Lieutenant Lagerlöf believed that children, in order to grow up healthy and strong and become useful and capable men and women, should above all things acquire the habit of nooning. With that object in mind, always, after the midday meal, he would take the two youngest children down to the farm-office, which was in another building a few steps from the house.
The office was a large room, and probably looked about the same as in the days of the Mårbacka clergymen, when it had been their study. At the far end, under a window, there was a black leather lounge, and before it an oblong table. Along one side-wall stood a bedstead, a black leather-seated chair, a large black walnut writing table, and a high chest of drawers, while at the other side stood another bed and black leather chair and a tile stove. On the wall, beyond the stove, hung three fowling pieces, a seal-skin game-bag, a large horse-pistol, a couple of powder horns, and a fencing foil which crossed a broken sabre. In the midst of this armoury rested a huge pair of elk antlers. Down by the door, on one side, there was a stationary clothes
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