He was not only not ashamed of
his peasant descent, but he was proud of it. Once (1811) during a visit
to Raemen, he took it into his head that he desired to know, from actual
experience, the kind of lives which his ancestors must have lived; and
to that end he dressed himself in wadmal, loaded a dray with pig-iron,
greased its axles, harnessed his team, and drove it to the nearest city,
a distance of ten to twelve miles. He induced three of his
brothers-in-law, two of whom were army officers and one a government
clerk, to follow his example. Up hill and down hill they trudged, and
arrived late in the afternoon, footsore and with blistered hands, in the
town, where they reported at the office of a commission merchant, sold
their iron and obtained their receipts. That of Tegner was made out to
Esaias Esaiasson, which would have been his name, if his father had
never risen from the soil. The four sham peasants now bought seed-corn
with the money they had obtained for their iron, loaded again their
wagons, and started for home.
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