Little Tora, The Swedish Schoolmistress and Other Stories

It was five o'clock in the morning on one of the last days of August. This was no legally-sanctioned Swedish moving-day, and yet it was plain that with somebody a change of resi...

Something about the strange inmate had affected the mad poet, long a dweller in the poorhouse, as unusual in that establishment. These fancies he had versified, and having writt...

With the autumn began for the pastor the most pleasing duty of the year--the instruction of his class for confirmation. He announced in church one Sunday that after the service...

The winter had been unusually long. For nearly six months the ground had been continually white. Not that it had been clothed by an ever-smooth, fair mantle. The snow had been t...

The home to which the little schoolmistress and Nils were bound had formerly been a wayside inn of most modest pretensions. It was but a one-story red building, with a row of wh...

The poorhouse was not an imposing structure, but it could boast of antiquity, as it had been built long, long ago for the purpose for which it was now used.

There was a new, low mound in the churchyard. Kind young hands from the curate's had covered it with evergreen boughs, and sprinkled among them bright flowers, so that it seemed...

Across meadows, over ditches, and at last up rather a steep ascent wound the way to Widow Erikson's cottage. The path had grown rough and narrow, but the barefooted boy went ove...

Tall, handsome, and young; that one saw at a single glance. The age of the lad it was not easy to determine. The mind wavered between sixteen and nineteen, but sixteen it really...

The pastor had fallen into the pleasant habit of having his wife with him when he wrote his sermons. Alone in the morning he made his researches and his copious notes for his co...

Monday morning had come, with work for the workers and pleasure for the pleasure-seekers. The curate at Kulleby was one of the workers, and yet Monday, instead of Sunday, was re...

Little Elsa's errand to Johanson was to take to him a small pocket "psalm-book" (as the Swedish book for the services and hymns is called). It was well known in the poorhouse an...

The slender birches were sunning their mottled stems in the warm spring air; the evergreen woods rose dark and mysterious; while the glad little spruces that skirted the thicket...

The kindly doctor was entertaining his brother-in-law, and all the family were sitting round the table in state. The polished silver and shining glass, with porcelain, flowers,...

The church at Kulleby was no dear, old-fashioned Swedish church, with its low white stone walls and its high black roof. The bell had no quaintly-formed tower of its own outside...

Possessionaten Bilberg was subject to transient indispositions on Sunday morning. The symptoms that had prevented his being at the church service the day before seemed to have d...

Christmas Eve had come. There had been joy in the curate's home--carols and prayer around the lighted tree, the distribution of simple gifts, and the consumption of any amount o...

Intense gratitude for the happy deliverance of the children spread through the neighbourhood. A public meeting was called, where the thanks of the community were conveyed by a d...

Gull had come to the cellar-master with a choice bit of news to tell. A stranger had bought the land where the major's home and stood, and buildings were to be put up there imme...