the fields," he
said, and went out softly.

In the light of the candle which contended with the moonbeams Hannah's
wrinkled face looked witchlike as she bent over the bed. Presently Mary
started and her eyes searched the room with a terrified stare; she
seemed to be all at once in the midst of some dreadful happening.

"Aunt Hannah," she exclaimed, "don't let them come for me!"

The old woman bent over her. "How do you feel?" she asked, in her soft
and friendly Dutch.

"Don't let them come!"

"Nobody comes, Mary. It is all right, only you are not so good. After
while somebody is coming. Then you are glad!"

"Keep them out! I don't want to go!"

"You don't go off; you stay right here with me and Conrad."

"They said--"

"Who?"

"The oxen."

Hannah's hand shook, but she still spoke reassuringly. "Were you in the
barn, Mary?"

"Yes. You know how it is said that on Christmas eve, twelve o'clock, the
animals talk. I thought so much about it, and I made up my mind to go
and hear what they had to say. I was in the middle stable that's empty,
and I waited, and all of a sudden--" She stopped, trembling.

"Just don't think about it," Hannah urged, but she went on:

"All of a sudden--Dolly stamped--and they all woke up--the cows and the
sheep, and the cat was scared and the big rooster cackled,--and then the
oxen--Ach, Aunt Hannah! One of them said, 'They will carry out the
mistress in the morning.'"

"You don't go, for all," the old woman soothed her. "Think of who is
coming, Mary. That's a better thing to think about. It's so lucky to
have it on Christmas day. She will have good fortune then, and see more
than others."

The pinched face grew bright. The trembling soul was not to go out
alone before, becoming a part of the great current of maternity, it had
had the best of what is here.

"I take such good care of her. I look after her all the time," said
Mary.

* * * * *

The sun was gone, but the west was still as pink as coral and the
twilight gave a wonderful velvety look to the meadows. In the rye-fields
the stalks, heavy-headed already, dipped in the wind which blew the last
apple-blossoms about like snow. A row of sturdy trees grew along Conrad
Rhein's front fence, and there was a large orchard in the rear. The log
house was just the color of a nest among the pale foliage.

The place was so quiet that the irritable note of a couple of
chimney-swallows, swooping abo