Look Back on Happiness | Page 5

said, "but I don't need any
more than that."
"Business is business," said he. "I don't complain."
It was quite decent of him.
While he was making ready to depart and clearing his bed of pine
needles out of the way, I thought pityingly of his sordid little theft.
Stealing because he was needy--a side of bacon and a length of cloth
which he was trying to sell in the forest! Theft has indeed ceased to be
a matter of great moment. This is because legal punishment for
misdemeanors of all kinds has also ceased to be of great moment. It is
only a dull, human punishment; the religious element has been
removed from the law, and a local magistrate is no longer a man of
mystic power.
I well remember the last time I heard a judge explain the meaning of
the oath as it should be explained. It chilled us all to the bone to hear
him. We need some witchcraft again, and the Sixth Book of Moses, and
the sin against the Holy Ghost, and signing your name in the blood of a
newly baptized child! Steal a sack of money and silver treasure, if you
like, and hide the sack in the hills where on autumn evenings a blue
flame will hover over the spot. But don't come to me with three pairs of
mittens and a side of household bacon!
The man no longer worried about the sack; leaving it behind, he
crawled out of the hut to study the weather. The coffee and tobacco I
had bought I put back into the sack, for I did not need them. When he

returned, he said:
"I think after all I'd better stop the night here with you, if you don't
mind."
In the evening he gave no indication of being prepared to contribute
any of his own food. I cooked some coffee and gave him some dry
bread to eat with it.
"You shouldn't have expenses for me," he said.
Then he began to rummage in his sack again, pushing the bacon well
down so that the cloth might not be stained by it; after this he took off
his leather belt and put it round the sack, with a loop to carry over one
shoulder.
"Now if I take the neck of the sack over the other shoulder, I'll find it
easier to carry," he said.
I gave him my letters to post on the other side of the fjeld and he
stowed them away safely, slapping the outside of his pocket afterward;
I also gave him a special envelope in which to keep the money for the
stamps, and tied it to the neck of the sack.
"Where do you live?" I asked him.
"Where can a poor man live? Of course I live by the sea. I'm sorry to
say I have a wife and children--no use denying it."
"How many children have you?"
"Four. One's got a crippled arm and the others--there's something
wrong with all of them. It's not easy for a poor devil. My wife's ill, and
a few days ago she thought she was dying and wanted Communion."
A sad note crept into his voice. But the note was false. He was telling
me a pack of lies. When they came to look for him from the village, no
Christian would have the heart to accuse a man with such a large and
sick family. This, no doubt, was his meaning.
Man, oh man, thou art worse than a mouse!
I questioned him no further, but asked him to sing something, a ballad
or a song, since we had nothing else to do.
"I've no heart to sing now," he replied. "Except possibly a hymn."
"All right; sing a hymn, then."
"Not now. I'd like to do you a favor, but--"
His uneasiness was rising. A little later he took his sack and went out.
"Well, he's gone," I thought, "but he hasn't said the customary
peace-be-with-you. I'm glad I've come into the forest," I thought. "This

is my home, and from this day forth, no mother's son shall come within
my walls again."
I made an elaborate agreement with myself that I should have no more
truck with men.
"Madame, come here," I said. "I esteem you highly, and herewith,
Madame, I undertake to enter upon a union with you for life!"
Half an hour later, the man returned. He carried no sack.
"I thought you'd gone," I said.
"Gone? I'm not a dog," he replied. "I've met people before this, and I
say good morning when I come and peace-be-with-you when I go. You
shouldn't sneer at me, you know."
"What have you done with the sack?"
"I've carried it part of the way."
His concealing the sack