lower his eyes and sit pondering.  In a little while he says:  ’Ingmar, you ought to marry some nice girl who will make you a good wife.’  ’But that’s exactly what I can’t do, father,’ I reply.  ’There is not a farmer in the parish, even among the poor and lowly, who would give me his daughter.’  ‘Now tell me straight out what’s back of all this, little Ingmar,’ says father, with such a tender note in his voice.