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Per stood watching, as if from a high mound.

About him revolved the year. Harvesttime came; potato digging; autumn plowing; autumn leaves on the trees. The autumn slaughtering season one gray day with crackling puddles. He was shut indoors and had to imagine what was   [p. 41]   happening: they're killing them out there. Brownie would snort in his stall at the smell of slaughter on the hands and clothes of those who came in to handle him.

Per watched from a high, rounded hill as the year revolved and the work changed with the seasons. He was not included. He had a clear picture of himself: he was standing on his hill watching. The others were in a world apart.

The first cow had calved: a heifer for breeding. The snow came.

Father could no longer dig in the earth; now he drove Brownie to the forest and brought home wood. Brownie was shaggy and warm in his winter coat.

Per played a little in the snow. Something was the matter, but he did not know what it was.

He was lonely.

Botolv preferred to sit or stand with Mother. Per preferred Botolv to be with her too. He was afraid of Botolv.

Christmas came after much fuss and bother. They passed the time quietly. On Christmas Day Mother and Father drove to church, and Aunt Anne stayed home with Per and Botolv and the baby. After that came two more quiet days. Per thought a great deal about God. Few strangers looked in, for they themselves seldom visited the other farms. It was quiet. And there was better food than usual.

On the evening of the fourth day Per and Botolv went with Mother all the way to the schoolhouse to a Christmas party. So he would see Åsne again.

The Christmas party was wonderful; it was wonderful every time. He saw a lot of children he did not know. Åsne was not there. He managed to find out that she had gone away with her mother to the neighboring village to see relatives.

He neither spoke nor fought with the other children. It didn't seem worth it.

My father was killed driving the horses when I was small, Åsne had said proudly. How many of these could say the same?

But she was not there.

He sat twisting and turning the orange he had been given along with all the others.

"Shall I peel it for you?" Mother tried to take the gleaming, golden apple.

"No," he said despondently.

Botolv sat on Mother's lap as if all the festivities were for him. The high-pitched singing of the children and all the candles and all the colored glass balls and swinging peacocks and the big silver star at the top of the tree---it all seemed to be for Botolv. He sat wide-eyed, drinking it all in. Per could see the whole Christmas tree in his eyes!

Botolv lost his orange. It rolled away between the feet of a boy who looked about him quickly and stuffed it into his pocket. Then he looked about him again.

Per wished he were twice as strong so that he could get the orange back. No one had noticed. Botolv himself was watching the party, but then he came to and missed something. "Here it is," said Per and gave him his own orange, not out of kindness, but in vexation because Åsne was not there.

Voices spoke and read to them, and he heard nothing. God could not love him, or Åsne would have been there.

But on the fifth day, when he thought it over, there had been a Christmas party just the same. He still had the echo in his ears and the flickering of the candles in his eyes and the scent of the Christmas tree in his nostrils.

He was taken to church twice that winter, but Åsne was never there. The service was long, and people dozed. Mother dozed too.

Mother had stopped nursing the baby long ago, so Aunt Anne could look after him now as often as necessary.

"Did you see Åsne?" asked Auntie teasingly when they got home.

He reddened, wondering why Auntie wanted to hurt him.

"Perhaps you'll be my boy again now, won't you?" she asked.

He did not reply.

She put her arm around his neck. There was nobody to see, and so the arm was good.