[Gutenberg 14356] • The Emperor of Portugallia

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1916 edition. Excerpt: ... THE SUNDAY AFTER MIDSUMMER THE first Sunday after Midsummer Day there was a grand party at the seine-maker's to which every one in the Ashdales had been invited. The old man and his daughter-in-law were in the habit of entertaining the whole countryside on this day of each year. Folks wondered, of course, how two people who were so pitiably poor could afford to give a big feast, but to all who knew the whys and wherefores it seemed perfectly natural. As a matter of fact, when the seine-maker was a rich man he gave his two sons a farmstead each. The elder son wasted his substance in much the same way as Ol' Bengtsa himself had done, and died poor. The younger son, who was the more steady and reliable, kept his portion and even increased it, so that now he was quite well-to-do. But what he owned at the present time was as nothing to what he might have had if his father had not recklessly made away with both money and lands, to no purpose whatever. If such wealth had only come into the hands of the son in his younger days, there is no telling to what he might have attained. He could have been owner of all the woodlands in the Lovsjo district, had a shop at Broby, and a steamer plying Lake Loven; he might even have been master of the ironworks at Ekeby. Naturally he found it difficult to excuse the father's careless business methods, but he kept his thoughts to himself. When the crash came for Ol' Bengtsa, a good many persons, Bengtsa among them, expected the son to come to his aid by the sacrifice of his own property. But what good would that have done? It would only have gone to the creditors. It was with the idea in mind that the father should have something to fall back upon when all his possessions were gone, that the son had held on to...