Page:Pontoppidan - Emanuel, or Children of the Soil (1896).djvu/241

 of the children's portions, for the farm was leasehold for three lives, and Anders Jörgen's was the last.

"Yes, this is what we've gathered together," she said, not without pride, while she exhibited piece after piece of her treasure, passing her hand tenderly over them. "It's perhaps not so much, for Anders and I were married late in life, and for the first few years the takings were small. Then many a time we've had bad years, misfortunes with the beasts and the harvests, so we may be thankful we've done as well as we have. When I had my thoughts on Anders, my mother foretold both the poorhouse and all sorts of other miseries, but the Almighty willed it otherwise, and we've much to be thankful for."

Handling all these many stored-up things woke all kinds of old memories, and she told him how Anders and she had found each other in their youth while they served on farms together in a neighbouring parish. Emanuel listened, full of admiration, to her half-bashful story, how they had to serve fifteen years among strangers, and bear with all kinds of opposition, before they had saved enough between them to set up house,—and he felt a new joy in thinking that he might be a comfort and prop in their old age to this faithful pair.