Free The Emigrants by Vilhelm Moberg

God knew.
    The old mistress had said no more than she could stand by.
    From the time he was a little boy Robert had gone with his father when he brought cows to the bull, and when he was herdboy he had more than once seen a bull and cow mate. There was nothing unusual about that, he knew how animals acted and he could imagine how people acted. But he couldn’t imagine people and animals together, not a man and a cow together—he did not believe his roommate guilty of the horrible deed.
    Only God and Arvid knew how the white heifer had gotten with calf . . . it was the old mistress who had started the ugly rumor, and the maids had believed it. They treated Arvid as if he were leprous, they pulled away from him quickly if they happened to touch him, and they refused to be left alone with him. Furthermore, the rumor about the farmhand in Nybacken and the white heifer had begun to spread through the neighborhood, and other girls now shunned Arvid. For a while he had gone visiting with a maid on the neighboring farm; now he was unable to see her. No one wanted to have anything to do with a youth accused of so shameful a deed.
    Robert could not make himself speak to his friend about the horrible accusation, but he knew Arvid was aware of its existence. Arvid had earlier been cheerful and sociable, lately he had become morbidly shy of people, and taciturn. One could easily understand why.
    After having been in service for one month Robert asked leave to visit his parents in Korpamoen one Sunday, but was refused. The master had not yet sufficient confidence in his little hand to allow him away from the farm. Arvid said that perhaps Aron thought he would go home and complain about the service and belittle his master. And now Robert learned that his elder comrade had not been away from the premises in half a year, though his parents’ home was only three miles distant. But Robert understood why he kept away from people: no one accused of connection with a heifer would wish to show himself more than necessary. It was a loathsome accusation if true, and still more loathsome if untrue.
    Aron said that Robert would have no free days during the year because he had failed to report on time and had had to be fetched to service by the master. He also wondered why his little hand need run home to his mother: did he still nurse?
    A hired man was no suckling; he could not leave the farmstead without permission of the master.
    But the farmhands in Nybacken had some free moments in the stable room during Sunday afternoons in summer, when the horses were let out to graze and needed neither fodder, water, nor rubbing down. Then Robert brought forth his History of Nature and read aloud to his friend.
    Arvid had attended school only two weeks, and had never learned to read. He pretended he could; he would take the History of Nature and stare into the book with a thoughtful, studied expression as if reading. After a suitable time had elapsed he would turn the page slowly and seriously, as if he had deeply considered its contents. The same was repeated with the next page. But Robert had caught him once holding the book upside down.
    Arvid did not “read” for very long, he complained it hurt his eyes; the words in the book were so small and crooked that they were hard to see; his eyes never had been strong; after reading for a while they began to smart as if he had been looking into a fire. He had had to stop school, he said, because his eyes were so poor.
    And so he handed the History of Nature to Robert. “You read! Your eyes can stand it.”
    So the elder servant pretended that he could read, and the younger one pretended that he believed him.
    And Robert read aloud from the History of Nature, about the air and the water, about the animals and the plants, about crocodiles and rattlesnakes, about silkworms and butterflies, sea lions and flying fish, spice trees and coffee bushes, about hot deserts and polar seas, about leaf lice and planets, about