tertainment for the Lieutenant and his guests. But the next year it was the sexton who made the "big hit." The Lieutenant had once presented to the Ottenby school a lot of small wooden muskets made at Mårbacka so that the children might learn to drill. He had even sent an old sergeant to the school to teach the youngsters the first military movements.
The sexton had an inspiration; he and his school children would march to Mårbacka on the Lieutenant's birthday! Shouldering their arms, and led by banner and drum, they came marching along the driveway. It looked as if a whole army were approaching. There were so many the line extended from the manservants' cottage all the way up to the dwelling-house veranda, where the sexton, who was in command, called Halt!
First, he said a few words to the effect that the children had come to thank Lieutenant Lagerlöf for considering that their bodies needed to be developed as well as their minds; then he let them demonstrate how well they could march—do right-about, left-about, close ranks, shoulder arms…
It was a grand surprise the sexton had prepared for them all. The Lieutenant was delighted and his guests were pleased. What the old housekeeper, Mamselle Lovisa, and Fru Lagerlöf thought, when in the middle of a big party they had to serve coffee and cakes to some sixty youngsters, may be left to the imagination. After that, every time the seventeenth of August came round, they remembered with dismay
